What country you in this time Gloria?
This is in my top 5 diaries ATM
to be revealed on my return herbs...
TOP5?
how many are there?
Gloria?
I'm kinda tired as I've just arrived and been travelling for almost 24 hours solid, but I've been to this country before. Just never this city, feels a little weird being back here in 'similar surroundings' even if they're just similar to the other parts of this country.
Anyways.... back on with the nories...
So, we get John 'skalie' Kalmar moved to our left in place of the QQ busto boy, and David L'honore busts with Alan 'lucky' Mcbride replacing him. We know a lot about Alan's game but not so much about John, I recognise his name from somewhere and I can faintly remember he's either won something or gone deep in something big but don't know what and don't care much. If it was more than a year ago it doesn't matter anyways as the game changes so much, and I need to judge him on his merits playing this tournament on this day. I also have the CL but he's got more than starting stack himself, if he is good then i don't expect him to come to the table and try to insta-boss it without a massive stack so we will just take our time and see.
In the meantime between myself and the few remaining players from earlier, Andy Bradshaw and I manage to take out player after player, him nocking two out at once at one point and our table is getting louder and louder! (great for the game ofc).
I'm still being a nit, but occassionally messing with the guy on my direct right as he doesn't have a lot of chips and I'm not letting him have his btn very easily. I 3bt him a few times and show a
twice... but he knows he can't afford to make a mistake with his 4bt shove as I have over 80k and he only has 22k or something.
love having a decent stack..
The other thing is because I'm being such a nit the rest of the time but only messing about with a short-ish stacked guy who im never going to lose too many chips to, it means those around the table who don't have gears to change up or down think im doing it all the time. Next time I 3bt someone's EP open (im almost certainly never bluffing here) and the guy eyeballs me with 10's! I have KK's again and do a hold for some more chippies!
#runninglikeboltvirgingetmeadealNOW!
We've slowly and steadily chipped up to 120K ish and are slowing down even more on the pots we play. I have a theory and I doubt im the first one to think or say it but I reckon the chips I gain at this point of the tournament (avg is 38-40k) are no where near as important as any chips I lose... Might sound crazy but imo if I have 120k - 3.5x avg and I win a pot of 10k, woohoo I now have 130k and I STILL cover everyone.... But if I lose 10k and start to get down toward the 100-110k mark then I'm getting close to only double average and just one medium sized pot will take away the CL and all manouvering power for any difficult spots. I see a healthy stack like this as the 'free reign' to worm my way through the rest of the day, avoiding trouble spots and just value betting my way to stay roughly the same, potentially end the day near 200k if I'm fortunate in the last couple of levels... but anywhere north of 110k will be great.
We see a few big pots go down and a few more leave the table when this hand happens. - doesnt involve us.
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Somehow there is a 3bt in the middle and its been called 4 ways with one person left to act preflop, the guy sigh puts in the extra 4k or something with around 25-30k behind and we see a 5 way flop in 3bp @ level 200/400 or something..
FLOP
Alan McBride open shoves his last 15k into the 25k or so already there, and John Kalmar is quickly behind him with his 25k, folds round and the final dude preflop literally does a cartwheel, moonwalks to the toilet and back, and then asks to borrow my chip shovel to get his stack in.
Alan -
John -
Other guy -
Well this is a little sick... the guys practically got a lock on a monster pot after doing a peel pre with the old Q9 sooooted.
Kalmar gets up, sighs and off he goes pretty much and Alan says something like 'just my luck...' - ul Alan.
TURN
And we have a 1 outer for Kalmar to take the lead in this monster pot bringing him close to me in chips and he just has to dodge a K or the last 9.
RIVER
______
[______]
(that's supposed to be a BRICK....)
And Kalmar gets a miracle treble up and the other two are off on their todd with no chippies left.
At the time I knew the action of it and tbh I really thought the QQ's were overplayed in this spot but maybe that's just me knowing Alan better than many players, either way this is one of a couple of hands where I thought John over valued a hand in a spot and that effects a decision in a minute.
