Sometimes you just can’t seem to find the gear and get it into reverse instead of first.
No matter how hard you try and wiggle it in there, the clutch pushed right to the floor it just isn’t working.
I’ve really been mixing up the game lately.
Tried the 300 chip super knockout tournament. You want to work on you final table skills and what it takes to push a hand? Well this is the place to do it. You start with just 300 chips and blinds are already at 15/30. It’s almost guaranteed that there is going to be someone going all in pretty much the first 20 hands or so. Anyways I get knocked out early in a couple of these, AA vs 77, KK vs AK, QQ vs 88 but I can’t really blame people in this one because you are so short to start you really have to just close your eyes and hit the all in button. There is very little time to ever see a flop and just picking your spot is very important.
Playing in a couple different shootouts tournaments, both the 36 and 81 person version. These tournaments start with a 6 tables of 6 players or 9 tables of nine and play down to one winner on each table, last man standing so to speak. The tables then reload and play down again to a final winner. My first shot at one of these I came in second on the first table not quite understanding the format and that it was going to restart after. The second time I got to 2nd on the final table. I played a couple of these today and got knocked out very early in all of them with a continuation of bad beats AA vs 77, KK vs AT, AA vs 55, KK vs JJ and KK vs AA vs QQ, okay that one wasn’t bad beat so much as a cooler.
I finally manged to work my way through the first table with some patient play and good hands holding up, playing much of a trapping style than going out and getting the chips. It seems to work well and once we get to heads up I have a slight chip advantage and then really run over my opponent. He didn’t seem to play very well heads up and I took pot after pot from him with a button raise and a c-bet on almost any flop. I guess my tight image worked for me. Finally got him to bluff off all his chips into me when I flopped trips and he was on a pair draw.
The final table was crazy aggressive right off the hop and I tried to just stay out of the way for the most part. I had to make a pretty big lay down which was about half of my stack on a hand I was 90% was a bluff, but as long as you are alive you can win so I made it and went to work getting them back. Wasn’t too long when 77 goes all in ahead of me and I smooth call with AA, get a big stack to go over the top and re raise me with 78 and I take down a big pot, knock one guy out and get chipped up. I let the other guys fight it out as they seem have a pretty aggressive strategy and get heads up with a 2-1 chip disadvantage. It isn’t too long though before I work that back to even when he bluffs into me all in with Q8 and I call him with KK andget a slight chip advantage. He had a habit of using the all in button a lot which worked when he had the big stack, but I was hoping he would continue the trend with the smaller stack and sure enough he did. Very often he would go all in whenever I limped on the button so when I got AQ I decided to try to work some magic. I limped in and sure enough he shipped it in the middle and I snapped called. He turns over A3 and can’t hit his three and I take it down. FINALLY! Now A3 is a pretty good hand heads up but his all bet represented about 40 times the big blind. A bit overkill in a limped pot. I think it is Doyle that said “don’t go broke in an unraised pot.”
Very big win for me and between the two of them the bankroll zips back up. I’m only a couple more victories from being able to take shots at the next level and now have 3 extra tournaments I have won entries into with my satellite victories. Tomorrow will be a rest day though as I have a huge day with work so I will have to get back on the horse on Wednesday.