tilted behaviour

I believe that the evolution of a poker player reaches an end when they are highly skilled at all forms of the game – cash, tournament, holdem, stud games and mixed limits – and today I’m hopefully taking a step to proving to many that I am well down that road.

I’ve always enjoyed playing mixed games, with seven card stud being the first I learned when I was in Las Vegas back in 2007. However the five games that make up HORSE take more than their fair share to learn before you can think of yourself as a skilled mixed game player, but over the past six months or so I have been playing my fair share of these games online.

Consequently, with the help of some ChipMeUp backers, I took my seat in Event 4: $550 Mixed Event which plays the five games of HORSE plus No Limit Holdem and Pot Limit Omaha.

On my table I had Rob ‘JacksonTens’ Campbell, Ash Gupta and Abel Cabrera along with some players that I knew were solid. My strategy was to try and accumulate most of chips in the two holdem orbits, stay clear of big pots in Omaha and play solid in the stud games.

I added about 2,000 to my starting 20,000-chip bank in the limit holdem orbit before getting scooped in the limit Omaha orbit when my opponent caught running cards to crack my low and weak high hand. During the first orbits of the stud games there were no major hands until we hit NLH where I took a down a nice pot to make up for the chips that I had leaked during a fairly card dead stud and stud-eight orbits when I was dealt Q♣ Q♦ under the gun and opened with a raise to 750 (blinds 150-300) and after finding two callers, took down the pot with a 1,325-bet on a ten-high flop. I three-bet Abel twice with King-Queen and once we switched to PLO I had played half of the eight hands dealt and won three of them before deciding to sit out due to the aggressive nature of our table.

We hit limit holdem once again – and just like during the NLH orbit – I played half the hands only losing Ace-King to Aces before picking up a nice pot with 8♥ 6♥ on a J♦ 3♥ 7♥ J♥ 3♦ board. My next major hand came during the Stud orbit when my A♦ 4♠ / 10♦ 6♥ A♣ A♠ / 4♣ outdrew Ash’s nut-flush on sixth street to take me back to over 25,000 in chips. The table broke and I moved to be seated with Marwan Nassif, Joe Cabret, Vic Thornton and Trung Tran before being joined by Michael ‘TheBigSiCkO’ Guzzardi and Abel Cabrera once Marwan was eliminated.

I chipped up to over 32,000 when I value-bet eights and fives against a fish in Stud before going against my initial strategy of not playing PLO. With blinds at 600-1200, Guzzardi raised the button to 2,400 with 9♣ 9♦ 7♦ 6♠ and I called from the small blind with A♦ 2♦ J♣ 10♣ along with Abel defending his big blind with Q♣ Q♠ 6♣ 3♣. The flop fell down Q♦ 9♠ 6♦ and I fired out a pot bet of 7,200 before Abel announced re-pot. Guzzardi pushed his 45,000-chip stack into the pot, and after thinking for a little bit I decided to gamble and pushed my 40,000-chip stack into the middle with Abel soon to follow. Unfortunately for me, the turn landed the 10♠ and river the 5♣ to see Abel pushed a 120,000-chip pot with the next best sitting on around 80,000.

Although I put my tournament on the line with a draw, I felt that it was a decent spot to do it in, especially with the fact that it was PLO. Winning that pot would have seen me hold the chip lead, and if I continued to employ my solid strategy, I would have been a near lock to make the final table and take a crack at the $9,000 first prize.

Finishing 18th/43 was a little disappointing, but I thought I played extremely well throughout the twelve-hours of tournament poker.

It was another early start today as I headed into Crown to play the 10am Phase One Satellite.

I busted relatively early when I three-bet all in from the big blind holding A♠ K♠ but ran into Kings. Bricked out, and the next hand I decided to commit by two bb stack with 7♦ 8♦ but bricked out against some rags.

I decided to play some $1-2 NLH to fill in the time and after about two hours my stack had moved from the original $80 buy-in to fluctuate around the $220 mark. I then proceeded to lose every hand for the next hour until I had slipped to around $120.

