DTD Grand Prix VI - Day Two

Well that was a pretty crappy day poker-wise

First seven hands of the day, there were seven all-ins making me wish they really had rolled the blinds back a level or two and stuck with a 30 min clock. After receiving complete junk for the remainder of the level, I had won only one hand (my SB shove to pick up the BB). After a while I was down at around 10bb's and about to hit the blinds again. What little fold equity I had would need to be exercised ahead of the blinds, so I open shoved J8s from early position, hoping no-one woke up with a decent hand. Folded around to the SB who called with QQ, and hit a Q on the flop to send me out. Yawn. Finished 264th out of 2325 runners.

On reflection, I think I picked the wrong spot to shove for a variety of reasons. Firstly, I was way too focused on the '10bb' thing and especially hitting the upcoming blinds as that would reduce my stack by getting on towards another 10k. In reality, continuing to fold could have allowed me to shove from mid-late position and stand a better chance of getting through which would have boosted me back up to 10bb's anyway - I would naturally also receive a bunch more cards which could have been better than the ones I chose to push with (or not, probably). Given the structure, I actually think on reflection that I could have folded down to 5bb's as my fold equity was pretty shot anyway and a flip with someone at that point may end up trebling my stack - still leaving me short but giving me some more time. Additionally - and this is a real kicker, with them paying 234 players, I could well have cashed just by blinding out.

Of course, if I had hit a straight or a flush and doubled up, this could be a very different blog post so its easy to look at things differently based on outcomes. In real terms I don't think open-shoving J8s was a bad play, but I think it was a bad spot to do it and given the payout positions nearing, I should have waited a bit longer.

Still - one day I will actually run good at a critical point in a live tournament....

Topped that off by losing around £100 on cash games, much of that from hitting a set against a guy who hit a straight on the river, and two-pair against another guy who rivered a straight. Sometimes, the game frustrates so much. Toyed with the idea of entering the evening tournament but how much punishment do I want? Going home to watch The Voice seemed a better approach in the end.

DTD Grand Prix VI - Day One

After managing to cash in the DTD Grand Prix in January, I wanted to take another shot at this months event however as I couldn't make Day 1A last Sunday or any of the other Day 1s as they fall during the week and I have too much on at work to make it - I had resigned myself to sitting this one out.

But as luck would have it, a meeting I had to attend at 5pm on Thursday was cancelled, so I was able to head around the corner (literally) to the club and sign up for Day 1E. Amazingly, I still had some money in my online DTD account to buy-in with so didn't have to fork out any extra and felt a bit like I was free-rolling!

The play itself didn't have too many massive moments that stick in the memory. A bit swingy, very up and down, and I didn't have too many monster hands and the few I did have resulted in minimal or no action. With one exception, when I doubled up with AA v KK, which pretty much kept me alive for most of the day.

As I swung from lower-than-average to higher-than-average and back again, I did consider some wild play in order to utilise the single extra 'bullet' buy-in you could buy through re-entering although it turns out I never quite needed it.

Stayed at one table most of the night which was fine although one guy in particular was running up a monster stack through running extremely good. To start with he ended up in a three-way all-in pot where someone had a set, someone had the nut flush draw and he had flopped a straight, then he called an all-in after some questionable play where he re-raised a big button raise from the blinds and then called the subsequent all-in - he had AQ, the button had AK and of course he hit the Q to double-up again. He also claimed to have received KK seven times at the table, and I can believe it - he was running like god. To be fair though, once he had a big stack he was running over the table and using it really well and this killed a lot of action and meant most people were tightening up a lot or gambling (and usually busting).

On moving tables, I was a bit of an unknown and used that to my advantage 3betting a big stack with 3rd pair and forcing a fold where he showed top pair-top kicker, stealing a few pots and making a huge laydown with JJ against a shove where I wasn't too worried about the guy shoving but more about the bloke behind who eventually showed he had flopped a flush. But nothing dramatic to report on really.

Last couple of levels I was hoping for a shoveable hand so I could try and double-up before day 1 finished but all I received were trash cards so pretty much folded the day out with my stack of 60,800 which is some way below the days average of 102,000 but still gives me 20 big blinds to try and do something with on Day 2.

In terms of strategy its always hard to say as aside from the cards you receive, you have no control over table draw and the subsequent dynamics that will come into play. Suffice to say I will aim to play tight-aggressive for the first level and if I end up whittling down to around 10bb's I will look for any sensible spot to shove in. I guess that will be the strategy of most people with less than about 70k in chips though so should be interesting!

Will update following Day 2