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Poker According to Ammbo    View profile

PokerStars WPT Event Day 1

Date: Fri, Jan 7, 2005

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure got started with about 425 players. The first day was split into two ‘flights’ of ~200 people each. I was assigned to the first flight so I played on Thursday. People in my flight included Greg Raymer, Chris Moneymaker, Hoyt Corkins, John Juanda, Kathy Liebert, Erick Lindgren, David Williams, Tom McEvoy, and more. I also met up with another ITHer, Mets2602. He is a nice guy.

Players were seated alphabetically rather than randomly which I thought was odd. My table was full of internet players who I did not know. It turned out to be one of the toughest tables imaginable. There were few reraises and a relatively tiny number of showdowns the whole time at my table. It was a tight table.

With 10,000 starting chips and 75 minute levels it was no surprise that no one on our table was busted for the first 5 hours. We just passed the same chips around while other tables were accumulating chips and busting players.

I made a little bit of headway early, adding about 1500 to my stack. I had AA once in the first level and won the blinds. I had JJ as well but just called a raise then folded on a K high flop. I blinded down for about an hour and a half to 5200 chips before making a late charge. I ended the day with 15,200 in chips, just about average. Some key hands:
Blinds 25 50: I have Ace of Hearts King of Spades in MP. I raise to 175 and a player in the BB reraises me to 350. I call. The flop is Ace of Diamonds Queen of Spades 5 of Hearts. He leads 500 into me. I give a little thought then reraise him to 1500. He immediately folds his kings face up.
Blinds 200 400: I have Ace of Spades Jack of Hearts in the SB. An aggressive player limps first in from the CO. This would be a warning bell but last time he did this he had A9o. The flop is Ace of Clubs Queen of Spades 10 of Hearts. I have top pair and a gut shot. I lead out 1200, the BB folds and the aggressive players asks how much I have. He puts me all in for my last 4K and I call. He has A4o and I double up.
Blinds 200 400: A few hands later I have Ace of Hearts 10 of Hearts. We finally busted a player and he is replaced by Kathy Liebert sitting directly on my right. She raises to 1200 on a 400 blind and I call from the button. The flop is Ace of Diamonds 9 of Clubs 3 of Hearts. She leads out and bets 2000. I immediately say “Raise” in an authoritative voice because I had been planning on raising with an ace. When I looked at my chip stack, I realized that a good raise of 3-4K more would commit me. Instead I raised the minimum, 2000 more. Kathy thought for a little while and then said “That was suspicious,” and folded. By sounding tough then making a weak raise because I was short on chips I let her think I had a monster hand. I felt like I accidentally outplayed a pro! Laughing The truth is I probably had her beat.

On the whole, I spent the day respecting raises and looking for any opportunity to raise first in to steal blinds. I raised with J4o (and folded to a reraise), 86s (won a nice pot when I hit the 6 vs. QJ from the BB), 55 (folded to a reraise), and 88 (defended my blind and took a nice pot). I had decided to get aggressive and take advantage of tight play but I seemed to run into a lot of monsters. I am thrilled to start day 2 on Saturday with more chips than I started with.

Mets2602 on the other hand… he had been asking me for advice on MTT play. He finished the day at 42,000 in chips, good enough for third! He was also at a table full of pros! He had John Juanda, Erick Lindgren, Steve Zolotow, Alex Brenes and Dewey Tomko… and he crushed them! Laughing Way to go, Mets and keep it up!

Another amusing side note; I have met a lot of nice and friendly people. Many of them have screen names that I recognize as aggressive or bully, or weak. It is funny to put a face to the avatar on Stars! Laughing

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Credit where it is due...

Date: Sun, Dec 19, 2004

I was so adrenalized over the WPT win that I forgot to give praise to Mean Gene for pointing out the backdating function that was right in front of my face in blogger. Strange, my other blog does not have that. Maybe it is a template issue. I care not, I am going to the Bahamas!!!

