Foxwoods Mega Stack Super Bounty Tournament

I met up with Hoyazo just as the tournament was starting.  He was at table 7 and I was seat one on table 25; very far away from each other.  Darn!  I'd never played with Hoy at my table and I was hoping to.  My table had 3 pretty bad players and 2 very good ones.  One man was a calling station, calling huge bets down to the river with middle pair.  I got lucky in an early hand against him when I turned a straight and he paid me off with top pair crappy kicker.  About 30 minutes into the tournament I got pocket 6s.  I raised to 5x the big blind and got 4 callers. omfg.  Flop was A-J-6.  Bing!  I bet about 3/4 of the pot and one guy goes all in, and then the old guy who I'd crippled also goes all in and of course I call.  One had A-10 and he wasn't shortstacked and the older guy had A-2.  Jesus.  My hand held up and I got 2 black chip bounties.  A few hands later I had A-K.  Guy to my right bets 1,000 and I raise to 2,500 pre and he jams all in.  We started with 15K in chips and this guy has about that.  I really hate the idea of throwing 15K away where I just got this big stack.  At the moment I had about 38K.  I like my hand but don't see the reason to gamble....yet......as I'm thinking and thinking he's looking more and more miserable and his leg is bouncing a mile a minute....maybe it isn't a coin flip or worse.  I told myself I wouldn't chase those damn bounties and just focus on winning the game, but I do.  I call.  He has A-Q and I hit a K on the flop and buhbye.  3 chips now from 3 very bad players. I say to the guy to my left "Mama's got chips now!"  He was a nice but OVERLY chatty guy.  He didn't have a buck when the waitress came by with his coffee so I took care of it for him.  I guess because of this he thought I was his best friend.  I put my headphones on just to stop the chatting and you know what?  He kept right on chatting, which cut right through the music.  I can't put the music up to loudly because I want to hear what's going on at the table.  Finally he says to me "Oh you can't hear me with your headphones on, can you?"  I wish.

Then I took another guy out with my  2-3 big blind special.  Flop was 3-8-J.  He checked and I bet out and he called.  Turn was 4 he checked and I checked behind him.  River was a lovely 3 and gave me trips. I made a big bet probably double the pot because the pot wasn't all that big and also because he was a calling station and I felt there was a good chance I'd get paid off.  Mind you even though it was  a big bet, it wasn't all that big in comparision to our stacks.  There was probably 4,800 in there and he had 18,000 and he jammed all in on that 3 on the river.  Wow.  If he has a 3 I'm sunk because of my lousy 2. Why bet so much?  I def do not put him on a full house as I don't think he was slow playing a set.  I finally call and say "What do you have?" and he said "Nothing, good call."  and he's on his way. 

I now have 4 bounties in less than an hour and about 50K in chips.  I decided to take a walk to Hoy's table to tell him the good news.  When he sees me he says "You're out already?"  No!!!!  He tells me not to fall into my usual mode of chipping up early and then donking them bad boys off and I promise not too.  Note to self:  do not make promises you cannot keep.  :)

We head to break and chat and then resume the game.  I don't play too many hands at this point until I limp in with A-Q.  Why limp?  Sure it disguises my hand but more than that, it's a hand I dislike but felt I should play.  Anyhoo the flop is 10 high and I'm in a hand with this young boy who is very good player.  I check and he bets 500.  He was talking about how I was hitting every darn hand so I should call here.  He says you don't lose a hand - just call.  Now just for shits and giggles I say "Ok, I'll do it."  I toss the chip into the pot and say to the dealer "Now give me a lady.  A lady for a lady"  And I shiat you not, the turn is a queen.  The young guy is like Oh My God, you're the black widow.  That named stayed with me for a bit btw.  I reply "You were right! I can't lose!"  and then I bet pot.  :)  He folds and Mr. Chatty gets very animated and shouts "Just one time!  Show just one time!  I bet you didn't have a queen!"

So I show the A-Q and the young kid (who was an excellent player) says "Black Widow, I didn't put you on a A-Q."

