August 2010 Grand Final Trip Reports

[Scotty]

Excellent read Mike

[bennymacca]

my trip report would be pretty boring in general, but here goes.

I find my table and sit down - chris whitmee is directly across from me, i shake his hand and say g'day. turns out chris is a really nice guy and a great player, just couldn't get anything going. he lost a massive flip when someone called his all in with KQo and cracked his tens.

larx is sitting 3 to my right, which is also good, as having someone like him sitting on my direct left would have been difficult.

The hand that really set me onto the back foot was about 5th hand in, blinds 25/50 still obviously.

i am in middle position with [td] [th], and after 1 limper, i make it 250 to go. the small blind cold calls, and the limper folds.

flop comes [tc] [7d] [8s]

small blind leads for 250 into me. this is pretty strong, so i think he also has a piece of the board. so i make a pretty big raise, to 1350. at this point in time, the other guy instantly looks down at his chips and decides to call.

this pretty much worried me straight away. his body language screamed strength.

turn was a K, and this time he leads for 2500. by this point, i am pretty sure he has J9, but i call hoping the board will repeat. or at least get to showdown cheaply.

river was an A, and this time he leads 3000.

at this point, i am just about 100% sure he has J9, so i go into the tank for a while. the more i tanked, the more i tried to talk myself into a call, because i started thinking about whether something like A8 or K9 or 78 were in his range.

so i make a sigh call and sure enough he rolls J9o.

instantly i become annoyed with myself, but in reality, i dont think i can ever fold top set there to an unknown. it turns out that this player was pretty bad in general, and if i knew what a know now, i would actually fold the turn, but meh.



so after that pretty sick cooler, i am left with about 13k.

during the next couple of hours until the break, i reckon i pick up AK about 4 times, but each time i either take it down preflop, or my cbet gets called, and i cant make it to showdown. not once did i actually connect with the board. as a result, i go into the first break with about 13k.


after the first break is where all of the action started to happen.

first i win a few small pots - im not sure if he picked up on this, but whenever larx entered a pot, i was raising pretty light - i think i 3bet him a few times from late position with not much. the reason i decided picking on larx would be good was because i knew he was actually good enough to fold a hand to me - the other guys at the table besides whitmee and joe zupanic and larx were just massive calling stations.

there was one time where larx opened and i called out of the small blind with A5o.

the flop came down TTJ 2 clubs, and i check raised larx off the pot. i then showed the [5h].

so after accumulating a few chips against larx, and winning a pretty sizeable pot against whitmee when i held queens and i called his 4bet preflop, then took it down on the flop, i was up to 26k. this was in about 1 blind level, and i was starting to feel good and that i was about to run over the table.


then came the best piece of poker i saw for the weekend, from larx

i had about 26k, larx had about 20.
larx opened from middle position to about 1800, blinds 300/600, and i look down at AK and 3bet him to 5700. action folds around to larx again who instantly throws 3 blue chips into the middle to bump it up to 15k.

my first reaction was that i was hugely in front here, especially because i had 3bet larx a couple of times, and check raised him off a pot earlier. but the more i studied him, the more i thought he was actually very strong in this spot.

i kept asking myself whether he would do this with AQ, and my reads were that he would probably just call my raise and play poker from there. dave was actually the only person i studied up on as well, i have a few thousand hands in HEM on him, and his from that my reads were that he would only do this with a big hand, bigger than AQ.

so after a few minutes, i was sure that he had aces or kings, and i folded my AK face up.


at this point, larx flashed me a single ace, didnt show me the other card.

at this point, i started steaming a little bit, because i was sure that he had aces, and i thought he would show both of them if he was going to show at all. but showing the single ace threw me, i thought he must have had AQ or AJ.

chatting to larx the other night, he DID have aces, but at the time he didn't want me to think i had made a good fold, so he only showed me the single ace. this was the best poker i saw for the whole day - i honestly thought that if larx didn't do this that i would have ran over the table, because i was starting to play pretty well, but he threw me completely. well done dave.

