Vic Champs Trip Report part 4, The Skill Game, Events 12 and 14

[Bond18]

Vic Champs Trip Report part 4, The Skill Game, Events 12 and 14
After the failure of Sundays 6 max tournament I had a few days to relax, as well as through a sick run of cards win $1000 in my $100 buy in home game. I even manage to fit in an evening of online poker, which sees me going deep in the tilt $150 only to get 1 outed to be chip leader, and losing a giant coin flip at the final two tables of the stars 50r. Not a good way to lead up to today’s $550 ‘turbo’ event.
The Crown turbo tournament, instead of being what I feared of turbo blinds, was instead the vastly preferable turbo decision variety. That is, for every decision each player gets only 20 seconds, which in my opinion, is something all live tournaments should consider and giving players one time bank button, to prevent all the stupid [censored] Hollywooding going on. The tournament sees players start with 5000 in chips at 25/50 blinds and 40 minute levels, though unfortunately without any antes. It also plays as pre flop before the flop and NL after. Again I get to the casino only 10 minutes before start time with my friend Darren, which results in both of us of course being seated next to each other.
While I watch Darren see an unfortunate early end, the early goings for me are mostly uneventful. The only hand even worth mentioning is when the dealer whips me a Q that falls off the table, which I pick up and tell him “no worries, I’ll play it face up.” He proceeds to deal me another Q but demands the face up one back. I watch in horror as one medium and one short stack get in a raising war preflop and end up all in with AK/55 only to get a Q2625 board. Eventually I get moved tables where the first interesting hand of the day occurs:

It’s my second hand at the table and I’m naturally without any read on the table. The villain is a 30ish Asian guy who I’ve never seen before. Most people in the tournament are playing very tight weak pre flop.
My stack: 4500
Villain: ~5000
Blinds 50/100, I hold AKo.
Preflop: UTG puts out 200 in front of him then says pot. The dealer informs him that his chips play first. He protests that he wanted to raise pot as it folds to me. I tell the dealer its not an issue and reraise to 600. It folds back to UTG, and before SB and BB can even finish folding their hands UTG excitedly announces “I raise the pot!” It feels really gross to reraise AK then fold pre flop, but when I think about the average live player who “accidentally” min raises UTG then nearly jumps out of his seat at the chance to reraise his range is very likely QQ+. I don’t think just calling pre was ever an option since his min raise would have very likely caused several callers behind and left me clueless to my place in the hand. I begrudgingly fold my hand.

After it’s all said and done with the player on my immediate right looks at me and blurts “Whoa! You just folded, to HIM!?”
“Huh? I only got here a minute ago, why do you say that?”
”He’s flat out bonkers mate, clueless. He’s like that every hand.”
“Ah [censored]. Tell me that before hand next time.”

I proceed to watch what I now understand to be a completely manic UTG (seat 10) raise or reraise an absurd number of pots. I watch him repot a tight UTG raiser with A9, open 4 hands a round and call reraises lightly, as well as hit and get up to around 12,000.

A round or two later I get a chance to regain some chips from him in the following hand:
My stack: 3,900
Maniac: ~11,000
SB: ~5,000
I hold AKo in the BB. Blinds 50/100

Preflop: Folds to the button. I pray for him to raise. He disappoints me and limps. SB completes. I raise pot to 400. Button calls, SB calls.

Flop: J 9 7 rainbow
SB checks, I check, button checks.
Turn: 5
SB bets 800, I fold, button folds.

The maniac in seat 10 continues to open a lot of hands and begin stationing him a little in position. I win a small pot from him, then a round later have the following hand come up:
Maniac: ~12,000
My stack: 4,200
I hold Ks Qd on the CO. Blinds 75/150.
Preflop: Folds to maniac in MP, he raises to 300, 2 folds, I call on the CO, button folds, SB calls, BB calls.
Flop: Qs 9h 6s
SB checks, BB checks, maniac leads 1500, I shove for 3900 total, SB folds, BB folds. Maniac thinks things over, asks how much it is, counts it out, and looks me over. Lol, what’s this guy gonna call me with, bottom pair? Maniac counts out the right amount and slides his chips into the middle, then flips up…AQ. Wait, AQ? Really?
Turn: 5s
River: Td

Well, that’s the end of that then. Another tournament entry fee very well spent. If this keeps going I’ll blank out the entire series.

