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Peaks & the valleys, loose & solid play

From Rebuy Season Game 6 June 26 2005

I have won 2 side no rebuy tournaments in between Game 1 and Game 6 but can not seem to pull through on the Sunday points games. It sort of feels like participating in the WSOP's 45 events and not fairing well while winning non-WSOP events in between. Well i'm sure it's not the same but it is relative. The Rebuy structure induces quite a bit of loose play in the beginning levels and dissipates after the rebuy expires in one hour. Generally loose players do not win but they do have their day under the sun. The KPT championship top 5 in points are solid players with one loose player who had his day on Game 5.

I will admit i played somewhat loose in the first half of the season but on this Game 6 i have decided to play Solid, and just solid. My table was six handed namely Randy, Marco, Jee, Conrad, Jerome and myself (Adrian getting blinded out) and table number 2 also with six players. My table consisted of relatively Solid players except for Randy who is a loose player and Jerome a somewhat solid player who likes to commit lots of chips into draws. After winning the first 3 hands i played accumulating a nice chip stack i was delt Pocket Jacks on the first position which i raised 300 to go which was promtly re-raised 1200 to go by Randy who was next to act. Everyone folded to me and i called the raise. The flop is "Q 5 2" with two hearts, i check the flop and as i expected Randy moved ALL IN. I have seen this move far too many times, after i decided that Randy was holding a smaller pocket pair than my Jacks i called the ALL IN. Randy flips open pocket 10's with one heart and catches running hearts to make a flush and beat my Jacks.

The blinds still at 50-50. Jee makes a standard raise under the gun, Allan calls. I re-raise 700 to go with "A K" of diamonds. Randy calls from the small blind, Jee folds and Allan calls. The flop is "Ace 7 4" rainbow and checks all around (which i know now as a mistake). The turn is a 9 of diamonds, Allan checks i bet 1000 and Randy goes over the top and moved ALL IN. After deciding i am still ahead in the hand i make the call and was surprised to see a " 3 5" of diamonds. Randy has 3 outs which he caught "6" of clubs to make a straight on the river to once again knock me out.

I am now on my 2nd and last Rebuy for the tournament. I lost a big hand to Jee and lost 1200 after i flopped top and bottom pair and he the top two pairs. The very next hand Randy raises under the gun which was called by Marco and once again i am holding pocket jacks on the big blind. I push ALL IN for only 1500 which was called by both players. Randy with "Ace 10" offsuit catches 4 clubs on the board to make the nut flush to knock me out of the tournament. So much for Solid play.

With everyone's consent i bought Adrian's remaining chips (Adrian wasn't going to make it) and play for his points. Just as i did the previous Thursday game i was gonna make a comeback and try to win the tournament (i ended up 2nd) and win some points for Adrian. I quickly gained a good amount chips playing only solid poker and i found myself 2nd in chip lead behind Randy in the final table with 8 players remaining. Soon after the final table David gained chip advantage over Randy and i on 3rd.

The big swing

David makes a 4K raise with blinds at 300-600 from the button with "A Q" offsuit after Randy limped in from the late positon. Small blind and big blind folded and Randy calls the raise. The flop is "Ace 7 5" with two diamonds. Randy "Mr loose play" puts over 20K ALL IN with a "9 10" of diamonds which was promptly called by David who never hesitates to call anyway "did Randy forget that?". Turn and river cards were no help to Randy, he gets knocked out of the tournament after starting with 30K in chips on the final table and ends up 8th place, five places outside the money and two places outside the points. "Holy shit" i murmured then silently cursed Randy for taking 10K of my chips playing loose and giving it all away on a flush draw. Suffice it to say this hand gave David a tremendous chip lead over everyone (Jee 2nd and Marc 3rd in chip count).

There was some really good poker over the next hour and the three big stacks was able to steer away from each other and knocked out the short stacks almost systematically. With 4 players remaining Frank pushes all his chips in, a total of 7200 under the gun, Jee on the button folds and i'm on the small blind with pocket 6's with just over 27K. Do i just call or do i move ALL IN? I didn't wanna go up against David in case he has a good hand on the big blind. I also did not want to double up Frank, 7200 makes it over 14K if he wins and i would be down to 19K but as we know it Frank was making a move because he doesn't like being the short stack, it cramps his style.i called and David folds. Frank has a "k 10" offsuit. The flop was all small cards and Frank is out of the tournament, three players to go. This was really a difficult call considering the chip swing if i had lost the hand.

This 3 handed game lasted about one hour. Chips were moving back and fourth from Jee to Marc to David and back around. Lots of pre flop raises and and even bigger bets on the flop. My stack went from 36K down to 15K and over 40 K all in the first 15 minutes of the three handed game. David turned or rivered "straights" over my two pairs five times, flopped a full house and Raised my big blind with "KK" twice. The five staights and fullhouse cost me dearly. After 20 more minutes i was able to regain most of my chips back to about 30K. But....David raises 5K from the button and i'm the big blind with a wired pair of 7's after Jee folded from the small blind. As Phil Hellmuth would say "After playing perfect poker" some goofball amateur makes a goodball play and knocks you out of a tournament. Well i certainly dont take David as a goofball but i also didn't put him on Pocket Kings as he turned it over after i moved over the top and went ALL IN. "Fuck" i said as i squinted looking at the Kings. Pocket Kings for the third time on my big blind and David finally got to me. Marco and Kris said that i didn't have to move ALL IN and could have just called. Yes they're right, i made one bad read and one bad move that cost me the tournament in an almost perfect day of poker, sorry Mr. Hellmuth. Big David went on to win the tournament and i put Adrian on the board with 6 points and got my money back in the process.

Posted by: Marc Gabay
Monday, June 27, 2005