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.
