Chapter VII and a half, plus one: Road to the Final Table: Short Stacks and Suckout Artists (continued)

Ding Ding! Tourney players, please take your seats....

Okay, I chipped up, I chipped down, I chip all around, my now 6000 stack eventually enters the final 40, and our table is busted up. I wind up 2 seats the left of my friend Al, a very good poker player who I invited to join me. This is his first MTT, but he has 20 years beer-hall poker experience on me. He is surprisingly wound-up, but his stack is similar to mine. He has been grinding, and earned every chip. His table seems a bit scared of him. Al thinks this particular tourney has about 10% real players in it, and he's probably right.

Let me comment very briefly on Al and his first MTT. Al is mad at me for trying to play host and give him a heads up on where he was at in the game. He didn't want any sense of being a rookie. I was too talky and helpful, and his head was full of the game. This is pretty much how I was my first live MTT, but I had forgotten how intense the first MTT experience is. Very busy head, very in the game, very wound up. There are a lot of variables in live play to consider which you get shortcuts for online, like pot size and stack size which you have to figure out by sight (although you have seen me ask for a chip count many times to obtain further information), along with all the visual clues to get tells and make reads on players. The brain needs to be trained for live play with strangers, and anyone's first day at an MTT is a lot like the first day at a difficult new job. The brain fills to overflowing, and fatigue and stress buildup. 20 live MTTs or so later, the brain is trained, and I can play my game. In particular, 6 hour stints in larger, more expensive MTT's have given me the mental stamina to play 6 or more hours in these little weekly games, a significant contributing factor in my recent final table play. Yes we'll get to that eventually. Let's get you all there first.

I put a read on the players at the new table pretty quickly. There is an attractive woman in her late 20's who clearly is playing a solid, predictable, but smart game of raising with raising hands and playing post flop. She busts an all-in player who bet into her AQ on a Q high flop. Al tells me the K9 player who overplayed middle pair had had only one move: all in. The lady immediately to my right has gone all in preflop, usually to open the pot, about 4 times in 20 hands. There is a 20 something kid who likes to see flops. Lets call him Donkey Kong Jr. I will talk about him in a bit.

Blinds are 300/600 with 75 ante and 6000 chips is not a happy state with blinds that big. I have been forced to give up some blinds, and about 25 hands later, I have 4000 chips in the BB. Pretty Lady has opened the pot early with 1400. Pretty Lady has a hand.

Play folds to All-In Lady. You will never guess. She went all in.

I have AJ diamonds in the BB. I have All-In Lady covered by maybe 500 chips and Pretty Lady has me well stacked. I curse aloud, a raise and a re-raise and I wake up with a hand. I am short stacked, I am behind at least one of these players, my friend Al may very well outlast me here, and I see AJ sooted.

I do not advocate making this play in a 10 handed table for any reason with anything less than a good PP. 10 10 will do nicely. AJ? I'm all-in. I have put PL on a good hand, AIL on a steal.

Pretty Lady has easily enough chips to make the call, and does. She shows 10 10. All-In Lady shows AK off. How embarrassing. I smell a J coming?

I see a J on the window....and the spread is ....omg....a second J. Fate or dumb luck....for all my advice in prior blogs on when and with what to push, necessity is reality. Expect to pick up your jacket and walk out folks throwing AJ into a 3-handed pot, not rake in 12,000 in fresh chippies.

Okay, so I have exposed my loose and lucky side. Last game, I was a mountain of strong play exploiting a deep and loose stack. This one, I gamble. I had to make this move. I didn't want to.

Enough excuses. Al the Rock exploits a new player at the table in the BB when he raises 2000 of his remaining 4000 in early position and the BB raises all in. All rides his AA to a double up against AJ, and I begin to see some hope for us both limping to the final.

There's too good reasons to dump AJ. Early position raiser who has been very patient is pot committed? I fold. If I am new to the table, only a very deep stack moves in. The New Gal was not deep.

