tilted behaviour

An early 8am wake-up was all that I needed following my 4am sleep time, but getting my chance to play the Melbourne Poker Championships Morning Series Mixed Stud event would hopefully be worth it.

However it wasn’t smooth sailing leaving my cousin’s house at about 8:30am. There was a ten-car pile-up on the West Gate and a few other accidents on the off ramps and Bolte Bridge . . . the outcome . . . over an hour to drive about five kilometres to the Crown Poker Room.

30 runners took to the $120 Mixed Stud tournament where the games played would be Razz, Stud and Stud Hi-Lo. As the tournament kicked off I tried to organise a last longer, and managed to grab ten players at $20 while a few others organised a mammoth $200 last longer four-ways.

Play was pretty standard for a stud tournament as we didn’t see a bust out for the first few levels, but once we got down to the last sixteen or so, things started to speed up. Our table was fairly chipped up as play moved onto the final table bubble with it eventually busting after about nine hands. The last longer was chopped with me and Abel Cabrera taking $40 each and Brian Hull (having us out-chipped by plenty) taking $120

I doubled first hand of the final table when I was dealt A-2-5 against A-3-5 in Razz and made the nuts on fifth-street. Even though I had to bring in the next four hands in a row I managed to avoid bubbling the money and eventually finished in 5th place for $270 plus the $40 last longer for my second tourney collect for the year from about ten starts.

I killed time sweating a few mates in a Main Event satellite before taking part in the $230 No Limit Holdem Bounty Event.

Starting with a 5,000-chip starting bank, the structure was fairly fast to account for the 280 runners and I chipped down quite early folding top-pair and a busted straight-draw on the river to an obvious value bet. By the end of the 25-50 level I was only left with 3,025 after bluffing off some more chips with K♠ 9♠.

My stack see-sawed in the next level chipping up with A♣ K♦ and check-raising all in with A♦ Q♥ on a ten-high board, only to drop back down to 3,000 at the end of the level.

During the 75-150 level I didn’t see a premium hand, or an opportunity to take a pot down, and on the first hand of the 100-200 level my tournament came to an early end. Looking down at K♦ Q♦ in late position I made it 500 to go before getting min-raised by the player that I check-raised bluffed with my Ace-Queen a few levels earlier. Having only 3,000 in my stack I decided that I’m going to play the hand out and try to take it off her at some point.

The flop fell down A♦ Q♣ 5♣ and I checked the action to her. She feigned at her chips before checking behind also which led me to believe that she either flopped top set of Aces or held Kings – meaning I can only beat one hand knowing that if I shove the turn she will fold Kings, while double-fist-pump-snap calling with the alternative. The turn landed the Q♠ and again I checked to her, which was immediately followed with a check behind.

Sweet I thought! She doesn’t have Aces at all, but rather Kings – and I was pretty confident with this read, and knew that the pot was mine unless a King fell on the river. Boom! The K♥ landed smack on the river and I just sunk into my chair. Knowing that I’m dead bearing the 1% I had read her wrongly I had no idea what to do. I couldn’t afford to miss value, but I really wanted to trust my read.

Over 30 seconds went by before I moved all-in for my last 1,900. My opponent checked her cards once again and slid her stack into the middle to immediately evoke an insta-muck from me – no joke!

She tabled her K♣ K♠ and I tapped the table as I reached back into the muck and quickly flashed my under-book as I left the table and tournament bowing out in 251st place and made my way to an early night.