July 2005 Tournament report by Steve White (yt_sbw on Pokerstars) -

I played in a Pokerstars $100 rebuy MTT for no other reason than I was interested to see what I could achieve. I would normally only have a go at the $20 or $50 Freezeout MTT's. I do OK in these and have won a couple and made the final table a few times. The $100 rebuy is out of my bankroll really (assuming at least 1 rebuy and 1 add-on) WTF I thought I'm $200 up from last night, there was nothing on the TV, lets see what happens! I decide to treat it as a Freezeout - when I'm gone that's it. This means that for most of the tourney I will be playing as a shortstack but that's an area of my game I'd like to improve anyway so it's a good training exercise if nothing else.

I provide more detail as the game goes on and try to explain my thinking at the time - see if you agree with my play? Contact me with constructive criticism….

97 runners top 9 get paid - $850 for 9th raising to $7500 for 1st.

Hand 30 - Apart from winning the odd small hand I've just been treading water waiting for an opportunity to present itself. The table has been quite frantic considering the buy-in and rebuys are a-plenty. I get 9h9c in the BB and call the UTG raise of 50 (double the Blind) into a 4 man pot. Flop is Td 8s Js giving me open-ended straight draw and my 9's. Blinds check it to UTG and he bets 100 into a 425pot. Next guy folds and SB re-raises to 400. I step up with an all in bet of 1390, showing strength behind the raise/re-raise. They both fold and I make 825 chips on the semi-bluff. Turned out to be a good move but I'm not overly happy with how I played it. I was in the BB and short-stacked holding 99 and facing an UTG min raise with 2 other callers I probably should have gone all in there and then or at least a pot sized raise. However on the flop to the raise/re-raise I like my all-in move as the best shortstack play other than folding (which I can't see me doing here).

Hand 52 - I find an all-in hand when I got Ad Ah - UTG raised 4xBB and I pushed. UTG was the only caller with Qc Qd. It was just as well that I had the Ace of Diamonds though as he had the Queen and a 4 flush hit. I double through.

Hand 55 - (I have 1960 chips - leader on my table has 6135) I'm feeling good now with the AA win adrenaline still coursing though my veins when I get As 6s UTG. I called the blind (100), folded round to the button who raises up to 500. Blinds fold to me and I recklessly call (still in double up mode with all the re-buyers around me). Flop is Kd 4s Ts and my nut flush draw looks a lot like an all in. In fact the other guy (has to) go all in with his remaining 458chips (why didn't he go all in pre-flop? I 'might' have folded...?) and I call the draw. Turn 6d River Js and my flush beats his AQ rivered straight. Lucky I know. I don't like my call of his pre-flop raise and I can only put it down to the rush I was on from the AA. Moves like this are going to kill me...

Hand 71 - (I have 2768 chips - leader on my table has 12625) Dealt As Qc in BB. Raised by the Button 2xBB which I call. Two for the flop of 5d 4s 6c which I don't think could have helped him. He bets out 3xBB and I go all-in hoping his Button raise was a steal. He folds ASAP and his steal is thwarted!

Hand 87 - I split a pot when I raise/re-raise/end up all-in VS the table leader with AK VS AK.

Hand 89 - (I have 2818 chips - leader on my table has 19720) I'm Dealt As Qc on the button, folded to me and I raise to 4xBB(800). SB folds, BB puts me all-in. I have to call here I think as there is a chance he is just defending and I'm quite low stacked compared to average. Flop is 4c Td 6h Qs Jh and his 9's in the hole go down. I'm on 5736 with that one - 1/4 of the chip-leader stack.

Hand 110 - (I have 5311 chips - leader on my table has 15422 - Blinds 100/200 Ante25) Ah Ad in the hole and I'm looking to make some chips on this. I'm UTG and decide to call and hope to get a raise behind me which I can re-raise. Alas, everyone folds and only the SB completes for the BB to check. Three to the flop of Td 4h 2d, SB checks, BB bets 600 into the 775 pot. I re-raise to 1200. SB cold calls this and the BB completes. At this point I'm obviously worried. The Blinds could easily have made a hand or draw and unless I see an improvement am thinking of getting out with my remaining 3886 chips. However the Turn is the magnificent As and I've tripped up! SB and BB check this time and I bet 2000 into the 4375 pot (looking back at this I don't like it. I should have gone all in for 3886 to reduce the pot odds for the flush draw. Those pretty Aces do funny things to the mind....) Anyway as I guess my bet invited action the SB calls. BB gives it up. River is a blank 8c and the SB puts me all in for my remaining 1886 chips which I call. Sure enough he had a failed weak flush draw with a Qd 7d and I took down a 12147 pot. I made more than I should have here and know it. If I want to make the money I'm going to need to stop messing about with Aces.

