Halo7′s Poker Blog on Bluffworld.com

Well, I played in 3 different WSOP qualifiers today. First was the Bodog $1 rebuy with 1 ME seat guaranteed. I made it a few hours but went out of that one right before the PokerStars 150 seat guaranteed started. This was the tourney I won my seat in last year so I was hopeful. It has a great structure with 30 minute levels so you have to adjust your game a bit to make sure you don’t play too fast. There is no reason to overplay a marginal hand early. Well that is exactly what I proceeded to do. I was on the button with T2000 with JJ. It folds around to me so I raise it to 150 and the SB reraises to 450. Well normally I drop jacks like a hot pan for a reraise, but since it looked pretty obvious that I could be on a steal, I rationalized that the SB could have many different hands AK-AT, any pocket pair. So I call and see the flop. When the flop comes 7 high rainbow and the SB bets 700, I raise all in. He flips over AA and IGHN.

I also won a single table satellite into the Full Tilt $535 100 seat guaranteed. This one also had a good structure, although not quite as good as PokerStars. I lasted a bit longer in this one but still donked my way out of the tourney. I had T3000 and 88 in the BB and it folded all the way around to the SB who raised it to 250. I reraise him to 750. He called and we saw a flop of T53. He checks and I bet about 1000. He calls which I don’t like. Another T comes on the turn which I think is a good card for me. If he also has a pair, then maybe he could put me on the T and lay it down. So I end up pushing the rest of my chips in and he instacalls with 33. So I got pretty unlucky on the flop, but there wasn’t too much of a reason for me to get all my chips in that early in the tourney in a marginal spot like that. You really have to be patient in these slow structure satellites. So now I am back to the drawing board. I will have to poke around and see what other tourneys are left, but I am thinking either the Bodog $270 that they have, or the Full Tilt $320 or $1K, or the good ole PS $160 double shootouts.

Well I was poking around yesterday with a goal of making it into the 150 and 100 seat guaranteeds at PokerStars and Full Tilt respectively when I came across a $1 rebuy with 1 main event seat guaranteed on Bodog. Since there were only 700 people signed up, I knew there was going to be a huge overlay so I threw my hat in the ring. Well I ended up in this tournament for $2 total and just kinda poked my way along until before I knew it we were under 100, then under 50 people left. Once it got under 50, I started to think I had a real shot at getting a WSOP seat for less than a cup of Starbucks coffee. Then came “the hand”. I was a little bit below average chip stack with 40,000 and was in middle position with KK. The big stack at the table with about 230K raised it to 6,000 (blinds were 1K/2K). I think about just pushing since it will be damn near half my stack, but decide to just reraise to 18K. If I get called, I am capable of getting away from it on a dangerous flop like AJJ or something. Well, unexpectedly, he reraises me all in. My spidey senses did start tingling a big, but I knew I was gonna have to double up to make a run at this so I was happy to get all in preflop with KK. Well of course, he had AA and no magic happened, so I went out 45th and so goes my dream of the $2 WSOP seat . Actually I have another shot at it tomorrow since they are having another one of these. Look for me on Bodog if you are playing.