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WPT Here I Come! (again)

Date: Sat, Dec 18, 2004

Over the last few weeks I have been playing sporadically. I made a few good cashes in some tournaments, nothing over $2000 but still good income. My poker playing has been restricted since I took on a consulting gig at ITH. My obsessive personality has been nit-picking this site to death! As a result I have played maybe 10 hours of poker this week.

But what a ten hours it was! I just finished qualifying for the PokerStars WPT event. The tournament started at 5 PM and I finished at 10:50 PM. There were 193 entrants but with 30 minute levels and 2500 starting chips it was still a grind. I missed the first 20-30 minutes because I was out doing laundry (I know, where are my priorities?). I got back and just sat there for a long while. I got involved in a few hands. I flopped a flush with T8s from LP and overbet the pot. I folded to a raise when a 4th club hit the turn and was at 1400 chips. I doubled up a little later with AK vs. AJ and was sitting well.

A few more key hands:

I have ASpade AHeart UTG on a 200 blind. I limp. Rabscuttle, a player I know to be very solid, raises to 1K. Sweet. I just flat called him after some thought. The flop is TDiamond 9Diamond 4Spade. I check and he bets 1000, over 1/3 of my remaining stack. I checkraise all in and his QQ is no good.

I have A Heart K Heart on a 200 BB. I raise to 600 from the CO and the SB reraises to 1200. I pop him back another 800 and he flat calls. Crucial information! The flop was 7Heart 4Heart 4Spade. He chacks, I bet 2K, half the pot. He calls. The turn is the 6Club. Check check. The river is the 6Heart and he bets 2200 into me. Because he was cautious preflop I have him on TT or JJ. I raised him to 4800 and he called. My flush was good, the HH said he had TT.

I have AHeart KHeart and raise from LP to 2400 (I think the blinds were 800 at this point). The player on my left moved all in for less than 1/3 of my stack. I called him and he showed KClub QClub. I make another nut flush and he is gone. I felt good about the call because he had threatened to do that after I stole a few of his blinds.

I have ADiamond A Heart on an 800 blind. There is an UTG raise and I reraise to shut out the loose big stacks, about 5500 in the pot. The flop is JSpade 6Spade 6 Heart. I like this flop as I have Aces up. I bet 3K and he calls. Flush draw is my read. Turn is KDiamond. I bet 5K he calls. River is a blank and he puts me all in for another 5500. I call and he shows me KSpade QSpade. This hand put me in 5th place and I pretty much coasted from there.

The funny thing is that I was not even going to play! I had been playing the $25 rebuy satellites. After winning my first one I just parlayed it into more W$ by unregistering. I lost what I thought was my last $650 satellite last weekend and decided to burn my remaining $33 in W$ in a $3 rebuy. I ended up winning out of 370 people to get one of two more seats. OOPS! So I decided to delay a trip to Chicago and play it out today. Good decision, methinks!

Other than that I have not had a lot of poker going on as I mentioned. Hopefully I will find balance and play more than I have this week.

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Content Management??

Date: Fri, Dec 17, 2004

I really wish Blogger would let you backdate posts. The real content is now a half a mile below all of these journal entries I migrated from ITH. Oh, well... you can plod through my poker progression as you get to the actual site content, sparse as it may be. I have yet to set up my permanent links, so give me some frikkin time. Again, very little poker managed to squeeze in around my new job. I am completely obsessive so it is occupying all of my mindshare.

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Am I still a Pro Poker Player...

Date: Thu, Dec 16, 2004

... if I get another job? It is pathetic how little poker I have been playing over the last few weeks. This job maintaining ITH is turning into a full time gig! I spent the day going through my bookmarks looking at other poker blogs. I have not visited some of them in a long time so it was kind of cool to catch up on them. It was, of course, work related this time. I want to get some of them to link to ITH or even review the book. We'll see what kind of response I get. I also asked permission to link to their blogs (I prefer to ask if I don't know the person) so hopefully you folks will have something to read until I get all of my trip reports, etc. moved here from ITH. I promise I will play some poker to report on!