I know I and Al both need more chips though. Another double will do. Hmm.....who wants to double up the Monster?

Enter.....Donkey Kong ....er...Jr.

I actually like Donkey Kong Jr.'s game. He is a preflop calling station who plays well post flop,often out of position. Any raise which isn't outrageous is likely to find DKJr. calling to see a flop and try to outplay you. He made a very nice pot calling a raise of 2500, putting 3 in the pot on a 689, two diamond flop, and calling A7 diamonds all in post flop with Q9 off.

This is, of course, a monster draw. 9 diamonds, 6 more 5s and 10s, and 3 aces to 2 nines and 3 queens, which can only bust the A catch. Lets call that 16 NET OUTS or (rough math) a whopping 65% favorite with 2 cards to go. Nice draw. No luck.

So Donkey Kong Jr is chipped up and I will soon learn not to bother stealing with A9 into his blinds. I need a new strategy. DKJr's strength is post flop, his weakness is preflop. A typical loose-aggressive style, but his game is unrefined. He is greedy. He doesn't know when to say when. He has 50,000 chips plus, we are down to 14 handed, there is only one other big stack at the table, with the exact opposite style, a Young Rock with a knack for pulling all-ins into his monsters who hasn't played a hand since he last won a huge pot holding AA, other than limp ins from the button with an ace in hand. Young Rock knows he has the chips to play the final and can let all these small stacks eat each other while picking his nose into the money.

DKJr. just can't slow down, so I set him up. He is 4 hands to my left, so I have position on him when he is in the blinds and he is in early position when I am in the blinds. This is a good situation, I have relative safety.

When play folds to me in the SB, I know the older Chinese gentleman in the BB to my left is an advocate of proper poker: he keeps complaining about DKJr's loose play and pretty much acts like he's the Professor of Poker. I can put a play on this fellow, and, with 27 off suit, I raise the 1000 blind to 3500 of my 9,000, and he has to fold. I have to show, and chuckle that I couldn't resist the move, which was true, but the show is calculated. It wasn't for Professor P to see, it was for DKJr.

2 hands later, after DKJr. folds UTG, I make another stealing raise from the cutoff, although I had a reasonable hand to play too. I take down the blinds and antes and show nothing.

The very next hand DKJr. is in the BB, and play folds to me. I have AJ. And I know exactly how to play it. I go all-in, and tell my fine fellow Prof. Poker that this seems to be the only way to get DKJr. to fold a hand, because he'll call anything less.

DKJr. has a lot of chips, and my 12000 ain't that big a deal. My man is set up. He thinks this is a steal. He calls with A2.

A2! Naturally, I hold up, a miracle, really, and I am able to eventually carry 24000 chips, an average stack, to the final table.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you AJ, when, and how, to push with it, and when not to. Oh, and NEVER CALL ANYTHING with A2. You are at best the slightest favorite against any two random hands and no better than 30% against ANY PP or ANY ACE OVER A7 (lower and you can add about a 20% split factor if the board plays higher cards to the kickers). Heads up, I may raise with it, but no way I call with it unless my opponent is on life support; and then maybe not simply because it can pay heads up to keep an opponent's small until he finally steps into a real hand, but I am WAY ahead of myself.

Poor, poor Al. I was hoping he would find a double up with DKJr. too. He blinded and anted himself out on the bubble. 11th. No money. And he will curse me later for putting his last 100 chips in just so he had a chance to win the antes and see 3 more hands. That guy knew where he stood skill level and showed me a competitiveness I hadn't seen before. I'm scared. I may have created another Monster.

Al did great, and is just as savvy a player to target DKJr for a double-up too. He just didn't get the same opportunity. He will be back.

Are you itching for it? Final Table really is next blog. Maybe I'll have 3 to talk about. I;m freerolling into the $100 game tomorrow as a final tune up for Saturday's Big Event.

The Lady of Luck loves us all equally. Night all.