WBCOOP Event #19 FLHE

Hello!

So, picking up from where I left off in my last post, I was kind of indecisive about what to choose between events #19 and #20. The first one is FLHE with 6 players per table while the second is PLHE with 9 players per table. None of those two formats are familiar to me, so it was a hard dilemma.

I decided to take a look at the rest of the WBCOOP schedule to see if there was some other tournament that I could maybe take off of my list. My eyes fell on two words: Deep Stacks. Event #25 apparently starts 250 deep. That's deep-stacked alright! To my hyper-turbo ears that didn't sound so awesome. I opened the lobby of the tournament and saw that it has 20 (!!!) minutes blinds. Meaning grab a coffee and brace yourself with a lot of patience if you decide to play it! Naaah, both event #19 and #20 sounded better than the deep stacks so my dilemma was over right there.

André and his daily training made me run a bit later today than I would have liked, so I only registered at event #19 around 10 minutes before late registration was over. It was kind of close! This was my first time playing a Fixed Limit tourney so I didn't know what to expect. Yesterday, André suggested that I don't play this one cause I'd get bored.

Well, he wasn't right about this one. I didn't get bored, on the contrary, I found this format pretty interesting. Having only 6 players at the table helped a bit since you got to play more often. Also, I think that fixed bets completely changed the dynamics of what is considered a good hand and what isn't. Being used to No Limit Holdem, I found myself completely clueless on how to play so I was watching what the other players at my table were doing. I don't know how many of them were decent players and how many were as ignorant as I was, but I had to work with what little information was there.

If I had to describe this format in a few words, that would be "Call your stack away!". The way the bets are sized, I was constantly getting the feeling that I was getting really good odds to call, even if I had no connection with the board and was only counting on a high card. I may be very wrong about this one, but that's the overall feeling I got from playing this tournament.

The first hand where I really got involved in a pot was when I got dealt A9s at UTG+1. The blinds were 50/100. I raised and got one call from the button, then the SB raised to 300. I called and so did the button. The flop was 6d-3h-4s. I was holding clubs so no chance for a flush. The SB bet 100 into a 1k pot. I had nothing apart from ace high, but it was so cheap to call that I went with it. The button also stayed in the hand. Turn comes Qc. The SB bet 200 chips, this time in a 1,3k pot. Yeah, I was playing with ace high against two players but it still seemed too cheap to call. That's when the button decided to leave the hand which is probably something I should have done as well. The river was Q of diamonds and the SB bet again. 200 into a pot of 1,7k. I got myself this far so I thought, I'm not really going to leave such a bit pot for just 200 chips after a card that changes nothing, right? I called and the SB showed queens - he had made four of a kind. I lost a total of 800 chips on that play so I can't say that my first contact with fixed limit was brilliant. On the contrary of the previous events' positive spirit, my opponent with the quads was not feeling satisfied enough with his win, so he had to mock me a bit on top of it. "A9? Hahahahahaha! What a fish!". As if I ever said that I'm the best player in fixed limit...!

Two minutes later, I found myself on a 8c-Kh-2d board holding KQ of clubs and facing 3 opponents. We all checked and the turn was 7 of clubs. This time I bet, 200 in an 800 pot. The only person that called me was the guy with the quads from the previous hand. The river was the ten of hearts so I missed the flush, but I was holding top pair with a good kicker. I bet and he called. Guess what he had? A8o. Funny though how in a similar situation he called me a fish, but then he went on to do the same. "I suppose you also find A8o funny", I wrote in the chat after the hand was over. Of course he did not reply.

I also played the next hand against the same player. I had three of a kind with aces, but luckily for him he didn't stay around till the end of the hand.

Afterwards there were some more speculative hands like 87s from the button. The way I saw people playing at the table and calling with nothing, I figured being on a flush draw is good and can get you a nice pot when you hit. Not sure if I should have called the big blind's pre-flop raise on this one, but I hit the straight so it turned out fine.

A nice example of me not being able to fold my hand and calling my chips away is this hand. Fortunately, as it happened quite a lot of times today, I was saved by the river. The fact that the opponent folded at my river bet even though he was the one betting the previous two streets is indicative that maybe I was right to stay in the hand with my jack high anyway.

Of course, my strategy of sticking around did not always have a happy ending, especially since I was not being aggressive when I didn't connect with the board, but would always call other people's bets (cause they were so cheap, remember? :P ). You can check how this hand back fired... Maybe if I had been more aggressive betting first then I could have thrown him off the hand at the turn or something... Dunno!

The hand that took me all the way up to 10th place though was this one. Nothing like hitting a set of sixes while playing against two people!

I got another nice boost of chips when I hit a set and I was once again playing against two opponents... That helped me go a bit higher up in the rankings! Then later on, I got involved in a hand where I hit another flush (again with 78s), only the opponent was holding three of a kind! Thinking that he had the best hand, he re-raised, I re-raised him back and then he called. Must have been pretty disappointed to see that I wasn't bluffing the flush.

Later on I made a full house with my pocket twos and got chips from an opponent that was holding A7o. He thought that his A would be enough to win on a board with three kings but he was wrong, which added a 6k pot to my stack!

Then there was a big messy pot... It was soooooo messy that I won't even bother to describe it, it's probably better if you just check it out on the replayer. Don't even ask me what happened there, it's all foggy! :P I ended up losing the main pot, but got the side pot which was big enough to make me get out of the hand with more chips than when it started.

The last good hand for me was a KQo. We were playing on a board of 9h-Qs-5c and my opponent was holding a 5. I guess when the second queen came on the turn, he thought it even less likely that I'm holding a Queen so he invested quite a lot in that hand... Which fortunately for me he ended up losing. I think that was the part of the tournament when I had the highest place, around 5th out of 56 or something like that.

From that moment on, it all went downhill. First, it started with a message that I had reached my limit for the Boom! hands of the day: 20. I was like "whaaaaat?", I didn't even know that boom replayer only allowed 20 hands per day! If I did, I would have been a lot more prudent about the hands I boomed instead of booming everything that I found somewhat interesting. I realized then how much I was relying on that feature for my blogging adventures. If it weren't for Boom! I wouldn't remember all of the stuff that happened, that's not humanly possible. Anyway, no matter if it's for blogging purposes or if you just want to review the hand later or save it to talk about it with friends, Boom! replayer is awesome cause it's part of Pokerstars' client. It's super easy, takes a split second and you don't need to copy paste hand histories here and there. I really hope they increase the 20 hands limit in the future, cause at the moment that's the only negative thing about it!

Anyway, back to the tournament. From now on you'll excuse me, but with no Boom! hands and no notes of any kind, we'll have to go on with my memory and a couple of screenshots. The first ouch! moment came when I got ATo. On the flop I had top pair top kicker and even though I don't remember how exactly the hand played out, I ended up losing a pretty big pot cause my opponent was holding pocket aces.

I struggled a bit afterwards, not really getting in any big pots but not being able to win any small ones either. My nice stack was going away and pretty fast with the blinds getting bigger and bigger.

I busted with AKo which seemed like a good hand at first, but I wasn't so happy about it when both of my opponents revealed a pair.

I finished 33rd and got a $16,5 SCOOP ticket entry. This is my second cash out of the 5 tournaments I've played. Pretty good score!

Overall, I liked this event and found the format very interesting. I'm happy I chose to play it after all! And finishing 33rd - my highest finish in the series so far- is pretty awesome considering I started playing not knowing a single thing about this format!

See you soon with another WBCOOP update!