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PokerStars WPT Event

Date: Tue, Dec 14, 2004

So far it has been a waste of time. I have been playing a lot of $25 rebuy qualifiers. I have done quite well, accumulating W$ to apply to the big Saturday qualifiers. I have so far stunk it up in those. My last one was a disaster. I need to learn to fold overpairs. I lost KK to 77 on a 872 rainbow board. I bet the pot (700) and he moved in for 2100. Tough fold that I could not make. I then busted out with KK to an idiot who played 90% of his hands. He limp/reraised with T8s and flopped two pair. Ugh.
I had $33 W$ left last night and I won't have time to play another $650 saturday qualifier so I decided to burn them off in a $3 rebuy. Oops! Rather than burning off my remaining W$ I won one of the two seats in a field of 166 people and only used 9 W$. I had the big stack by a huge margin with 7 players left and just never let up on them. Great. Now I guess I will try to find time to play another satellite or just save the W$ for the WSOP qualifiers.

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Welcome to Ammbo.com

Date: Thu, Dec 9, 2004

I started this site to have a central repository for my poker exploits. You can read about some of my past play at Matthew Hilger's Internet Texas Holdem. I maintain a journal in the forum there. I might add that it is a very good forum and a well run site. ;) I plan on migrating all of the posts on that site here to keep all of this information in one place. I doubt many of you will be too interested in my ramblings but as many blogs tend to be, it is cathartic for me. Who knows, you might learn something and I am sure I can learn a lot from you. Stay tuned!

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Los Angeles Trip Report 12/5/04

Date: Sun, Dec 5, 2004

I played a $200 tournament at the Bicycle Casino on Saturday. I had the opportunity to meet both Geormiet and niin, both of whom were playing the tournament with me. Both nice guys. I connected with Geo before the tourney and we had a chance to chat for a little while. niin and I were not able to make cell phone contact initially, so I just went and took my seat. The person on my immediate right was vaugely close to niin's description, and sure enough it turned out to be him. Out of 300+ people in the tourney, I was right next to one of the other two ITHers!

The tournament itself was fairly well run. We had 1000 chips to stars and 30 minute levels. The players were bad. I saw a lot of awful play and pegged maybe three people at the table as solid players. The rest were maniacs or weak calling stations. On to the action! Here is a recap of all of the hands I won: ________. That's right. I did not win a single hand. I had a maniac on my left and a calling station on his left. Rotten position. I bet my KQ with top pair and a flush draw into the calling station and she then made a huge bet when an ace turned and I folded. I then raised AQs and the maniac called. I missed and put out a fairly good sized bet and he called. I check/folded the turn. By the time the third level came around, I had 400 chips on a 50 blind. One player who had been quiet suddenly tripled up with AA by moving all in in the dark on two opponents. The next hand I got KK UTG (my first pair) and made it 150 to go. He called. I moved my chips in in the dark and he called on a 589r flop with a set of fives. Bye bye, ammbo.

Overall I had a great time. I met a few friendly ITHers and had a good time with the people at my table. I like to be a chatterbox at the table, but I usually back that up with good play. This time was not to be. I was very disappointed with myself that I made moves on two players I should not be making moves on so early and that my overall performance was so dismal. I have had a bit of a live tournament drought lately and I think I need to examine my live game for holes. I do think I lose a little bit of aggression when I am in a live game vs. online.

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Playing Poker for a living 11/22/04

Date: Mon, Nov 22, 2004

You know you are having a horrible run when your wife looks at you after someone came over the top of your TT with 33 and catches on the turn and says, "I think PokerStars hates you."

