$2500 Shorthanded

Well, this tournament went a hell of a lot better than the first one. I got off to a great start and it was a roller coaster the rest of the way. The field was pretty strong, but with over 800 people there were obviously a lot of weak players.

My first table had Brett Jungblutt (WSOP bracelet in Omaha), John Duthie (no idea who he is except that he's on Team Pokerstars) and John Gale (won the PCA the year before I did). Our table broke after a few hands, so I never really got to see how they played.

My new table looked pretty good. Eric Froelich (youngest player to win a bracelet; won a limit event last year) was the only person I recognized. We started with 2500 at 25/25 blinds so this event had a little more play than the last one. On to some hands I guess.

Hand 1: ~2500 chips, 25/25 blinds

I raise 98s to 75 from the CO, button calls as does the bb. Flop J75r. bb checks, I bet 150 and the button calls. The button is too loose and likes to call a lot from what I've seen. Turn T. I bet 300, he immediately grabs raising chips and makes it 900. If I was in position I might call, but here I decide to push. I do some "thinking" and push for 1500 more. He thinks a bit and calls with KQ(???). Thankfully he misses and I'm over 5k early.

Hand 2: ~5000 chips, 25/50 blinds.

Froelich lost a huge pot with Ax vs AJ on a AAJ88 board and is down to 575. So he's basically pushing or folding. He pushes in the CO and I call in the sb with 99. bb repushes for 1600 total. I call. Froelich shows 88 and bb shows 77 (pretty much the best situation I could possibly hope for). My hand holds and I'm over 7k.

Hand 3: ~7000 chips, 25/50 blinds

Devilfish gets seated to my left and immediately starts raising and reraising liberally, which pretty much sucks. I limp in the sb with 84o and he makes it 150. I call, as much to show that I'm not just going to let him run over me as anything else. Flop Q43, check check. Turn A. I check, he bets 175, I call. River 8. I check, he bets 600. The 8 is pretty much useless now, this is usually a big hand or a bluff. I tell him I don't like to fold, and he says he knew I was going to call. I call. He shows KJ and I take the pot.

Hand 4: ~11000 chips, 25/50 blinds

I've won a lot of little pots and have probably as many chips as the rest of the table. A guy who limps a lot limps, button limps, I limp in the sb with QT and bb checks. Flop T32. Checked to limper who bets 300, I call. Turn 6 or something, I check, he bets 400, I call. River Q. I bet 650, he pushes for 900 more and I unhappily call. He has 33, and I lose a pretty big pot.

Hand 5: ~15k chips, 100/200 blinds

I won a couple decent pots I don't remember the details of. Some guy gave me his chips with 99 on a Q42 flop when I had AA, and I had a flush get paid off. Now it's folded to the button who makes it 300. He's pretty tight and gives up easily. The sb calls. He hasn't been here too long, seems a little too loose preflop but pretty normal postflop. I later find out this is all wrong and he's a complete calling station who must have just missed a ton of flops to this point. Anyways, I call in the bb with 76o. Flop Q84r. This is a pretty damn good board to bluff at so I lead 1200. Button instantly folds, but sb calls. Turn 2 or something. Sb checks and I bet 2k. He calls. River complete blank. He checks, I bet 5500 and he calls after like 2 seconds with...QTo...uggh. I'm not entirely sure how he calls there, there isn't even a draw of some kind I could have missed. Basically I need to have fired three barrels with absolutely nothing, which I've done maybe twice in my life. Anyways, so that sucked.

Hand 6: ~7000 chips, 100/200/25.

I've stolen a ton of blinds since losing that big pot, and I'm back in it. utg (sb from last hand) raises to 600, I call with AQs, bb calls too. Flop QTx. utg bets 1100, and I overbet push for ~6500. Basically I don't think he'll fold anything resembling a hand and I don't want to let any scary cards come to kill the action. He calls with KQ and I get my chips back.

Hand 7: ~10k, 100/200/25

I've somehow lost a bunch of chips, can't remember how. utg raises to 600. He has almost exactly the same stack as me. He plays pretty well, a little on the loose side. I make it 1800 with QQ. He calls. I flop my first (and only) set while I've been in Vegas on the QTx flop. He check-raises all-in and I hold up against J9.

Nothing too exciting happens at 150/300/50 and I get to the dinner break with about 16500. I met a couple people from twoplustwo for dinner, so that was fun. I'm really pretty happy about my table at this point, although there's a seat open to my left, so it depends a lot on who sits there.

Of course as I come back, I see Patrik Antonius walking behind me. He sits to my left...great...for those who don't know him, he's quite possibly the best shorthanded no limit player online, and has an excellent live tournament record as well. He's known for being super aggressive. On the plus side he only has about 10k in chips. It was pretty funny really, he came with 2 racks of chips (which is a ton) but a rack and a half of them were the green 25's...meaning he's been buying the blinds constantly. So he sits down at the table and wins 5 of the first 6 pots, including a double up. So now he's got plenty of chips. From then on, he runs the table better than anyone I've ever seen. Very aggressive and frankly pretty terrifying to play against. I only played one big pot against him.

Hand 8: ~15k, 200/400/75

Frequent limper limps utg. I limp in the CO with 6d5d and Anotnius limps on the button. Flop Td9d6x. Checked to me and I bet 1400, hoping Antonius will raise so I can 3bet allin. He calls and everyone else folds. Turn 6. I check, planning to check-raise allin. He checks behind. River Jd. I bet 1700, trying to make what looks like a blocking bet and planning to call a raise. He thinks a couple seconds and calls...with 8d4d...damn.

Now we're getting close to the bubble and I have an awful stack given Antonius is behind me. He frequently calls my raises and takes away more than his share of them. Thankfully the table finally breaks (and we make the money) and I get moved to a much nicer table. Unfortunately I'm now down around 8000 and the blinds are up to 300/600/75. The only player I recognize at my new table is Gavin Griffin, but he's to my right. I buy the blinds a bunch and knock out a super short stack when AKs>55. So I'm at about 16k when this hand comes up.

Hand 9: 16k, 300/600/75

New guy sits down and his first hand raises utg to 1700. I make it 5500 with JJ. He immediately calls when it gets back to him. Flop A72...uggh. He checks and I check behind. I'm not necessarily folding to a turn bet at this point. Turn T...TT is one of the few hands he can have that I beat, so that's a pretty awful card. He bets 4k and I have 10k left. I disgustedly fold after a fair bit of thought.

Hand 10: 10k, 400/800/100

With the big antes and a 6-handed table, I'm going to be pushing a wide range. UTG I get A7o. Not an ideal hand to push with, but I think it's still a good push. Unfortunately the button has AKs and I'm out in 75th or so.

Anyways, overall it was a fun tournament, although it was a little disapointing to get so many chips early and not really do much with them.

Steve