My Epic Vegas Trip - Day 7

Wednesday July 8 – Main Event Day 2

Introduction

So I entered Day 2 with 32800 in chips, a mere 2800 chips more than I had started with on Day 1. Despite this, when I found my table, I discovered a rather remarkable fact: I was 4th in chips! Not only that, I was barely behind the chipleader on our table – he only had about 40,000! Our table was also right in the back corner of the room, causing one of the players to remark “this is where they leave the shortstacks to die…”

Having shortstacks at your table is actually a good thing in tournaments, and this was to be the first in a series of fortuitous table draws for myself. Indeed my luck throughout the tournament came not in the form of sucking out left, right and centre or winning every flip I came across – rather, it was getting incredibly good table draws throughout the tournament and never running into any big cooler situations.

Anyway, I had gone into Day 2 fully expecting this to be my last day, not only because of my underwhelming chipstack but because roughly half the field is eliminated by the end of Day 2. So my goal was basically to get through to Day 3 and anything beyond that would be a bonus.

Online Player Guns for Me

The day started slowly and I basically maintained parity for the first few levels by frequently 3-betting the initial chipleader, a young and aggressive player two to my right (let’s call him X). Another young player to my direct right (let’s call him Y) caught onto this and when I 3-bet him for the second time in late position he quickly jammed it in on me. I quickly folded, X said “nice one, he’s been 3-betting a lot” and I bent down to pick up a bottle of water. Upon my eyes returning to table level I saw that Y had proudly shown the 3c to the table, quite chuffed with his bluff it seemed.

This I think is where online players go wrong. I have very limited live experience, but it seems that almost every time I do play live, there’s at least one online player at the table who thinks there’s a mini-tournament for best and most aggressive online player at the table. I don’t mind his shove, but showing it is really dumb. If he didn’t show, I would have had to give him credit for a hand and respect his plays in future until shown otherwise, but now I basically know he’s one of the above types of players.

So a few orbits later Y opens the button and I 3-bet out of position for the first time all day – with QQ from the small blind. He thinks for a bit and calls. I’m pretty ecstatic because I just know that this guy doesn’t realise my out of position 3-betting range is infinitely tighter than my in position one. I may be short relative to the average stack, but I still had plenty of big blinds such that 3-betting out of position could get me into some really sticky situations. Anyway the flop comes down 234r and I bet pretty big for value, about 3/4 pot since nothing folds this flop except whiffed JTs type hands. He calls and the turn comes a 6, completing the straight and bringing a backdoor flush. I don’t think I can bet two streets now and get called by worse so I check to him. He quickly bets about 6000, essentially putting me to a decision for my tournament as I only have about 22000 left and there’s still one more street to play. A few things go through my head. First, he’s basically polarised his range to a 5 or nothing, and although he’s probably wanting to outplay me at all costs, I don’t think that even he can play so fundamentally incorrectly that he’d have many 5s in his range after calling a 3-bet with relatively shallow stacks. So I basically decide that I’m going with the hand then and there. The second thing that goes through my head though is unexpected: “Man, I’m going to look like the quintessential donk who can’t fold an overpair if I’m wrong here and stack off on a four-straight board. And man, this is the Main Event… I don’t want to be eliminated!” Before these thoughts can overcome me too much though, I stick the rest of my money in. In actuality, the best line is probably check-call turn and check-call river (although it’s definitely close with QQ compared to say AA where c/c twice is clearly best) but in the heat of the moment I made a mistake and shoved it all-in.

After I say “all-in” I await the snap-call and when I don’t hear it within 3 seconds I’m basically doing fist-pumps in my head and rolling around in ecstasy. Haha, got you! Then he keeps thinking for a good minute and I’m starting to worry. It doesn’t seem like a Hollywood anymore; am I actually trying to bluff him off a set? I think he would call a set pretty quickly if he does have one since I can’t have many 5s in my range either.

Anyway eventually he calls and shows KTs…for the turned backdoor flush. Right…

So I’m a 75% favourite to double up to 60,000 and be above average for the first time in the tournament. I’m also genuinely all-in for the first time – 25% of the time I’m going to be out of there! Oh man, the excitement, the pressure…

Fortunately it bricks a J or something and I’m going great guns all of a sudden! Woo!

