WPBT WSOP Satellite

Some interesting observations from last nights WPBT WSOP satellite tournament:

During the first hour or so at my first table, I was fortunate enough to have that poker experience that can only be described as great timing.  The combination of good cards against ones that are slightly worse and aggressive play against hands that had missed the flop let me take an early chip lead.  Because I was showing down the hands that had hit, my table image was that of a card rack.  This was true, but not as much as the table believed.

A few minutes after the first break, I got moved to another table, with the next biggest stack directly to my left.  It was rumored that Claire Daines was change100, all I know is that Katheryn Brewster owned my T101 model.

Without the benefit of my table image, my raises were many times trumped with bigger re-raises preflop.  On some occasions, I simply had to let the hands go.  This new table was stacked with talent.  As such, my stack dipped and rose (mainly dipped) and I found my way from chip leader to middle of the pack as the 3rd hour wore on.

There was one memorable hand I had where I made a “move” and got lucky that my read was correct.  In MP, I raised 3x with pocket 9’s.  In LP, doubleAs re-raised me to T2000, about a 3x raise of my raise.  With T1400 needed to call, and my stack relatively big, I took some time and eventually decided to just call.  The flop came AQx.  Here’s where my thought process takes me:  There is over 5k in chips in the pot and if I check, doubleAs surely bets and I have to fold.  So I eliminate that option immediately.  Then I decide what hands he’d re-raise preflop with and assign the range of JJ,QQ,KK, and AA.  With the Ace and Queen on the flop, the odds of him flopping a set were less than the odds of him holding the other two big pairs.  If that was the case, than the Ace on the flop is surely a scare card.  I raised pre-flop too, so there’s every reason to believe that doubleAs will put me on an Ace.  So my only course of action that can win me the pot is to put him all in.  Which is what I did.  It turned out that my read was correct as he mentioned in the chat that his KK was now no good.  I showed my hand for posterity’s sake and my stack rose back over the T10,000 mark.

But that was the high point of the tourney for me.  My raising hands were just not as strong as they were earlier and I had to muck several pre-flop raises to re-raises.  Like I said, this was one tough table.  I was finally crippled by fellow G-Vegasite Otis when I made a standard raise with AQo from the button.  Otis pushed from one of the blinds and I called figuring he wasn’t super strong and that he was putting me on a positional raise.  He flipped up pocket 3’s and I did not improve.

Subsequently short-stacked, I pushed with my first Ace and got called by Derek with a bigger Ace.  He hit his kicker on the flop to end my evening in 22nd place.

Like I mentioned, timing is everything.  My table image, my cards, and the player composition at my first table allowed my style of play to build a stack.  The same style of play at the second table bombed out unceremoniously.  I had no table image, my cards were weaker, and the players, dare I say it, may have been playing a stronger game than those at my first.  No disrespect intended to any of the guys at my first table, that’s just how it seemed to me last night.

Congratulations to Gracie.  Although I was never at her table, there’s no doubt she played a strong game to win this thing.  And also, congratulations to StB who after two WPBT tournaments sits atop the leader board with a commanding lead.