LETTERS FROM THE BIG BLIND

OH WHAT A NIGHT ... 

This is going to be one of those bittersweet tirades, moaning and rejoicing at the same time. The CCS final table went last night and, oh, what a night. A murder’s row of opponents, making this one of the most difficult, exciting and frustrating event’s I’ve played in a long time.

As everyone already knows, Duane took down the final table, blending his poker skills with a series of cards which no one could overcome for very long. As Duane himself admits, he didn’t play perfectly, he made mistakes, but the deck was simply hitting him in the face so hard throughout the tournament that no one could catch up for very long. He took Dobie out with AA, he took me out with 77 and he took cole out with 77. Those are the hands I remember from the eliminations. He had 22 at least four times that he showed. He showed KK numerous times, as well as a variety of other pocket pairs.

The odds of getting dealt a pocket pair are 16-1. So on average you are supposed to get a pocket pair around once every 16 hands or so. Cole had one pocket pair all night (10-10). I fared marginally better with five or six pockets pairs, including my last hand when a cold deck ran my 33 in Duane’s 77 three handed. With half hour blind levels and playing somewhere around 24 hands every level (three times around the table), the number of PP’s Duane got dealt was simply staggering. The odds of getting KK dealt is 110-1. Duane got it dealt to him twice in a row, and he hasn’t told anyone how many times throughout the night.

This is not a Duane rant, because he played all of his hands well enough to position himself to take it all down. He stayed patient despite a number of distractions (including prior engagements which were constantly reminding him of his responsibilities) with text messages all night. It helps, however, to have really good starting hands. This is especially true when you have the confidence that when you get involved in a hand, your hand is most likely ahead of your opponents range.

If I haven't said it before, Congratulations Duane.  Well earned.

So, the tournament started fifteen minutes late to accommodate the two table tournament Darryl was running (with Bob’s help initially).

No one was really getting out of hand, if you exclude Bedford donking off his chips to Duane, Carol and Steve. Actually, donking is a misnomer here, cause Bed was ahead in most of the hands and got rivered pretty much every time.

Level 1 through 4 went pretty quietly with no one really taking an extreme lead. Big stacks at that point were Duane and Dan. Bed was down to about 12-15K and the blinds were slowing creeping up. Carol stack was starting to slip a bit, and I noticed Mark having some trouble as well. Steve was slowly increasing his stack and I was pin balling in between my starting stack of 35 K and 45K for most of these levels.

No one was being extremely aggressive, but there wasn’t much passive play either. Few hands were making it to the river, and all of those hands would be head’s up hands. No one was really playing massive pots, either. Small ball poker seemed to be the norm, as everyone was trying to get an edge over the other players.

After coming back from the break, Steve opened up his game a bit, probably because he was starting to get some cards. Didn’t work though as he was the first one out in level 6 or thereabouts (yup three hours into the tournament before the first elimination). Someone else will have to describe his exit, because I can’t remember who took him out or the hand involved.

Next to go was Bedford who pushed his hand against Duane and lost. Again, I can’t remember the hand, but Bed pushed the rest of his smallish stack in the middle coming over the top of Duane’s continuation bet on the flop. Bed had position, but not the winning hand and he was out.

Carol was nursing a really short stack by this time and trying to find places to put all her stack in for a double up. She eventually did in level 7 (500-1000) and was auto-called by Duane. Guess who won. The hand was a coin flip and Duane (obviously) came out on top.

Down to five players, things really started to get interesting. Mark was now the extreme short stack, running about 12K into blinds of 800-1600. I’d been making an extra special effort to raise his BB from my button, every time I figured my hand was better than Dan’s (sb). I ran into a couple of substantial Dan re-raises which I had to fold too, but for the most part, Mark was letting me take his BB without complaint.

Mark did, however manage to increase his 12K stack to about 16K before his final ouster. However, an interesting hand developed between Duane and Dan first. On a 7K7 board, Dan checked in early position. After some thought, Duane bet out at this flop, only to face a slow and deliberate check raise from Dan. Duane spent some time weighing his options then went all in. Dan, again after considering the hand called off the rest of his chips, quite a substantial stack, and tabled KQ for top pair good kicker. Duane, however, tabled AA and the board bricked out for Dan. He bubbled.

Both players played this hand exceptionally well, but Duane in particular, as there simply was no way you could put him on AA there.

So now, with four players remaining, I’m sitting on a stack of about 42K, Mark has about 15K, Cole and Duane much larger and the blinds are at 1K- 2K. Mark has just made the money and I tangle with Duane. I have 99, didn’t get to see his hand, as his aggressive betting throughout the hand made it impossible for me to call his river bet. I lost half my stack and I was in danger of going out before Mark.