My opponent was left crippled with about 10 big blinds and busted soon after. I think his undoing was partly the “must be best online player at table and outplay everyone” syndrome that I was talking about before and partly the fact that he butchered that hand pretty badly. Preflop is meh but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. The flop float though I think is atrocious since I can’t think of a worse flop to float on. All of my hands have some interest in this flop, whether I have an overpair, 67s or AK. As I said, only a hand like JTs truly whiffs this flop. In regards to his turn play, I really don’t like his bet once he turns the backdoor flush draw. As I said in my first video, this is a great spot to check it back and realise your equity, and if you would win with a bet on the turn you’re going to win with a bet on the river anyway (unless I river something). The downside of what happens if you bet the turn is pretty big and is what happened here – you get check-raised all-in and have to give up your equity or you have to call off your entire stack on a draw in really ugly fashion. It’s also a spot where doesn’t really know what his equity is so he can’t call it off very comfortably – he could have as much as 15 outs if I have 99 with no heart, or as little as 8 outs if I have AA with a heart. It’s just a really gross spot, and if I was a spaz I could even be shoving here with like AK, and then he’d calling it off behind even though I’m bluffing and in a situation where he could almost certainly win the pot if he checks it back and I brick the river with AK and he stabs.

Weird Line with a Set

Anyway that was actually the only really big hand of the day. The only other interesting one where I wasn’t sure what to do went down as follows. Player X had been doing pretty well and had about 60K as did I. He raised preflop and I called in position with 99. The flop came JT9cc. He bet 3200 into 8200 and my standard here I guess is to raise. I thought about it though and decided that 150 big blinds deep I couldn’t ever really get all-in on this flop and be in great shape. I’d basically be hoping that he was bad enough to stack off JT on that board and even then he still has 4 outs. It’s also awkward because if I raise to 9K, I’m effectively shoving since I can’t fold to any further flop action. He thus has the luxury of essentially knowing that I’ve bet 60K, despite having only bet 3K himself, and he can put in his last 57K only when he feels comfortable. Surely, that is only with a range that has 99 beat? So I decided there was more value to be had by playing a smaller pot and milking his one pair hands which would fold to a flop raise.

The turn came a brick, an offsuit 5, and he checked. Here I made a really unusual play. It’s a board where once he checks he can never be stronger than one pair. In that case he can’t ever call turn AND river unless he improves on the river. This means you can only usually get one more street of value, but usually you want to go for that value on the turn since you can get calls from like 98h or KJ on the turn which may have a great deal of trouble paying you off on various rivers. I decided though to check it back and go for value on the river because I hated the idea of getting check-raised on this board. It wouldn’t happen very often, but when it did it would almost always mean a straight and I’d have to fold my set, a hand that could’ve filled up on the river and won a nice pot, especially since my set is so disguised as he probably would think that I’d raise a set on that wet a flop. I think AA would be an easy bet/fold, but here I hated the idea of bet/folding 99, so I checked. The river was ugly, an offsuit Q, making the final board JT95Q with a whiffed flush draw.

He checked to me and I had to decide whether I could value bet. I had planned to over-bet the river if it bricked since it should look very suspicious to him as all the draws missed and any hand worthy of overbetting the river for value on my part would surely bet the turn. On this river though I could hardly over-bet and expect to be called by worse. I decided that he rarely had a better hand since he would bet any straight on the river since I’ve shown so much weakness and am likely snap-checking this river back. Thus I bet like 3200 into 14600 in the hopes of getting called by a hand like two pair. He grimaced and eventually called. I flipped over my set and he showed A8 to take the pot. Ugh…

End of Day 2 Baby!

Anyway, I did make it through to the end of the day which I was very pleased about. I basically went nowhere after that big pot though and finished the day with 57600 in chips, quite a bit under the average again. We had another day off the following day, but once Day 3 came I knew I would have to seriously start accumulating some chips. I couldn’t tread water forever…