WBCOOP Event #21 NLHE Shootout Turbo [10-Max]

Hello everyone!

So, after playing WBCOOP events #19 and #20, I also registered at event #21! Playing all three tournaments of the day, now that's WBCOOP frenzy!

This one, as clearly stated by the title, is a shootout event. You don't know what that is? Don't worry, neither did I. As my boyfriend explained, in shootout tournaments you need to win all the chips at the table you're playing and only then you get to advance to the next table. Of course, the next table will be filled with other winners such as yourself and all of the stacks will be reset back to the initial stack. The blinds also go back to level 1.

Even though the concept sounds pretty nice, I knew from the beginning that I probably wouldn't like this tournament for a simple reason: it involves heads-up play. I've mentioned before that heads up is where I'm worst at. I feel like that's a part of poker where you have to play the player, not so much the cards. If you can figure out your opponent and read him like an open book, then you're pretty much set to win. And I'm not so good at finding what other people's playing patterns are. That's why every time I hear that someone is a heads-up pro, I can't help but feel respect for the person!

Anyway, there I was at my first table. The first thing I noticed was that there were only 4 of us and all the other seats were empty. Since it was a 10-Max event, I thought I had the extreme luck of being at the only table that wasn't filled with 10 players and therefore could get an easier pass to the next round. Awesome! Soon, I realized my mistake cause I was following other people's tweets at the WBCOOP hash-tag on twitter, and everyone was talking about how their table only had 4 players. I guess there was nothing special about my table after all... :( At the same time, someone at my table asked in the chat how the shootout worked and if only one of us would make it. That helped me feel less like a shootout newbie I guess.

The first interesting hand came up when I got a pair of pocket Kings. I min-raised from the cut-off. The player on the big blind was a bit shorter than the rest of us, but still he had a nice stack of 74 big blinds. He re-raised me and we kept re-raising each other until he was all-in preflop. He had AKo and didn't manage to break my kings. That was how I eliminated the first player.

For quite some time, the three of us that were still alive would only play small pots. Sometimes we'd steal the blinds, some other times we'd min-raise and play the flop with cbets but nothing really interesting happened and there weren't any big pots. In the meantime, however, the blinds were going up. With 18BBs, I min-raised my A7o from the button. The chipleader of the table that was sitting on the SB, folded. The BB shoved but his stack was only 9,5BBs so I called. He had K8o and since none of us connected with the board I won the hand eliminating him as well. It was finally time for my "favorite" part: heads up!

We wished each other good luck and continued playing. There were a couple of times during the hands-up play where I was sure I'd win but he sucked-out on me. There were also some times that I was getting short and I thought I'd lose. I ended up winning with pocket Queens while he was holding pocket nines. Excuse me for not elaborating how it all played out, but I don't think my heads-up knowledge is enough to make it interesting! Maybe in the future, after I read a couple of books on the subject I'll be able to get a better grasp of it. For now, I'm just happy for having luck on my side.

By the time all other tables had finished, we were already in the money so that was nice! At the beginning of the next round however, I found myself against 9 opponents. 10-Max indeed! Things were about to get tougher. There was one player who was playing in a really crazy way, shoving his huge stack (which was more than the starting 150BBs) into practically anyone non-stop. Ah, and pre-flop I forgot to mention! At some point someone woke up with a hand and called him. He showed a really bad hand like 29s or something like that. From that moment on, we all knew that we could call him a lot lighter, but that didn't stop him. He continued shoving like crazy, and I called him for 145BBs with ATo. He showed Q9o and doubled me up.

That was cool, but that's probably where my luck left me. We all struggled for a while and with the blinds going up we reached a point where we were all playing with stacks from 10 to 20 BBs (except the chipleader who had 25BBs). Of course that's the kind of game that's more like what I'm used to play but as I said, my luck was long gone. I got a break with a pair of sixes where I got called by a player with 44s and pretty much eliminated him, but nothing much happened after that. I somehow reached 3-handed play, but by that time I only had 4BBs left. I shoved my 86s from the button and got called by the big blind who had 89o. And that was the end of it.

I finished 19th, which may sound like a nice result at first but it's really not that great. Due to the structure of the tournament, it paid the same from 11th to 100th place. Only the final table players would get a better prize. To be honest, this was probably my least favorite tournament of this series mostly because of the heads-up situation that I described earlier. Still, I got a free $11 SCOOP ticket which is nice! Plus, I had a total 3 out of 6 WBCOOP cashes which is a pretty nice score for someone who doesn't usually play MTTs.

Next update will be on event #23 Big Antes! Coming soon...