Tuesday, February 19, 2008

All Skill

Okay... zero skill. Those who were watching are well aware of it. Once again, there was a deck, it hit me in the face, and this time I made the most of it, by taking down the MATH.



I didn't take any screen shots until towards the final table. I started off rough, dropping below 1000 chips pretty quickly. Then I fought back with position and aggression, lamenting my card death.

Let me step back just a second. This weekend was a disaster on the poker front. I spent nearly as much to get into the FTOPS ME as if I'd just bought-in directly. This wasn't supposed to happen (I had only dropped net $15 by Sunday afternoon), but the Super Turbo Satellites called, and when I said "I'm done," a Pro entered one, so I figured it was possibly the best chance anyone could have at taking the prize for knocking one out. I joined, won the thing (but didn't knock out the pro), and was in the ME. I played a tight, positional game, and blew it all with 110 to the money when I bet 5k with AQs UTG, got re-raised all-in, and then called against TT. No improvement, and I'm done and royally pissed off with myself. I walked away to avoid tilting away more money. I took down a $22 Turbo, lost another, called it a night, and then went up and down a bit today in the $22 SnGs and peeps. I bought in to the MATH and almost unregistered out of frustration with my game.

But I stayed in to have some fun, and as I said, nearly donked out early. Then I started hitting.

- AQ over A4 (turned straight) doubled me from 1k to 2k.
- A bit later QTc vs J9c all-in on a 9hQh6c board doubles me to 5k
- Presto flops a set and turns a boat to bring me to 8.6k (vs a paired 9?), this made me the table leader.
- My last hand at the table saw me get AQo vs AKo, A66 flop, Q turn, I go to over 13k, making me the chip leader.
- First hand at the new table and I knocked out my second player with KJ vs A9 on J4Q flop, 15k. I worked my way to 18k before this table broke.
- The hammer gets me to around 22k by cracking presto.
- I knock out my 3rd player (wishing it was a KO now) with AQh vs TT. A turn, Q river. 27k
- Up to 30k uncontested
- Dealt 44, raise, face a push of 3.5k. Not a big threat, I call to race. vs A5o, 44 holds up, 33.7k. Blinds are 120/240/25 at this point.
- Take out JEC II MD's 56o with 6Ts and a 798 rainbow flop. Another KO, setup... 37k. 150/300/25. Table breaks shortly thereafter. 2nd place is 15.7k.
- Final table as chip leader.



- Take out another with QTd vs A7c. T on the flop. 41k.
- Take a HUGE hit when I make a bad read on a K56 flop with 77. 4th place player all-in with 56 and I call. 28k, with 2nd now 27k
- First time I'm not chip leader in a while, as I fall 6k behind 1st.
- Back in the chip lead uncontested. I stayed here for good.
- JJ vs Fuel's AQ all-in preflop 5-handed. Set on the flop, boat on the turn. Fuel gone. Third time's a charm as there were two borderline hands earlier that I folded that would have taken him out. 52k, 200/400/50. 4 left.



- QQ goes down to K6o after I re-raise for the first time pre-flop 3-handed?? T66 board. Go figure. 40k.
- 3-handed goes for awhile. LJ comes within 2k of taking the chip lead from me at one point... for one hand.



- Climb back to 55k after turning a pair of 5's on a straight draw and beating another straight draw. Setup turn?
- 44 raise, called by LJ. 7sJdAd on the flop. LJ checks, I check. Turn = 4 = BINGO! LJ bets 5k into a 7k pot. I re-raise to 15k, LJ pushes for 9k more, I call. A9c no good and I'm at 77k.



- 3rd hand heads up, 80k vs 12.9k I see 78o, and jmathewson_III pushes. I decided to call, and see his A7o. Oops. But I'll still have around a 3:1 chip lead if I don't hit my 8. 8 on the flop! Nothing else helps and victory is mine!



So... I was catching like my name was Bayne and took out 8 players on the way.

292 Hands
19 pocket pairs:

22 x 2
33 x 2
44 x 2
55 x 2
66 x 3
77
99
TT x 3
JJ
QQ x 2

Funny, no AA or KK.

AK x 2 <- that seems low for me too
AQ x 8
AJ x 3

KQ x 4
KJ x 2
QJ x 5

6 hammers

And just for fun - 78 x 7, 3 of those s00ted.

That's 6.5% pp, 4.4% A-face, 3.8% paint.

Basically, I won a lot of races, sucked out on dominating hands a few times, and used my stack to make small gains and keep my chip count steady. Like I said... all skill... right?

3 comments:

Shrike said...

Fun to rail you as always, Astin, when you run good ...

BamBam said...

Congrats !!

Nicely done.

Unknown said...

Congrats... Maybe Bayne orc Chad gave back the horseshoe that was previously was up your ass!

:-) Way to go Astin!

IT