My Legends Performance

So I bused the Legends 10k day mid way through day three. I finished about 45 of 279 and missed the money by 20 or so spots. Overall I was very very pleased with my play. I played a fundamentally different game than I usually do online. Because the stacks are so deep and the structure is so much better in these live 10k's post flop play obvious becomes increasingly important. For the first two days, I felt like I was able to avoid marginal spots, play pots in position against weaker opponents, and overall adopt a much lower variance style of play. As an example, until my bust hand I was never all in the entire tourney.

On the whole I felt like I ran well below expectation but still gave myself a chance to win. Aside from running AA into Justin Young's KK (he only had 17bbs) I was in none of the juicy spots where you just get free chips. Even more amazingly, in two and half full days I had AK ZERO times and AA once. If your a math guy, and can tell me what the odds of never picking up AK in 13 hours of play, id be curious to know.

On day three I made one marginal call against Eric Hershler. I opened from the CU with 99, Eric flats from sb, bb flats as well. Flop Q76hh checks to me, I check for pot control. Turn 5 checks to me once again and bet 2/3 pot. Eric calls bb folds. River 9. He shoves what amounts to 2/3 pot I puke/call he has 88. I was sure he didnt have the best hand on the turn but really felt he was on the heart draw. I expected A8hh or air. He had 88. Still had 40+ bbs after the hand.

About a hr later, here is my bust hand. I have 72k at 12/2400. The big blind has less than 20bbs. Pralad Friedman has the button with a CL stack. I pick up AJhh and make it 7,200 from high jack. He makes it 20k total, and I shove (again 72k) total.

My problem with the hand is two fold. First, I dont have much FE. He is getting just under 2 to 1 to make the call and he has the chips to do it. However, based on his aggressive play when I looked down at AJ I initially, I really felt raise/folding was too weak and unprofitable in the long run. FWIW flop comes K72hh and I miss. Maybe he would have folded had I flat his 3 bet and shoved flop. I did have a pretty tight image, that was the first time I had been all in the entire tourney, as well as the first time I had 4 bet at a table with Pralad.

As I set at the outset of this blog, overall I was very happy with my performance in this tourney. I am feeling increasingly comfortable at the big buy-in tourneys and feel like I have developed a style that fits the structures well.

Chilling in LA till WCCOP. Planning to play almost every event and ship at least one bracelet. After WCCOP ends I will play the 2500 at Commerce near the end of September and then head to Aruba for the 5k in early October.

GLA

DS