Sunday, July 22, 2007

Poker :: Live at Reval Olympic

Last Saturday went to play my first live tournament in brick-and-mortar. It was right after one day trip into the forests with virtually no food (completely burned the BBQ), little sleep and some beer, so I wasnt sure if I wont fall asleep while playing...
Tourney started 7pm, it was the cheap $8 rebuy with 40ppl registered - best place to start learning live. First two orbits or so I felt very bad, moving in my chair, hands shaking, got cold from the conditioning inside the building etc, but after the dealer changed from burly guy to Escada scented girl, and some table talk on my side got going, calmed down finally and was able to start playing :)
Tourney structure - standart rebuy, starting chips 1000, 30min levels, addon after 1.5 hour for 2000 chips, starting blinds 10/20, going up quite smooth, didnt notice big jumps.
First few orbits I just folded trash hands, checked couple of flops with 55, QTs and missed. First bigger pot was at 20/40, when I got A7s LP and limped after 2 limpers. Flop 345 rainbow, I got checked to and raised 200. BB repushed allin. I called my openended straight draw and was up against A5o. Turn 7, river paint, and I doubled up to ~4000.
In final rebuy period level got 88 LP, limped after 3 more limpers (one of them chipleader and good loose player with cashes in Baltic championships etc, another completely drunk trashtalker, so there were some implied odds;) Flop T85 two clubs. Chip leader led out for 450, got two callers, so I just pushed allin. After some thinking chip leader called, limpers folded, and I was up against T3 clubs. Non club turn, river non club 3 and I was up to ~12k.
In next 2 orbits picked ~4-5 pots and with 18k or so was tied chipleader at the table. Then they split first table and two big stack guys were moved to my left, one of them pretty strong player who wouldnt let me steal blinds easy so I gave up and waited for cards. Cant remember playing anything for a big pot till the final table at all (average stack was 25k, mine ~15k), where I drawed best place possible - seat 1 with all 3 big stacks on my right, and all shorter stacks on my left. It was very weak tight table, with 2 good players, 2 uber tight players, and 1 very bad player who happened to be chipleader. I played the FT really really bad though - forgot that I was here to win, and tried to get into the money (6places) so waited for cards that I didnt need at all to take ALL the chips... Big stack player was doubling up one player after another so soon everyone on my left got more chips than me. Then I doubled up also with AA vs QQ allin pre. When we left 6players, and I had 7BB, I made two big mistakes - folded A5o UTG (limp pot was won by bad player with A4o for A high and playing kicker), and then folded 78 after 3 limpers ahead of me on the button - push or at least call here. Flop was 678 and two pair would have trippled me up... Blinds rose to 2k/4k and I sat only on 13k stack, so pushed in first occasion possible JTo and lost to BB who called me blind with 47o.
Summary - nice to have cashed in first live tourney ever, although when there were only 12 players left (two tables 6 each) I started playing so poorly I cant imagine - when needed to switch gears up, just went into turbo fold mode... Next time I wont be that intimidated, so either I go out early or get to the top 3 :)

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