WSOPC NOLA Review Part I: Freeroll

WSOP-C NOLA, Review:

Played the Freeroll.  Finished 13th.  They paid ten.  

I traded 7% with a couple of players.  One finished 12th.  The other almost went out 11th.  He didn't and man that would have sucked for us to go out 13, 12, 11 and pay ten. 

The tournament started out predictably squeaky tight.  I decided I was going to open it up and take advantage of the regs playing so passively and tight with no rebuys.  

Of course, even when I'd isolate the multi-limped pots, my opponent would nail top pair and not lay it down.  Others would breathe on a pot and scoop it, not me.  

So much for that strategy.  I nitted it up and decided to wait for some hands and rallied a bit.

Later I got AA, which in this type of tournament I typically play big, I'm willing to take a risk with it and stack somebody or go home.  However, the best player at my table (who would be a part of a four way chop for most of the money) opened under the gun.  I was confident he had a hand. So I played it straight forward and three bet hoping he had a really good one and would play back.

He called and the flop came two midsized cards which I didn't like.  But if he flopped a set, he flopped a set.  He checked and I made a large bet and he folded.  Later he told me had 99.  Thankfully it wasn't 1010 or 88.

Ironically, when we down to fifteen I looked at 99 utg on a seven player table.  The blinds were now 2k 4k and I had ~18k.  No way could I raise fold or limp fold.  Oddly, I did consider open folding, because even seven handed I didn't want to risk my stack with the whole table to play.  As I pondered, a 3 way all in took place on the other table.  Yes, I was at 4.5BBs and in auto-shove territory but everybody was short given the structure of the tournament, so I could fold, play the blinds and still have "some" fold equity I thought given the players at the table.  Also, we might be in the money before the blinds got to me again.  

 

Hmmm...  with all the action next door, I figured some of the marginal stacks would tighten up and there was just too much money in the pot to not play this hand.  Afterall, I was playing to win not just min cash for ~$500 something.  It would require somebody with a huge hand to call at this point and I had enough chips to wound anybody left.      

The button discovered the huge hand when he peeled back two aces and that was all she wrote.

Previously, the tournament devolved into mexican street vendor bazaar with 20 left.  They wanted to do $500 save for everybody and a lot of haggling commenced.  As I was short all day, I didn't object.  Btw, shortly before that I had rallied from one big blind so $500 sounded like first place money at that point.  The floor and the dealers kept screaming you can't chop until the final table.

All the players agreed to the deal understanding we could split it up on our own and we weren't "chopping."  We we still leaving most of the money in the prize pool.  The floor and the dealers kept screaming NO CHOP!  and the pace of play grinded to a near halt.

Finally, one of the players objected because she was fearful the floor wouldn't let us do it, even though they had no say in the matter.

Then at the next break and 16 handed the $500 save was discussed again and somebody actually broke down the numbers only for the staff to essentially intimidate the players into not doing it.  The next couple of levels were slow with everybody bitching.  The blinds catching up to all of us.

I thought I played well and it was a good start to the week.  Wish I had some hands or hit some flops during that turbo structure, but considering I was short for most of the morning, I did a good job of picking my spots and surviving.  Obviously, knowing the result of shoving pocket 9s there, I'd rather a fold but the correct play is always to shove.  Just winning the blinds and antes would have increased my stack by 50% and insured I could have folded to the money if I didn't pick up another hand.