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We carry on and over the course of the next hour or two we have fellow hero's Tom Langley, Sunil Mistri and James Tomlin all brought to the table... None of them have many chips but TL soon gets to work being a proper hero and makes a sweet
Raise, cbet, check call, check call play.....
On
With the mighty for a healthy 25k call on the river from his 40k stack.
HE IS GOOD! well played sir and this is a perfect demonstration of his poker skillz, I honestly felt like Tom had an A high hand during the hand and through my own learning I thought this was a perfect spot to cc, cc the turn and river.. but it is still very hard to do when its the majority of your stack vs an unknown player and you have K high. All the props mate, wp. (its american for giving you a 'bigup')-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As we're bumbling along we get a new gentleman to our right and have had a little action with him on his btn my SB. (read I 3bt him, took it down pre and showed a
)
Then we both order food and it comes at the same time.
I used to use this as a great reason to get hyper aggro as most recreational players avoid anyone eating and playing... - they always have 'it'! But now ive learned that a lot of them still think you have it but they want to pay! I think its like a sick version of torture to themselves, they know you have it, they say "I want to pay, I know im beat but I have to see" then they pay. So now I genuinely don't bother messing around so much when eating, I just enjoy my food like a cash player in the vic 'Henry' says
"if you can't enjoy your food at the table when why bother having it.."
Then we find the mighty
- this is what you call a PAIR... otherwise known as the AK crusher, or in general... the hand you 3bt people with, then don't look and always show a deuce!!!!!
The btn to our right opens and we take our time looking him up n down, and I don't know what it was but I felt like he had a high card hand and that he would bluff 4bt if i 3bt. So I needed to make up my mind now if I'm shoving on him or not when he 4bts?
I decide that he has just over 50k and that my 150k stack is more than healthy enough to race if he sigh calls but tbh I expected him to 4bt fold hands like
or
based on the dynamic, even though this would be terrible to do so.
I pull out the reraise and he quickly makes it a smallish 4bt.
I think I made it something like 9.2k and he makes it 22k from 50k. I realise this sounds and seems insane... but I stuck with the plan and after a bit of thinking I announce All in, he confirms I have said the magic words and quickly calls and flips dem
.... SIGGGGHHHHH!!!! first and only 'blowup' but I had thought about it and if he had a hand to call with I was happy to race for an average stack to get up to a bigger CL again.
I realise now this is a mistake but at the time with live reads n all, I just made a misread.
First two cards out are
and I say to him "good luck, you're going to need it I fear...." Then BRICKS everywhere! WTF.... this isn't running good, I'm supposed to get out of the **** when I make a mistake and im running good! lolz.
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So we become a nit again.
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Now we're much closer to the middle of the pack but still healthy - 95k @ 1000/2000 avg was 50k or so I think...
And we find
in the SB to a Skalie open UTG to 5K and a Tom Langley flat in LP, I decide to peel as Skalie's continuing range will be crushing me if i 3bt and Tom can peel and play IP much better than I want him to.
BB comes along and we see a pretty...
Pot - 22K ish..
FLOP Well that's pretty good, I'm almost certainly not going anywhere.... and was planning to check raise this flop with my enormous equity, knowing that even Skalie's
would struggle to face a flop cr and turn shove...
I check, BB checks, Skalie checks - WTF! didn't expect that.. and Tom Langley checks behind.
Well this is interesting, I'm not sure if Skalie can check a real hand here but I definitely think that if he had
he wouldn't always cbet this board 4 way... we're just going to have Jx in our calling ranges so much I think its probably burning money vs this players.
Pot - 22K ish
TURN
So this is pretty good, we've made a floosh and we have the K and the Q.. which is kinda bad.. makes it tough for anyone else to have Qx and they can't have Jx dd so we're not going to get much action, but we have a strong hand and a redraw to two straight flushes... so lets get it ON!
We lead out for 10K and the BB folds, Skalie calls and TL folds.
At this point I think that Skalie's range should be something like AA/ KK/ QQ,
,
,
and the like.. with the occasional
type hands. There might be
or
some % of the time but tbh I think its a mistake to check this flop when its so draw heavy and people won't be folding their draws... I mean I was going to get the lot in if he bet flop! but I did have an oesfd + 2 overs.
