I moved some money over to Pokerstars for the first time. I entered a $55 buy in $70,000 guaranteed tournement and finished to 12th out of 1345 players for a nice $625 payday, but not as nice as it could have been. First place was over $12,000.
The key decision I made which prevented me from making the final table came with 20 players left.
I was in great shape with 350,000 chips and in 3rd place. There were just over 4,000,000 chips in play so I could have probably just folded my way to the final table if I wanted to get there as a small stack, which was not the plan. The blinds were 4000/8000 with a 400 ante and I had Ad 9d in the bb. Everybody folded until the button who only had 150,000 and would have been in about 16th place.. He went all in.
A 150,000 bet to try to pick up 16,000 is certainly an overbet. I knew he just wanted me to fold, but I figured he had a little something to take that risk when we were at 20 players and the prize jumped from about $375 to $450 when we hit 18. I also figured he did not have one of the big pairs or AK, AQ because he most likely would want to try to do more then pick up the blinds with a big hand, which was clearly the hope with his all in over bet.
If I just fold I keep my chip and stay in 3rd out of 20 players, if I call and win I move to 500,000 chips and would become the chip leader. If I call and lose then I would drop to 200,000 chips and would be in 10th place. So what should one do? First of all I had to put him on a range of hands. I already eliminated all the biggest hands, I thought he most likely either had a low to middle pair, or a weak Ace. A couple hands could have me dominated, like A 10, A J or 9 9, 10 10, anything better then that and I do not think he would have gone all in. he could have any pair from 2s [ 8s which would be a coin toss or he could have an Ace with a lower kicker then mine which would make me a 80% favorite, or he could just be buffing.
Overall I thought I would win about 60% of the time vs his range of hands. So the right move seems to be to call and play for 1st place instead of being more conservative and fold.
I called, he flipped over A 4 and I was a huge favorite until the flop came with two 4s. I did lose the hand but still had plenty of life, but the way I had to play with 200,000 was different then if I had 500,000.
A bit later I tried to steal a pot preflop with 55 when a player who had been raising a lot pre flop made yet another raise. He went over top of my 50,000 reraise and I felt I had to flop leaving me with about 150,000 chips. Then I went on a cold streak for a bit and folded about 25 hands in a row which brought me down to just over 100,000 with the blinds at 6000/12,000 and a 600 ante. This is where I would have down things much different with those extra 300,000 chips but we were down to 12 players I was in 12th place and the prize money did not increase again until the final table of 9. I had As 10s, a big stack raised to 36,000 and it folded to me in late position. with 400,000 chips I call and see a flop with 100,000 I either go all in or fold. My hand is pretty strong 6 handed and the raiser is a big stack who has been aggressive so I decided to go all in. Had we been at 13 players or 10 players, I think I would have folded. He flipped over 99 and it was a coin toss that I lost and was out. I was happy to have the $625 because I had been on a bit of a losing streak. The win brought me back up to $1600 overall, and since then I have increase that up to $2200 playing at the PLO tables.
No comments:
Post a Comment