My last seven days of online tournaments have been pretty interesting. I've gone down over 8k in buy-ins, but won live event packages worth over 10k, so I guess all in all the week was +2k.

 

I played a 1k mixed event in the Midnight Sun series today, I finished 42/140. I was pretty happy with my overall patience level as I had less than 20BB for SIX hours straight and was so card dead it's hilarious.

 

There were two really weird hands in the tournament. I don't know how to play either of the games as playing any Pot Limit game is a mystery to me. I'd have an easy solution to how I should play these were they no limit, but in PL I just have no clue and I think I just played these pretty badly.

In both hands I have an extremely spazzy/lagtard/loose cannon internet kid image.



1) PLHE. 200/400. Folded to HJ, he limps. CO also limps. I'm on the button with AT and exactly 8000 behind. I?

I've been isoing a ton and also 3betting, and at this point no one is giving me credit for anything. I just lost most of my stack and have played 0 hands since I got down to 20BB from 50BB+. HJ is a 50yo guy who I've seen before but have never played with. I think he is a standard lolivepro (has some idea but is not at all stack size aware). I think his limping range is quite polarised (mostly pairs and broadway combos) but I don't think he'll be folding much if I pot it. He's been in the table for maybe 3 orbits and this is his first open limp, he's been really tight. CO is a random who just sat down.



2) PLO. Now welcome the most butchered hand of the year! Villain is the same guy as HJ in the previous hand and this is about two orbits later. During the past orbits I've realised he's really stationey post but doesn't seem to raise without the nuts (he checked back KT on KxxxT rainbow on the river in PLHE in a super obvious valuebet spot).

I have 6200 and limp AA98 UTG. While this would be a ridiculously clear sandbagging to players who know their business, there were at least 4 players behind me who had absolutely no clue about PLO and who would definitely raise with random double suited hands, rundowns etc. Anyway, of course no one raises. HJ limps, BTN (villain) limps, SB folds, BB checks.


Flop AT3 (1600)

BB checks, and since the players in the hand are the ones who *are* aware of what I just did UTG and my stack size I choose to slowplay and check, as do HJ and BTN.

Turn 4 (1600)

BB checks, I bet 1200, HJ folds, BTN calls, BB folds

River 2 (4000)

He checks in the dark (before seeing the river), I bet 2500, he looks at my stack (no chance of misreading it since I have two 1k chips visibly in front and there are no larger chips in play) and puts me all-in for my last 2100. I fold.

I'm aware of the ridiculous odds I'm getting on the river, I just thought there was a 0% chance my hand is best unless he misread the board or something.

 

In the very next hand I was in the big blind. A guy in middle position raised, SB called and I had like 2BB so I was obviously pot committed. I jokingly said "I'm going to leave my last 500 for post flop play" and just flatted without looking at my hand. The board came AAT and I looked at my cards now... SHIT, four undercards! Oh well, had to get in anyway. In the end I managed to river a hilarious backdoor flush. to win the hand and triple up to 9BB. I still only had about 10% of the average stack, but I had a last longer bet that I managed to win because of this. My friend in another table had 30k when the hand came up and I had only 1BB behind on a flop of three overcards, but 5 minutes later he was out and I won the bet.

After this I got stuck in the shortstack mode. I didn't pick a pair or AT+ for six hours and since everyone had me covered by like 7x I just folded and folded and 3bet crammed trash every once in while to stay afloat. In the end I got knocked out on level 13 when I got caught 3bet shoving 16BB with JTo (bad resteal size in most NLHE scenarios but really good in PLHE) when my opponent had AQs. Oh well, can't win them all.

I was also happy with a new breathing technique I have come up with for live poker. I've been studying meditation a lot recently and it turns out most of the important stuff in effective meditation is about breathing. I've often felt a bit anxious while playing live and got nervous in weird spots where I really shouldn't have. Today for the first time I concentrated on breathing throughout the tournament, which helped me with my concentration enormously. I already know this is going to be a major factor in crushing forthcoming live tournaments. My next one will be the 3000€ main event on wednesday. I bubbled this very same event last year, top 17 got paid and I finished 18th after a sick QQ<AA setup. Let's hope I do better this year!