The majority of day 1 was spent dealing with Claude. Let me introduce him.
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Claude isn't his real name, I never found it out...
First hand of note Claude opens to 450 at 50/100 from middle position. I'm a bit taken aback by his sizing. He's been limping a ton, and this is the first hand he's opened. Think he's pretty fkn strong. I choose to just flat QQ next to act, not wanting to 3bet and face a giant 4bet and probably have to fold, or inflate the pot massively anyway so early on with no reads. We go 3 ways to 976 and he leads for 3k! Into about 1400! Just hating life so much! This it TT/JJ as much as it is KK and AA, plus we can't rule out AK/AQ, but basically putting him on TT+ for now. I call and the turn is an ugly T. He checks, I check. The river is a K and it checks through, I'm praying he has JJ but he has TT for the turned set, which is annoying.
Claude now has a target on his back! I have direct position on him which is awesome, but three players to my immediate left who also seem switched on, so my strategy was going to be isoing Claude relentlessly, rather than limping along / peeling and allowing them in behind. There may've been better strategies for dealing with him. Once he started donking every flop for pot, I should be keeping the pots as small as possible preflop I suppose. But I didn't find this out until later.
Claude limps utg and I iso
, bb calls and he calls. He was limp calling a lot. He donks for full pot on
. I could obviously fold here, but I knew he was weak here - he had donked a few times, and his bet sizes were always massive, so it didn't mean he was strong at all. He could have A4o or 33 for example. I decided to raise to a) win it there and then, b) win it later with pressure or improve c) backdoor straight flush draw + over(s) ftw . I raised to 2600 and he peels. The turn is a Q. I was planning to bet any Q, K or A turn plus any spade and maybe some lower cards depending on my read. Q is a perfect card because I now have 8 outs to the nuts, plus its an overcard to the J76 and any pocket pair he was stubborn with on the flop, so it's a must bet card imo. However, he did give away something when he checked as if he liked the card, but I couldn't be really sure of this, at least, it wasn't enough reason not to bet such a great card. I bet 5075 and he makes it 10150! So tilting! He obv has QJ! But I can't fold! There's 22k in there now, plus I have 18k behind if I call the 5k, which I'm getting 100% of the time if I ping an Ace or a Nine. So its 5k to win 40 which is 8:1, needing 5:1 to breaken. It's a no brainer. Get thereee! Sadly, the river pairs the 6 and although it now makes his QJ loses to AA and KK, I just can't trust him to fold at all - so didn't consider bluffing the river really, so I gave up (he checked river) and lost to
!!! Nice hand!
So we're down to 18k and we dribble off quite a bit more trying to make hands vs Claude. He's limping, I'm isoing vwide, and he's just donking every flop for pot! I narrow my isoing range and start to limp behind hands like 67s that don't flop top pair, but isoing (3betting - he's starting opening rather than limping now to try and curb my aggression, or just because he fancies it!) hands like KJ and A9 that can flop top pairs.I never made a pair and got the worst boards ever and had to fold every flop, was really frustrating because once I made a hand, I was getting the lot.
I turned another strong draw vs him and got checked minraises on the turn again! Had to call again, and bricked AGAIN! Morale low. Patience thinning. Stack dwindling - 10k
I open early position with KQo 700 at 150/300/25, folds to the cutoff who throws in a 1k chip saying raise, dealer points out I've already raised he looks like he hasn't seen it. Goes as a min raise (to 1400 here). hes playing 10k. bb whale cold calls. I have 13k and jam (whale never calling and i figured cutoff had his standard cutoff opening range which despite being a 3.5x this was his standard sizing and he can't call very often at all, plus blockers etc). He calls allin with QQ (perhaps was angleshooting) and I bink a K to bust him and take me to 26k. Pretty fortunate, I'd have been down to 3k.
Claude limps cutoff for 300 at 150/300 I raise to 1k with
(should make it more like 700 tbh to keep the pot small but still iso and have initiative - until he donks that is
), he peels and donks for 2500 on
! Gotta call. Turn
and he snap bets 8k! I only have 20 total. Massive sigh fold, think I got bluffed there, but he can just have anything, KJ, T9, 55, can't trust him to fold any pair, and even hands like KQ or 89 he still calls off with and has great equity vs me. I'll catch him soon...
I start playing some pots with the other players, which actually works out much better. I opened the hijack to 700 with JTo and a weakish player peels the cutoff, and a good (possibly really good) player squeezes the button to 2300. I'm playing 20k, so can make it 4500 then he has to make a decision for my stack which is a lot of his stack (since 9k is the minraise in France, he cant click to 6.8 and fold to a jam like he could normally). Plus I have two blockers, and his range is super wide here, just think he's going to be full of shit a lot and dout he'll 5b punt in 20k with this soft table as a bluff. So I clicked it back and he folded.
