Denver Poker Tour Semi-Finals Trip Report

Starting stacks based on number of nightly games won during the year. Ten player tables. Myself and five other start with 5k, there's a couple 10k and a couple 11k stacks. Blinds 25/50, so I'm not feeling desperate.

Chip up to 6500 when KK > QQ on a no-paint but flushing board. Led out 400 on flop, late position raised to 800, I called, check/check turn, bet out 800 on river and got a call.

Then, a ton of folds, a couple of smallish limp/calls to see flops with suited connectors. One limped JJ, which I see as only a smallish mistake, but the AK on flop minimized damage. With three pf calls in front of me, and a somewhat shortish stack, I was hoping to setmine with higher pair than normal.

Down to about 6k, and pick up suited slick. Blinds 100/200, I raise to 600, one caller. Two heart flop, all numbers, I make my 2nd biggest mistake of the tourney and bet 700 into a 1500 pot. Call. Turn comes Q of hearts. I should check/fold here, right? But I don't. I make my singel biggest mistake of the tourney. I bet out 1300, and he instashoves. I think on it, and fold.*

The very next hand, I pick up QQ (I think I'm UTG here). Down to 3400, I raise to 600. Mid position player with large stack raises to 1200, I call. Flop comes Axx. I check/fold; he shows AA. Good fold, but I'm down to 2200 at first break.

Very shortly after, I pick up KK on the button, with one PF caller. I shove, everyone folds. Back up to 1800. A couple hands later, I pick up AA, I shove, and get one caller (the one player in the previous KK hand who called pf prior to my raise, and then folded). AA holds, and I'm back up to about 4100 or so, blinds 200/400/25.

Fold, fold, fold my BB, and see 42o in the small. Cutoff calls, and with antes, I figure completing here isn't bad. In retrospect, a shove would have been much stronger, considering the stack of the other to players. Flop comes Q53 rainbow, and I like my draw. I lead out for 400, BB calls, and cutoff raises to 1500. I think this is fishy, and he's got about 4k behind, so I shove the OESD. BB folds, and cutoff thinks long and hard before calling with QJ. My draw doesn't hit, and I go home.

So, in the span of less than four full 25-minute blind levels, I see AA, KKx2, QQ, JJ, and AKs, and I don't make it through 100 minutes of the event. Not my shining moment, though in my defense, I was playing after watching a 22 inning game, sleeping for three hours, then working a full day. The fog on my head was heavy. On top of that, I was at a table with a handful of really strong players, or at least players who have cashed HPT events, played WSOP, etc. These guys weren't Ivey or Lindgren, but they were a lot better than the vast majority of players I run into at bar poker tables, and understood what bet sizes represented, were capable of playing back, very very few limped flops, etc.

I do think the only hand I really misplayed was the AKs hand (which goes to show how one colossally fucked up hand can ruin an entire tourney, even if it isn't the hand that sends you home, and even if you manage to pick up a few chips later. In my case, check/folding the flop on my AKs hand would be really weak, but betting 700 into a 1500-1600 chip pot on a flush draw board was bad. I needed to make a pot-sized bet there, and take away pot-odds (though he presumably had two overs to the raggy board and may have called).

After I busted out, he told me he had a K-high flush, which means his starting hand could not have been better than KJs (unless he had AKs and is not telling the truth, which is certainly possible, but in this case, I believe him, as he was one of the more active players at the table). So maybe a larger flop bet gets him out. Maybe a shove over his turn raise sells him on a nut flush (if he's holding KJ), but a) he makes that call there almost always, and b) my pf raise doesn't indicate ATs, A9s, etc.

So my casual attempt to go to the WSOP with the DPT fell way short, as I didn't even make it into the final tournament next weekend, much less win it. Maybe I was too tired to play. Maybe I just wasn't vested enough, starting with half the chips of other players, and being such a rare participant at DPT events (I've only ever played about 9-10, and won two of them). Maybe I'm just too aggressive at the wrong times. Or maybe, it just wasn't going to be my night. That's okay, really -- I just hope the next time I can pick up so many premium hands in a short span, I can manage to do more with them.

Anyway, it's beeeeauuuuuutiful here in Colorado today, and my Rockies are on a four game winning streak, with the Phils and Cubs in town this week. I can't worry about bar poker results, when the world is otherwise so grand, ya know?

Good luck on the felt.