I have been chasing the WPT event at PokerStars for a good portion of this week. I tend to take the most horriffic beats at that site. They don't call it riverstars for nothing. I lost my KK to AK on the river. I lost with AA to J9s and he put me all in. I lost KK to A2o, once again he put me all in. There are days where you play great poker and get rewarded by watching terrible moves by terrible players get paid off at your expense. It is one of the most discouraging things you can endure. It has gotten to the point that I expect to lose as a favorite. Perhaps this is a defense mechanism to soften the blow when it happens. I shudder when I see Ax turned over and I am holding KK. I cringe when I see TT against my AA. Anytime they have an out on me, they hit it. Maybe Stars does hate me. I am up a few thousand lifetime on that site, but it is going downhill rather quickly. I still do not want to believe it is rigged, but the pessimism makes me gunshy nevertheless. I may need to take a hiatus from the site, not because it hates me, but it is psychologically taxing to expect bad beats every time.

On a brighter note, I mounted a great comeback on PartyPoker in the $50 Large Caps earlier this week. I cashed $4650 from it and took the profit from the site immediately. A few days before that I learned an expensive lesson about tilt (a $1100 lesson in 3 hours) at the $100 NL tables there. The money from that tournament is now profit. Incidentally, I now have a large sum of money in my Neteller account that needs to get moved. Mr. Tax Advisor will be getting a visit from me soon.

I played four disastrous tournaments today. The 350K on PokerStars ended abruptly when I defended my blind with KJs and I was immediately called by a guy who outchipped me by very little holding KQo. He gave it no thought, he just stuck his chips in. I was mad at myself for the move on a player who was playing loose and mad at him for calling his whole stack. I would like to think a better player would lay that down. He went on to make $3000 in that tournament. Rub it in. I also played the 100K on Paradise. I got some chips early when KJ and KQ called my AK to the river on a king high board. I then folded perhaps 60 hands in a row (no exaggeration) and finally ended up running what was left of my stack into AA with 77. I then played the Aussie Million qualifier on Party. I have never seen such terrible players in a $300 tourney. I lost some chips early but doubled with QQ when J8o called a 4x raise and then crippled himself by calling all in on a J high flop. I wound up running into AA with TT, then folding 55 to an all in from a maniac, then finally pushing with ATs and getting called by 55. He hit quads so that he could feel like he made a brilliant play. I wonder if it is justifiable to get indignant when I get busted out of a tournement by some idiot making a play I would never make. Maybe I need to gamble more with these crazies.

A few changes in my game recently: I refuse to stick all of my money into the middle of a pot with AK unless I have a good read on a bad player. If I get reraised, I am calling to see a flop. I used to be too quick to shove my money into a pot with it preflop, and I lose a lot of coin flips that way. I am also dropping AJ, AT, and KQ from early position. At most tables a call means you are destroyed and you will be in deep fecal matter on the flop. I am also raising small pairs from MP and LP. I am not looking to invite a coin flip, but I think I would rather be on the pair side of things if it comes to that (Except on stars where I will lose the coin flip no matter what side I am on. ). I am also using more position bets and checkraise bluffs from the BB. A nice scary board will chase most people out of the pot with such a move. I am also being more cautious about playing one pair. I have sniffed out a lot of sets when holding TPTK and made some good folds. Two pair is a different story, but I am working on dropping that as needed. I make a lot of money from people who can't fold TPTK or two pair, and I have no intention of giving it back when the roles are reversed.

Overall, I am up well over $5500 this week, including a Final table at one of my favorite tournaments, the $50 Langosta tourney at 3 AM. It was only a few hundred but it was fun to hit a final there, as it has been about 5 times since I monied there. I am up good money this week, but the recent bad luck seems to stay front and center in my mind. I need to put that aside and focus on playing good poker. I refuse to allow these disgusting beats to dull my aggression. Onward and upward, there is a final table in Langosta calling my name!

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Playing Poker for a living 11/07/04

Date: Sun, Nov 7, 2004

Well... It has been an interesting few weeks. As you may know, I recently won a large sum in the Paradise 100K. I had a run of 4 out of 6 final tables in MTTs and made over $22K in 3 days. Never in my life did I expect such a showing in such a short time.