Hand 124 - (I have 10822 chips - leader on my table has 20730 - Blinds 200/400 Ante25) I min-raise 1 off the gun with Kc Qc and only get the BB calling. Qs Th 2d, it's checked to me and I put in 800. BB goes all in for his remaining 9615. Of course I'm concerned I've just been done by a 'Big Blind Special' but IMO the top pair/king kicker is too good to throw away and I decide to call. I figure his all-in was unnecessary in his chip position (after all he still has 9615 nearly half the leaders stack) coupled with the lack of a flush draw to protect his hand from, probably meant a pair which he was hoping beat me at that point. He showed a Qh 9d and only a 9 could save him. 6c Td later and I'm on 21205 and he is out of there. Moral is here is - Don’t fold just because your opponent moves all-in, think about why he did it, and why would you do it in his position.

Hand 126 - and my SB is min-raised by someone 2 to my right (he has 1/4 of my stack). I have Ah Kh and raise enough to put him all-in. BB folds and matey thinks and thinks and ...folds. Strange, no idea what he had but he really should back up the move on me with a call? His chip stack was not enough to make a total bluff and when he got the action I was surprised to see him let it go.

Hand 135 - After a raise and re-raise before me I lay down a pair of tens. Action ends though and we don't see the re-raise hand.

Hand 136 - I'm in fold-mode jacking-in er, a pair of jacks to a min-raise. I'm mid position but thinking of making the money I guess. When the flop is low 9d 7c 6d I rue the wasted chance. The min raiser wins on the flop and we don't see his cards.... one to think about.

Hand 141 - after a raise of 3xBB I fold my small blind of 6d 6h. Raiser wins on the turn [3c 7h Tc] [9c] and we don't see his cards.... Maybe I'm still too tight here, don't get me wrong I'm happy with the fold but should I be trying to build a huge stack or should I worry about making the money first? In this case I need the money so I'm folding.

This carries on for quite a while, we're down to 22 players and I'm folding - As6s, 4c4d, Ad5d, Ac3d, 5d5c, 8d,8c - My stack is now 17112 and I'm waiting for the money

Hand 162 - (I have 17112 chips - leader on my table has 43660 - Blinds 400/800 Ante50 - 21 players left). Nice to know I haven't lost my nerve, I get Ah Kd in the BB and when it's folded to the SB (31645 chips) and he raises me to 2400 I'm happy to put his shameless steal to the test! I move all-in and he folds. I collect 5150 from the pot. I think the all-in move here is vital for two reasons - 1) to protect the pre-flop strength of my hand and 2) to reduce the pot-odds to force the larger stack into a decision to make a bad call with a marginal hand (AQ/AJ/TT for example). Also lets not forget he might just be stealing from the SB with anything. It also helps to show the table my BB is not to be stolen on a whim of positional jousting.

Hand 167 - A little raise 3xBB by me UTG with KK wins the pot there and then.

Hand 171 - An example of how to play a small pocket pair really badly by someone from the BB. It's folded to me on the button and I try a steal with Jd4c. I only min-raise which was not enough really but the BB called anyway (he has 2/3 of my stack of 19362). Hand firmly in the cookie jar I resolve to let it go no real harm done. Flop is 7h 4h Kd BB checks quickly, I pause on it for a while then check. Turn Tc check, check and River is 2h, making the flush that the BB checks. His checking could mean he has absolutely nothing in which case I must bet or it means he hit and is waiting to check raise me. Of course as I was the raiser he is probably just waiting for me to move. I feel my only option to try win the hand (because lets face it my pair of fours just can't be ahead) is to bet 3xBB. I expect to be re-raised and have to drop my hand or for him to have missed as badly as me and to fold. He CALLS and shows a pair of 3's in the hole! No heart! Great call mate! I win with a pair of fours. If he had raised me pre-flop I fold. He can raise the flop, turn or re-raise on the river and he wins but no, he calls! At this point we are down to 18 players but as a short stack maybe his pocket pair in the BB VS a Button raise deserved to be defended? This guy is the bubble boy later on as well when his TT loses to KK but at least he stumped up pre-flop with that one!