about 3 hands later, i lost a big flip where joe opened from early position, to about 2k of his 13k stack, and i picked up AQ on the button. i decided to overbet slightly to put joe to a decision for all his chips, so i raised to 8700. at this point the small blind, who overvalued pocket pairs, shoved for about 14k. so i priced myself in and made the call, and lost a flip with his TT.

so now i am back down to about 12k. at this point in time, joe open shoves for about 15k from UTG, and i snap call with AK.

dude behind me snap calls as well, and i think i am crushed.

joe AK
me AKcc
other guy AK!!!!

first time i have ever seen a 3 way all in with all the same cards. i was the only one that was suited, and the window was a club, but no miracle flush for me and its a 3 way chop.

guy to me left then said "i thought you would have folded AK, you did before".

this tilted me for a bit, and i said wait a minute, if thats true, that means since i called you would have thought i was better than AK then right. but YOU called with AK?

he said it was a joke, but it just annoyed me.

to further rub salt into the wounds, that same guy overplayed 99 soon after, 4 bet shoving with them and getting about 70bb in against aces, which gave the other guy the chip lead at the time.


so i am down to about 10k, and i open shove KJ into larx in the bb. he has about 5k left and he calls with 99 and holds.

then soon after, it is folded around to me in the SB and i shove j6o for about 5k, blinds 400/800, and get snapped off by the bb who wakes up with kings and i am out.


all in all, i am pretty happy with how i played, but i just didn't win a single flip all day. i had plenty of big hands as well, no aces, but AK about 6 times, and QQ a couple of times, but i just couldn't win a big pot to get myself going. that happens i guess.

i really am impressed about dave showing the single ace though. (if you are lying about that, and you ACTUALLY did have AQ, then i am going home to slit my wrists)

pretty sure this is the longest trip report ever for 6 levels of a tourney, but really, did you expect any less from me?

bring on the next one - i am hoping to play some of the adelaide champs tourneys, but i am a bit busy at the moment, so not sure if that will happen. already have a ticket for the next grand final though, so i am looking forward to it already

[Larx36]

there was one time where larx opened and i called out of the small blind with A5o.

the flop came down TTJ 2 clubs, and i check raised larx off the pot. i then showed the [5h].

Was the death of another 88.. wp Sir

grumble grumble Biatch

[bennymacca]

Was the death of another 88.. wp Sir

grumble grumble Biatch

good, i put you on 66-99

still didnt help me though

can you please confirm to me again that you did have aces? pleassssseeeee?

[Larx36]

Nice report benny the cunt

Thanks for kind words.

Ask anyone I play with at live venues and they will reassure you that I would never re-pop with AQ or QQ (refer signature)

I enjoyed the table but unfortunately the results didn't go our way.

Next time mate

[bennymacca]

Nice report benny the cunt

Thanks for kind words.

Ask anyone I play with at live venues and they will reassure you that I would never re-pop with AQ or QQ (refer signature)

I enjoyed the table but unfortunately the results didn't go our way.

Next time mate

my thoughts exactly. was a fun table, but the stations just kept finding the right hands at the right time.

the hand where that chick called whitmees all in with KQ was particularly brutal.

[Larx36]

can you please confirm to me again that you did have aces? pleassssseeeee?

[Ac][As] to be exact

[bennymacca]

im pretty sure you showed me the [ad]. have i got this wrong?

this is doing my head in.

i have to stop thinking about this LOL.

[Larx36]

Yeah that call wasn't exactly what Chris wanted.( He was fuming )

The hand that haunts me was when the young fella (Mr Anyace) raised at MP to 2k (300/600 i think it was) and @ SB I have JJ so I re-pop to 8k thinking the only move he has is with QQ+. He calls , flop was AxKx3X, I check and he fires. I muck face up (bad idea) and he shows his A9 off. Cripples me into heavy grind mode grrrrrr

I should have known he was never going to lay down.

[Larx36]

im pretty sure you showed me the [ad]. have i got this wrong?

this is doing my head in.

i have to stop thinking about this LOL.

LOL.... u had [Ad][Kd]