WCOOP Final Table!
After 14.5 hours, I managed to take 3rd out of 1066 runners in the $500 1 Rebuy 1 Add-on. It was a very very tough tournament from start to finish. I at least felt like I had a much more difficult time than in the FTOPS that I won. Of my 8 opponents at the final table, 4 were players I was familiar with, which I guess isn’t so bad for the final table of a big buy-in event.
I came to the table with 6th place chips but got down to 3-handed with g0lfa and govshark, who incidentally is the player who put me out of the $200 heads up FTOPS. I got my money in for about 1/3 of the chips in play with TT vs. g0lfa’s A6, but it couldn’t hold. I guess that makes it the worst bad beat of my career, but I can’t complain, as I obviously had my share of luck to make it that far. Oh and I won at 13 BB/100 in the cash games I was playing on the side.
I suppose I’ll have to stop complaining about how long these things take. After sinking nearly 100 hours into this WCOOP, I finally have a respectable hourly rate 
. Come to think of it, I guess this is the best single day of my poker career, as my other big wins have come in multi-day tournaments.
Oh and the other two made a deal as soon as I busted. Guess I was the fish 
Thanks to those who were rooting for me in the 2+2 thread. I’ll post some hands tomorrow and possibly get a video together for Poker Savvy Plus as well.
Money and the Monkey
Chris Moneymaker was on my immediate left for most of the $500 rebuy today. To my surprise, he mostly played pretty well. He was probably a little too loose-aggressive pre-flop, but that’s far from the worst leak to have and something that it’s very difficult for me to exploit from his right.
The other Villain in this hand came to the table with a big stack, and I initially gave him credit for being a pretty good player. Then he busted me thusly:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 530 Tournament, 400/800 Blinds 100 Ante (9 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from PokerSavvyPlus.com
Hero (MP1) (t19365)
MP2 (t101024)
MP3 (t49842)
CO (t76901)
Button (t104687)
SB (t21747)
BB (t110338)
UTG (t18540)
UTG+1 (t26216)
Hero’s M: 9.22
Preflop: Hero is MP1 with A
, J
2 folds, Hero bets t1777, MP2 calls t1777, 2 folds, Button calls t1777, 2 folds
Flop: (t7431) 4, 7, 3 (3 players)
Hero checks, MP2 bets t4000, Button calls t4000, Hero raises to t17488 (All-In), 1 fold, Button calls t13488
Turn: (t46407) K (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: (t46407) 5
(2 players, 1 all-in)
Total pot: t46407
Results:
Button had J, Q (flush, King high).
Hero had A, J (flush, King high).
Outcome: Button won t46407
I suppose I can’t complain too much, since he also doubled me up by raising KJs UTG and calling a sizeable shove from my KK.
Leverging an Information Disparity
UTG and I have been together for a few orbits now. This is the third time he’s raised from this position, and he once showed down A8s (for the nut flush vs. my second nut flush, which amazingly didn’t cost me my stack), so I’m assuming his range is relatively wide for UTG. The other two Villains in the hand are both new to the table and so have not had the chance to make this same observation:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 320 Tournament, 600/1200 Blinds 150 Ante (9 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from PokerSavvyPlus.com
SB (t61814)
Hero (BB) (t113459)
UTG (t86336)
UTG+1 (t34997)
MP1 (t16550)
MP2 (t13948)
MP3 (t108224)
CO (t52089)
Button (t10069)
Hero’s M: 36.02
Preflop: Hero is BB with J
, 4
UTG bets t2788, 3 folds, MP3 calls t2788, CO calls t2788, 2 folds, Hero raises to t11111, 2 folds, CO calls t8323
Flop: (t29748) 7, 2, A (2 players)
Hero bets t12345, 1 fold
Total pot: t29748
Results:
Hero didn’t show J, 4.
Outcome: Hero won t29748
MP3 in particular is a very smart guy and good tournament player (Siola from Poker Savvy Plus, in fact), and I believe he will have to give me credit for 3-betting an UTG raiser, not realizing that this guy’s range is wider than the average UTG range of an unknown in a WCOOP event. As for CO, he may not have been thinking quite so deeply, but that’s OK. He probably shoves any Ax he wants to play pre-flop. 
Sunday WCOOPs
I wasn’t going to play the first $200 because it started so early in the day (10AM here on the West coast), and I knew today was already going to be a long day. But I happened to notice that it had over 8000 runners, making it essentially a Sunday million, so I ended up late registering at 10:30. After playing for better than 4 hours, I barely cracked the top third of the field.
The $500 was even worse. I got off to a nice start, doubling up during the second hour by check-raising T7 on a J98 flop and shoving over a 3-bet into what turned out to be a horrifically played AA. Speaking of horifically played AA’s, here’s my bustout hand:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 530 Tournament, 300/600 Blinds 70 Ante (9 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from PokerSavvyPlus.com
BB (t38207)
UTG (t27759)
UTG+1 (t33127)
MP1 (t19844)
MP2 (t74614)
MP3 (t34194)
CO (t44994)
Hero (Button) (t22083)
SB (t83994)
Hero’s M: 14.43
Preflop: Hero is Button with A, A
4 folds, MP3 bets t1800, 1 fold, Hero calls t1800, 1 fold, BB calls t1200
Flop: (t6330) 5, J, J (3 players)
BB checks, MP3 bets t4200, Hero calls t4200, BB raises to t10060, MP3 raises to t32324 (All-In), Hero calls t16013 (All-In), BB calls t22264
Turn: (t91191) 2 (3 players, 2 all-in)
River: (t91191) 9 (3 players, 2 all-in)
Total pot: t91191
Results:
Hero had A, A (two pair, Aces and Jacks).
