Event 1 (several rants in this post)

Well that was disappointing. Played the $500 today, it got 159 people, paid top 16, $20k for 1st. The field from what I saw was ridiculously soft, some decent players but very few I recognized. Blinds started at 25/25 with 5k chips, but it quickly became a crapshoot with only 30 minute levels and a lot of missed ones.

First level nothing of note happened, played my first interesting hand at 25/50. A guy who'd been pretty tight opened to 125 from MP, guy calls in hijack, I call in the cutoff with Jh8h, bb calls. Everyone has around 5k. Flop is J6h2h and the bb leads 250. I think here he basically has a bunch of weakish hands "finding out where he's at" and some really strong ones that he's bet/3betting and since my hand doesn't do all that well vs those, my plan is to just call if it's folded to me. Now the pfr makes it 700. I try to decide a bet size that will get him to fold an overpair the most and make it 1925. BB now tanks for a while and folds (said he had J2 suited after) and then pfr tanks and folds AA.

Don't do much for a while, then raise ATo in the CO, older guy shoves ~12bb's and just the way he shoved I really didn't think he had a huge hand so I call and he shows K6s but gets there to knock me down around 3500. I think his shove is pretty good really since I'm probably raise/folding to him more than most but man a lot of people in this tournament are really bad about broadcasting their hands. More on this later. Next hand I play young guy who seems to play weird limps sb, I shove 3900 at 150/300 with A9o, he calls A7s and I hold to get some chips. Go card dead for a bit to get back down around 6k, then hold AQ>AJ, resteal with KQo and have a cbet work to get up to 18k at the next break.

Random aside: For some reason in this tournament they decided that antes were good but they should be just ridiculously small. At one point we were playing 500/1500 with a 50 ante. I mean at that point the time spent dragging in the antes, making change, figuring out who didn't ante, etc. is just not worth it. Either have real antes or just don't bother.

Get moved to a new table and start winning pots right away, resteal a couple times, cbet a bunch and get up around 30k. Blinds at this point are getting pretty huge, 500/1500 with average around 20k. I raise/fold down around 22k, then shove 33 over 3 limpers to get that back. Pretty sure one guy made a horrendous fold, he made it sound like he folded 99 or something. Get up around 50k somehow, then sb (who's somewhat aggro and seems goodish with 50k as well) open limps sb and I make it 4600 with AcJc. He calls and the flop comes JdTd2. He check/calls 5800. Turn 8, he checks and I think a bit and check behind. Basically I just decided that he's really likely to bluff the river if he has diamonds, may not call two streets with a random J (but will probably vbet a bunch of rivers) and I just don't know how to react to a raise. Against some guys it's an easy fold, some easy call but I don't really want to put a ton of chips in in closeish spots in a tournament this soft. Betting may still be better but anyways, river comes 6h and he bets 7k. With this betsize I think I have the best hand ~100% of the time, so I make it 17k hoping he's a hero with whatever but he folds.

Then I raise the CO with AJs, some guy shoves like 30k at 1k/2k, I call and he shows Q6o. I just don't get stuff like this, he'd been really tight up until now and I wasn't getting out of line at all. I mean his shove is probably not that bad vs me but I really think his thought process was more: "I'll show this young kid who's boss" instead of "I think he's raise/folding a bunch". Like I think in the same spot he might fold AT but this time decided to "go after me". Anyways, so he shoves, and I say something like "I'm probably calling but can I get a count to make sure?" and he replies "I HOPE you call" all confident like. I think a lot of these people should stick to online...:)

Anyways, this gets me up to around 100k and after winning a flip vs a super short stack I have around 115k and am by far the chip leader. There's around 25 left at this point and average is something like 40k. It's been a while since I've had chips on a live bubble but this one was a lot of fun. It also helped that everyone but the guy to my left had <10bbs so I just shoved constantly, restole once and had around 170k when the bubble burst. There were 795k chips in play, average was 50k and I'm quite sure no one else had 100k, so things were looking alright :) Unfortunately I decided to stop winning all ins.

Started out by calling a 2.5x shove with QJ in the sb, bb with 4x had AK, other guys shows JJ and I don't get there. The next hand is the one that really sucks. Folds to button who's the decent aggro guy from the AJ hand. BB is absurdly nitty and has like 5bb. Anyways, button opens to 12.5k at 3/6, pretty sure he's opening near any 2 here, I have K8s and shove ~80k effective. BB folds and button says "damn, haven't looked yet", looks at his hand and is like "hm, I actually have a hand...did you see me not look?" I didn't, but decide answering is probably not a great idea. Anyways, he tanks for a while and eventually after a really long time calls with 88. The whole table is shocked by his call and go on about how great it is, except the one guy who says "I knew you had garbage" as if I would only shove bad hands there. I just can't comprehend how 13bb deep you can blind raise the button and then have a decision with 88 vs someone who isn't mind numbingly horrible (maybe I'm giving myself too much credit?). It's weird because I get the feeling he's pretty decent/good but just when stacks get short really doesn't like to put all his chips in.

Anyways, I don't get there and am back down around 80k. I shove a few times and have around 100k when we get to the final table, around average with blinds at 5k/10k. Despite it being a huge crapshoot, pretty sure I have a huge edge at this point because people are making just ridiculous folds at this point. Generally speaking as blinds get bigger your edge decreases because there's less room to play, but vs most of these people the opposite might be true. Luckily the other guy who seems pretty good with short stacks is two to my left but unfortunately after he loses a pot I double him up after he shoves 40k and I lose AQ < A5. This gets me down to 60k, and over the next couple orbits I shove J9s, 86s, KQo and, A5o and get folds everytime to hover around 65-70. Then 7 handed it folds to me on the button, I shove 65k at 6k/12k with T8s and the bb (aggro guy from AJ/88 hands) tanks FOREVER and says a bunch of stuff about someone having to stand up to me and gamble etc. before calling with Q9o. He had a lot of chips at this point which is too bad because I'm 99% sure he'd fold if it was a decent chunk of his chips, but I don't get there and bust 7th for $2500.

Pretty disappointing given how many chips I had with 16 left and the edge I think I have against that field but oh well. Also frustrating that over my last 5 final tables I now have a 5th, 5th, 7th, 8th and 9th. Not the way to make money in tournaments! Hopefully my luck will change tomorrow with the 5k heads up. Sorry for all the ranting, hopefully at least a few people got through the whole thing.

Steve