Bubbled the Bubble

When I read this Post in years to come I know that I'll be able to look back on it as an achievement, but for now I must confess that I am disappointed to have effectively bubbled. Yesterday's ANZPT $330 Deep Stack Tourney at Star City featured 320 runners, with 30 getting paid. I went into the first break having entered only 3 pots, stolen 3 blinds and had tripled my starting sstack to almost $30,000 after 2 hours of fold, fold, fold. This was my strategy and it worked. Some thanks must go to the Poker Edge and its advice on selectively re-popping the overly loose blind stealers. You can fairly safely pick up 4 x BB with very minimal risk, preserve your tight image and reinforce your aggressive image. The two pots that got to showdown feature KK and AKs.

After the first break, I had a solid hand where I repopped one of these guys from the blinds and got called with AK. Flop came K, rag, rag, I c-bet, got raised and pushed AI for not much more. With his effective stack, he was pot committed to calling which he duly did after thinking, with KQ. No Q and I was feeling good. A few hands later, I had QQ. Raised it up to 2200. Turn came AJ7r, I C-bet 4400 and was called. The Turn was a Q thankfully so I could confidently fire again for 8200 but he folded TT. Happy days, up toward $53K well above average. In this spot, I was looking good as I had two loose players to my right that I could re-pop.

Now, I must share with you a learning experience. We had a couple of people taking exceptionally long over decisions. One had already had time called on them and then the second took forever over what didn't really seem to be a very hard decision. We all knew he'd fold, it seemed more like Hollywooding. Anyway, I was starting to assert my presence with strong betting, and had moved on from my ultra tight image when the antes had kicked in and I called Time. This started quite a fracas with the player taking exception, snap folding and giving me heaps which the dealer warned him about. One other player stood up and said that he was just about to call time, whilst two others confirmed to the Tournament Director that it had been excessive. Anyway, looking back, there was no upside really to me having got involved and I wish I'd stayed out of it. Not that I'm afraid of the conflict, it just confused my thinking slightly after that and I also had the guy for a bit of tilt on my left which isn't a good spot for a tilter.

Two orbits later a hand came up. I was the small blind with A9s, with blinds of 1000/2000/100 ante, when the button limped for 2000. I called and we had $7000 in the middle when the BB raised AI to $16000. Button folded and I had to make a decision for $14000 to win $21000. PokerStove tells me today that if his range is 88+,ATs+,KQs,AKo (5.6%), I am a 33% chance against TT+,AKs,AKo, I am surprisingly still a 30% chance. So the odds seem to be approximately right. Question is, do I need to get involved. No, but a win would build a lot of momentum. What would a fold say, well I have potentially created a tilter that thinks that he can run over me with an AI. In the end, I called, he had KK and there was no A to help me. I did hit the 9 on the Turn. Far from crippled but a lot of food for thought and my reasoning said that calling time had made me factor in a wider range than what was probably reality in hindsight. He continued to play well, untilted for another couple of hours and we actually got on really well after that. In fact, as an aside, with deepstack tourneys, you really do build up relationships with the other players when you spend 6+ hours together in close competitive situations. So that was my first mistake.

The rest of that session is a little bit of a blur, up a little with steals and down a little with blinds. Its funny, overly compnsating for tilt by playing overly conservative is also tilt when the antes are in play. As with money under your mattress that isn't earning interest, with the effect of inflation you are actually going backwards. And so it was with my slide backwards over the next couple of hours with a static chipstack.

Thankfully, they split the table and I could make a fresh start. It's actually quite stimulating to quickly work out what the new table is like. First thing is to look at everyone and assign the stereotypes based on age, gender and dress code. Stack piling is a reliable tell. I even find that my own stack changes with my mood. Messy = loose, Neat = Tight, Anal = Ultra Tight. Table talk is also more data. Within 2 hands the seats beside me were talking about how our end of the table was quiet and the other side was getting all the hands. Sure enough they were stealing away without anyone pushing back. As the new arrival, I wasn't about to start clipping wings. I had 2 big stacks to my left so lay low while I worked out the table. Nothing memorable here, as the blind structure was so big I was eeking away at what I could. By now we were up to $3000/ $6000 with $500 antes, a big whack of my $50K. Still, I managed to steal enough to keep at that level. Once I raised UTG with 99 and got re-raised AI 2 seats later. Reasoning that I was ahead of nothing and coin flipping against AK, I folded preflop. My reasoning was right - he had AK. Still no real need to coinflip but in retrospect it may have been a better option and something I would definitely have done online where cashing means less to me at the stakes that I play.

Down from 39 through to 32 people left (top 10%), the blinds were 5000/10000/500 and I had 42K. We were 7 handed and the blinds were whizzing around. I was conscious that there were 2 stacks that were slighty shorter than me. I looked down and the same A9s from before was looking up at me. I'd been very tight so I wouldn't expect a caller if I pushed now when I could still hurt those on around $100K or less (which was almost the entire table). I made my stand and pushed AI. There was a guy to my left and we'd never warred with each other who would definitely have folded had he not found the same KK (different table) as before that hurt me. Would history repeat, alas, yes. He called and I needed the Ace which never arrived. Had it come, I'd have been on an average stack. As it was, I was going home slightly disappointed. I never threatened the $26K for 1st prize, but should really have limped into 30th spot if I didn't make that move at that time. Regrets, No. It's just poker and better for this to happen here as opposed to next years WSOP. Mulling it over on the drive home was a lot shorter than being tired and alone on a 747 from LA.

Stepping back, my goal was to cash and I bubbled. Over time, I've learned online to attack the bubble. I didn't and whilst I maintaned my chip count, the increasing blinds every 40 minutes left me with fewer and fewer options while I relied on a war of attrition that I wasn't in control of. In the end, I was very aware that I was taking a chance and on this occassion it didn't pay off. A9 vs KK twice. A look at the clock showed another coincidence, 12:30am. Exactly 12 hours from the first hand was dealt. I'm sure that the next few days will bring some clarity about the positives to be extracted as I outlasted 288 other players including a number of pros. There were no 'pub' soft spots at any of my tables. On the contrary, almost everyone that I played against was a Star City regular or very competent online player. The quality made it all the more enjoyable and has left me more confident for the future. I didn't adjust well to the high ante structure at the end and watched as others picked up blind after blind. Something I need to think about and then act upon in future tournies.

I unwound for 30 minutes watching Jeff Lisandro playing Omaha. These guys are at such a different level. It was $25/$25 5-handed. The big stack was a youngish guy from Montenegro (now living in Perth) with over $100K on the table. Lisandro was average with over $50K. There weren't any particular hands that stood out, just the routine way that they casually tossed in $500 chips that looked like humbugs.

Ah well, enough self-ruminating. I look forward to stumbling across this post again when I am old and at one with life ...