Mad Man Poker

So yesterday was TPC! The tournament we all were waiting for so long. I started the day with a great brunch, just like I did before the tournament in JH Den Trechter, which I won. Unfortunately I’m not superstitious, but maybe playing a well-filled stomach gives you a tiny edge. Maybe. But I was feeling focussed, ready for some action.

My table draw was pretty good; I didn’t know the players at my table, which actually is a good thing, because the players I do know around the tournament, are great tournament players. The action started off fast and furious with Nick Smet to my direct right gaining much of the table’s chips. My stack was dwindling down rapidly… One time I opened UTG with QQ to 4 times the big blind and had half the table call me. Ace on the flop and I was gone. The hand after that I had QQ again! With a few limpers at the table, I went to 8 times the BB (about 20% of my stack) from the big blind. Again, 4 callers and when the board ran out 49T and the small blind pushed all-in, I didn’t feel like getting outdrawn. It continued that way until I was down to about 500 in chips with the blinds at 30/60.

Then there was the counterpoint! I doubled up with KK against K10 and was back into playing. The blinds were going up steadily but so was my stack. When I reached the 2000 chips mark due to AA, I was feeling great. From there on, I had a great run. Every play I made worked out, I wasn’t playing many pots but stole every pot I was in and managed to run my stack up to 8000 without showing one hand! I was feeling great, confident and ready to win the thing when we got to the final table. But then, it all went wrong. I’m at the big blind with blinds 200/400. There are two limpers in front of me and I make it 2000 to go with JQ, hoping to pick up their blinds & ante’s right there. First limper calls, second limper folds. Flop comes 8 J J. I bet 2000, villain smooth calls. Turn: 3. I go all in and the other person looks at me and says, “What do you have? Then he pauses, smiles, and tabled J 8 for a flopped full house. I went through the roof, because I saw him slow rolling other players earlier on in the tournament. (At the showdown of a hand: “do you have a straight?” “No.” “Well, then I’ve got the hand, 2 pair” “Hehe, I’ve got a straight” *smile*). Very frustrating! A blank on the river and I was eliminated in 10th place, one of the final table.

I can’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if he didn’t have the full house. He probably would’ve called me with QQ, or even a baby Jack. Then I would’ve had 16K out of the 56K chips in play, with 10 players left. But I can’t think about that. There’s no way I could’ve gotten away from the hand, so all I can do is look forward to the next TPC. Hopefully, I’ll have better news then!

The evening ran out great with Maarten De Laere winning the thing, one of the 5 players at the final table I was rooting for and me having fun doing prop bets on the flop and the turn & river with Jonas Drieghe. I ended up losing, but that didn’t matter too much. All I can say now is that I feel like grinding up my online bankroll more than ever!

Yesterday we played TPC VI, for us still the biggest brag tournament around.
I have already won one, but really wanted another bracelet, call it: confirmation.

I drafted a seat at table one, wich means I encountered running champion Thomas Wouters. That on itself would have made for a pretty fun afternoon, but the wheel of coincedence decided to juice things up a little.

5 main events, 1 side event gives 6 bracelets. Out of that 6, 2 were absent. Christof Morel is in Brazil, Gertjan Verbraeken registered too late and didn’t have a seat, leaving Jonas Drieghe for TPC III, me for our 4th event, Thomas of course with seat 1 of the house and Bart Seresia as Heads-up defender.
Well, Jonas drafted table 7, all the others were at the feature table, together with Dieter Jacobs, Maarten De Jonckheere and Pieter De Witte. Quite a bit of TPC-experience! I’m no hero to absolute beginners, so I was pretty OK with my seating.

But started with absolute junk and Dieter who kept bullying us around.
I picked up AQ (damn, I hate it) and didn’t hit, so had to let go to Dieter’s raise.
I later picked up pocket 6’s and saw all over cards. Again no pot for me.

Luckily I could make a stand on AT and my old faithfull T8 came to my help when needed most.
There, that’s the first 3 levels of my TPC VI in a nutshell. I don’t think I ever started out a tournament that tight!

But patience gets rewarded in poker and so was the case for me.
I’m picking up my cards while telling a story (because playing little to nothing doesn’t mean you can’t make yourself noticed) when I see two very cute black Aces in my hand. Now when picking up a hand when talking, make sure you don’t freeze up. Since this wasn’t my first time table talking, I didn’t, nonchalantly threw in 140 chips (a bit over 2 times the big blind) and while feigning my normal “regular” level of attention, secretly begging the poker gods to grant me at least a call. The gods were kind on me! Dieter Jacobs appeareantely decided that if he would be the table captain, that he would have to take a stand against the big bullies (like yours truly) and raised the hell out my almost scared 140. I waited a moment, but had already decided that if there was one player willing to take a stand it would be Dieter. I went all in. Jacobs went in the tank for about 2 minutes, sighed and threw in the rest of his chips saying he was willing to gamble with me. Well, two 9’s look pretty measly when you see AA come out, and Dieter didn’t improve. Exit Dieter Jacobs.

