Hands From the $1500 NLHE

Day one:

I raised 64s and got three callers. Flop A64 with a flush draw SB checks I check because Neverwin is on the button and has been bluffing these spots all day the first caller bets 250 the SB thinks about raising but just calls I make it 850 the guy calls the SB folds what turned out to be AQ. Turn jack I ship it for about 1800, get called by AQ and hold.

Got moved to a table with some strong internet guys and got pushed out of a couple pots, then got moved to a better table where I was able to get it going a bit. Raised KQ to 525 UTG at 100-200-25 and for some reason the SB Everett Carlton shipped it for 1650 with Q8 of diamonds. I called and lost, then made a similar call in another spot with AJ of spades and lost to tens and was hurting.

Found a real quick groove where the table got shorthanded with weak-tights to my left so I raised three hands in a row to 725 at 150-300-25. The last one I had 64o, the BB defended and the flop came 743 with a flush draw. He checked I bet 300 and he called. Turn offsuit 9 he checked I bet 800 and he called. River J he bet 2000 of my 3000; I studied for a while and then called and I was good. The guy to my left said it was "one of the best calls I've ever seen" but all the pros I've talked to agree his line is classic bluff and almost a standard call for me on the end.

After that I kind of dwindled for a bit as the table went back to 10-handed with some stronger players and I didn't really do too much. The blinds got up to 300-600-75 and I was down to something like 4800 and looked at a jack on the button with a real tight BB and sent it in. The SB shoved with 88, I woke up with AJ, and rivered a flush to double up.

After that I steadily moved up generally exploiting the guy on my right who min-raised his medium strength hands and raised harder with his bigger ones. There was one sort of scary pot where the good and active young player Steve Levy limped in second position with a big stack after raising a bunch of hands and a few other limpers followed. I looked down at AJ in the BB. The old-school cash-game trained Moon would just check this hand and hope to hit but I couldn't see Levy limping a big one after all his raising and the others followed with limps so I decided to make a big raise. Everyone folded but the guy on my right who I had been boning the last few hours decided to call from the SB. The flop came QT9 which was a little scary; I felt I had no choice but to go all-in for a 1.3x overbet of the pot and he showed me 33 and folded.

With ten minutes left in the night the loose big stack limped in early for 1000 and I decided to limp the button with Ks8s. The blinds checked. An innocuous Tc3c2s flop came down and was checked to me. I decided to take a half-pot stab of 2700 and the SB (internet trained kid) moved in for 9900. Obviously I had nothing but the chances of him having a flush draw or 54 were so high that I almost found a call. I thought about it for at least four minutes trying to Gus-Hansen it but finally laid it down. I finished day one with 23,400.

Day two found us on the bubble pretty quickly. We had a monster stack at the table and a bunch of weak-tights so he was raising every hand. I kept repeating the MasterJ "if you're gonna raise any two, I'm gonna jam any two" mantra in my head but found only the most worthless of rags and folded. Finally I picked up a reasonable 98o and moved in after his raise to win uncontested, then reraised the other big stack the next hand to get up to an average stack of 30k. The bubble finally burst after over an hour of interminable hand-for-hand. The WSOP has been much-better run this year; going to hand-for-hand 13 away from the bubble was their first major boo-boo and it had me tilting and needing to take a piss.

I should mention that during this time it became evident that the player to my right, a Canadian named Aaron Coulthard who went on to finish 6th, was indeed a player. There was one hand where the big stack raised and he reraised from the SB where if I had fold equity I would have instantly jammed but I was too short and had to fold my 92o.

After the bubble burst I continued to build momentum winning a series of pots and then opened with AhK to 3100 at 600-1200. The BB called. I bet 4200 on a flop of Kh85h after he checked and got a call. The turn came Th and he now fired 5k into me. With both of us having 22k behind I elected to just call with my top-top and nut flush draw. The river came Jh, giving me the second nuts. The BB now fired 6k and I made it 16k after a minute think leaving myself with 6200. He instantly declared all-in and I was sick.

A good player can only have Qh9h for the straight flush in this spot. No other hand makes any sense at all. But this was a WSOP $1500 event and I was getting 11:1 he had a berzerko so I did call after crying about it for a couple of minutes and somehow my opponent had T8 with the 8h. WSOP $1500s - gotta love em.

I steadily ran the stack higher never losing a pot of any significance until the table broke right before dinner and I was moved to a new table with a flurry of big stacks. After dinner I played quietly for a while before getting involved in a big confrontation.

It was folded to me in the small blind where I found A7o. The BB was a super-aggressive Scandinavian kid with a big stack. I had a bad stack to raise or limp/shove and finally decided to limp in. The Scandi predictably raised and I called. The flop came 633 with two hearts and I checked and called a typical bet. The turn was a deuce and we both checked. The river was an offsuit queen and I checked. The Scandi fiddled with chips for a while before sliding out a big bet which I called instantly. His KQ was good for a big pot. I was extremely confident I was good, even on the river, and honestly was stunned to lose.

After that, with about 80 players left, the tournament became a shovefest. There were smaller pots here and there but mostly big standard all-in preflop hands. These are the matchups I can remember, all of which I am confident I played correctly according to the hand ranges, my hand on the left:

JTs > AKs
AQ = AQ
AJ > KTs
AK = AK
AJ > AK > 64
AQ < QQ
KK > AJs
22 < KJ
A9 < 77

There were probably even more than that I don't remember. A few final thoughts:

It was an advantage for me playing that late. I would have been happy to wrap it and call it a day but I was sharper than almost all my opponents. I really never felt tired. I think I've been in the pressure situations enough times now that adrenaline takes over and I play my best as the stakes rise. I believe this tournament will serve as a harbinger for the rest of the WSOP.