Since then it has been up and down. I was consistently winning over $300 per day at the $100 NL tables. Then, in one day I gave $500 of it back. It seemed like if my opponents had one out they would hit it. A horrible run. At the end of one day, my wife offered to trade jobs. I read up on human rights violations with regards to prostitution in Thailand, and she played poker. It lasted 20 minutes and she made $60 at the NL table I placed her at. That sparked a nice run where I made about $800 in two days (including today) at the NL tables.

I am finding that I lose aggression over time at the NL ring games. I have been varying my play to be sure that I bring it back. For instance, I would play for a few hours without ever just calling. I would either raise, reraise, or fold on any street. This turned out to be a profitable way to play poker, as I got a lot of remarkable folds. It also tightened me up considerably. If I was not comfortable raising with AJ in MP, I would fold it. In this way, I played only raising hands and a few bluffing hands. I do not, however, think this is an optimum way to play. I think there is a great deal of value in NL to the limping hands in LP; suited connectors, baby pairs, and suited aces.

Another adjustment I have made, especially in NL ring games, is to be very caqreful playing one pair after the flop. Top pair is not as strong as I once thought, depending on your opponent. My pokertracker stats tell me that I have a big negative when I have one pair, so I play it a little more cautiously. Most big pots I lose are with TPTK vs. a set. More folding is in order.

I played the PPM semi finals on Friday. I had terrible cards throughout the tournament and finished in the top 200. I never managed to get my stack to double the starting chips, so I am amazed I made it that far. I did not see AA or KK the entire tournament, 253 hands. In fact, I kept track, and I did not see AA for 670 hands (including the tournamnet), and when I finally did get it I lost $80 to a turned set of queens all in preflop in a NL ring game. I can do without AA, thanks! One interesting thing about this is that I saw AA once in the Paradise 100K, and took the blinds. Never having a hand that you have trouble folding helps a great deal.

Overall, I am up more than $31K in the 11 weeks I have been playing as a pro. This is a great number to hit, but there were a few big tourney wins that mask a lot of tourney losses. A portion of that money has also been split with team Selachian, with whom I still chop some tournaments that we play together.

Overall, It has been an excellent 2 weeks since my last update. I have over 2K hands on many opponents at the $100 NL games, and am very comfortable there. Another $3K added to my PTY bankroll and I may move up to the $200 NL games.

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Paradise Poker $100K 10/24/04

Date: Sun, Oct 24, 2004

Thank you to everyone who was sweating me.

I had one HELL of a day on Paradise today. First, I had 54% of the chips with 3 people left in the Seahorse tournament when the server crashed. This means an auto-chop and I received 1st place money, $1670. Nice payday? Oh yeah.

Then the 100K. I was an average stack all the way through. Then, with blinds of $400, I moved all in for $2900 from UTG+1 with 77. I got 4 callers!! Flop 246. No bets. Turn J. Uh oh. River 3 and I quadrupled up! I was against AQ, KQ, and A9. this put me 9th in chips with about 100 players left.

Then this hand came up:

I am SB with AdKd. A highly aggressive player raised to 10K, on a 3K BB. I smooth called. The flop was T62 rainbow. I moved all in for another 12K and he immediately called with AKo to split the pot. This is important because...

A few hands later I had 88 in MP. I have 28K. I raise to 7500 on a 3K blind. The same MP calls. The flop is 462 rainbow. I bet 10K, maniac MP raises to 20K. I have 11K left. At this point, I pondered for a long time. I used almost all of the time bank before reraising all in. He called with KcJc and did not improve. I crippled him and gave myself a lot of breathing room. Had he not called immediately with AK unimproved three hands before, I would never have made this call.

Then, on the bubble, I called a raise with TT. Flop was 9 high and I pushed. UTG had A9 and I was 2nd in chips.

