WSOP WSOP WSOP, 10k 2-7 Single Draw NL Event Review
Saturday, June 13, 2009 15:06(Caution: Long Blog)
I'm in full throttle WSOP mode now. I forgot where I left off, so I'll start with me being eliminated 28'th in the $10k O8 to Phil Ivey hitting a 2 outer on me to scoop the entire thing in the most disguised way possible. That's not to say a few hours before I hit a 2 outer to 3/4 Allen Kessler though. I then played the $3k HORSE and was doing pretty well the first day until the limits really got high and I was knocked out shortly after beginning Day 2 when my K high flush ran into a concealed full house in Stud 8 which there was nothing I could do about.
The next day I played the $10k 2-7 NL event. As I believe I've mentioned before, 2-7 triple draw is one of my best games, but 2-7 single draw NL is a totally different beast. It requires the most intense reading ability of any tournament. I had to be totally focused for this one, and I was virtually the entire way. Day 1 started off with me drawing the best table in the room. I had John Hansen on my left, Kenny Tran to his left, another guy to Kenny's left, some guy from Switzerland to his left, Steve Sung to his left, and then some NL tournament player on my right. It was very very soft compared to the field. Some guys drew 3 a few times and even 4 once and made a 9 on Kenny Tran's pat hand and then raised him after the draw!!! It was so sick that when the guy drew 4 and then raised Kenny after he led out, I had to run away from the table so I wouldn't disrupt the action by not being able to contain my laughter. Kenny eventually paid it off and the guy drew 4 into a 9-7...lol. I made a really good call on Kenny when I raised UTG with 2367 and he called in position, and Steve Sung overcalled from the big blind and stood pat. I drew 1, Kenny drew 1, Steve checked, I caught a King and checked, and then Kenny starting counting out chips and bet 6500 into about a 3500 pot. Steve quickly folded and I took about 5 seconds and called him. I just knew by something I had picked up on Kenny that there was no way my King high wasn't good here. Kenny is usually very difficult to read, but this time I definitely had something solid to go on, and that is what this game is all about.
Eventually, our table broke and I moved to a table with a random tight Australian guy, Danny Alaei, Anna Wrobleski, Jeffrey Lisandro, David Williams, and David Benyamine. I'm very friendly with all of these people except for the Australian guy who I actually ended up playing with for 15 hours of Day 2 with, so it was nice to just shoot the shit with them. As soon as I got to the table, I was very very active, with hands, and without hands. I made a big squeeze play after Anna opened UTG, Jeff called, and DB called, and I was on the button and made a big re-raise and they all folded. I also re-raised two other times and I also bet after the draw a few times and I never really got looked up when the following hand came up. The blinds were 200/400 and I had 53k and Jeff Lisandro had me covered with about 85k. He raised UTG to 1500, I re-raised from the button to 6500 with T6542 but all 4 of my smallest cards were diamonds, and since flushes count against you in this game, there was no way I was going to break my Ten. Jeff took about 3 seconds and made it 20,000 more, and I went into the tank. I didn't stop staring at Jeff and just looked for anything I could, and after about 2 or 3 minutes of being in the tank, I shipped the rest of my money in and Jeff hollywooded for less than 10 seconds and folded. I flashed the Ten to the table and David Benyamine almost jumped up in the air and hit the ceiling out of shock! LOL! For those of you unfamiliar with the game, sticking in 125xbbs with a Ten to a UTG raiser is definitely not standard. Again, I felt I had a good read and just had to roll with it. I ended Day 1 with around 85k in chips which was 5'th with about 60 left heading into Day 2.
On Day 2, I drew another soft table. I had a french guy I had played with in the $10k 8 game on my left, Kenny Tran on his left, an old timer named Hertzel who I played 2-7 TRIPLE draw and PLO with in Biloxi during the WPT who used to play in the old UB days and is quite solid in all of those games, Max Pescatori to his left, and then an older guy from Miami, and Andy Black on my direct right. Within about an hour and a half, I had very very good reads on 3 of these players and was totally focused and honed in. I was maneuvering at all of the right points and making good reads almost every time. Not too long into the day the following hand came up: Hertzel raised UTG, Andy Black called in the cutoff, and I had 2356 on the button and called as well. Hertzel stood pat, Andy Black drew 1, and I drew 1. Hertzel led out for about half pot which was 4800 into about 7500, Andy Black very quickly raised to 15,000, I drew and peeled off the second best card which was an 8 to make me an 8-6 and now I had a big decision to make, I needed to make a read on Hertzel first, to see if he had me beat which was a definite possibility considering he stood pat and led into two people who drew 1 out of position, I decided I had Hertzel beat and put him on about 9-6 or something. Then I had the even bigger decision, did Andy Black have me beat and should I just flat call or should I ship the rest of my stack in? I tanked for about 2 and a half minutes and finally moved in, Hertzel snap folded and Andy black SNAP SNAP fistpump slammed his chips into the pot. I was very concerned now that I was beat given the action and how quickly he called. Fortunately though, 8-6 was good and he said he had 8-7. Later in the day, I raised with A4422 on the cutoff, and got called on the button by the french guy, bruno fitoussi who got moved after I busted Kenny Tran in the small blind, and Hertzel in the big blind. Bruno and Hertzel drew 2, I stood pat, and the frenchman on the button drew 1. Bruno and Hertzel checked and I bet 23,000 into about 30,000 and everybody folded and I brought "snow" to Las Vegas in the summer time and revealed my pure total air bluff! (For you folks unfamiliar with 2-7, snow is a term used instead of bluffing). There weren't any other real good hands to talk about, but I went Day 3 in about 7'th place with 10 people left and I only had about 10 big blinds and we were playing 5 handed so I needed to make some moves fast. I lasted about 10 hands and found myself in a near coinflip situation with David Benyamine with both of us drawing to a 9 and he hit gin and I caught a jack to spite for a 9'th place finish. I can't say I was the best player left in the field, so I'm not upset, but I did play really well and made some great plays. Congratulations to Nick Schulman who won the tournament and is a great overall poker player. I've played with Nick for years and he is very solid.
After I busted in the 2-7 event yesterday, I had a short business meeting with my partner(unrelated to poker) in the Aces Lounge break room, then I hopped in the $5k PLO8 Championship Event. This event was very relaxing in the way that for 3 days I had been using highly intense reads on every single hand dealt because you have to use reads in 2-7 NL Single Draw. In PLO8, it's almost the exact opposite. You don't need to pick up reads as much as you just need to play your hand accordingly to the board. It was very relaxing to just sit back and play the game, and not play the person like what I had been doing the past three days. Today I'll be playing the $10k NLHE Heads Up Event in 2 hours and that will probably be the toughest field of the year given all of the great NL HU players nowadays. I've had poor results in the $25k HU tournaments that run occasionally on FTP but I'm looking forward to changing that since I'm a pretty big favorite in this event. I'm going to go work out, walk my dog, and shower and head to the Rio. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter at http://www.Twitter.com/BoostedJ.
