EPT Main event
Felt extremely good on day 1.. Felt very awake and ready to crush. Starting table was pretty good. Lot of random clocky, spewy regs.
Played a lot of small pots initially. I was down to 25k in the 4th level. When I played my first big pot of the tournament.
The bearded Dutch reg opens 500 otb (100/200/0) I call sb with 99, bb calls.
Flop JJ6, ch, ch, 1050, I call, bb fold
Turn JJ62xxss, ch, 2500 (lots of chips rather than 2x1k) I recheck cards, call after 20-30 seconds
River JJ62Axxssx
Ch, he bets 6100
In previous live tournamebts after j had started semi poorly (going to 29 instead of 31 direction) I would make an ambitious call and give myself reasoning to call here. I had played the night before with Fedor and elmerixx and spoke a lot abit hero calling and how we shouldn't fold that often on a lot of boards.
All I could think of was this guy was opening a lot and would have a lot of flush draws on the turn that he would be obliged to bluff and that he would likely overbluff on this turn. If I called and I was incorrect I'd be down to 15, if I called and was correct I'd be up to 35. These spots are easy to solve in crev and afterwards a friend sent me the crev file showing me which hands were calls/fold and 99 was a fold, but 99 with no space felt like a very attractive bluff catcher in this spot and when we give him all 54o combos and some other semi optimistic combos it becomes a call. Anyway in this kind of spot (not huge pot, but semi critical pot) I've always ended up calling. I thought about thisor 3/4 minutes and then made the fold. I was glad I thought through everything and gave it up.
For the rest of the day I was very content with how I played, every day after I play (live and online) I give myself a rating of how I played and when I got to the hotel I wrote 93 in my app.
I didn't play too many notable pots simply because I didnt 3bet the whole day. I was just grinding along, of course there were a few interesting pots
1) I raise TT mp (45k) , mp1 flats off 16k, (500bb) I know he knows me online but I don't know his sn. Young and Canadian.
Flop 432ssx I check he bets 1500, I call
Turn 4323ssxs I check he checks
River 4323T I tank and jam 3x pot he starts to tank.
I talk a lot to him, I think he's going to fold so I try to talk a lot and act very weak. Eventually he calls and I get up to a nice stack.
2) ludo raises mp to 1200, Theo Jorgenson flats, I flat BB with TT.
Flop KQ2 checks round
Turn KQ2J checks round
River KQ2J5 I check Ludo bets 4,5 into 4.4 (almost always 2 pair that doesn't want to get raised vs two capable players) Theo raises to 11k (very unlikely to check twice here with T9/AT and more likely to be thin value or complete bluff. I tank a few minutes and jam 50k. I think line is pretty great and winning pot almost always unless Theo somehow trapped turn but I think his sozing isn't greedy and I think he'd be greedy in a spot for value when he should never have value and will get looked up very light.
3) I move to new table with 20 minutes left in the day. Alex Lindop in the sb and Igor in the big blind, they have around 30/40k at 800bb. I think I want to limp a tonne of hands vs both of these so when I look down at ATo although it's a fine hand to raise and call a 3bet it's also nice to have in my limping range pre flop (I think split ranges is fine here and ATo in my limping range works just about fine) Lindop raises to 2800, I call.
Flop KQ2xxd
He checks, I decide to get 2500, he calls
Turn KQ2Qxxdd
He checks, I have the
and decide that although this is a decent hand to trip with especially on diamonds, he has a little bit too much of qx and kx that won't fold. Tripling definitely decent here and wouldn't be surprised if it was optimal. It's hard to represent a hand here for value though, I think I would check vast majority of qx otf. River is a blank, we check and his
are good.
So we make day 2, table is pretty good, 3 big fish, one overly aggressive Italian a tight reg I don't want to name and Igor again.
Day was pretty solid, I was very impressed with Igor. I think I've perhaps said some negative things about Liv before but Igor sincerely comes across as one of the nicest, most intelligent players on the circuit. He talks to everybody but both about the weather or trivial stuff, he likes to engage in deeper stuff and although I'm highly critical of a lot of the guys who are currently playing the high rollers I think he is a top top player.
Couple of interesting spots, I open hijack to 2000 at 800bb with QJo Small blind who is loose passive fish flats.
Flop a52fd he c/call 2500
Turn is a525 he checks I bet 24000 into 10,000 and he sigh folds. I think he's peeling flop with every single pocket pairs, any ace and any flush draw. I think he hero folds most aces ott but I block his best possible Ax hands (aq/aj blockers)
Next orbit it goes raise, call, I call AQo aforementioned tight reg squeezes button and i snap fold. I know this guy vey online and his hud was perfectly at the back of my brain and I saw that lovely 3% 3bet stat and knew he wouldn't go after us in this spot.
I decided to continue with my strategy of not 3betting unless perfect spot and played a little bit snugger. There was a super aggressive Italian kid playing 45% rfi, 25% 3get, 0% fold to 3bet etc I folded some big hand on his button and small blind where I expected his 3bet to be pretty large. There was one interesting hand where UTG opened, mp 3bet and I look down at jacks in the hijac. I decide after a quick tank that folding was the best option. Generally when you have a playable hand after a 3bet (AQ, T9s, pocket pairs etc) it's very difficult to construct an optimal cold calling range and thus you have to decide to 4bet or fold. I think getting it in here would be way too wide and 4berting this hand as a bluff isn't that good as the 3bettors range will generally be pretty polarized and thus when he nooses to continue it will either be to 5bet as a bluff or 5bet for value. I don't have any history with him so I can't justify 4 to 6 with JJ here so I make a pretty reluctant fold.
Next hand I have 105ish with the average at 5100. Fish opens to around 2.8x with 60k stack at 1k bb, I'm in the cut off with Ak and first instinct is to 3bet smallish for value, I then decide that flatting could be best to induce squeezes but the players around me are pretty tight expect the big blind, the crazy Italian. I think to myself wow he will squeeze very wide, then I realised, no he is in the big blind and this will just flat hands like j7s, k8o etc.
I start thinking about his vpip beig around 50% and because he is so aggressive if I 3bet he will likely not fold a hand like 98s, kto etc and will opt to 4bet then. I start thinking how I'll react vs a 4bet and I think with ak and the assumed tonne of dead money and a massive amount of fold equity that jamming is without doubt going to be best, especially as if I 4bet small he's going to have a rather depolar 4betting range (96s etc) and will flat the 4bet a lot. I decide that max ev here will be to 3bet huge (more than 3x)
He takes some time and 4bets around 2.8x my 3bet which is perfect. I take little time then go all in. He starts tanking. I'm obviously completely relaxed here as he never has KK. I ask him after 3 minutes what he has and he says QQ. I reply "wow it's so sick even though I'm so crushed here I still win 20 out of 100 times, maths is crazy, isn't it so sick JJ is going to win here 20% of the time!!" He takes another couple of minutes then calls all in with 77.
Flop is AKx but I don't win. Although I tweeted "fucking idiot from northern europe" I wasn't that annoyed. Sure it was another chip lead pot in an EPT that I lost but it doesn't matter. The fact that within an orbit I played my range perfectly and he got it in so bad (I'm probably going 99+, AK in this spot) it's great for me. I played the best I've ever played in a live tournament. I have so much confidence moving forward and I have no regrets, how can I be unhappy?
Author