Pot - 42K
RIVER I take my time as i've said and done before all day and try to work out what he can have, what he can call with, does he ever raise - with what... etc... and I eventually settle on a similar situation to earlier.
There are very few hands that beat me, and he should never be raising the river with anything less than a full house, and probably never even
because its so easy for me to have
.
Now I've decided to bet, but what about sizings... if I bet like 10k I get called a lot, but he might actually raise
for value... or even bluff with
..
So I decide to freeze up his raising range and work out the pot at 40k. I decide to make it a big bet of close to pot and slide in my 32.6K bet.
Skalie looks fine, not worried, stressed, anxious but also not settled and its hard to tell when you've only seen someone play a few hands, esp when you think they migh have overplayed a hand or two in your opinion. He gets his call together...
AND THEN REACHES FOR CHIPS>......... ffs is this a joke?
He makes it 70k dead and I insta-sigh, knowing i have to fold but decide to think about it first and make sure my logic for playing the hand like this was correct and I didn't make a mistake already.
IT LOOKS LIKE I HAVE A HAND.... but then that must mean he has one of like 4 hands... JJ, 1010 or AdXd... He can't easily have
unless its like A2 or A4s... and therefore its like 3 combos of 10's and one combo of JJ. He only has to be bluffing 1 in like 5 times for me to call 37k more into 112k. That means I need to find ONE bluff combo... on a semi regular frequency, and why can't he have
some % of the times? Calls turn to hit either overcards, straight or flush and then minr bluffs when its a gross spot for me.
Eventually James Tomlin calls the clock and despite giving him grief about it... I have like 60k left and I have announced my hand to the table... I know its a fold, but only a few months ago I would have flicked it in and called it 'bad luck' when he has it.
Instead I decide to stick to the plan - thats why we have one right? and bet fold this river.
Skalie tries to needle me after saying something like "I had the
so I dunno what you're talking about..." wp sir... vwp.
Tom Langley is talking to Jonathan McGill during the hand and he said Skalie ALWAYS has 10's full or quads there... I like the play in restrospect but it just sucked hard at the time.
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VERY NEXT HAND
We're on the button and Tom Langley opens to 5k, is called in two spots and we find
and make it 18.5k to play. It folds round and I'm not kidding when I tell you I see Tom gulp and then announce ALL IN, he knows i've thought about squeezing him a few times but havent' done it yet.... folds to me and I snap.
He has dem
and we do a hold to double back up and win everything and more back from our friend and someone we have a % in... after he's played like a legend all day and had worked up a 140k stack respectably.
We're back in action and we're back in the chip leaders... Sunny Mistri just sighs and lol's @ how easy it is to lose 45k one hand and win 60k the next when he only has 35k and hasn't played a hand for over an hour.
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We work our way up to 190k in the last few hours of the day and continue playing solid all the way to the end, we finish on Tom High's table and unfortunately see him quickly exit to Ali Mallu (heard of him but never met him) when Ali decides to cshove 97 on 10108 vs Tom's QQ.... Tom can't hold and is tilted to be given back about 1.5bb's.
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After seeing Ali be a little bit 'speculative' to say the least we get into a pot IP with
.
FLOP
We decide to check this back and probably call call on any turn and river as we expect Ali to double barrell bluff A LOT when we check the flop.
TURN
We call his small-ish lead...
RIVER
He picks up 22k and I'm happy to call even though it completes some hands.. I know he's going to try and rep the draw some % of the time and he doesn't vbet a 10 here.. so I'm fairly sure its air a lot and sometimes a flush.
But then something goes off in my 'spidey-sense' as he picks up one more 5k chip and goes to slide it over..... something is NOT right about that extra chip. But I'm just not sure what. I have 171k and its a 27k river bet, I talk myself into paying with A high and he rolls over the mighty
for a monster flop and good river. I was correct about him and his hand, just a shame he got there... Where was the J river for a sweet value cut from him?
never mind... we carry on and bag up 144k which puts us 9th on the day and eventually something like 20th starting on Day2!