Thursday, July 3, 2008

Level 3 update

On a 90 minute dinner break and I've taken a hit. Down to 23,350.

My new table is more aggressive than the last one and I found out the hard way. 2 hands stood out this level.

First one and aggressive player to my right raised preflop and I called with QJ. Flop gave me top pair and I thought he was bluffing. Ended up with 2 pair but he outkicked me.

Second hand was a standard raise from a tight Asian player in middle position. I called with QJ suited. Flop comes J-6-6. He fire a weak bet. I raise and he comes over the top. I reluctantly folded showing my jack. I had him on a higher pocket pair.

Be back in a few hours

3 comments:

C.S. said...

Keep playing smart. Those guys will pay you off after the break.

Goondingy said...

Congrats but I gotta shoot you some constructive criticism on what you said in this post. I'm not world class but I got a taste of a 10,000 buy in a few years ago and learned a lot of lessons but one thing that I always take with me when i play tournaments small stack or deep stack is when I call can I outplay this guy? If not or I do have a good feel yet go back to true practices and processes. Gap concept, terminology may be off a bit, but if you have a guy raising in early position what do you put them on, what range of hands? Big Ace and better right? Well, are you confident with the QJ? Nope, you're HOPING that you hit something and get paid off, but usually when a hand like that works out, the aggressor in these tourneys can get away from it. Basically you have got to figure out what range of hands you can call to have a very good chance to beat them. If you felt QJ was in that range cool, but I do not believe that hand is good to call with an early position raise and you do not have a good feel yet especially in deep stack tourneys. Now if you opened with that hand different story but calling with it, not a good play. So if you thought about it how many times did you make a call with these speculative hands and how many times did you have to fight or lay them down? Short stack tourneys with quicker time limits allow you to play those hands. Now, please understand that this is my opinion but when I saw that you called an aggressive player with this hand, all I said to myself was that "I bet he HOPES he hits with that hand," as the dealer flopped the cards. Hope you had fun and sorry I was not there this year to stop you from going out there. Hope you make it back next year...I'll be here to take ya down! Just jealous of you is all! PEACE and LOVE!

Tom said...

I appreciate the feedback and you're right, I was hoping to catch a hand. This particular player had gone the whole tournament to this point without getting to the river because he bet everyone out of pots. He was tight but when he played a hand, overly aggressive. No one could get a read on him. I was hoping with my raise after his continuation bet, he lay down or at a minimum call. In hindsight, by raising he probably knew I didn't have a 6 and I should have just called, saw another card, and tried to play at him after the turn or river. Smooth calling may have made him nervous.

Or like you suggested, a better play would have been to fold preflop. :)