Super Stud

I think the best way to catch up with my trip reports from here is to go backwards. Like Time's Arrow. Except hopefully it won't suck as much. So today's hot-off-the-press news is that I chinged for $6500 in the Stud. Woo hoo !

All those years playing £20 pot-limit stud against Luton's living dead have paid off again. There were 97 runners, and 2 players on our table who thought they had signed up for No-Limit Hold-em. We've all signed up for the wrong game online, but it takes some doing live. One of them wasn't too bad, but the other was so hopeless he couldn't even give up when he was trying to. Even amongst those who did have a passing familiarity with the game, it was noticeable how often someone put a heap of bets in and then passed the river. I started off reasonably well, pinged four Aces for a nice pot and worked up to 8K (from starting 3K) by the dinner break. At that point I thought this would be a good time to go on a tear, and that's kind of what happened. I did win a fortunate pot (one of two in the tournament) with Aces in the hole against what turned out to be concealed trip Queens on 4th street. He slow-played them, I made three nines showing and had to check the river because I was so obviously full and he couldn't call without a better one. He missed it, and from there I didn't win any big pots, I just kept taking down 2 pots per round, some of them on 4th or even 5th street, but almost invariably without a showdown. The bubble was profitable (paying 16 places) and when I finally did play a reasonable pot (around 10K) I bubbled the geezer with (AK)9 against his (JJ)5. At that point I had 40K, more than double the average stack.

Then it all went pear-shaped. The table re-draw was a horror show. All the short-stacked old women (both literal and figurative) were packed off to the other table. On my table, everyone had chips and everyone wanted to play. A couple of them were good players too. Every move I made five-handed was smacked down and by the time the last desperate hanger-on was kicked off the other table I was down to 22K. So as I said earlier, I wasn't overly excited about playing the final because I could easily be out in one hand. In fact, last time I returned on a second day for a final, I went out on the first hand. To John Ruppin. So it couldn't be any worse than that.

I nicked a couple early on, we lost one player and it soon became clear that there were two desperate weak-tight hangers-on across the table. I won a medium pot, lost a medium one and then won my second lucky pot of the event. A geezer raised in front of me with a 9, I reraised with (QQ)A and then the dude on my left flat called with (??)T. When he raised card 4 I was worried about 2 pair minimum, but I figured that I was committed and was going to call him down. Yes, I'm a fish who doesn't like putting big hands down. It's not nearly as big a handicap in tournaments as you might think. So he bet, I called on 5th and then I scored a magic Ace on card 6. He passed, obviously well peeved, and claimed KK in the hole, which I believe. So that was fortunate but, like the other one, it was just one of those cold decks that was going to fuck someone or other. If I had lost I could just as easily say I was unlucky. After that I started to enjoy it a bit more. Especially when the desperate weak-tight smug woman busted in 6th. Her smirk when anyone was knocked out, earning her another $500, was really annoying. One geezer made a terrible blunder 5-handed, misreading his hand and failing to bet his full house on the river against a short stack with less than one bet left. Of course, shorty made a comeback to equal chips. Then 5-handed we chopped it equally [1] and played on for the bracelet, which I have to say was quite nice. They reckoned it was worth $4K retail, not sure about that myself. If I had won I could have asked the Devilfish who I've just spotted in the lobby. But I busted out 5th. I doubt I would have played it any differently without the chop.

Good old 7 card. I wouldn't mind playing that event every week I can tell you. There's a 7 card Hi-Lo on Thursday which I will be first in line for, but tomorrow it's back to the No-Limit madness. It's nice to have had two days off NL, so I'm looking forward to it. Unfortunately there will be a lot more than 97 players to fight my way through.

[1] I had 55K which was about 5K short of average. Two guys had between 55-60, chip leader 78 and shortest stack 38. What the chip leader was doing agreeing to an equal chop only he could tell you. I thought he was the best player too. The chop was probably zero EV for me, it would have been different playing NL, but having not played Stud for 2 years I thought fine, I could easily fuck it up short-handed.