Foxwoods 3k NL

Foxwoods offers the opportunity to play 18k worth of tournaments, start to finish, in one week. That sort of action is practically unmatched on the circuit, so many of the top players have flocked to Connecticut this week. Few of them could be found at my two tables, however. The only excellent players I encountered today (besides an extremely brief Shaniac appearance) were my friend Ethan Foulkes aka Remmy, Sean McCabe, Van Nguyen, and the Grinder himself, Michael Mizrachi.

I had never played with the Grinder before today and always wanted to see just what he's doing that's led to the best tournament results in the world over the last two years. He made some very loose plays (including limping Q3s UTG, calling a raise, and then checkraising a ten high rainbow flop) and seemed to be in every pot, but the basic pattern was what I see from almost all of the best players: taking small stabs with small hands and bringing down the hammer with good ones. Even a top player like Mizrachi relies mostly on the mistakes of others, at least from what I saw today.

I had very little to play today and it was an unexciting day. In the first level I made a straight against some guy who couldn't throw away his overpair to get to around 15k (we started with 10k) and it was downhill from there. Four hands tell the story of how things went:

1) 100-200 blinds. McCabe (who plays fairly tight and fairly straightforward) limped under the gun. I actually thought he had a big hand since he had established a pattern of limping with weakish hands and thought he was throwing a curveball. I looked down at two black aces in second position, considered limping as well, but decided to make it 900. Everyone folded to the big blind (a loose, bad player) who called and then McCabe called. The flop came T96 rainbow and they both checked to me. I had a really bad feeling but decided not betting would be ridiculous so I fired out 1700. The big blind, who had about 8000 left, thought for a while and then tossed in a call. I really had no clue what he had. McCabe then quickly moved in for 5525 total. I went deep into the tank and finally decided to throw it away. This was an extremely questionable fold that I really can't recommend but I just didn't see McCabe having a pair/gutshot based on his position, stack, and the preflop action. I don't think I could have thrown it away heads up but with the possibility the big blind was trapping I decided to pass. The big blind actually had a set of sixes, and wound up losing to McCabe's QJs when a king hit the river.

2) 200-400 blinds, 50 ante. After I lost a pot on the new table calling a raise with tens, calling a bet on a Kxx flop and folding on the Q turn (nice bet if he was bluffing) I found myself on the short stack. I was looking for a spot to move in my stack, preferably after a raise. An average player raised Grinder's blind from middle position to 1500 and I elected to fold AJ right behind him for two reasons - one being my hatred of ace-jack (which knocked me out of the Indiana main event) and the other being that I couldn't see this guy raising Grinder's blind with worse than ace-jack. A short stack then moved in for around 4000, a woman who I think was ladies WSOP winner Mary Jones coldcalled from the small blind, and the preflop raiser called. The board got checked down as it came xxTTJ and the preflop raiser won with his KJs vs the shortie's 22 and the woman's AQ.

3) 200-400 blinds, 50 ante. Grinder raised in 2nd position to 1200, a short stack moved in right behind him for 3500, and I looked down at pocket jacks and a stack of roughly 6600. Though Grinder is obviously a very aggressive player, there was no reason to think he was raising in 2nd position with crap (he was limping quite a bit from all positions), and there was no reason to think the short stack was weak. I didn't feel like there was much equity in the situation and folded. Grinder ended up calling with pocket tens, the short stack had KQ, and the flop came J22.

4) 300-600 blinds, 75 ante. The average player limped under the gun and I shoved in second position with "the boneyard" ace-king offsuit for 6700. Everyone folded to the big blind who quickly called with pocket eights. I have no idea how this guy was able to make this call, seemingly with no worry of being behind. I had been playing extremely tight at this table, having played something like 3 hands in two hours. I know I was not giving off any weak body language, as I felt good about my hand. He didn't even look at me anyways. Plus he had the always-suspicious under the gun limper to worry about.

Hands like those and tournaments like this are somewhat exasperating. But it's the deep runs, the final tables, the visions of six-figure scores that keep me coming back. Today's first prize was something like 300k and tomorrow's 5k figures to be even bigger.