Halo7′s Poker Blog on Bluffworld.com

Well, I wish I could say that I won the $1,000,000 first place prize, but that isn’t the case.

If you would have asked me who is the one player I don’t want to be seated with on Day 2, I would have answered Scotty Nguyen. When he has a big stack (he was 2nd in chips going into day 2), he is a fearless player and very hard to put on a hand since he is so aggressive. And when the table draws come out, whose table am I sitting at, but Scottys and I am two to his left. In any case, I start in 35th chip position with T100K and with the small blinds, I am in no rush to play hands. I lose a chunk when it folds around to the button who raises to $6000. I am in the SB with ATo so I reraise to $24,000. This guy, who started the day with about the same stack I did, instantly reraises all in. I tank for a second but can’t put him on anything I could beat, so I muck. He tells me he had AJ. The next hit happens when I raise in the CO to $6000 with AQo. One of the shorter stacks (50,000 or so). The flop comes K rag rag rainbow and he checks. I put out a continuation bet of $10,000 and he moves all in. I had a feeling I should have checked it. He later tells me he had KQ. So another chunk gone.

I fight my way back to around 60K or so when “the hand” happens. A little background: The villain from the AJ hand above (immediately to my right) has been making stupid all in raises all day long into several stacks who have him covered. Think someone raises to $6000, and he reraises to $140,000 all in. Yeah, pretty horrible play for day 2 of a 5K+ buy in tourney. So Scotty is two to the left of this donkey and has been hammering my blinds most of the day, which I have been letting him have. Donkey has moved all in preflop at least 5 times in the first 3 hours of the day so either he is raising liberally or just picking up a ton of big hands and betting them stupidly. So it is my BB and it folds around to Scotty who makes it 7K at 1500/3000. Donkey raises all in for 140K from the SB (Scotty has about 300K). The very next hand, it is my SB and it folds around to Scotty who again makes it 7K to go. Donkey raises all in again for 145K. I look at my cards and see pocket tens. I know I am way ahead of Scotty’s steal range as well as the donkey’s push range so I snap call my last 55K. When Scotty couldn’t wait to get his chips in, I knew I was in big trouble. Scotty turned over KK and the donkey turned over 55. As expected, I had the donkey crushed, but Scotty woke up with a big hand. The board was uneventful and Scotty soared into the chip lead with almost 500K chips. It was a very situational play, but one I would make again the same way every time.

So that is how my tournament ended. It wasn’t a total waste tho because I ended up making about $1800 in the cash games, which were pretty good. Maybe next time will be “the time”.

The last night the casino threw all the players a party and I got to hang out with all the players, including Hatchem, Raymer, Moneymaker and co. Here is picture of the FoxyUK and me, one of the high stakes HU players on carbon.

Here is me with the “Carbon Crew” of qualifiers.

All in all, it was an awesome trip and I can’t wait for my next journey.

The tourney started at 10:00 AM and had a great structure with 20,000 starting chips and 1 hour levels with a break after every two levels. I got a great table draw and the play on average was horrible. It helped that I ran well and flopped a bunch of sets, but I think I played well too. A couple of noteworthy hands:

I am on the button with pocket 5′s and have both the blinds covered with T40,000 or so. I raise to 1200 with the blinds at 200/400 and the small blind minraises to 2400. The BB folds and I think briefly before calling. My plan was to fold if I didn’t flop a set unless something else came up. The flop came 4c Ts Qs and the SB bets out T1200 into a T5000 pot or so. He had about T7,000 behind and the bet felt so weak to me that I decided to make a move and I raised him all in. He thought for about a minute before calling with pocket 8′s. I was right about his weakness, but didn’t think he was desperate enough to call his tournament life in that spot. I didn’t improve so he doubled up, but I stand by my read and play and if he had a slightly larger stack I bet it would have worked.

Another beautiful play I made was a stone cold bluff against one of the tightest players at the table.

I had a great day 1 and ended the day with 101K chips when the average stack is 75K or so. I will join 115 others on day 2 in a race to the money which should start around spot number 60 or so with 1st place locking in the A$1,000,000 prize. Some of the big names still in are former world champs Joe Hatchem and Scotty Nguyen.