Then, after being dealt Q♦ 3♦ on the button I three-bet all in on a 7♦ 2♦ 3♠ flop and was met with a lone call from the original flop better. The turn landed a 3♣ and I leaned over to my mate Oatsy telling him that that was a good card for me. The river was a blank and as my opponent – who had been there since the night before – looked up at me I rolled over my three. He rolled over a seven, and both me and Oatsy looked at each other and just shook our heads knowing the outcome. I rolled my Queen and he rolled another seven to take the pot down.

I rebought and the following hand floated with bottom pair and eighteen backdoor draws. I turned trips, got it in, but again ran into top set and was forced to rebuy once again.

My third buy-in went nowhere and I decided to play the PokerNews Cup Super Satellite that I had some luck in the other day.

I took my seat in the forty-three player field and started donking early. I had $200 to have some fun with and use to get off tilt. After getting stacked three times I decided to switch it up by letting the dealer play one card and myself the other.

Good meant paint, mmmm meant sixish to ninish and a swift shake of the head meant terrible. If we both said good I moved all in, and if we both said mmmm I limped hoping we had a pair or a suited connecter.

I managed getting to the end of the rebuy period with around 5,000 in chips and after having a quick chat with Michael ‘TheBigSiCkO’ Guzzardi he decided to do my $150 triple add-on and consequently take 50% of my action – although the percentage was incorrect I didn’t mind too much as I was hoping his share on me might change my day’s luck.

From thirty left to about twenty or so I played very solid, picking my spots wisely but was still unable to accumulate due to the high blinds. I found a double when I pushed Q♥ 10♥ and doubled through against eights. I then knocked out a player with Kings against Queens as we broke into two tables. The first hand of the next table I re-shoved holding Aces and knocked another player out to have one of the top few chip counts – not that it meant too much due to the quick levels and high blinds.

Having position on Guzzardi didn’t mean too much as we were trying to stay out of each other’s way, and in the meantime I managed to double up the same player twice as Guzzardi dispatched of Lisa Walsh as we hit the final table.

With the four chip leaders sitting in the nine, ten, one and two seat, I drew seat three, but having Guzzardi in the two seat would hopefully help in discouraging people from stealing my blinds.

I was unable to catch a single thing on the final table, and with four seats up for grabs plus cash I was extremely focused on winning another seat. With blinds at 2,000-4,000 I pushed for my last 11,000 holding Ace-King and was snapped by the small blind with Jack-nine while the big blind threw in his last 2,000 holding Ace-four.

The flop of Jack-Ten-Nine saw be drawing to just four outs and on the verge of being eliminated, but when a repeat ten landed on the turn I added a further six outs, but alas, it was to no avail as the river landed another ten and I busted in sixth place – one short of the money and two from another seat.

BRAIN SPASM TIME

Holding my two hole cards I just kept shaking my head lamenting at yet another PokerNews Cup Main Event bubble and just clenched my fists together due to me being more pissed off then I can ever recall (poker sense that is)!

Not realising I had the cards still in my hand, I threw the mangled and destroyed cards down on the table and walked straight to the PokerNews desk, chucked my bag on the floor and went to the bathroom to splash some water on my face and cool off.

I returned to the desk, grabbed my keys from my bag, ignored everyone that tried to speak to me and made my way to the car to get changed as the Tony G Celebrity Bounty Event was just kicking off.

END BRAIN SPASM

Once I returned from my car I was directed to see Jonno regarding my little incident.

It was agreed that my presence behind the computer as a member of the PokerNews Live Reporting Team wouldn’t be a good idea tonight, and he decided that I should have a night off before returning tomorrow.

I explained the situation to Heath, and although I was letting the team down there was nothing more I could do about out.

I decided that I would head to Geelong for a couple of days, but not before putting myself through some more satellite hell when I finished forth once again in the PokerNews Cup satellite on TonyG Poker.