Bears Free Sunday

Bears Free Sunday.

Not having the Bears to watch really frees up a good portion of my weekend.  I used that time to not money in a $10+1 on FullTilt.  I always question the notion that the players are significantly different on one site than another, but comparing the two tournaments I played this weekend, I’d have to say that FullTilt’s players quite different than the one’s on Stars.  They push hard early and often. There’s not much use in bluffing them because they’ll call preflop with 93o and then think their hand is good when a three hits on the flop.  The other side of this is that they will pay you off when you make a hand.  

For the most part the early stages of this tournament is an exercise in watching horrible players pick each other off.  Its insane the amount of all-ins I saw.  There’s not much use in trying to get a read on your tablemates because chances are they’ll be gone in a hand or two.  

One play that I made early on that I was kind of proud of saw me calling a larger than usual pre-flop raise with wired tens.  One other player called.  The flop was 883 and the original raiser goes all in.  Now, I was real close to folding this hand.  This is a hand that I usually get in trouble with.  I’ve hung myself by betting in to larger pairs with pocket tens on more than one occasion.  But this time he acted first and bet way more than what any normal player would consider reasonable.  Ultimately I decide that if he has a higher pair than me, he is going to slowplay it rather than chase people out of the pot.  I call and find out I’m right when he turns over AQ.  The turn and river don’t help him, and I double up.

From there on I played pretty solid, chipping up gradually, and winning a few big pots.  I was around the average chip stack for most of the way.

I then decided to throw it away in three hands.  Down to 54 out of 305 players, top 36 pay.  10 minutes till the second break and I’m in the small blind with A9o.  The dealer limps and I try to chase him away with a 3x BB raise.  I been stealing the player to my lefts blind often and I expected him to fold.  Unfortunately both called.  The dealer had played just about every hand for the last hour so it was tough to put him on hand.  The flop didn’t help me and I checked, not wanting to risk more chips in a three way pot.    BB also checks and dealer min bets.  I call.   I also check call the turn and river.  He wasn’t showing strength and the bet was so small compared to the pot that I figured I could call and see what happens.  I should have raised or folded, but I was afraid that he’d come over the top of me if I raised and it seemed so cheap to call.  A few hands later another steal attempt got blocked when I was called and I missed the flop.  I finally went out when I went all in pre-flop with K7.  I got called by the tourney chip leader.  He had 77 and caught the case seven on the flop.  My thought at the time was that I had to win some blinds before they got to me, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to scare anyone off a pot again.  Oh well.