FOXWOODS!!!

I'm currently at Foxwoods for the WPT and 5k prelim. I got here Sunday and played the 5k on Monday which I got a nice stack in but ran into some absurdly dumb spots and busted a 50bb stack at the 4-8 level before the level was over. Very happy with how I played throughout though.

Day 1 of the 10k main was mostly frustrating because my table was composed of extremely tight players to my left, and one extremely loose one to my direct right but I could never get anything going. Starting stack was 30k and I was neither below 20 or above 40 until the last level where I started with 33k, got up to ~70k, before finishing the day with 15k. I was happy with my play despite getting it in in the 70k pot w ~3.5% equity(AK no bdfd to 77 on AxJc7c). Action went player to my direct right open to 1600 at 3-6-75, very active etc, I make it 4650 in HJ w AKdd. Button who has been playing a lot of pots with opener flats and says something like, 'only because you're in it'(pointing to opener) and opener flats. Flop action is check, bet 7200, fold, tank for like 2 minutes, shoves ~20k more, I snap. He says, 'Do you have three aces?'. I'm like wtf no, he shows, runs out Q, T. After that he continued to open a ton of pots as he had been(j5o in hj, 39s utg), and absolutely crush everyone including me. I felt so frustrated not being able to own him despite having position because he was just making hands and as time went on the stacks got shallower so there was less room for me to abuse him. Anyway, shortly after I got to 70 after sucking out I squeezed the guy who flatted button in the previous hand and a tight middle aged guy w AKhh(1800-8500), opener flatted w 30k total and 33, flop J83hh and I whiff it. From there I lost a few more small pots to end the day. After a day of boring annoying poker though I had a nice dinner with Christian, Rob, Alex, and Travis.

Day 2 we started at 400-800/100 and since I remember it more clearly I'll do a more in depth write up. I started the day with Nick Shulman to my direct left and Chad Brown two to my right who I have played with before more then a few times. I didn't recognize anyone else except the kid to Shulman's left who I had been told is a decent TAG, but right off the bat I opened to HJ to 2250 w TT and a 13.5k stack, BB defends and we check it down on a AcJc5x5x4x board and he shows J4hh. So after that and a few more hands I felt good about my table and confident I could generalize what kind of styles everyone would be playing. I get down to 6600 finding no spots to put any chips in the pot when the HJ who is the J4hh guy from before opens to 3k and I find AQo in the BB and beat his ATo.

A hand I saw that actually happened at the 4-8 level went, UTG shove for ~17k(he had previously open shoved 20k but had also open raised a few times and limped once), UTG1 who is the J4hh guy insta puts out chips that end up being 32k. Their hands? A5o and ATo respectively.

After this I win a few small pots and have ~17k going into the 500-1,000/150 level. First hand back from break I'm one before the hijack and the guy to my direct right opens to 3k, I find AQo again and shove, folds to him he asks for a count tanks it and calls AKo, queen in the door though and I hold to get up to around 40. After that I blind off for a while getting no hands and only getting playable hands when there is action that makes them unplayable in front of me. Our table breaks and my new table seems really good.

The first hand back from break entering the 600-1200/200 level I find KK and raise to 3600 in the HJ, get flatted by the button. It comes QQT w two diamond I have the Kd. I bet 6.6k into 10.8k intending to get it in for my remaining ~19 or so, but he folds. Very next hand I open AKo to 3600 and get flatted by the BB. It comes A89r, he c/c 5400, turn is a 4 bringing a fd and he checks again. I assume he's an internet kid because of how he looks and clearly I'm perceived as an internet kid(and aggressive regardless of how I have been playing which is much truer than I ever used to think), so I opt to shove for a slight overbet of ~27 into ~21. He tanks and fold. I like my play here though because I think the majority of his range is Ax and I think shoving looks weaker than betting something smaller given stacks, additionally when the FD turns people have more semi-bluffs to put you on and thus have more reason to call.

I get moved from this table unfortunately to a new table and the first hand I see play out when I sit down is a middle aged Indian man opens the HJ to 3800, David 'The Dragon' Pham 3bets to 13.8k on the button, opener calls. Flop is KhTx6h, check, 20k, shove for ~41k more. Pham tanks for a solid 3 minutes before calling w AQo no heart and the openers JTo no heart holds. I don't find any pots to play before the end of the level where I have around 40k coming back to the 800-1600/200 level. Very first hand I open the CO to 4800 and the Indian guy makes it 23k on the button. I'm kind of scared because he's very cally pf but he's too spazzy to consider folding so I stick it in and he has the other two tens. Throughout this level I open a few times and get 3b twice which is absurd because the players to my left were all giving me respect. I attribute this to terrible hidden luck, basically any time I had a hand worth opening someone else picked up a big one behind me. I finish the level with a little over 40.

First hand back from the break at 1k-2k/300 I find QQ utg and open to 6k, 3 different people ask me how much I have but eventually everyone folds. I opened 3 more hands this level, once 89s on the button and the BB called who had been fairly straightforward but showed the propensity to defend his BB very light. It came KJTr giving me a bdfd and he checked to me. In retrospect with 15.7k in the pot and approximately 45k behind I think I definitely should bet like 10.5k on the flop and shove the turn because he will peel a lot of pair+sd hands and just single pair hands but fold to my turn shove with them on blanks(at least this is what I would assume from this particular player because I had played with him almost all day). I decided to check in the heat of the moment though because this flop hits a lot of hands, turn is an 8 bringing a bdfd he bets 7k I fold and he shows me a jack. I also think another benefit for betting flop and jamming turn is that a lot of his hands that would call my turn shove will rarely get to the turn because they'll c/r the flop and I'll easily fold. I opened two more pots in LP and got 3bet both times which again frustrated me beyond belief because of how tight I was playing. Eventually I was down to ~28k and shoved 9Ts two before the hijack, unfortunately Pham had JJ in the SB and out I went.

I was less happy with my play throughout the main event than I was in the 5k but I still think I played well. That said, I am continuing to learn a lot about live poker and am very much looking forward to the WSOP where I can hopefully fix my leaks at a faster rate with there being so many tournaments to volume in, where as currently it's like one or two tournaments a month.

As far as the next few month go I've decided I'm definitely not going to do any traveling before PCA/Aussie in early January. I'm going to be moving into a hella ballin apartment on Tuesday and chill out there for a while as I need to do some grinding and haven't been able to settle down in a 'grind friendly' environment for a while now.

GL at the tables,
-Andrew