Hand 186 - (I have 24112 chips - leader on my table has 72078 - Blinds 600/1200 Ante75 - 14 players left) I get wounded but make a good fold as well. I'm the big blind with 3d5h. Two limpers and the SB make it a party flop at this late stage (very unlike most hands played lately). I'm not feeling a re-raise-steal with 3,5 is a good idea at this late stage so close to the money so I check it. The flop is 9c 3c 9h and I perk up! SB checks, I check (with the intention of a re-raise) UTG checks and button bets 2xBB. SB folds and I re-raise to 4xBB (really to try and take it down now and also to find out where I am in the hand). UTG folds and Button raiser goes all in for (gulp) 43729! I think for a bit but there is no real choice, I fold. I typed "3" in the chat box and he showed down A9 - Trips. A limping hand I guess with 45k of chips....

Hand 193 - and I'm short stacked on 14937 11 players left (9 get paid) there are some 90000 stacks as well as some below me. I will play AA KK QQ and AK only here while waiting for the shorter guys to act first - They have less than me and MUST go first. I don't really have enough to contend with the monster stacks on the final table anyway and figure that after 3 hours play I would like a return on my investment.

Hand 197 - We're down to ten players I'm on 13537 in 9th place when the bottom stack of 8970 makes his move with TT. MP wakes up with KK and wins the pot with a very nice flop of 5s 7d Qs Kc Jd.

In the money! ($850 for 9th raising to $7500 for 1st) Final table chip positions -

Seat 1: (90638 in chips)

Seat 2: (12715 in chips)

Seat 3: (26884 in chips)

Seat 4: (39762 in chips)

Seat 5: (128998 in chips)

Seat 6: (21516 in chips)

Seat 7: (11437 in chips) Me - yt_sbw

Seat 8: (21655 in chips)

Seat 9: (28395 in chips)

I'm happy with 9th place but still want to wait for a good hand to go down with. As the bottom stack they should be waiting for me to make my move before they do anything stupid but you never know who might bite first....

Hand 211 - and the current short stack (14216) (I'm in 6th with 18974, leader has 129498) goes all in with 88 and gets called by the button with AJ. A jack hits the flop we all move up the money.

Hand 214 - blinds 1000/2000 ante100

Seat 1: (86138 in chips)

Seat 2: (15015 in chips)

Seat 3: (19384 in chips)

Seat 4: (65878 in chips)

Seat 5: (129298 in chips)

Seat 7: (16774 in chips) - Me - yt_sbw

Seat 8: (15155 in chips)

Seat 9: (34358 in chips)

The killer hand for me. I get Ah Kh one off the button. Seat 2 (15015) raises to 6000, folded to me and I decide to go all-in. Folded back to seat 5 and he calls and turns over Kc Ks - fair enough. Despite the teasing flop (3s Th Jh) with a Inside straight draw, a flush draw and a Royal flush draw no less, I get no more help and my 15 outs miss with the turn, 9d and the river, 2d.

Hand 215 - The last hand. I have 1759 left and push with Kd 8d only to lose KK again - Why does fate work like that?

Shame about the AK vs KK at the end. If I had won that one I'd have been over 30k and I could've been a contender - ahem, as they say. Never mind $1100 to the good so I'm happy.

Hope you enjoyed this run through of my game, at the very least it has helped me work through some mistakes and good/bad decisions I made. It's all to easy when you make a final table to say "hey I played great today" buts its only when you review the entire hand history that you can study and analyse the situations where you got lucky and how many pitfalls you run into and should have avoided. Knowledge is power after all.

In looking back I think where all-ins presented themselves I was happy to make the right play. I was rarely behind on any all-in and always had plenty of outs so I like that. I think I played my premium cards well and aggressive where necessary. Not so good would probably be the fact that I was playing too scared and not trying to be more aggressive with some marginal hands to make 1^st place. My priority was making the money, which did effect my game, however as survival is paramount in a tourney I can live with that. I just guess I'm more Dan Harrington than I am Gus Hansen!

Please feel free to constructively criticise my play... Email Steve@riverstars.com or respond via the post about this tourney report on the twoplustwo forum. I'm always learning and welcome your insight.

Thanks for reading

Harlow Dog Track (run by jenningspokerschool) Poker room report, Nov 2005 by Steve White -

I ventured out to play cards at Harlow Dog track last night (mon) to play in a £10 re-buy tourney. To be honest I wasn't expecting a lot from the venue as I hadn't heard anything about it in the forums, apart from a mention that they actually had a game at Harlow dog track and local advertising for the venue seems to be non-existent. Having never been to the Dog track before, first impressions were not good and in fact the place was a little bit scary! The entrance to the track is tucked away down an industrial estate access road it's not very well signposted to say the least. After going through the big grey metal gates and negotiating the pot holes in the carpark we made our way up to the cardroom.