I cruised to the final table from that point, then it got interesting. There was a lot of jockeying back and forth. I blew off a lot of chips just calling with second pair and dropped to 6th out of 8 left.

After some terrible play by the big stacks, we were 5 handed and I was the short stack. I called my last 19K with JTo on a 12K blind. the raiser had A4, the flop was KKJ and he did not catch an ace. I was alive!

He busted out soon after. A few hands later, I was once again desperate. We were 4 handed and I had 7K left after folding 52o in the BB to a raise. I called my last 1K on the 6K SB with QhJh. The BB had 9s3s. The flop was 33T. I was 5.3% to win the hand. I caught running jacks to stay alive. Amazing!

Three hands later I was once again SB with AKo and I was now up to 50K in chips. I pushed on the 12K blind. I was called by KJ. YES! Flop is ATxr. I said to my wife, I do not care if I get sucked out, I should have been dead already. Sure enough, the turn was the Qd. Ugh. The river was a beautiful Jc and we split. WOW!

A few hands later I called an all in from the second stack with AcTc. He had been aggressive throughout the tournament and was all in from the SB on my BB every time. He showed K8s and I flopped an ace. He was gone and we were heads up, guaranteeing me $15,000. AMAZING.

My opponent had 400K and I had 150K. He immediately offered me $2K to stop now. I bargained up to 3K and we moved all in with crap. He won and transferred the money a few minutes later.

All said and done, I made over $20,000 today. I am still shellshocked. I cannot really comprehend what just happened. I do not think I have ever played poker as well as I did today, nor have I ever gotten as lucky as I did today. In both tournaments today, I had AA exactly once. I won the blinds. The rest of the day was just playing poker.

My landlord will be happy to know the rent is taken care of this year! Check it out!

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Playing Poker for a living 10/23/04

Date: Sat, Oct 23, 2004

The days have blended together lately, it seems to be all one big session.

I have been averaging 8 hours per day playing 2-4 tables at once. Some notable tournamnet victories include winning the late night Langosta $50 tournament on Paradise for $1100 and chopping a Stars $100 tourney for $2400. This was a few weeks ago, so no key hands are fresh in my mind. I did play one Stars tourney where I finished just inside the bubble, doubling my money. The player who finished 135th out of 135? Greg 'Fossilman' Raymer. Does this make me the new WSOP champ?

I have moved away from big tournaments after a few disastrous direct buy-ins to the Stars weekend tourney and the Paradise weekend tourney. I lost two weeks in a row on Stars with a set (AA and 55) to a backdoor flush. Not pleased. I have been playing the occasional SnG and holding my own there, but I have moved more toward ring games.

First I tried 3/6 on Party/Empire. I did well initially, posting gains in 8 out of 9 sessions. Things soured from there. My limit game is not what it should be, as I think my NL aggression carries over. To date I am down $361 in 3/6. I would get very frustrated at the constant barrage of miracle cards people would pull out of nowhere on later streets. Perhaps I will give it another try after rereading ITH and finishing up SSH. For the time being, I just do not feel that my limit game is up to par (granted, this is after only 9000 hands). I did work off a bonus at Stars playing 2/4 and made an additional $280 in less than 700 hands, so I am pleased with that result. I also played one session of 5/10 6 max and cleaned up, making $351 in one session. However, I did not feel very comfortable with this level so I dropped back down. I found that I could get pots heads up and I could actually bluff, something I cannot do at 3/6 full. It was a pleasant change, however the roll does not currently support it.

My new love is NL ring games. I have been playing a lot of $100 max NL on Party and have had good results so far. Pokertracker has proven invaluable in this endeavor. I have folded AKs preflop to an UTG raiser after seeing that he was 9% VP$IP and 1% PFR. He flopped a set of kings and I would have lost a pile. If you have not yet used the notes export function, I suggest you do so. I have been leaving 4 Empire tables and 4 Party tables open at all times to collect observed hand histories, and I now have a mountain of data on everyone. After 4000 hands in 10 days, I am up $600 at this game. I have set a stop loss at $200 per day and a stop win at $400 per day. I have yet to evaluate the wisdom of this, and I do not think I will keep to it very well. It is just too restrictive. I know I am due for a big swing soon, but there are enough fish at this level to allow me to continue to post significant gains.

