I love a deep stacked tournament where the emphasis is more on hand reading poker skills rather than pre flop aggression which can often resulting in very limited post flop play and after 2 levels of this D4 events English Deep stack at the Broadway Casino in Birmingham, my stack had grown from the starting stack of 50000 to a very healthy 60000.
Some players seemed to treat their 500 big blind starting stack as if it was an online short stack and in level one an initial raise to 300 was called in 5 spots and when the older, no moves player, in the bug blind 3 bet to 1500 the field narrowed to 3 who then proceeded to play a 1500 BB pot 3 handed where at no stage does anyone have better than one pair.
One of those players had flown over from Belfast and actually spent more time finding his seat on the plane than he spent playing the tournament he flew over to play.
The player that won the pot went on to knock out two more players shortly afterwards to have a stack of 2500 Big blinds which apparently was just a big enough stack to last past level 6. I am sure he will improve with experience and hopefully he will start playing cash games sooner rather than later.
I had a bad aggro player to my right who, not surprisingly, thought that a bluff was a good play whether the bet made sense or not (probably understandable if you don’t know the difference) and I took a fair few chips off him in the early stages until he got a lot back when hitting a 2 outer against me. In the overall scheme of things I did not mind this as it kept him encouraged and I figured he was just keeping them warm for me providing he didn’t gift wrap them for someone else before I got my share.
Every time he limped and I folded it felt like having a bad beat and every flop where he continued to bet and decided to fold made me feel like I was a small child that woke up too late and missed Santa’s sleigh
I Tried to tilt him a bit, though not like he needed it when I showed him my 9 high after I triple barrelled him with a gut-shot (I know I am too old to do that but I am honestly not making it up) he said I had the best hand and he had 6 high which meant he both need same gut shot which gave me the bigger straight if it hit, and he would stack off with top pair let alone a straight that was made more exciting in his mind as it was a hit gut shot, He would never call 3 streets for a gut shot then not stack off when he hits it, that’s how bad I run!!!
As if rewarded for my clean living within 3 hands of showing him the bluff, I flopped middle set versus his top pair and he called off 60 big blinds over 3 streets
All in all the day was going completely smooth and I enjoyed a nice gentle chip accumulation to double average stack without playing a big pot.
As often happen one pivotal hand can change both your mind-set and “form” and after I get moved to a table where it quickly becomes apparent that the player to my immediate left is very aggro and not too subtle with it. I allow him to bully me waiting for the opportunity to let him push me around when I have the goods ( or if need be 3 or 4 bet him if I haven’t) I find QQ raise from 1600 to 3500 and he makes it 10000 I call. The flop is T82 and I check call his 25k continuation bet. He has a small tell the way he puts his chips into the pot and I am sure he thinks he is bluffing as he bets the flop. This indicates to me that he either has A or K high (he would very likely 3 bet with any two cards above Ten) or maybe a pair below the 8, as most players would not feel like they were bluffing here with 99, so the best hand he has is 77. The turn is a horrible looking Ace and I check and he checks behind, The river is another Ace, making it less likely he has an Ace in his hand and given the read on the flop I think it is probable that I am still winning , though I now don’t like it very much. I check and he bets another 20k, which could be a value bet or could be a hopeful stab as he would never ever (even with a gun to his head) check behind twice if he had no showdown value and he could even be turning pocket Sevens into a bluff (even though he probably would not know he was doing that if he bet).
I call and he turns over AJ.
It was like a pivotal moment and a poker poo catalyst as, for next hour, I lost every hand I played and ended the day with 58k.
Fortunately, because the structure was so good still meant I was in the game with 28 Big blinds going into Day 2 and I was anxious to cash as I had cashed in the previous two D4 Events Deep Stacks I had previously played (both in Slovenia).
Day 2 started well and I increased my stack to 130k but it became hard to slowly accumulate chips as players were opening for 5X and continuation betting between 3 and 5 times the pot.
At one point I had raised 5 times and had someone move all in on me each time. I guess that will teach me to consider raising with hands I can call a shove with but, I had too many blinds to open fold say A7 suited when it was folded to me in mid-position.
I decided to at least temporarily adjust my opening range in many spots and ended up just folding which was ok too as I do like a good fold.
I ended up playing 15 big blind poker with 30 big blinds and only opening hands good enough to call a shove with, until the table settled down a bit at least.
Mad Turk was very unlucky he doubles up and then next hand gets it in with AK v AJ and loses leaving him short stacked. Very shortly afterwards Karl Mahrenholz (see how good he runs) check calls the short stacked Turk all in on a flop of 33J thinking he has a 3 when in fact he has 67 (I am not sure which of the 6 or the 7 he thought was a 3) the turn is 3 and river J for a well-played split pot. I am not sure what Turk had but he was beating 7 high when he was called.
Trying to maintain a minimum level of flair to go with the hoody I was wearing I made one very nice bluff.
A Player min raises and a good but not over aggressive player in the small blind calls and I over call in the big blind with 7T suited. The flop is AK5 rainbow and we all check. The player who min raised was quite straight forward and would almost always bet an Ace or King if checked to him (and if he didn’t bet a King would hate any heat on the turn if enough pressure was applied) so I was pretty sure that no one had much of anything. The good player in the small blind now led the turn (which was a Six) and I was pretty sure he would likely check for value if he had any hand of any strength as it was likely I might take a stab at it, or even the initial raiser if checked to him twice as most players feel obliged to at least consider taking a stab in that spot.
So the small blind bets 35k and I re-raise to 80K both fold and I show them my bluff (when you bluff as little as I do you have to enjoy it when you do one- much like when Arsenal win a football game nowadays.
Naturally I then nitted up for a bit and hoped to find a big hand so someone can show me no respect, with that fresh in their mind but it didn’t happen.
I won a decent pot to get well into the game and got into the cash but then made a move on a button raiser only to find him with AK and I ended up 20th.
It was a great game, superbly structured and well run as usual for D4 Events run tournaments and I am very pleased to see more and more games with deep structures replacing the crap shoots that poker players are usually forced to endure.
