I didn’t last very long on the second day of the £750 freezeout. Managed to win the blinds once when I raised from the cutoff with AQ. The next pot I entered I raised with 88 and got called by the big blind. Flop 9T4 and he moved all in. I passed. Then I picked up 44 in the small blind. The button who I knew was going to raise if everyone passed to him made a raise to 8000 chips and I went all in for 33000 figuring he wouldn’t call. He did with JK. Flop AJJ and that was that. I finished 15th. He ended up winning it ….. The same player the day before had moved all in with 49 for a massive overbet from the small blind and I called with AK in the big blind and he survived. It shows that often luck and not skill is needed to win these tournaments.
I posted this way back on the 8th November. It’s the third big tournament I have been knocked out of with KJ when in the money....
9 comments:
are you gonna post the chip counts for the 200 pl on the forums?didnt think so.....you only did yesterday cos u made the final stages...people like you piss me off
Anon
How could i post the chip counts when a) I didn't play b) I wasn't anywhere near the casino
MUPPET
Anon,
Best to get your facts straight before you shoot your mouth off. You only end up looking stupid......just like you did then in fact!!
Baz
Ben,
You really shouldn't underestimate your opponents. It is one the biggest mistakes in tournament poker.
Alan Vinson was almost certainly the best player coming back for day 2 of this event (Alan McLean who was on my table is very good too, so it's probably close). He obviously put you on a resteal and decided with what he had put in, your 33,000 and all the blinds and antes he was getting sufficient pot odds to call (sounds like he was getting over 2-1 which is enough to call if you have any hand apart from AA or KK).
Ben,
Sometimes you seem so much like me when I was younger, you're slimmer of course and prolly more handsome, ok you are more successful too.
But it is easy to overestimate a good player's edge. In actual fact, the edge a good player has is ridiculously small.
The natural escalation of that thinking is the kind of mess that seems to have crippled Hellmuths game of late. Paul Philips says it best. He says his edge is making the call, not passing it.
FWIW, the Harrington book has lots of examples where he is making what would often seem like "better to pass and wait for a better spot" calls. One in particular where he calls off his entire stack with KJs preflop.
gl
dd
Camel
I take your point on board about underestimating my opponent. It was a mistake that I made against a Scandinavian player in Deauville which caused my exit there.
Sure I guess he was nearly getting 2/1 for his money…. and whilst his call put him slightly behind there were a number of hands (AA, KK, QQ, JJ, JA, QK or KA) I could conceivably had which would have made it a bad call….. Everyone plays differently though but I would not put my tournament at risk with JK even if I the pot odds pointed to a call if I thought I still had enough chips to wait for a better spot.
Also I don’t normally say whether a player plays well or badly during a tournament but I certainly wasn’t impressed with Alan Vinson. Maybe I haven’t sat with him enough to admire his good plays. He had been clearly riled that I had outplayed him on a couple of hands during the tournament and showed him bluffs. At one point he raised something like 12000 all in from the small blind with 49 when my big blind was either 600 or 800. Either way in my opinion this is a terrible play. By raising 15-20 times the big blind you are going to win a very small pot quite often or be a very big dog in a large pot if you get called. I had AK and called and he survived.
I guess my frustration is born out of the fact that the two big pots he played against me he won which he had approximately a 17% chance. Hence my comment about the luck needed to win tournaments……
Well judging by the amount of sandwiches that B & M players eat over long poker sessions the slimmer won't be lasting much longer ;-)
Hmmm maybe its one thing that i need to adjust within my game. When i have say 30000 chips and i commit a third of them on a marginal raising hand such as QK or a medium/small pocket pair late in tournaments. I often let them go and "wait" for a better spot when my pot odds should point to a call.
I know what you mean about the small edge thing. In the big tournaments i often sit there thinking, "Why am i better than the players sitting around me on this table?" Quite often when the skill differential is negligible it just comes down simply to who gets the cards/luck.
Ben
Ben ur spot on about vinsen, he gets well riled about younger guys beating him or outplaying him. He was well pissed off when i knocked him out off the tourney i won, wouldnt even shake my hand - the hand was - i made a standard mid position raise with AK, he moved all-in near the button for what was next to nothing to me (as i was big chip leader) with AJ and was pissed that i called and he lost. The guy has some sort of im older-so-i-must-be-better complex. Let him keep playin that way!
Keep the form going man! I luv readin ur blog but dammmit i havent played poker in 3 months now and im seriously itching!!!
U gotta come for a poker hol to aus soon man!!!
good luck from the Traveller!
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