Deep Stack
On Friday night, I settled down for what was hopefully going to be a long night of poker. The focus game at PL was a deep stack event with starting chips of 5000 and blind levels of 15 minutes! I'd never played a deep stack before but thought patience would be the key. A lot of others appeared not to think so though! And within about half hour about a quarter of 208 field had been eliminated. Me - well I was languishing on about 4000 chips having chased a flush which missed!
However, patience was the key and soon I had got myself up to about average stack whilst playing only premium hands. I then reached the money (top 20) whilst sitting about 11th I think, when I was dealt QQ in late position. There was one early raiser and a caller, both of whom I had covered so I pushed all in. Both called - DOH! The early man showed 99 and I can't recall what the other hand was - nothing I was particularly bothered about. Much to my annoyance the pair of 99's made a straight on the river (isn't it always!) to put a severe dent in my stack. Now in times gone by I would have probably shoved it all in on my next marginal hand and been out in the late teens. However, I decided patience definitely was the key and waited and eventually got my stack back up and when we reached the final table I was comfortable in about 4th.
With 8 remaining I get dealt QQ again. There was an early raiser to 2BB. One caller after that and I flat called too. Everyone else folded round to the big blind who shoved all in. The initial raiser folded, the caller pushed all in too and so did I (again having them both covered). I was not too displeased to see I was up against AK and AQ. Thinking that realistically only 2 aces and 3 kings could beat me and rather hoping that the initial raiser who had folded had some of those cards. Nothing on the flop, a blank turn and then........ an ace on the river (isn't it always!!!) The guy who took the pot was a huge chip leader with only about 7 left and I was thinking "that should be me!"
Anyway, again I didn't tilt and patiently built my stack up again until there were 4 left. I disposed of 4th place with KK which then left me chip leader with 3 left! Eventually I got HU with the guy who had rivered me. We were fairly even (I led about 600k v 450k) but the blinds were still very low in comparison. We played HU for about half hour and then hit the 5th break, the time showing 1.05am! About 15 min later the final hand came. I had called a raise with KK. The flop was QTx. He bet out, I raised and he re-raised all in to which I gladly called. He showed (rather surprisingly) 33 and neither hand improved and I had won the tourney! And with it set another PB - the second time in two weeks.
It's been a rather good March. :-)
However, patience was the key and soon I had got myself up to about average stack whilst playing only premium hands. I then reached the money (top 20) whilst sitting about 11th I think, when I was dealt QQ in late position. There was one early raiser and a caller, both of whom I had covered so I pushed all in. Both called - DOH! The early man showed 99 and I can't recall what the other hand was - nothing I was particularly bothered about. Much to my annoyance the pair of 99's made a straight on the river (isn't it always!) to put a severe dent in my stack. Now in times gone by I would have probably shoved it all in on my next marginal hand and been out in the late teens. However, I decided patience definitely was the key and waited and eventually got my stack back up and when we reached the final table I was comfortable in about 4th.
With 8 remaining I get dealt QQ again. There was an early raiser to 2BB. One caller after that and I flat called too. Everyone else folded round to the big blind who shoved all in. The initial raiser folded, the caller pushed all in too and so did I (again having them both covered). I was not too displeased to see I was up against AK and AQ. Thinking that realistically only 2 aces and 3 kings could beat me and rather hoping that the initial raiser who had folded had some of those cards. Nothing on the flop, a blank turn and then........ an ace on the river (isn't it always!!!) The guy who took the pot was a huge chip leader with only about 7 left and I was thinking "that should be me!"
Anyway, again I didn't tilt and patiently built my stack up again until there were 4 left. I disposed of 4th place with KK which then left me chip leader with 3 left! Eventually I got HU with the guy who had rivered me. We were fairly even (I led about 600k v 450k) but the blinds were still very low in comparison. We played HU for about half hour and then hit the 5th break, the time showing 1.05am! About 15 min later the final hand came. I had called a raise with KK. The flop was QTx. He bet out, I raised and he re-raised all in to which I gladly called. He showed (rather surprisingly) 33 and neither hand improved and I had won the tourney! And with it set another PB - the second time in two weeks.
It's been a rather good March. :-)
posted by Hodgey at 5:05 PM
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