So now that I had some chips to mess around with, I could finally go into Mad Man Modus. I have the button and 2 rather careful blinds in Rudy Vermeulen and Pieter De Witte when I see J8 suited come my way and decide to mix it up a little. The limp lets me see a flop with a rag hand and so that’s the least we can do! The flop brings me top pair (8), but rather surprisingly also brings me Bart Seresia who brings in 250, wich is about 60 to 70 % of the pot, and I decide to just call and be careful for what Seresia could have.
The turn on the other hand doubles the 8 on the board, bringing me a set.

So, I now have a set of 8’s and a pretty decent kicker. If Bart has the case 8, and chances are slim, he now needs a queen, king or ace to outkicker me, and then still be up against 9 outs in most cases that either win me the pot or makes it a split.
Bart is hardly touched by the board doubling and standardly brings it to 500, at wich point I push all in again.

I swear to you: I N S T A call! And why wouldn’t he. His set had a Queen kicker. The river brings me no salvation and out goes yours truly.

I don’t think I should have played my set any different. If I’m not willing to pump on top set, I shouldn’t be playing tournaments, so this is just a bad beat.

What happened to Michiel? Well, he got a lot further than I did, but that’s something you should read his thoughts about.

Eventually the winner was Maarten De Laere.

Maarten is a strange player. He currently is a one-trick-pony, only capable of holding his own in No Limit Hold’Em, but I really think that if he concentrates on other types of poker he can become a pretty decent player.
Especially Maarten’s heads up is something strange. I’ve noticed already how he’s capable of feigning weakness for a while to be able multiply his winnings when he hits hard. That’s kind of what happened yesterday with Dennis Van Hove (who played insanely well throughout the day) when they got down to just the two of them.

Also big round of cheers for Jessica De Roeck. She’s starting to become our “forgotten pro”. Jessica has a concentration problem. When there is no background to a win or a loss she quickly looses intrest in playing and starts donkeying off more often than not. But when our own poker princess has her mind on playing she can get immensly dangerous.

Well, up to may 17 when TPC VII (has it been that long already?) is being played.

But first of all I’m looking forward to the Namur Poker Classics. More about that in april!

The Mad Man

We are less than 24 hours away of TPC and I’m feeling like playing. The last 2 editions I ended respectively 4th and 3rd, so I’m hoping for another good run. Yet, I’ve had my doubts the last few weeks. I’m just not feeling all that confident and there’s one scenario dooming up constantly in my head: the early bad beat and the quick elimination. It has been like that for weeks now, every tournament I play in online I either get massive coolers or awful beats. I tried playing some 90-man tournaments, 45, 27, … but I never ended near the money. Especially aces have been miserable for me. I just can’t seem to win with them anymore! There will be drama if I get busted out quickly due to my aces getting cracked by a marginal hand.

But there has been good news as well. I managed to increase my bankroll by 30% this week while only playing like 4 hours in total and have been playing pretty good live. Wednesday we played some HA and I ended up pretty good. Thursday we had our two-weekly game with the regulars. We were playing limit Omaha Hi/Lo and I played pretty good again. Yesterday I had a heads up session of PLO8 against Jonas Drieghe, which was very fun, and I ended up winning. So I should hope to continue on this line, shouldn’t I? Well, good cash games don’t make great tournament players, so I don’t know. My last two live tournaments, I got out pretty quickly. Maybe you remember the cracked aces against KK story. I just don’t want to have the same situation again for at least one year. Period. Yet, the structure of TPC is way better than in those 2 tournaments. The slower the tournament, the more confident I feel, so let’s see how that goes.

If we look at it from an objective point of view, us regulars have an edge. For one, we have been playing TPC for multiple editions now, so we are known with the dynamic of the tournament and the structure. Also, as we play each other quite a lot, I think we’ve got an edge. Many of the other participants in TPC are guys just looking for a fun afternoon playing poker. They don’t mind busting out early and will even give their chips away when they are bored or looking to go home. Being a free roll as it is, you can’t cut out plays like that. I think I fear the recreational players the most, but luckily, most of them have huge tell. If I can find a few, I’ll have the advantage. You shouldn’t forget that we are playing at home either. I know that I do not like how I need to find my way around unfamiliar tournaments. Last of all, it’s about motivation. There a lot of us that wants to win so badly! I for one, want to win every game that I play, let it be $50 tournaments or a friendly game of monopoly. But TPC is special, it’s the crème-de-la-crème and I really hope “one of us” will take down the title. If you are motivated, you can take a huge hit, go get a beer, count the few chips you have remaining and still try to win. I’m sure Mickey C knows what I’m talking about!

Also, I had a great conversation with Maarten, someone who has been in quite some TPC’s. He pointed out to me how easy it was to play without pressure. It’s that lack of fear that can get you a lot of chips. Upon hearing that, I realized how much I had forgotten the “In order to live, you have to be willing to die” in my play. So I decided that I won’t be playing to move up onto the final table, only to find myself there without a lot of chips, but I will be playing to win! Actually, I’ve got nothing to prove, so why not take those few risks in order to win that bracelet. If it backfires, there is always a next TPC. Quick elimination or amazing win, here I come!