Spencer Lawrence

£550,

I’d been very active early chopping away at some small pots but people playing back hard so was slightly below starting stack. in 3rd level.

Folds to me on the button with 85dd.  I make it 375. BB is youngish guy who seems like a midstakes online player.  He makes it 1100.  I think for a little while and make it 2600.  He flats.  Uh-oh.

Flop: Kd 6d 7x

He checks, I shove not caring if he has the aces anymore as I’m favourite even if called.  He calls with the aces.  Turn Ace, River 6.  I’m crippled dowm to 475.

the £220 was bubbled QQ< 98o for 10% chips in play.

So I have almost 1/3 chips at FT.  The payout structure has the same flaw as stars in that it almost forces you to play for 2nd place.  This irritates me somewhat.  I should clearly tighten my oop ranges and just let chips come to me, attack in position, wait for people to get knocked out and then abuse people 5 handed when cash jumps get big.

I play tight for a while but it stays 9 handed.  emp I see Q5 dd and make my standard open to 25k at 6k/12k.   (given payout and strategical considerations I may have to consider increasing my open size at FTs in future).  BB calls.

Flop 982, 2 spades.  He checks, I cbet 25k.  He thinks and calls.

Turn J putting 2nd flush draw out.  He checks.  I check behind, giving up. 

River Ks.  He leads 25k.  interesting.   I go to make it 100k and one falls off my stack so the raise is to 95k.  He tanks and calls with K8o.

Two hands later I see AJo.  I prefer open-mucking now i think about it but I make it 25k.  Same guy flats on button.  Flop T72 2 diamonds.  I cbet 25k.  He calls after some thought.  Turn Js putting 2nd fd out.  The 1st thought that flashes through my mind is “christ I’m going to finish 9th”.  But I bury it, hitting the OC commits me to the hand.   Now I need to maximise value against his range. 

I bet 75k, he tanks and flats.

River 6s.  If I check it lets him check behind all the hands I beat.  If I bet and he raises me all in I’m going to throw up in my mouth. 

Online I auto ship at this point, but live I don’t think he’s calling any tens to a ship.  I bet 100k, he tanks and calls.

I flip AJ over as the near nizzles.

He turn QQ.  I’m crippled down to 130k and in 7th or 8th.

Not cool.

There were plenty of hands I played well throughout the event, gathering in a huge chip lead again.  I’ve been so focused on working on my early tournament play, accumulation on bubble, etc that I havent paid much attention to final table dynamics.  As this is where so much of the equity rests I’ll put some thought into it to check I’m not making huge errors.  4th, 2nd and now 5th in last few days in various tournaments.  It doesn’t mean theres necessarily a problem with my closing but its a warning to take a look at it.

Turned down deals 9-handed, 6-handed and 5-handed the last of which would have given me £8k. But no seat in the champion of champions. Meh. Yes it’s a crapshoot at that stage but I have a huge skill edge in crapshoot structures that means dealing in general is a bad decision for me.

Need to go eat, but made a couple of strategical errors while still 9 handed on the FT. Back-to-back hands Q5s and AJo. Will post about them later as need to stay awake some so I’m not up too early for the £550 tomorrow

1st day went fine despite hampering ourselves by traveling same day it started after a long online session. So we’d been up 24 hrs when we took a 3 hr nap after checking in to a london hotel that leaves a lot to be desired.

When I finished at 4am as probable chipleader 155k out of 1.7m in play with 40 people left I hadn’t eaten anything since a pasty on the train at 11am.

Sasha finished day on 30k.

Will post hands later as this is the 1st time ive had internet since we got here (3 to the rescue) and need to do more important things like eat and chill

$11400.

Eh.

I know turbos well so was relaxed and confident from being chip leader 400 people out.  Some weird spots later on tho.  In 2nd place with 3 tables left I had Whatis7×6 move to my left as chipleader.   Bye-bye free chips from attacking the blinds in position.  It was complicated further by my having no idea if he knew my FT username and connected me to the player from the O8 HU battles.

Then at FT, I’m in 2nd with 4m, 3-9th have around 1.2m each.  CL has 5m and is on my immediate left.  Are.  You.  Kidding.  Me. 

The payouts seem  more gradual than is usual on FT as well, making it look like a huge ICM error getting in a marginal spot against him.  If he’s on my right I get free chips and very high probability of getting HU. 

Ari pushed in mp and I made a marginal LP call with ATo to see AJo.  1/3 of my stack gone.  I’d be shocked if ATo isn’t good against his range but everyone was pushing much tighter than I would expect all the way through the tourney.  Every time I saw an 8bb utg push (that wasn’t from me) they flipped over a premium hand.

Made a marginal call in BB later with A5s to see the buttons A6o, which obv flopped the 6.  This meant after the shorties busted I was 4/4 and got caught shipping utg for 6 bb with J3o when SB woke with AJs.  Blinds had 10 bb and the CL had 20bb.

It’s a giant crapshoot so I can’t be too hard on myself for not closing it.  Final table is good.  It’s not like I blinded into it - I was active on all the significant bubbles.  The tournament lifestyle is one of constant failure.  It’s mentally tough in a  different way from cash.  It’s wearing.  A rollercoaster of emotion that’s extremely hard to learn to cope with.

