Deepstacks Victory

Saturday Night was a lot of fun. We had 14 out for an $80 deepstacks tourney in the Den. The level of play was excellent and we had a blast.

Early on I kind of struggled not seeing any real hands and even misplaying a couple of hands. I hit a set on the turn and my opponent hit a straight on the river. We started with 5k and I was down around 3200. The rest of the tourney was simply big hand big pot poker. Here is the rundown on the significant hands as I do not believe I lost too many hands after the run started. So here we go:

Hand 1) I have KK in the SB. We are 7 handed and its limped to me. Blinds 40/80. I make it 450. The BB calls and the 2 limpers fold. The flop comes QC2SQS. I have the KS and I bet out 700 and the BB calls again. The turn is a 7S and now I am confused as to what to do but I am fairly certain I have the best hand. I'm certain my opponent does not have a flush because he does not have AQs or AKs. I checked for the sole purpose of finding out what he would do. He bet out 1100 and I was certain he had TT or JJ, so I went all-in. My thinking was even he did have the Q I still had 12 outs. I posted this one on pokerpoker.ca so there will be a lot of discussion about it. My opponent mucked JJ and I took a nice pot.

Hand 2) we are 6 handed now and blinds are 70/140. I have around 5800 in chips I raise to 450 with AA. I am in CO and the button calls, SB calls and BB calls. Not exactly what I wanted to see. The board came 236 rainbow and I decided I could die on this hand. There was just over 1800 in the pot. It checked to me and I bet 2000. It folded to the BB and he thought for awhile said he had a 3 and he thought I was just making a play at the pot and he pushed all-in. I called and he said "crap". He had 73o and I won a huge pot bringing me to around 12k.

Hand 3) 5 handed now blinds are 100/200 and I have AK in co. I raise to 600. Tight Joey on the button makes it 2000. Folds back to me, I ask him how much he has left and he says around 4500. I went all-in. I never ever would usually push all-in with AK preflop however I felt there was a 90% chance he would fold. Almost 3k in the pot, I thought it was worth the chance to take the pot down. Worst case scenario we are racing for half my stack but all of his. I really like my play on this hand.

Hand 4) final table started with 9, I was Chip Leader with around 15k. I played very tight and few hands early on. Then with blinds at 200/400 UTG limps and it folds all the way to my BB. He had about 8K and I look down at AQ. I really did not like the idea of raising here and I told myself I needed at least 2 pair to play this hand. I checked and the flop came AQ6 with 2 spades. I checked to him and he bet 600. I raised 1500 more. He just called and I thought maybe he had AK but was not certain. The turn was a red 9 and I asked him how much he had. He had 6k. I bet 4500 because I did not want to debate calling the all-in. After thinking for awhile he pushed all-in with AJ. So another big pot and I was over 20k (there was 80k in play).

Hand 5) I am UTG and there are 7 left. Blinds are 300/600 and the BB has only 3800. I have 44 and I raise to 1800. The SB then goes all-in and it is 4400 more to call. This player was not a player I wanted to double up but I needed to know if I was crushed or racing. I was fine with calling if it was a race but did not want to call and see 99. I kept talking and talking. I told him I had AQ and I thought he had AJ. After that I could tell he had 2 big cards, in fact I called and said show me AJ. Sure enough he showed AJ and I won another big pot on a totally rag board. I am now over 30k.

Hand 6) With such a huge lead now I started raising every hand. It does not take long for good players to pick up on this but I was very careful to make sure some of my hands were playable so after raising for the 3rd time in the same orbit the 6th player to bust pushed all-in with A6 trying to push what he thought was a small 60/40 edge however I had Ak and busted another player I pushed my stack over 40k.

Hand 7) 4 handed now with all the players in the money I started getting very aggressive. Raising every hand. Again the BB was forced into a tough decision after I raised to 4k on the button, he put all 6k of his chips in with A3. The flop came with 2 spades but missed me completely. I had K7 with the Ks. The turn was a 7s and he did not hit his 2 outer on the river and I am over 50k now 3 handed.

I lost a hand with AK vs A8 when there was a push preflop and then I busted another player when I pushed all-in with J3 and he called with A3 and I hit a J.

Down to heads-up it was mainly a push poker game. I lost with AQ vs KJ. I then went all-in with TT and my opponent called blind and turned over 52o which was strange. My tens held and took $560 for my trouble.

I had a lot of breaks go my way in this tourney and I had a blast!

Mark Silver