WPT Battle for the Season Pass III - Day 5
Goal number one was accomplished - I survived day one. You certainly cannot win any tournament without getting to day two. I was looking forward to today because I was extremely card cold yesterday. They redrew seats for today, and I must day, my draw was NOT very friendly. I was seated with professionals Rick Fuller and Crispin Leyser. Rick had a pretty large stack. He was #7 in chips. I just needed to wait and exploit the weakness in his game that I picked up from the live learning labs. As far as Crispin, he had an average stack, plus I like him. He is fun to play poker with.Rick did not show up for the start of the tournament. This was nice because the table played standard poker. Whenever he arrived, the game would change dramatically. About half way though level 6 (the first for the day), he entered. I was right in that he pushed the action. During the whole first level, I had ONE playable hand. That was 44 in the SB. It was folded to me, and I raised. The BB folded. I won the BB and the antes. Yippee Skippee!
Onwards and upwards we went. In level 7, I had only two playable hands all hour. The first was when I picked up AQ in early position. I was starting to get short-stacked, so I just shoved all-in. I really hate going all-in with AQ, but I did it anyway. Everybody folded and I picked up the blinds and antes to keep me afloat for another round.
The second had was when UTG raised to T2100. Everybody folded to me on the button, and I looked down at AQs again. I hesitated, but being as card cold as I was, I decided to shove my whole stack in again. After some thought, the BB folded, so I picked up the blinds, antes, and an additional T2100.
During level 7, Rick’s aggressiveness caught up to him, and he got busted. Who replaced him? TJ Cloutier! Nothing like swapping one pro out for another. A little later, Crispin pushed all-in and lost. When the next table was broken down, who sat down at our table? Chip Jett. Geesh - as we knock pros out, they are being replaced with more pros.
I had no more playable hands in level 7 and none in 8. Level 9 was to be the last level before we broke for lunch. With 5 minutes left, I was in the BB. The cutoff limped and the SB completed the blind. This would be a good time to wake up with a good hand and shove all-in. I peeked down at:
No such luck. I check.
The flop comes
Everybody checks around. The turn is:
Well, now I have top pair, but I do not like my kicker. I think for a minute and decide that this is as good as it is going to get. I have T11,500 and I bet T3500 (a mistake - I should have pushed all-in if I were going to commit over 1/3 of my stack). The button raises to T10,000 and the SB folds. I make another critical mistake and do not ponder the whole situation. More specifically, I do not think about what I can beat and what I cannot beat. If I had stopped and thought it through, I would have clearly seen I was beat and should have folded. The only thing I can beat here is T6 or lower. How likely is it that the cutoff played one of these hands? Highly unlikely. Anyway, I had already pushed all-in and the cutoff insta-called and showed
for trips. A ten did not materialize on the river, so I was out in about 80th place. It is difficult to defy odds all day. Statistically speaking, one should be able to play about 20% of their hands - not three hands in four hours. All in all, I played nine levels (hours) with under 10 playable hands. Oh well, everybody goes through these phases and it was my turn.
Later that night, Donna and I played in a single-table-tournament, and Donna won! I placed 4th. Tomorrow, the bust-out tournament begins for all of the “losers”.