Hello world!!! (yes, I've been programming lately...) It's been a while, let's get to business.
I've heard that this year's Montreal Open, which used to be sponsored by Full Tilt, is now going to be the Montreal Party Poker Classic (I don't think I need to say who the sponsor is). I've been having some good cash-game live results, so my bankroll is ready to play in it. So I decided to prepare by playing in 3 live tournaments, since I haven't played a live tourney in a while.
Tonight was tourney #1: The $100+$10+$5 deepstack "turbo" at www.playgroundpoker.ca. It's the first time I played this tourney. I say "turbo", because I think this tourney plays less fast than their $50+$10+$5 regular. The regular plays with 20 minute blinds and a 16k starting stack (after the dealer add-on) and the turbo is 15 minute blinds, but the starting stack is 30k.
My goal was to be a little less active than normal. I like to open pots, and raise a lot, but my experience has been that you still end up with a lot of callers. So you really have to get a piece of the flop, because if you c-bet with air, someone's calling and you can't tell if they have top-pair, bottom-pair, draw or what. I definitely achieved my goal. I played very few hands early, and yet, I still got plenty of called when I raised, with usually some much better than average holdings.
By the first break I had chipped up to around 40k, but more importantly, I felt like I had a good feel for the players at my table, since I spent more time watching them play than playing myself. I got moved to a second table when I ran pretty good, and was able to get good value on some strong hands. I managed to chip up to 90k by the second break.
After that break, it didn't take long to get moved to my third table. I had a decent stack relative to the field, with 40 out of 75 left, but my new table had 3 players who seriously dwarfed my stack. So even though I had 90k at the 1k/2k/200 level, I knew that I wanted to stay tight. But, I started getting cards. I called a raise in middle position with 22 trying to out flop the chip leader, and missed. Then I raised middle position with 99, got 3 callers. Flopped 943 2 spades, and bet about 1/3 of the pot, but everyone folded. I got QhQc a few hands later in early position, and since I was active, I had a good feeling there was going to be a 3-bet to my raise (4.6k). Two to my left, moved all for 41k, and I snap called as I didn't expect any one to bet AA or KK that way. He had AkKh, and out flopped me big time with Kc7h3h. I didn't hit a Q on the turn or river, so I was now down to 56k. About 7 hands later, I called a raise (6k @ 1.2k/2.4k/200) from the chip leader with AA in middle position. I had the other 2 big stacks, and the guy who doubled with AK, in the 3 seats to my left. I felt there was a good chance someone might pull a squeeze play, and sure enough the SB did. He raised to 15k total. The original raiser folded, and I stalled, pretended to think and then raised to 35k. He thought for about 15 seconds and then moved me all in. I snap called, and he said "You have Aces don't you". I showed them. The dealer peeled the cards for the flop, and the door card was a 7. Fuck. The next card out was an Ace! Sweet, A73 flop, 4 turn, case 7 river! Fuck me! Beaten by quads.
While it sucks to go out that way, I actually feel really good about the way I played. I plan on going once per week over the next two weeks, and I want to continue and build on the way I played today.
The MPPC is going to have a ton of weak, charity type of players there, so the key will be to get the most value from them, before they spew their chips at the table.
