Tears on Broadway

I ventured down to the International on Monday night with Devski and Dave Evermy to play the Round of Each £30 + £30 tournament. I made a conscious decision to play tighter in my current slump, and the tournament hinged around two broadway Omaha hands, one of which was for the chip lead.

Hand1
I haven’t played a hand for two orbits, and Dave comments to that effect. I immediately raise his blind with J♦6♣, and he mutters something about how he would fold Kings and passes :)

Hand2
I see a flop cheaply out of the BB with A882 (nut hearts) and miss totally and pass to go down to 2.6k from a 3k start.

Hand3
UTG limps for 200 and the SB calls. I am in the BB and find QQ to I make it 1k on top. UTG calls and the SB folds.

Flop K, 8, 7

Not ideal but first to act I shove my 1.6k remaining into the 2.2k pot and he calls with the slowplayed AA. Rebuy time. £30 for 4k extra chips.

Hand4
Gutshot pro Gabriel in UTG+1 raises to 600, Dave calls and then a small stack goes all in for 500 or so. I repot to 3.1k total with AKQJ (nut spades) and Gabriel is the only caller.

I shove my last 700 without looking at the flop, but it arrives a pleasant:

J, J, 4 rainbow.

Gabriel has to call but he is virtually drawing dead. I thought his pre-flop call here was a bit optimistic, as he had something weird like A, 4, 6, 7 single nut suited.

I scoop and get up to 8k or so.

Hand5
I am still playing very snugly, and pick on different players each time to steal once a round (Gabriel aside, who I tend to think will defend out of position too often for my steals to work). This time I raise 7♣8♣ against the big stack and get it through to keep ticking along.

Hand6
I limp SB for 600 with 8876 suited in hearts. BB makes it 1500 total and I call with my speculative holding.

Flop arrives K, 4, 9

I am about to give up on the hand so check, but surprisingly big blind checks also.

River brings an Ace

I decide to take one stab on the scare card so pot it for 3k ish. Opponent umms and arrs for a while before passing with an unhappy look on his face. QQxx perhaps?

Hand7
I limp button with KQ77 DS and Gabriel makes it 2.5k from the BB so I take a flop in position. I miss flop and have to pass to his lead out.

Hand8
Limp UTG for 800 and a call on the button. I pot it for 2.8k extra with KK96 DS and both pass.

Hand9
Here comes the exit hand. I’ll report this one in some detail as I’m not sure I played it correctly.

My stack is a little over 10k and I am on the button.

Mid position big stack limps for 800. I limp with AcKsJhTh. I would normally pot here, but decided to mix things up a little as I had opened up a bit recently. SB calls, and the Gabriel in the BB makes it 3200 more.

Big stack calls. Again I have to decide whether to shove or not. My thinking was:

In favour:
1)If I call I have already put 40% of my stack in the middle
2)The strength of my hand is disguised by the limp pre-flop
3)I might get it down to heads up

Against:
1)I would lose the power of the button in what will be a huge pot 2)My hand plays badly against AAxx hands which must be a factor 3)If I miss totally I can still carry on with 7 big blinds
4)It’s going to be hard to get people to pass given my stack size.

I elect to call and so does the SB - four players to the flop - pot is 16k (!)

Flop arrives: 8♣ 9♥ K♣

I begin licking my chops as I now have something to work with, as I have open ended straight draw + top pair. However, before I can decide what to do, like a whirlwind the action has gone shove, shove, shove!!!

What now? I am in all likelihood up against a set(s) + flush draw, so I have to dodge the paired board, club AND hit my straight or a runner runner flush or house. However, I am getting 11/2 on my money, and I can’t see that I am further behind than that. I thought at the time the odds made it a call. Add to that it was for the chip lead and only the top three prizes were significant and there were 18 runners left I decided to go for it.

Here are the hands (and percentages calculated this morning). I only saw the hands very quickly so apologies if I have got any of them wrong.

Me: AcKsJhTh (Top OESD, runner runner flush/house, top pair - 20.1%) Gabriel: 6d7h3c5s (Bottom mini wrap - 3.9%)
SB: 4c5h6c6d (Bottom large wrap + club draw - 28.5%)
Big Stack: 8d8s6sTd (Bottom set + gutshot - 47.5%)

The board blanked out so bottom set man sent three of us to the rail and amassed a huge chip stack. Thoughts on how this hand played out? Perhaps the shove pre-flop could have eliminated any of these decisions, and my hand is probably strong enough to do it.

Anyhow - looks promising for a cash game tonight, before a visit back to The International on either Wednesday or Thursday for a tournament.