When I wake up the next day I realize I have time, if I want, to go to Crown and play the mixed event of PL Hold’em, Omaha Hi/lo, and PLO. I deicde I might as well considering I also need to buy into the main event and pay Emad back the $3000 I owe him (it was $2000 until he swapped the debt I owe Gaz from the rebuy tournament since Gaz owed him.) I register for the tournament and find my seat.
“Which game do we start with?”
”What do you mean?” Asks the dealer.
“This is the mixed game tournament right?”
”No, this is just Pot –Limit Omaha.”

Ah [censored]. Let’s see my Pot-Limit Omaha experience can be summed up as: Playing the 100 rebuys FTOPS event out of boredom and getting a little coaching from Thay3r, playing it at my home games where I play every hand pre flop…okay that’s it. So I guess, play tightish pre flop, and just pot the [censored] out of it when I hit and check fold if I totally whiff? Nah, I’m [censored] here.

By first break I’m chip leader with 22,000 at 200/400 (unfortunately I find it much harder to remember and relate Omaha hands. In fact, I rechecked my cards about 5 or 6 times per hand.) By second break I am still chip leader with over 40,000, but the blinds are beginning to spiral out of control. I must continually run to Van Marcus asking how the hell I’m supposed to play this game. The tournament got 161 entrants and we’ve been informed they’ll be paying 20. As we break down to our final 3 tables I’m seated across from a familiar sun glassed face, Shannon Elizabeth. Since word got around about a week ago that she was in town for the tournaments various people I know that’d read the now infamous trip report would come up, thinking themselves clever and say to the effect of “Hey Tony, there’s your buddy Shannon, why don’t you go say hi! Haha!” I preferred to just stay out of it. What I learned from my involvement in various little dramas this summer in Vegas above all to stay out of it at all costs. No matter how wrong or right you are in a given situation, allowing it to escalate will mostly result in little more than tarnished names and reputations.

This time around I just kept my mouth shut and my head down, focusing on a game I barely know how to play. Shannon is busted without any incident and we begin approaching the money. My stack reaches a high point of about 55,000 at one point, then dips to the low 40,000’s. My instinct in Hold’em to attempt to run over the table with bubble raises and 3 bets is, according to many, not quite as viable a tactic. I mostly keep myself to open raising very good cards, and even raise fold QQJ8 once when a guy who is only reraising very strong AA xx holding’s reraises. He shows me AAK9. The bubble takes quite some time to break, at which point the blinds have soared to an enormous 2000/4000 with 35k average stack.

In the money I raise AKJ8 single suited and have to call an all in from KKXX making me short when I lose. I manage to double my stack back up, but when the blinds reach 3000/6000 I more or less shove my remaining 29,500 all in preflop with Aqhh87dd and run into AAJ2 with two diamonds. I bust out 15th, and get 470 for my efforts on a 230 buy in. Poker is so stupid, the one event I finally cash in my time in Australia I don’t even know how to play. What a [censored] skill game.

[dcviperboy]

first....now i can read it!

[KneeCo]

[ QUOTE ]
It also plays as pre flop before the flop and NL after.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol aprioriaments.

(btw, he means PL pf NL after).

Also, can we start banning people who post "first". Thanks.

Good post bond, GL the rest of the way.

[Sciolist]

I like your trip reports, but their/they're/there its/it's puts me on serious tilt

[Cardsofwood]

I liked this one a lot too. I loled at the ending line.
looking forward to the next part.

[Bidz]

enjoy every report every time

now please go win

[sethypooh21]

BONNNNNNNDDDDD!!!!!

Seriously tony, run good for us one time...

[plzleenowhammy]

[ QUOTE ]
I hold AKo in the BB. Blinds 50/100

Preflop: Folds to the button. I pray for him to raise. He disappoints me and limps

[/ QUOTE ]

You look at your hand before it's/its/i'ts(?) your/you're/ur(?) action?