Then we doubled with QQ, 3betting, finding a lovely Q72 flop, getting c/raised
and then he bets half my stack on the turn I shove he called drawing dead with AQ. Very nice
47k
Open KQo utg2 700, weak player flats, newish to the table, young competant looking guy 3bets 2500. Most people don't bluff off immediately after doubling or winning a big pot, neither do they 4bet light right after they've just got a 4bet through (whether they had it or not), so I kinda thought that he'd know / think that (perhaps optimistic, but it's not exactly ground breaking theory) if I 4bet here, he'd give it a lot of credit. Plus again, I have two great blockers and if he peels can flop strong or get a cbet through. I 4bet 6100 he folds. Two satisfying reads, I like getting inside good players' heads, working out what level they're on and reacting accordingly, it's really satisfying getting it right and I feel like it's a real strong part of my game being able to tell what they're thinking. 50k and making good progress.
200/400/50 American opens utg 800, seat 1 peels co, I peel sb with AQ. Flop of J32 gets checked through, J on the turn, I took a stab and got called in both spots. Give up river and ORs 99 wins. Turn bet definitely a mistake, was never getting through. Guilty of trying to push momentum there.
300/600/50 The villain who 3bet folded to me when I had KQ opens utg+2, and a 30something frenchie 3bets the cutoff to 2700. I have AKo on the button. I think the cutoff has a strong hand. We are almost 100 bbs deep. Definitely don't want to get it in vs him. I am offsuited too so if he 5bets, I hate peeling and hate jamming or 6betting, so I'm probably 4bet folding to him. Not a lovely spot really. Getting it through is fine, but the nut outcome is the OR mistankly thinking I'm fos and try a 5bet bluff. Which is what happened. I 4bet to 5500 and he makes it 11500, cutoff tanks for ages and folds, I jam for 40k and he snap folds. He doesn't know I'm never going to be light there, when the frenchie clearly had a good hand (he asked me where I was from afterwards and I said England, and he said "if I knew that, I'd never have folded
). I think my image and previous antics got me that 5b bluff
. So all was good, we finished the day with a tad over average, 56k.
Claude caused us real problems. I mean real problems. It was hard to adjust to his style. I guess in numbers he was playing a sort of 70/30 vpip/pfr, and a fold to 3bet of 0%, and literally a 100% donkbet for pot stat! He didn't fold to resistance at any point it seemed (though people were too afriad to play back at him really!), and barrelled turn and river more often than not. I wasn't sure whether limping along and keeping the pots tiny preflop but allowing good players in behind us to come in was better than 3betting / isoing and making the pots bigger. In the end I never caught a hand against him and it was someone else, who won a 220k pot off him to stack him, and ended the day as chip leader, and is a top ten stack going into day 3 actually. All it needs is a hand at the right time and you're there.
Anyway, day two..
400/800/100 I open the cutoff to 1700 with JTo and a really fishy albanian guy makes it 3500 from the bb. I wanted to fold, but it was so cheap and I had position, I kind of felt he was weak too and would go bigger with a big hand. I know JTo is dominated so much, but I figured I would be able to work that out postflop easily enough. Getting about 5:1 preflop, I flicked it in. T94hhx, he checked. I know I'm good now. I'd check back vs some players, but I felt like the best way to get more chips off this guy was to bet now and let him check raise, rather than hoping he'll take off on the turn. I bet 4k he makes it 10k. He has 35k back, and I just shove - too many ugly turn cards I'm not happy calling off the rest on, just wanna take it down now and protect my equity and steal his (which is probably pretty high, 15-30%). He tank folds to the shove and I pick up a nice pot. 70k
Then this angry French guy opens cutoff 2100 (looks weak) I 3bet btn to 4500 with K6ss he peels. He donks 4k on
. Hmmmm, obviously calling is the only move here. Turn
, not a great card, probably folding to a bet now. He checks I check back. River
, another shit card, he bets 5k, which is like 1/5 pot. I beat almost nothing but getting like 5:1 and you never know with these guys... I call and he shows his cards to the dealer saying something like "ooh la la" (but angrily).
Pretty comedy line from him - peel 3bet oop with 6 high. Donk KJ5 with no equity besides backdoor hearts, turn one of the nut cards the
and check! Then make a pathetic river bluff which is just never getting through! Boss
500/1k/100
Open JJ utg1 2200 btn and blinds peel I cbet 4700 on 862dxx btn peels
I check call 10300 river
I check fold to a quick bet of 16500. Pretty frustrating, think I'm good on the turn, but he can have 8x dd easily, T9dd,97 gets there, he can easily have flatted the flop with set, can't rule out him peeling pre with K8, or K6s or just getting the hood out with KQ. Pretty sure he had it.
600/1200/100
3bet JThh from sb vs cutoff open, he peels, I cbet Ah
he calls, turn
I bet he calls, river
, check check and I'm good vs A9dd and that pot takes me to 100k
800/1600/200
Lost super tilting pot where I 3bet JJ btn vs cutoff, guy peels oop I cbet Q94r he peels, turn 9 check check, river A check check he has A6 grrr
Very next hand get in 70k at 800/1600 with jacks vs aces in a standard spot to bust.
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