Rest now, I’ll feel good about this result in the morning.

Oh talking of blinding into money, with 12 people left I watched a guy fold his BB with 1 bb back, then with half of his 1bb stack in on the sb he folded to my BB.  It was awesome to see.

Sigh.   Keep going very deep in sunday majors with no win.  To quote an older British player, “I’ve been knocking on the door for so long, I’m starting to think there’s no-one home.” 

3rd in the weekly $215 LHE as well on Saturday, which would feel better if I hadn’t had 3/4 of the chips in play 3-handed.  It was part run-bad and part meltdown.  I might post some of the later hands at some point as an example of what not to do. 

London GUKPT side events start Thursday, a little live run-good would be nice.  Disappointed that there is no PLO8 on the schedule now that I’ve finally learned the game.

I found one redeeming feature to my semi-enforced stay in Berlin. Curryworst! This curried sausage snack is delicious, and although the hotel version costs 12 euros, its available for 2 euros on every other street corner (think hot dog stand).

The good thing about the dead days at the end of a european event is that I rest in a way I just don’t at home. But it’s difficult to sincerely spin the vacation into a positive when the cold hard fact remains I’m effectively vacationing in Berlin. I’m struggling to remember ever visiting a more dreary place. It’s also ice-cold.

The stars pro from the jacks hands was Florian something. Early hand back from break, he raises CO I flat from SB with KQdd and bb calls.

Flop 9d 3h 2h.

Interesting. There are a lot of sexy turns here. We check to Florian, he bets 3k, I call, bb folds.

Turn 4h.

I was going to lead fairly big on a heart, but I can’t lead this one big cos I get too many ace heart combos shoved down my throat. Still this is fine, small bet here and take it on a blank river. Not to mention I can still bink a King or Queen. I bet 5k, Florian flats as expected. River is a 6s.

I bet 15k, he tanks and calls with A9o no heart.

I’ve just been a little out of step all tournament. Trying this on a stars pro (who tend to be stationy) isn’t the smartest way to handle business.

I’m at my best in NL when inducing weak bets and bluffs, then snapping them off. Getting into pissing contests with other players is where I’m often wekaest. I have the gear but other people play this game better than I do.

Strategically I should probably stay snug all through day 1 and then open up day 2. But /shrug. Sometime when I start pushing it I’ll gather up a huge stack and be among the chip leaders. Having a stack on the bubble here has to equal tons of free chips.

Chipped up to 30k over next 90 minutes but failed to get any action on AA and AK. Slipped back to 20k and had been active, min raised 66 with 20k at 400/800 75, button who had 3b me a lot made it 4500, I shoved, he snapped with AA and I bricked. Fail

44675 at dinner, pretty much exactly where I started after the last break.  Slurping down a coke before going back was probably a bad idea as I spazzed somewhat during the excitement of antes.  I opened K7s from the co got called by He checks to me.  Against a lot of live players I can go for thin value here knowing I’m never really getting bluff-raised.  Against this clearly competent young kid I should just check behind.  Instead I bet 3k and he check-raises to 9k.  I let it go cursing myself inwardly.  Very next hand I open A3s and manage to lose 3800 ish against 66.  Nice. 

 There’s only one player on my right who I’m confident will fold to my 3bets, so when he makes it 1100, i quickly 3 bet to 2900 with K6o (and he flats oop.  Goddamit.  I drop another 4k to see his J9s had flopped top pair.  This is going wellllll.

Down to 25k I open 22 and see a Q82 flop with 2 spades.  Same players from the K7 hand but this time the youngster has the button.  With my image, if I cant get this all-in I may as well quit life now.  I lead for 1500, he makes it 4200 and after a pause I make it 10k.  He shoves and his AQ doesnt catch me.  Up to 55k.

This guy had been raisining to 900 in ep a lot and suddenly he limps utg.  It folds to me in the small blind with AK.  This is awkward.  Winning tournaments requires getting max-value from your AKs.  But stacking off here would feel horrible.  I complete, knowing theres a high chance of Thorsen raising from the BB.  He obliges and makes it 1600, the youngster now makes it 5600.  I was obviously coming back over the top of Thorsen if the youngster had been messing around, but now I just let it go and feel pretty good about it. 

Table break.  New table is very aggressive.  I 3 bet JJ from the SB vs co with 40bb effective and bet-fold an AQx flop to the german stars team pro who I don’t recognize.

I leave a couple of minutes early to miss the crush and maximise the rest I need from the dinner break.  My chip position isn’t as good as it could be, but it’s fine and I just need to regain my rhythm.

45k, just chipping up in small pots with no major confrontation. Saw a really spazzy XR bluff into a nut flush on the river from someone who flopped top two. The kid was aggressive and seemed to know what he was doing and I get what he was trying to do, but it was obvious his opponent had a decent sized flush and equally obvious the kid didn’t have the nizzles. Trying to get a decent flush to lay down is dubious at the best of times in a live tourney, in a really well structured one when your line makes no sense? yikes.

That said the only double up for me I can see coming from my mostly young table is encouraging a similar spazz-off. My frequent “min-raise +25″ opens seem to be irritating people and getting attacked pretty hard so there is definite potential for something awesome to happen.

Antes kick in when I return from break.