They have a large room adjacent to the bar and dog track spectating area. 9 large oval cushioned poker tables with huge Jenningspoker signs on them. In fact Jennings are sponsoring the whole thing, all the staff had "Jennings" plastered about their person. The room is so big they could probably fit another 9 tables in it as well. So first impressions of the room were very good, if a little cold, jumpers were the order of the day.

Found out they play a £50 freezeout on sunday afternoon, £10R on mondays and £20R on Weds and Thursday. They said Wednesday sells out due to the dogs being on at the same time but the other days vary in numbers from 25 to 60odd. No cash games on offer as yet but as the night went on STT's started up for £20 buy in. Last nights £10 rebuy had 39 runners which is their best yet for a Monday. The staff were friendly and helpful, they even played an instructional dvd for noobs before the game started as well. I recognised 2 or 3 of the dealers from Luton. Oh yeah, that's right all 4 tables had dealers! Excellent!

10% rake so £1 last night.
Prize pool reached £1031 first place was £350 I think. 9 paid
2x30 min blind levels for the rebuys then 20 mins for the freezeout

The standard of play was a lot lower than Luton, the only other live casino I've been to but much friendlier. Most of the punters are casual players and the standard varied wildly. I only spotted a couple of 'rounders' for want of a better word so I could smell the money right from the off!

I went for it in normal Luton £10 rebuy mode - all in with QTs, all in with A4s and lost both to AA and KK oh well. The table was a LOT tighter than any rebuy I've been in before so I changed strategy after that. When the rebuy ended I'd only done £30 but I knew I would cough up the £10 add on as it was for double the chips (2000).

In the break they served a free buffet for the punters!

I come out of the rebuy with 2500 + the add on so started the freezeout with 4500. Average was about the same but some had 10K+. After that I just went into my shell, folding all the time while waiting for a hand and trying to steal a pot a round. All night long my best hand was 77 and it won me the blinds. Nearly every pot I won was with steals or BB's that hit the flop. I only had one (steal) all-in called, I had A7s and he called with QJo muttering that that was the second time I'd attacked his blinds. Sorry mate but you were that only person on the table I thought would fold, the WSOP cap gave it away! Won that all-in and made the final table. I was in 7th chip position on 8K which was as high as I had been all night. The two shorter stacks crashed out and I made my stand with AT and lost to 99 - fair enough. Won £57 for my trouble so only £17 profit but it was an enjoyable night. I never saw a good hand but still made the final table. The AT I went out on was my biggest Ace all night! I went out at about midnight and I guess the others would have been done by 1am so not a late, late night for those of us that work.

I can see this taking off and probably can't see myself going to Luton again when this game is on my doorstep. Its a good poker room, nice staff, we had dealers in a £10 game, friendly punters, hardly any egos. All in all a great place to play cards.

Harlow dogs had 81 runners last night for the £10R. 1st paid £750odd. This is not a real report just some stories from the game last night.
I went out 14th QQ vs AK - he spiked an Ace on the river - bad beat over.
It was still a good game but this week there were a lot of kids who thought the WSOP was the way to play. No class, lots of whoop whooping when 2 card outs hit. High fiving mates the whole works. Soured the night a bit. To be fair they are just having a good time, not malicious at all.
The standard of play is still poor, lots of noobs and people who think they are 'it'.
In particular one guy went into full Hellmuth mode a couple of times. Firstly I wound him up when it was his BB and me on the button. I felt like isolating the SB who had only double the BB behind. SB called and Hellmuth folded the BB moaning that I'd better have a hand. When I showed A5s he went ballistic. I told him to remember my face so he can read me the next time I'm at it! He then added that my chips would soon be his and that the whole table saw my 'move'! sooooo funny but this guy couldn't see it. The whole table thought he was an idiot but he had no idea of that. Next he went all in with AJo only to be called by chippy towers with ATo and the ten flops. Hellmuth hung around all night moaning at chippy towers who was cool as a cucumber, which pissed off Hellmuth even more. I tried to tell him his all-in was the wrong move but he couldn't see past the guys poor call. He just could not accept that his all-in was wrong (he had over average chips and was in EP) He also genuinely believed that the guy who hit his Ten was "at least 1000/1" !!!! LOL
Harlow dogs is growing but they need to sort out some players. More control from the management is needed - or at least a clarification to the noobs as to how to behave maybe?