I had 24K left, and I started to push the envelope just a tad. I got extremely lucky in one hand with a K8 when I pushed all in pre-flop to be called by Duane with a QJ (what a donkey!!). He, however, hit his J on the flop and I had to river a straight when he hit his Q, for top 2 pair. This is the one hand where I lost my cool and started sputtering abuse at the poker gods. Someone must have heard because I won the hand, but had to suck-out big time to do it. Sorry if I went off on you Duane, it wasn’t aimed at your play, just my luck in these types of situations.

In any event, this hand put me back into the tournament with 54K or so. The blinds went up, and without playing a hand Mark went from 15K down to 4500 pretty quickly. In his last BB, Cole called the 3000, Duane folded and I looked down at AK. Yeah, I know that I’m supposed to just call here, but I wanted to see if I could entice Cole into a bigger pot. I raised. Mark folded his hand, leaving 1500 behind. Cole folded as well. Oh well.

Mark went out on the next hand for only his small blind when Cole made a straight on the river with the same card which made me trips.

Three handed was simply a war of attrition. I started with about 50K and managed to work my stack up to about 85K -90K. At one point, with the blind level just changing to 2k-4K, a count down of the chips had all three of us equal. The action went, raise fold fold, fold raise fold, check raise fold. With every three hands costing 6K, very few hands were making it to the river. Position was king, unfortunately, the cards weren’t cooperating as Cole and I were constantly looking at hands like 83off. I made a few moves forcing Duane or Cole to make decisions, mostly in position, and with hands which weren’t completely hopeless. But I was still being ground down. With the blinds at 3K-6K, Duane started getting frustrated and threatening to catch me making a move. When I was down to about 62K in the BB, I looked down at 33 after Duane limped into the hand. I re-raised. He went all in, I called and he tabled 77. No help and I was gone in 3^rd.

Duane now had about a 2-1 chip lead on Cole. And the tournament was over before the end of the level on a coin flip hand Duane won with another 77.

I’ll let Cole describe his heads up battle with Duane as I was steaming a bit and decided to sit down at the cash table waiting for the tourney to end. I was bounced out at about 1:15 (kinda exactly cause I looked at my watch and knew my wife wouldn’t be happy.

So, I bought in to the cash game for $99.50 ($100.00) and this is what happened.

I played until a couple of minutes after 2:00. First hand I get dealt QQ on the button. There is a straddle from Darryl and a call from Bob in front of me and I raise to $12.00. Everyone else gets out of the way except for Darryl and Bob who call. Flop AQ8, one diamond two spades. Two checks and I bet out $15. Two callers. Turn is the 8 of diamonds. I’m thinking my hand is pretty good here. Two checks, I bet out $25. Two calls. River is the case Q of diamonds. Darryl goes all in from first position for $48.00. I’m waiting for Bob who did eventually muck his hand. I call and stack Darryl who hit his diamond flush on the river. I’ve increased my stack to about $250.00 on the first hand.

Play a couple of hands, take some down, have to fold others. Pretty much standard no harm no foul type grinding poker, when I find myself on the button again, this time with an 86 off. Again there is a straddle from Darryl and again Bob limps. I just limp this time and we go to the flop with five players, including Mark and Scott. Flop come 6J8. Blinds check, Darryl checks, Bob puts out a four dollar bet which I raise to 15. Everyone else folds and Bob re-raises to $50. Nice!!. Knowing how Bob plays these types of hands, I put him on a big pp and decide to push. I re-raise him another $80 or so on top of his $50.00. He makes the call. Turn, your guessed it, an 8. Bob goes all in and I call off the rest of my stack. He tables QQ and the harmless 5 on the river gives me the pot. Bob still has chips behind, but I’ve now doubled up again.

Couple of hands later (may actually have been the very next hand), I get 88, Bob goes all in for $40 or so, and I call, knowing I’m likely flipping for the $40. Not the best play in the world, but I was felling generous. Bob’s hand doesn’t improve and I take the rest of his stack.

The rest was pretty uneventful (as if I needed to have any more events) and I called it a night about 2.:10 and cashed out $490.00. Along with cashing at the final table (worth $330.00) I booked a $720.00 win.

Oh what a night. The only thing I wish is that I got those three hands against Duane and Cole and had taken the tournament down. I made more in 45 minutes at the cash table than I did in the previous 6 hours playing the final table.

Now its everyone else’s job to bug Duane to write about his evening. You’ll have to ask him to go into detail, because he has a really short attention span and probably skipped most of this column and is now reading this.