8.2 More Final Table Stories: two short stack strategies

Hello people! And Feedburner is showing me that new people keep coming in for a peek. Some of you seem to be even reading my special brand of poker bs. Why no comments? Send me comments! So much of this blog is simply me opening my mind to a review of big plays for my won benefit. In other words, blogging my take on these hands is helping my game. I would love to see how some of my readers played similar situations differently with more or less success.

Okay, since my last blog I have final tabled twice on-line, and I might as well go back to on-line play a bit, but the truth is the availability of live tourney play has significantly reduced my on-line playing. I thought I'd forgotten how to play on-line, but final table finishes in fields of over 300 in two tourneys at once is nice, and worth talking about. One is the $1 turbo rebuy, a hilarious nightly on-line game which I have won 10 times, and highly recommend playing. For cheap, you really get to hone your crisis time play, as, in spite of the 30 minute rebuy and add ons, that 20,000 in chips you might collect become an average stack 30 minutes later and in crisis 30 after that. Picking your spots is everything. The other final is the $25+2 bounty game, a nice tourney with decent players and nice payouts.

But this blog is not about me at all....

I mentioned Al's first MTT at the casino a couple of weeks ago. He came in 7th yesterday, and had come back from 1500 with 21 to go and blinds of 500/1500 to 33000 sitting at the final table. His rise...and fall...and our differences in crisis time playing strategies, shall be the primary topic.

I had busted out in the first hour after a short stack flush draw crippled me holding top pair top kicker. After THAT I got big hands and no action until I pushed with QK against a weak early minraise and AJ raced with me...I even caught my K....meh. So I played some $1/2 NLHE cash for a bit. I really still don't like cash. The pressure of a tournament means when I raise to $20 with AK with blinds of 1/2, 22 really can't make the call. In a cheap cash game, its why not? Its fun to be loosey goosey a bit without worrying about the blinds creeping up on your or what's left of your stack...but the static play is really tiresome.

Okay, last Monday after 4 hours of play, we are down to 23 people, the table is full of 6000-8000 chip holdings including me, with 300/600 blinds and the inevitable raise by me with AQ, call all in against someone I have covered and lose to 77, leaving with my starting stack of 2500 chips, a short table to contend with, and huge blinds.

Al will grind out to his last chip to reach the money, but hey, he's moving up in increments playing a new phenomenon. He's old school: he learned the game in beer halls, and owns a record player "hi fi" and NES video game system (No, not SUPER NES, not GAME CUBE, NES with all the fixins') He don't play on-line, because the NES don't do that. He just plays his game. Last week he bemoaned putting his last $100 chip in the pot, this week it was any ace UTG with only the big blind left... but I am ahead of myself a bit...

I am playing to win, even from the short stack. I am prepared to lose too, but I didn't wait too long. After paying off the blinds once, I have 1700 in chips and UTG. I don't even look. My chips go in blind.

All-in blind? WTF? Absolutely. I can't give off any tells because I don't know what I have. My opponents need a big stack or a big hand to call, because they cannot gauge relative strength. Sure 88 or better calls easily, but AJ? maybe, maybe not. There are no big stacks and thankfully no big hands, and the BB, feeling obligated to call, does so blind. My Q4 is ahead of his J3 and stays ahead, and I am alive for now. I pay off the blinds, and in late position (not button, too obvious) I push again, not blind, but with 68.

68? yup. Just praying for a steal or two live. I get the best of both. AK pushes the rest of the pot away, and I catch my 6. WOOO. back up to 5000 chips.

Okay, I'm back to a stack...sort of...and now its time to exploit this crazy new image.

A chance to steal again late is successful with 74, and the next hand I see A6.

Wow. A6.

fine. But we're 7 handed, I;m in cut off position, 3 have folded already, and now my 5000 chips can steal some more...or attract a loose call....and I get it.
QK calls, but flops a straight. End of the Monster. But it's pretty nice to see A high the favorite in any race which would have pushed me back to 10,000 and in the money, and a tight image there doesn't get the action I need to get back to a where I want to be to play the final 20.

Not the stylish poker PokerMonster prefers, but I played to win, knew where I stood, what I needed, and did what I could to try to get there. Obviously if I double there I settle down.

Okay, Al's story.

After losing all my money at the cash table with AK on a KQ2 flop because some donkey called 22 preflop on a 10x the blind bet in the cash table, I wandered over to watch Al.

Never rebuy in a cash table unless your strategy is to donk out the first stack, look like an idiot, and get action with the second...I was there to kill time and get a little experience, and the table crowd was both friendly and a bit weak: for example, when I raised to 15 UTG with AJ, and the quiet older Oriental man across the table who I had earlier see slow play QQ reraises me to a mere 30, I folded instantly in spite of the middle position caller, because I put him on KK trying to improve the pot size. It was just dead obvious, and I told my neighbour so when he expressed surprise at my fold. The other player called, and in spite of my two spades flop for the flush draw and A on the river, I was still happy with my laydown because KK bet like KK and 88 paid him off a damn big pot. Since the river was an A they both checked it and I got to confirm my read when he showed the KK and say I told you so to the guy beside me. With 3 in the pot, I either push on that nice flop knowing KK makes the call looking for my 40%, or get bet out hard by KK protecting himself from a drawing flop. The river may have been good, but I pay off like $100, 75% of my stack, getting there.