And then a few hands later....doom!  I have 6-6 and raise about 5X BB and get 2 callers.  The flop is 6-A-J with 2 hearts.  Heh.  I bet and one guy goes all in.  I instacall here.  For about 25K.  He has K-Q of hearts and hits his nut flush on the river.  Oh my fucking God.  I'm crushed.  Devestated.  I have about 28K left and average is probably only 21K at this point but still!  I feel like I got kicked in the stomache.  I  look at the next hand but decide I'm too steaming and decide to take a walk.  I get up and begin the long walk to Hoy.  As I'm passing tables on guy on the end grabs my arm and says "Josie!  I was just going to come by and say hi!  Thanks so much for coming over to me!"  I was in another world (an omfg I just lost 40% of my stack kinda world) and didn't realize Poker Dave was here.

Remember a while ago I did a post about who was the best poker player that I personally knew?  I was hemming and hawing between Hoy and this guy, Poker Dave and they're both here! What are the odds!  Poker Dave has won well over 100K in tourneys and prolly closer to 200K life time.  But he plays a lot of games.  He said he'd been staying at Foxwoods for the past 4-5 days playing tourneys and hadn't cashed.  I gave his a quick recap of my misery and said I'd talk to him latah as I headed off to Hoy.  As I told Hoy my story I got more and more upset.  He told me not to play but to take a walk.  Showed me that he still had less chips than I did and he wasn't going anywhere and blah blah blah.  :)

I eventually decompress and decide to start playing again....albeit a lot more safely and carefully.  I tighten up, listen to my music and play aggressively only when I have the goods.  Slowly and bit by bit I build my stack back up to about 40K when my table breaks and I get moved to a new one.

Table 7!  Hoys!  Yeah,baby yeah.  Have I mentioned that I've never played at his table live before?  I was very excited to do this, not just to watch him play - I've done that for hours *yawn* (at Borgata) but to see if I could detect any tells.  I'm a big fan of tells - They help make the tough decisions a little easier. 

As I make my over to the table I realize Poker Dave is out of the tournament.  Boooo!!!  I later found out that he went out with pocket aces when Q-8 made a straight against him.  Blah.

The new table was very different from the one I left.  All the guys there were the original group.  There was only one person knocked out from this table since the beginning.  It was all limp, limp, limp with very little raising.  Except for Hoy and one other agressive man/kid.  Man/kid was in the 3 seat, I was in the 6 seat and Hoy was in the 9 seat.  In about the half hour we played together I saw him play 2 hands and he came in raising.  The last hand the blinds were either 300/600 or 400/800 and Hoy raised in middle position to 5,100.  Fold, fold and the man/kid called him.  Flop was A-K-7.  Man/kid bet and Hoy jammed all in.  Villian had K-7 and gg Hoy.  He was outa there.  I played for about another hour with out getting anything significant.  Other than getting pocket sixes twice very early on, I got no other pocket pairs for the whole day, thus far.  I was just thinking about that little factoid when I got moved to yet another table. 

I was settling in next to a very very young looking dealer.  I'm guessing he was 21-22 only because you must have to be that old to work in a casino.  As I'm settling my shiat down he says to me "Why don't you get me a back rub while you're there?"

And for some strange reason I reply with "Why don't you give me pocket kings and I'll give you a front rub." (!) I still don't know how or why it came out of my mouth but it did.  The table erupts and starts laughing.  I sit down and he deals me a hand.  A guy 2 away to my right jams all in.  Action is to me and I look at the first card; it's a king.  I chuckle to myself that that kid dealer did half his job.  The other card is a king too.  omfg.  I go all in over the top of the previous all in.  It gets folded all around and my fishponent says "No way you got pocket kings" but looks a little glum as he turns over Q-J off suit.  I smile and show my cowboys.  And then I take that kid out and get another bounty.  Unbelievable.

I say to the dealer who's smiling BIG at me "Erm...I was kidding you know....and I'm way too old for you...like double your age."  He replies "That's okay - age doesn't matter."  Omfg....well maybe a backrub.  He gets moved and I go on dinner break thank goodness.

Dinner break is had at the Fifth Street Cafe.  We have a nice chat and the time flies.  Before I know it, I'm back to the grind.  There are 51 peeps left and 35 itm.  It takes a loooooooong time to burst the bubble.  We played hand for hand for about 45 minutes alone.  When there were 36 peeps left I looked down to J-J.  Blinds were 4,000/8,000 and I made it 21K to go.  A guy with more chips than me jammed all in.  Fuck.  Obv everyone folded.  If I call I put the whole tournament on pocket Jacks and it's possible I'm effing bubble.  I'd rather go out first than be bubble.  Of course he knows what kind of position he's putting me in but I fold my jacks face up.  He kindly flips over his pocket kings.  Whew!  Someone at the table says that if he slow played his kings he could've likely gotten my whole stack.  I tend to agree with this depending on what the flop was, but the kid says he'd rather scoop up the dead money. 