BB had A, J (three of a kind, Jacks).
MP3 had 6, 5 (two pair, Jacks and fives).
Outcome: BB won t91191
Ordinarily this would be a fold for me, and it still probably should have been, but there were some extenuating circumstances. For one thing, as you can see, MP3 was clearly pretty bad, so despite the fact that he looks strong here, I’m actually crushing his range.
BB was a (decent) maniac and the reason that I flat-called the AA pre-flop in the first place. He’d recently 3-bet my UTG+1 raise and then called a cold 4-bet shove from a third player with what turned out to be J8o. Like I said, I should still probably fold this, but I gave him credit for being able to make a play here with like a flush draw or maybe even air.
After 7 hours, I finished just outside of the top 25%. These structures are crazy, too good really. I played for better than 10 hours straight today, which is among the longest days I’ve played, and since I was multitabling rush games on the side the whole day, I’m pretty sure I set a personal record for most hands played in one day.
The rush games were awesome, BTW. I finished with a stack of over 1000 BB’s on one table. And I won a WCOOP main event seat in a $100 rebuy satellite. So despite the WCOOP frustration, it was still a very solid day.
No Results on This one
From yesterday’s $300 6-max shootout WCOOP:
I’m curious how you all would handle this river. The table generally had been pretty aggressive pre-flop, and believe it or not I’d been pretty well behaved. Villain was the most aggressive 3-better, with a 3B% of about 10.
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 320 Tournament, 50/100 Blinds 10 Ante (5 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from PokerSavvyPlus.com
BB (t8552)
Hero (UTG) (t8895)
MP (t5126)
Button (t3522)
SB (t3905)
Hero’s M: 44.48
Preflop: Hero is UTG with A, Q
Hero bets t255, 1 fold, Button raises to t600, 2 folds, Hero calls t345
Flop: (t1400) Q, 9, 2 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets t588, Hero calls t588
Turn: (t2576) 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks
River: (t2576) 4 (2 players)
Hero bets t1111, Button raises to t2324 (All-In)
1213 for me to call, so I’m getting about 5-to -1.
Same Satellite, Similar Bluff
Last week’s double float cost me about half my chips on the first hand of the $700 NAPT-Los Angeles satellite and was not so popular with the commenters. Here’s a similar bluff somewhat deeper in the same tournament this week. Our Villain is a slightly better target: I couldn’t tell you much about his playstyle, but overall I believe he’s a better player than last week’s Villain. I described the previous opponent as a 3rd tier Pocket Fiver, and this guy would be closer to top tier, maybe tier 1.5
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 530 Tournament, 250/500 Blinds 25 Ante (8 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from PokerSavvyPlus.com
MP2 (t38150)
CO (t19145)
Button (t46070)
Hero (SB) (t15484)
BB (t40291)
UTG (t10654)
UTG+1 (t16138)
MP1 (t29062)
Hero’s M: 16.30
Preflop: Hero is SB with A, K
1 fold, UTG+1 bets t1250, 4 folds, Hero calls t1000, 1 fold
Flop: (t3200) 4, 8, 2 (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG+1 checks
Turn: (t3200) J (2 players)
Hero bets t2468, UTG+1 calls t2468
River: (t8136) 3 (2 players)
Hero bets t6666, 1 fold
Total pot: t8136
Results:
Hero didn’t show A, K (nothing).
Outcome: Hero won t8136
My guess is that he had a medium pocket pair, maybe as strong as T’s, or possibly paired an 8. My call out of the SB correctly slowed him down on the flop. I expected him to call any pair on the turn but fold hands worse than like JT on the river. It increases the profitability of this bluff considerably that he probably shoves a lot of JT-type hands and slowplayed overpairs when I bet the turn.
Oh and for those who question whether I’d actually play a big pair or similar hand this way and with this bet sizing, here’s an earlier hand from the same tournament (Villain was not at the table to witness this):
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 530 Tournament, 50/100 Blinds (8 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from PokerSavvyPlus.com
MP1 (t9200)
MP2 (t10400)
CO (t12173)
Button (t12800)
Hero (SB) (t9417)
BB (t10750)
UTG (t18310)
UTG+1 (t7275)
Hero’s M: 62.78
Preflop: Hero is SB with A, A
3 folds, MP2 bets t300, 2 folds, Hero calls t250, 1 fold
Flop: (t700) J, 8, 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, MP2 checks
Turn: (t700) J (2 players)
Hero bets t567, MP2 calls t567
River: (t1834) 3 (2 players)
Hero bets t1550, MP2 calls t1550
Total pot: t4934
Results:
Hero had A, A (two pair, Aces and Jacks).
MP2 mucked 7, 7 (two pair, Jacks and sevens).
Outcome: Hero won t4934