Blah Blah Blah.

Al is in the top 30 when I arrive, and has 4000 chips left, but the blinds are, predictably, 300/600, and I soon realize there is something wrong. I have played this tourney enough times to realize that the play is about 30 minutes behind where it should be. These guys are playing TIGHT, all 3 tables, and they will stay at about 30 FOR EVER. They are so tight, when Al finally has 1550 in chips left 2 levels later, we STILL HAVE 26 PLAYERS! Wow, that's like 80's rock star spandex tight.

And get this! Al has been so tight, in spite of the obvious necessity of Al's move, THE WHOLE TABLE PUTS HIM ON A HAND AND PLAY FOLDS TO THE BB! who has to call for 50 chips and chase his 67 to Al's A2 clubs. Al caught the flush draw on the flop, and stayed ahead adding 3850 to his nothing to make him able to afford to fold the next blinds. In fact, he gets a free pass on his BB too, which will become important.

This table is so tight there is one lady at the table who is all in every other hand. Some poor fool with a short stack still thinks he can limp in and not see a raise, so she steals. Eventually she gets crippled when QK sooted calls her 99 all in. To everyone's surprise, she had a legitimate hand, but the flush hit the turn, crippling her, and stacking up the "loose" caller. He will prove to be way too loose a caller, a tall, 20 something guy with too many weird earrings to present as a serious poker player...

And after a break, Al finds himself with 4100 chips, UTG, and holding AJ. Biggest hand Al has seen in hours, and naturally he's all in with 1000/2000 blinds staring him in the face. Pierced Man makes the call, and so does another ultratight short stack with 1100 chips (wow that's tight, same guy who thought he could limp in 1500 with 5000 left) Pierced Man as K10 diamonds. Mole Man has AK off. Nice to see the K is dead, putting Al way ahead of the loose call for the big side pot, and even better, a J hits the flop, killing both hands and tripling Al up (don't forget the blinds and antes are almost as much as what Al had left).

And suddenly, as the tightness dies to the huge blinds, it seems to take only a few minutes until 28 has become 14, and Al waits out until the final table with still short, but livable 12000 chips.

He doesn't draw well to start the final table, 4th position, but at least he has some fold equity, and, in fact, this appears to be a weak final table. People are raising with weak holdings in early position as if they are still six handed. One guy will make a bet of 5000 UTG holding A5 sooted, and looking weak-ass doing it, and be forced to fold to a big raise and call ahead when 88 (some kid with a stack who likes to rumble with any PP) and KK showdown, and quad 8's wins. This guy only had 20000 chips, he throws 5000 out weakly with a crap ace UTG at a new, full table of survivors? How does that guy make it to a final table? Al has plenty to exploit here. There is the young chinese kid who took 10 minutes in the tank to call the Pushing Girl's last chips with JJ (not that's tight!)...he takes forever to move on anything, and talks himself out of calls. There is the 30 something chubby white guy who gets excited and goes all in when he has a big hand (and he thinks AQ is a big hand). There is a 30 something shaved bald white guy who probably drives a Honda Element and outthinks himself on every hand, there's Pierced Guy, soon to be short stacked from too many loose calls, and there's Talk to Much Guy, the initial short stack, who will double up twice, but I played with him earlier and the only time this guy stops talking is when he has a big hand....

And Al gets a SB special soon when a 7000 early raise comes a-knocking and Al wakes up with KK...and his 3600 more all in has to be called with 77...soon after, all puts his 24000 in when Element guy spends 5 minutes deciding to limp in his 66 in early position....and Short Stack Al now has 33000 chips, very healthy, and, suddenly, he can play poker again....

Alas, it's almost as if he forgot how. Its midnight, Al has played 5 hours of poker in his second only MTT, and he's exhausted. Now he makes a weak 3x blind raise UTG, and I think, oh its Al, he's setting up a monster here, and the rest of the table believes it too, except for the obvious guy who comes in all in (he had exploited Pierced Guy betting into a dry pot in an obvious check down situation when a Q hit the turn, and Obvious Guy got pissed off and moved all in with his AQ. So Obvious Guy has a huge stack, and Al did not have a monster. Al made the same mistake as everyone else, and had to fold.

Al is exhausted. All will make a critical mistake two hands later, thinking it is only 6000 to call from an early minraise from the SB with 66. The little guy who pushes with any PP had raised to 20000, and Al, dead tired and looking down with his cap over his eyes, didn't see the raise, so he said call and had to call 20000, 80% of his stack. Al being Al, he folds to two over cards on the flop, and has enough chips to see one more bust out before finding his way into 7th. With A2. Against AQ and AQ hearts. HE actually caught his two on a very low flop, but AQ hearts (obvious guy, no capitals) won a freeroll runner runner heart flush against the Little Pusher, and
merciful Lady Luck tells Al to go home.

Al was happy. He is now a Monday regular. Cool. I wish I could have tagged off once he got big stacked. Al knew how to play this table too, but I was fresh. I could have slaughtered this weak field with 33,000 in chips with 8 left. He won't need the help next time. I will.

Enough poker for tonight. I made my $20 10 man sng and came in 6th playing an omaha tourney. I edit and sign off.

The Lady of Luck is always good to go. She'll wear ya right out.

Git-r-done next time Al!