2009-05-07

20+2 USD 6-handed tournament - review

As I promised yesterday, I will describe in my blog about yesterday's 20+2 USD entry fee 6-handed tournament.
I wished to make that earlier today, but I spent my day to enjoy the last day of the official holidays here.

I didn't get into the money and finished 61st out of 216 participants after 3 hours play. As I said yesterday, the tournament was with deep stack of 5,000 chips and long blind level structure - 30 minutes per level.



(click on the picture to enlarge it)

As general I played very tight in this tournament. During the last 3 days before the tournament I felt that I am playing very good poker. My opinion about my play in this tournament is that my performance confirmed my feelings. Actually I lost my place in the tournament in one hand, which you can see in the link below:

My AJs lost against AKo in my last hand in the tournament

Actually my AJs didn't give me chance against opponent's AKo and Ace on the flop. The interesting fact for me was that this hand was number 200 in the tournament. I saw that until I reviewed my hand history of this tournament. I remember a tournamnet which I played almost 2 years ago and finished 4th place. In this tournament I was 2nd out of 4 left players with almost 35-40% of the chips on the table. The chip leader had some chips more than me, the other 2 players were shorstacks. In this tournament I had AQ and pushed all-in against the chip leader. He shown AT and won with ten on the river. The parallels with this tournament is only that the number of this hand in the tournament was hand number 500. The difference was that in this tournament I didn't receive any help from the community cards and I left tournament on 61st place.

If I should make more parralels between those 2 tournaments - in yesterday's I felt that I am playing better poker than in the tournament when I finished 4st and got over 1400 dollars (it was with 5,50 dollars enttry fee if I remember right). Yes, thats the true. In those 2 years in my poker career I learnt a lot of hand and probably my profits decreased, I learnt the main lesson of my "poker education". I think I did.

Back to the tournament... In first hour I dropped from 5,000 to 4,000 chips. My most important hand in this level was when I got AK on the button. SB called me. We both checked the flop. Probably I had to put some agression on the flop with any c-bet? Probably. You can see the description of the hand below and to post your comment if you want:

Level 1 (10/20) - AK on the button

During the next level (15/30 blinds) I kept my chips and finished the first hour playing with about 4,300 chips.

The second hour started with blinds 25/50. 30 minutes with almost no action for me and my stack dropped to 2,700 chips in the end of the level.

The situation was not so good because when the blinds went up, I actually started the level with stack of 27 big blinds only.

Five hands later I doubled up my stack when I got QQ on the middle position. The opponent got open straight draw after the flop and called my flop/turn bets through all-in from me. No help from the community and my stack doubled up. The description of the hand:

Level 4 (50/100) QQ doubled up my stack

It wasn't be all for this level of blinds. Two hands later when I was on the button I got AA. MP raised but fold after my re-raise. My stack went up to 5,990 chips after this hand and I felt more comfortable. During the fight on this level of blinds I kept my stack and in the end of the level my stack went up to 7,265 chips when I got pair of sevens on cut-off position. Flop 753 and I got trips. Big blind raised, I re-raised and he folded. The hand:

Level 4 (50/100) Trips on cut-off position

Second break came and I felt very comfortable with my stack before the raise of the blinds.

The important hand for me in next level of blinds (75/150) came when I tried to bust short-stack with my T8s (clubs) from cut-off position. The short-stack had KQo. He got mixed feelings after the flop when he made 2 pairs but both cards King and Queen were clubs. No other club on turn and river and my stack dropped to 5,452 chips.

Level 5 (75/150) Tried to bust the short stack from cut-off

The small revenge was later (blind levels 100/200) when with JJ from SB position I got some chips from the same player:

Level 6 (100/200) JJ vs. 22

During the play of this level my stack came to 7,777 chips until the last hand of the tournament which I described first.

61th place out of 216 (36 players in the money) was not my best result, but after the tournament I felt good. Because after 3 hours playing I made mistakes, I wasn't agressive enough, but kept my attention in the play and tried my best, regarding the hands and opponents, to play for the first place.

This time it doesn't happen. But next time I will be close.

The other news from this tournament is that I prepared full video with my playing. I will post it as soon as it possible and I will write when it is done in the blog.

Thank you for your time to read all above about this tournament.

I have some ideas for my playing (cash and tournaments) starting from tomorrow. I will share it with you very soon.

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