All in all, I am happy with how things are going. I am putting in the hours and making enough money to pay rent and bills, which is all I want at the moment. After two months, I feel comfortable enough with my rate of return to continue for a while.

Finally, a rather amusing thing happened yesterday. The manager of our apartment building came by to do some maintenance. He saw that I had a few PP windows open and laughed. He said he played for a living up until six months ago and invited me to a home game in town. I think I will take him up on that to get a little insight and have a poker buddy locally. It also got me wondering... do you think poker is affecting the "unemployment" rate? I have no doubt that there are plenty of players paying themselves under the table, but is it prevalent enough to affect national trends? Interesting thought.

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Turning Stone Trip Report 10/8/04

Date: Fri, Oct 8, 2004

A few weeks ago I won my way into the $1000 NL tourney held today. I showed up a little early and found my seat. I was chatting with my wife and I looked up to see... Al Krux standing about 3 feet away from me. I was inclined to mention that I had a stake in Matthew to see if he would give me a few hundred for our trouble, but I thought better of it. Why let him know I am a protege of Matthew "I Only Play Aces" Hilger? I prefer he know nothing about me if we hit the final table.

On to the tourney. 81 players were in, the top spot paid $32,000, 9th paid $2200. $3K in chips, 30 minute levels. Not the huge tourney I had expected. Early on it was clear that the table was as tight as could be. A few hands:

I checked AK in the blind in level one, flopped a king, and won a medium sized pot. A few hands leter I had QQ in MP and raised two limpers to $75, 3x the BB. One of the limpers then popped me back to $300 and I folded the queens face up after a moment's thought, saying I had to respect that move. Both of these hands are direct results of lessons learned on my AC trip.

One player in the 3 seat was playing every hand. I folded a lot of rags until I picked up AA on the button. He raised the minimum, to $200, so I reraised to $500. He called. The flop was 9 high rainbow and I checked behind him, knowing he would bet if I showed any weakness. On the turn (another rag but the second diamond), he bet $200 and I immediately raised him to $500 again. He seemed puzzled and called. I then bet $600 on the river and he folded. He told me later he had an up and down straight draw on the turn. He was raising rags because the table was so tight.

A few hands later I had QQ again on UTG+1, the last hand before the first break. UTG raised to $300 on a $100 BB. I smooth called, ready to run from overcards and raise any flop J high or less. Both blinds also called (ugh) The flop was JJx. UTG bet $300, I raised to $800. The blinds folded and UTG moved all in. Since this was the last hand before the break, a crowd gathered while I chided him and tried to make up my mind. I finally folded the QQ face up and he showed me AJ. I lost everything I had made with the AA a few hands before. At the break about 5 people told me what a great laydown it was. I thought it was a pretty routine laydown, but I would appreciate comments on it.

After fighting and taking small pots after the break, I picked up AK in MP. I had $2400 left. I raised to $700 on a $200 blind. An MP player moved all in for a lot more. He had been pretty aggressive to this point. I decided after much thought that the likelihood of him having AA or KK was diminished by me holding AK and I needed to take the coinflip. He showed me two black kings and I was gone.

In retrospect, I was about 5 minutes from the ante level and I had excellent table image. I had enough chips to force folds and pick up small pots. I feel I made a mistake with the AK, but not a huge one. Costly, yes, huge, no. It was a calculated gamble, but the situation and my instincts both said fold. It was a disappointing finish, especially since my plan had been to play cautious. Calling all in with AK is not cautious.

I do not think that my live MTT play is up to par. I am too tight for short levels and I tend to become short stacked quickly. Either loosen up or bluff more, I think that is the only way to survive. Comments, as always, are welcome.

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