Well I was planning to note down interesting hands throughout the tournament and give a little analysis on them and things, but frankly it was a dull, dull 7 hours of slow, steady declination before getting coolered. Bah.
However, I ended up playing a fair amount of £2/5 cash where there were some fun hands and I did pretty well, so cash hands it is! First a pretty standard one:
Hand 1: Effective stacks ~£1k.
I raise to 15 in MP2 with AxKd
1 call
CO 3bets to 55
I 4bet to ~155
1 fold
CO calls
Pot ~325, Flop 2d 8d 9d
I bet 215, CO tankshoves for ~800, I call.
Turn As, River 3h.
A pretty standard hand all round - would've sucked to get freerolled by AdKx, but he has queens and jacks lots here. Occasionally I have less outs when he has AA/KK but he seemed genuinely nervous throughout the hand and I didn't feel like he was trapping.
CO opens QQ no diamond. Always nice to win £2k flips!
Hand 2: Effective stacks £1k.
Habitual limper in MP limps, I make it 25 OTB with J9hh.
SB makes it 75, I peel.
Pot ~160, flop 8h Th 2x.
He leads 50, I raise to 125, he quickly shoves, I call.
Turn 5x.
River 9x.
He'd been eyeing me up for the last hour or so; the deck had been smashing me in the face so I'd been doing lots of raising/getting involved a lot and I think he expected me to get out of line a decent amount. Having said that, he was middle-aged and pretty snug - I don't think he was going to get out of line himself much, so I expected his 3bet to be fairly strong. Still, I have position with a hand that flops well and we're deep, and the timing of his 3bet suggested weighting towards AK/AQ. Not sure if the peel is spewy though... When he leads the flop tiny I really felt like he was trying to induce a raise from me. Although I'm never folding, I still want to get the last bet in if I can, and with these stacks I never have fold equity if I raise normally and he 3bets the flop (he's usually shoving if I make it like 200 anyway), which is why I went for the tiny raise. I was expecting him to 3bet, and was hoping I could get him to make it 300 or something, and then talk himself into folding queens when I shove. When he just jams it's kinda sigh, but mainly because I want to avoid another 2k flip. I can't fold though.
'One pair' I say.
He pauses for a few seconds. 'One pair?'
Another 5 second pause. I start to get annoyed thinking he's nitrolling me with queens/trying to get me to show my hand. 'One pair is good'.
I blink and table my hand, and he sighs and leaves his seat. Think I see the Kh as he mucks his cards.
Assuming he had AKhh I was in the worst shape possible and I'm still 42%, and flipping vs overpairs so a standard call.
Hand 3: Effective stacks ~£1.2k
I open QcKo in MP to 20
Folds to tilting old guy who defends his BB.
Pot ~40, Flop Qd 8c 2c
BB checks, I bet 35, BB checkraises to 85, I call.
Pot ~210, Turn Kd.
BB checks, I bet 155, BB calls.
Pot ~520, River As.
BB checks, I think for a bit and bet 325. He quickly calls.
I think the closest street is the river as he can have A8/A2/AQ/JTcc but given my image and that he was tilty going for value is definitely best; he didn't seem in the mood to fold pairs to me in general, and AcXc turns up quite a lot. Also I'm assuming he leads the river with lots of the hands that beat me.
He mucks when I show my hand.
Hand 4: Effective stacks £1.5k.
Young aggressive guy opens CO to 15, I defend my BB with KcJc.
Pot ~30, Flop Ad Ks Ts.
I check, CO bets 25, I call.
Pot ~80, Turn Kd.
I check, CO bets 65, I call.
Pot ~210, River 5h.
I bet 155, he raises to 425, I tank and call.
Leading the river is pretty horrible by me. Standard is to check/call 3 streets vs this villain and I don't know why I didn't really, I vaguely thought that I can rep a lot of missed draws, but there really isn't anything in his range that can hero the river when I bet. Once he raised I came to my senses and realised he either folds or raises the river with nearly 100% of his range. I'd played with him for a long time the day before and he'd been very aggressive so I talked myself into thinking he can be bluffraising the river enough. Pretty sure he's not though, and although it's closer than it seems on paper (he's definitely bluffraising the river some %) the river's a fold. River was one big fail.
I lose to AK.
They're all the big hands I can remember. Don't think I played all that great, not well-versed at cash (and certainly not live cash) and there were a few spots where the money got to me - e.g nice light 4betting spots that I passed up because... well, betting TWO HUNDRED POUNDS or whatever is scary. But as long as I don't make any stupid mistakes other people tend to make me the money without me really needing to do anything fancy - there are a lot of soft spots in live cash games and I was definitely profitable whilst being full of leaks. Plus I ran good!
I ended up about £3k which is nice, although less after the tournament and expenses. I also had a TERRIBLE sunday online where I just went nuts and spewed everything. It was weird, the most severely tilted session I've had in years. So that's less good.
Nothing much planned for the rest of the month poker-wise. Going to carry on grinding online, aiming for jujitsu twice a week, hopefully some fun social things to make time go more quickly.
Sigh valentine's day. Beautiful, intelligent, tolerant, understanding girl to enter my life please?
