Arrffff #2

image from boat.com

Hi guys!

I have been lazy yesterday - I have to admit. I thought I needed a day off Poker after the second leg of my World Poker Tour challenge so I did not a publish a report right away. You can imagine that I did not win an entry ticket to the Main Event... not yet! I thought I needed a day off but what I really needed was obviously 'not thinking of the callenge anymore' as I got sucked into an online sessions during which I took down a 215-player field tournament. For a moment, I thought I had lost it...

My online bankroll challenge has not been going well at all during February so far so I was hoping I could compensate with a decent live session on Wednesday February 19th. Wrong! It is a little bit heart breaking because I have been putting some serious work in those qualifiers reading shortstack strategy stuff, satellite strategy and mindset stuff. Playing loads of online qualifiers to get used to the good decisions to take on the bubble etc.

I started the qualifier nice and slow. My table was tight and quiet. Almost nobody had done a double buy-in. Clearly, the gamblers were all on the other table where rebuys were flying around and easy calls were being made. Two tables had been drawn together for this second satellite of mine.

I won't complain about cards this time. I got good games: AK, AQ, 88, 99, AA, KK. The problem was that I got either no action, coolered or owned with every single one of them. I was able to grind up my stack playing tight and aggressive mainly in position. I really make particular efforts to play some serious no-showdown-poker in those qualifiers. So, everything went well until I got AA :)

I reraise a tight middle position opener in the cut-off and the small blinds comes along. We are 3 players on a KK5 rainbow flop and it is checked to me. The pot is around 12 big blinds and I bet a bit less than half of it get rid of one oponent at least. Mission accomplished: the initial raiser folds.

A blank come on the turn, still a rainbow board, the small blind checks and I check behind. Something was odd about his behavior. He was acting nervous, his chip manipulations were kinda splashy, he was constantly changing his body position... There were two possibilities: either he had flopped like in a dream or he is just one more nervous live player.

The river is another small blankish card and Mr. Nervous now bets reeeeeeeaaallly small - 3 BBs in this 20+ BB pot. At this stage I obviously take into account that I might be behind. He can have a super funky backdoor straight, a full house or just a K. I think of it for a minute, look again at this still nervous looking guy and decide to make the bad but cheap call. He had flopped it with pockt 5s. Bravo!

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image from boat.com

After that I was still left with a playable stack for a while but I had to cope with the fact that I just had blown away a good chunk of what I had built up. I got great starting hands for some time but was not able to make chips with them. It seemed to be one of those days where the right circumstances just don't come together.

I ended up being short and got 88 on the button with a little less than 10 bigs. The pot is raised in middle position from a 15BB stack and I decide to push it all in the middle. Instant reshove in the big blind and quite rapid call from the initial raiser. Outch...

The reshove turned out to be 99 (20+ BB stack) and the initial raiser had AQ.
Q on the flop.
'Yes!' on my right.
'C'est pas possible!' on my left.
I'm outta here!

Next and last try on March 5th with the 220€ freezout qualifier.

Thanks for the attention!
Damian