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The remaining 4 hands of my review of the Irish Poker Classic come from the final table. The first two occurred in the early and middle stages of the final table.
I arrived at the final table with 650k of the 3 million chips in play. Here's a quick bit of history. I had been very active at the 2nd last table and chipping up nicely. I had position on Peter "Knuckles" Higgins two tables out. He is pretty aggressive as well and is in trap 7 with me positioned in trap 9. He had been opening a lot so I tried the old 3 bet which was about as good an idea as buying a dildo for your granny at Christmas. I got quickly 4 betted. I changed tacked and started peeling behind him. This was working very well and was getting Knuckles a little annoyed, it also calmed the frequency with which he opened pots, hence allowing me to take down more hands pre-flop.
He commented "Is it necessary for you to call all my raises?", so I had him a little rattled. The final table has started well, I'm up 650k to 850k, when this hands takes place.
Blinds 3/6k with 500 ante. Nuckles is now seat 5 and I'm seat 9.
Concealing strength
Knuckles' is playing 500k odd and makes it 16k to go. We're both super deep and the two biggest stacks at the table and I'm not terribly keen to play a pot with one of the stronger players out of position so I am folding A10 and below, maybe play KQ/AJ suited dumping anything of the other marginal big hands. Will take a flop with suited connectors and any pocket pair of 1010 and below and re-raise with premium hands.
I look down and see AK suited, quite a tricky hand to play in this spot. If I make it 60k, he may still peel behind. I will miss 2/3 flops, then I have to decide to fire 80/100k chips at it, Knuckles is a brave player and has the chips to ask me questions on the flop, without committing his tournament life.
I choose to just call. Given our history Knuckles may well think my range of peeling flops with his is any two, as I am only calling 10k more. It enables me to control the pot better, as I don't fancy playing the monster pot out of position. This goes back to table control; there are plenty of easy spots at this table for me to pick up chips.
I was in control of the table at this stage and was chipping up nicely. Knuckles commented before the flop is dealt, "You calling me with some crap again?" which we all have a good chuckle at especially me. Flop comes, the old bingo bango K83. I check and he checks behind.
At this point I'm putting him on a medium pocket pair. Why? If he has high cards and missed the king is a great card to rep, again if he's raising with a crap king is a good card to rep. The reason he checks behind me if he has some piece of it and wants to control pot. King on the turn is a great card for me to get played. I am fairly sure from the flop he's setting himself up to call me down. So I am going to bet as close to pot for value here as I can, but at the same time I don't want to lose him, he's my biggest threat, so any chips won off him are extra special.
I bet 30k into the 42k, just over 70% which he calls. The river comes a 2 so knowing him, he will be in call down mode. I bet 80k into 102K. I have pushed his bet right to the upper limits of what he will call. You can see it on his face; he hates this spot and makes the crying call. I do not know what he had but I had him on 1010/99 maybe 77.
Know what you're ripping
Things started to come apart for me a little at the ft now. Ran KK into AA for a monster pot, had a big bluff called and generally had not been getting raises through. Have about 400k.
The table is 6 handed and blinds 4k/8k ante 500. Tom Gravey makes its 24k from seat 6, 7 is vacant and I call on the button with 89 suited. Myself and Tom have been trading blows regularly through the tournament running big bluffs on each other. Blinds fold and the flop comes K86 with club draw. Tom checks and I bet 30k into 63k.
Tom calls, and to be honest I do not have much of a clue of his holding. Turn comes a 7, Tom checks. It's a good turn for me but I really don't know where I stand in the hand. I do not want to put 1/3 of my stack into a pot where I have little clue what is going on, coupled with the fact Tom is likely to pick up on this if I bet light and jam me.
I still have a reasonable made hand and a decent drawing hand. If a blank comes off I can call a 40/60% pot size bet. I check behind and river comes off a 10 giving me a straight and club draw misses. Tom fires out 60k, I am obv re-raising in this spot, but I am caught between raising enough to get value and raising an amount that may induce a bluff. I make it 150k, which leaves me with just over 200k which is a playable stack. Tom asks me how much I have left before jamming me all in. J9 could he have it? There's a small chance he has J9 of clubs but I'm not folding, call and am shown AQ.
After the hand, Tom asks would I have folded 2 pair to the jam. Yes I probably would have, but I never would have re-raised the river with 2 pair with 4 to a straight out there. Given my bet call on flop and turn, its pretty obvious I have some piece of the board. If I was bluffing I would barrel both streets. So when I re-raise on the end I would have put me on 79. This makes perfect sense as well, as 89 is the way the hand is played.
Online this week it's been a case of swings and roundabouts. I was getting some $$$ nice and quietly but had a bad 25/50 session did a couple of full buy-ins and it all went back in an hour. Ran a good few errands as well. Did a photo shoot for a poker magazine I am going to be in soon, don't know if it's supposed to be on the QT or not, so won't say the name. After 225 shots, they managed to get 5 of me looking respectable.
My Mammy took me shopping again, so I now have food. I did a few driving lessons and the test as well, which I am thankful to say I passed - so going to try spin up some cash for a nice pretentious BMW that screams, 'Oh he doesalrite'. It's Chub's last night out in Dublin so going for dinner tonight and then out on the piss. With the WCOOP and the Omahaholics promotions starting on Boylepoker this is scheduled to be my last piss up for three weeks.
Comments (3)
well theres only so much detail i can go into, but this unfolding of events is unlikely to happen.
In any case if it did i'd prob call the 56k and take the flop, more my style than anytin I like to take risks to accum chips because I think I play a big stack better than most. Gettin 5/1 with a decent stack behind makes it an ok call