We keep playing and the bubble finally bursts.  I get Q-Q.  I bet 4 times the big blind and get one caller.  Flop  is A-rag, rag, rainbow.  I check and he checks behind me.  Hmmmm.  Turn is a jack.  I check he checks.  Okay!  River is a non card.  I am sure he doesn't have an ace and I bet out.  He immediately jams all in.  No flush draw or straight draw and like I said I know know know he doesn't have an ace.  Heck, I don't even think he has a jack.  I know he would've bet out on the turn if he did.  Go with my read or no?  Hells yeah!  I call and flip over my queens and he mucks.  I wished I'd waited for him to show. Baaaaaaad bluff.  If you're going to bluff (and every good player must at some point) you cannot decide to do so at the last card.  Bluffing is lying.  A good lie has a good story;  a back story.  You tell your story in layers.  Layer after layer you build the story you want to tell.  If this guy wanted to bluff me he should've started from the flop or not at all othewise it's not believable to the observant.

I get another bounty though and ooodles of chips.  Dontcha worry, soon enough I'll donk them off.

I didn't actually donk them off, but damn I wish I had that hand back again.  I got in with the best hand, but maybe I should've just folded anyway. I had Q-J and the flop was J-10-2.  He bet, I raised him and he jammed all in.  I instacall.  He turns over A-10.  Turn was a 10 and I had to hand over about 90K to him.  I had about 165K and now I'm really low.  Fawwwwk.  Did I have the best hand when I made the call?  Sure, but I put too much of my stack at risk for top pair, decent kicker.  Dammit!  What the fuck.  10 minutes later I jam all in with 8-8 preflop and A-Q calls me and hits an ace on the flop, so at least I didn't have my hopes up.  I was out 30th and very upset.

Then I saw James Woods again....as I mentioned yestserday but didn't scare him with my foul Sicilian mood.

I got my act together and got my cash at the cage and took some of my bounties over to the 2-5NL game.  I was giving myself an hour to do something there.  And boy I did.  I posted so I didn't have to wait for the button and flopped 2 pair with a shitty hand that I never would've normally been in.  I bet it hard and got called to the river and after hand one I was up about $75 bucks.  Nice!

I ran over the table and stacked chip after chip.  At one point the guy to my left raised me to about $30 and I admonished him by saying "Play nice sir!"  He replied "Play nice?  I've given you $175 in the last 10 minutes!"  Oh, yeah. :)

I won my buyin of $500 in about 45 minutes and got up much to the displeasure of the table but I had to pee.  Just ask Waffles, if I have to pee I should not be playing poker.  I explained this and bid them good night.  Always nice to walk away with an extra $500 right?  The table/game was so lucrative I was considering just getting a room there and playing all night but that could just as easily turn into me giving it all back.  I know.  Poker Dave said his girlfriend was meeting him up there tonight and they might have an extra room that I could have for free.  I guess he and his gf would be sharing a room.  *shock*  I was going to get a room if I got to the final table but alas it was not to be so I went home.  Don't get me wrong, I could've got one cheaply enough on my own.  They were giving me a decent rate (for Foxwoods anyway) of $79 for Friday night, plus I had more than enough points on my card to get it for free.  But, there's always next time. 

Ohhhh and as an aside, I rode the tourney wave and went to Hampton Falls Poker Room in NH Saturday night for a crappy $100 tourney that was prolly 28 players.  4 itm and Mama came in 4th.  2 cashes in 2 consequitive days.  Next Atlantic City and then Vegas baby!  Lock up your money!

Play smart.

Josie

PS.  Don't forget tomorrow (Monday) night is The Very Josie on Black Chip Poker.  Password is poker baby and start time is 10pm Eastern Time.  A few English gents are going to play regardless of the 3am start time so you have no excuse not to play.  Do it!  I'll be putting an extra bounty on my pretty little head for whoever takes me out.  Oh and don't let this post worry you.  I suck at online poker.