WBCOOP Event #30 NLHE

Hello!

The second event I played yesterday was the last one of the WBCOOP series, before the main event that is. It was your regular NLHE tournament. When it started, the first thing I noticed at my table was that pretty much everyone was sitting out. It was only me and the player on my left that were actually playing. Too bad that he was quite persistent and stealing the blinds from the rest of the sitting out players was not as easy as it sounds...

Anyway, little by little and with the changes of players at the table, we got a couple more people that were not sitting out. I decided to stop going crazy in an attempt to steal the dead money and play just a little bit more loose than my normal game.

I actually made it in the money in this one, which is great! That means that I was playing for quite some time and a lot of interesting hands came up. Since I can't describe them all here (I'd need to be blogging for a couple of days non-stop to do that), I'll pick my favorite three.

The first interesting hand was during the 7th level with the blinds at 125/250-a25. The player UTG immediately shoved. He had 15BBs. I was UTG+1 and was the one to talk next. My hand was AQo. Now normally, I don't mind calling an all-in of 15BBs with AQ. In this case however, there were 7 players left to talk after us. Some of them were deeper and maybe could call lighter thanks to their big stacks. Apart from that, the player sitting on the Big Blind only had 2,5BBs behind so he was almost certain to call. I hesitated. I had 22BBs but if I called 15BBs then I couldn't ever fold my remaining 7. So basically the choice was between shoving or folding. What would you do?

I shoved. Fortunately, nobody else called, not even the big blind that was super short. The opponent revealed a pair of 66s. I hit an ace on the flop, but the turn was a six so I lost a ton of chips. I was left with roughly 8BBs after that hand.

The second hand that really got my heart pumping was during the next level, with the blinds at 150/300-a25. My stack was slightly shorter than 12BBs and I got dealt pocket Tens on the cut-off. With a stack so short and a pot of 650 from the blinds and antes, if you get tens you know that you will eventually end up all-in one way or another. I saw players around the table folding, but it didn't get to me. A player two seats on my right shoved. He had a similar stack to mine, so that was understandable. He was feeling the pressure of the blinds going up and would happily go all-in with anything halfway decent. Still, my hand was very strong. I had to call. I took a deep breath and clicked the button. To my horror, I saw the player on my left shoving over the top. This one actually had a pretty decent stack. If he was shoving over two players, he should be holding a monster. I prepared for the worst! Everyone else folded.

My suspicions were unfortunately confirmed when the button revealed KK. The other player that shoved first had JJ. And I was behind both. I prepared to exit when I noticed the ten of hearts smiling at me from the board. I think I stopped breathing until both the turn and the river were revealed. None of them were relevant and I tripled up. I'm not sharing this hand cause there was awesome skill involved or something. I think all three of us played it fine and didn't really have any other option. I'm just sharing cause it was one of the sickest suckouts I've made! Epic!

Fast forward to the thirteenth level of blinds, 600/1200-a125 for the last hand of the post. I was UTG+1 and had managed to rebuild my stack up to 25,5BBs. I was dealt AQs and min-raised. Everyone folded until the SB who decided to re-raise me. He bet 7,2k and I called. The pot was now 16,7k and I wanted badly to add it to the 23,4k chips I had left behind. Fortunately luck was on my side this time. The flop was Q-6-Q. Unless he was holding a pair of pocket sixes, I was ahead. He bet first, 9,6k. I called. Turn: Jack of hearts. He bet 20,4k and I called my last 13,8k chips. He showed A3o. The river was a nine which was pretty much irrelevant cause he was drawing dead, and I won a huge pot with that  hand. What really baffles me is why he made that huge bet on the turn. I mean, sure he was holding an ace and thought that I shouldn't hit that board too often, but still... I don't know. I'm not skilled enough to judge his play and say if it was brilliant or a really bad one, but I really don't get it. Anyway, I was happy with getting most of his chips. :)

I lost quite a long time later when I shoved my 9BBs with ATo from the button. I actually shoved over the top of a raise from the cut-off, he had AJo but i didn't get lucky this time. Still, I made it to 22nd place and earned a $16,5 ticket. Quite a good score a think!

I hope you enjoyed this post... If you have any advice on my plays (or want to share anything else in general), please leave a comment. Coming up: WBCOOP's main event report!