Last night I played the Red Spade Open, a $50 tournament with 24497
entrants including many Pokerstars Pros, Liv Boeree amongst them. Despite a very
poor run of late I entered with confidence and having had an afternoon nap, well
rested for a change. From the outset I was comfortable and playing my A-game.
The slow structure fitted nicely with my approach which was mainly one of
patience, waiting for an opportunity.
Before too long a perfect scenario developed where I hit a set of twos against a
player hitting top pair. I played it nicely and doubled up.
For the next hour or so I progressed without any significant
confrontations. I took down quite a few hands without a showdown keeping my
stack at around the average level. I played at the same table for a long time
and was able to identify the loose, the weak and the strong. With a third of the
field left and in a good position I started to go backwards following a period
of small setbacks. I was folding more often than ideal and the couple of times I
did raise with mediocre hands I had to fold to strong looking three bets. All
was not lost though as I waited for a decent hand and an opportunity to double
up. Finally some positive action. In the big blind with nines I three bet all in an
early position raiser who called with KQ. My hand held up and I was back
with an average stack with around 4000 players left. The top 2563 would get paid
starting at $135. All was well at this stage.
From this point the table became
much more active as the blinds and antes kicked in, bigger stacks began to
dominate and smaller stacks began to push all-in. For around half an hour I did
not play a hand and was effectively card dead. This is the main thing I need to
work on. What to do on an active table without decent cards. Experience and
confidence in making some moves in this spot was what I lacked and it cost
me. At no point in the tournament did I get a premium hand but that should not matter. I was not too
frustrated but as my stack went below ten big blinds I knew I had to act soon.
Finally an opportunity to push came. I knew I needed at least a double up and a
couple of blind steals to make the money - then who knows. It was folded round
to me in the small blind with J7 off suit and my eight big blinds went in. Given
my lack of action for a while I was expecting the big blind to show some
respect, though obviously he would call with any big hands. He called with KT
suited and hit a flush. Suddenly, following an age of inactivity I was out
having played J7. I finished a respectable 3422nd. I really enjoyed the game and
in the end was happy with my blind v blind push. Most of the time my opponent
would fold, and when called I would still have a decent shot at double up. In
this case 36% versus the KT.
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