Three Tabling -- DADI, The 20k and The 40k

This is the kind of night I have grown to love. A fun, rare blogger tournament like the DADI on a poker site I love (full tilt), at the same time as I get to play the 20k guaranteed on full tilt at 10pm ET for an $8 token, and the 40k guaranteed on partpoker at 10:20pm ET. That is three tabling at its best right there. Especially when the pokertrust boys have set us up with a HORSE tournament for DADI 9. And you all know how much I love to play the HORSE games. I've been playing several HORSE sngs a week on full tilt with a buddy from work as it is, cashing in most of them as has he, and I play the cash on pokerstars as well to a nice, regular profit. The bottom line is, not many players are what I would consider good HORSE players, and I went into this event thinking I had better do well or something is severely wrong with my multigame right now. I was lucky to run into Don to my immediate right at my starting table, a position Don and I would share throughout an evening full of pocket pairs in Razz, counterfeited lows in O8 and vegas talk in the girlie chat.

Long story short, I did very well in the HORSE tournament, and was in first place in fact all the way from about 20 people left to 12 people left. This took me well into the second hour of the DADI tournament, such that both the 20k and the 40k were also kicked in, and I was in mtt heaven. Here was an interesting hand that occurred about 30 minutes in to the 20k:

With blinds of 30-60 and me down to around 1200 chips from my starting stack of 1500, I find 44 in middle position. It's folded to me, so I put in a standard 3x raise to 180. Another player in late-middle position calls my 180 chip bet, and everyone else folds. Two-handed we see a flop of A45 rainbow. BINGO! I've just flopped my trips, and there is an Ace on the board to boot, which is what I put him on anyway to make his preflop call. After pausing as if I'm not sure what to do, I lead out with this weakish-looking bet, trying to build my opponent's confidence in his hopefully strong Ace:



He calls my bet. Me likey. This guy has A9-AQ and thinks he's ahead.

The turn card comes a harmless 10♥. This time I complete my feint by checking to him, suggesting that I led out at the flop with the Ace, got called by someone who probably has an Ace and now I don't want to lose any more chips into this pot. I'm making a strong move here -- the ole' bet-check-raise move -- and it works with high frequency and consistency in the large mtts, always has and always will. My opponent responds with this bet:



This one was interesting. Here my opponent has made a laughably weak bet of his own, following up on my weak bet on the flop which he smooth called. He has bet 240 into an 850-chip pot, just over a quarter of the current pot and basically giving me odds to call for almost any hand I could possibly have. This worries me. Especially with my showing of weakness with my lead bet on the flop, he should be inclined to bet larger here with an Ace and a high kicker he figures to be the best. What is going on here? My only conclusion is that this guy likes his hand more now on the turn than he did on the flop. And then it hits me: he is holding AT. That's the hand that best fits his play so far here. He called a preflop 3x raise from me from middle-late position with AT. Then he smooth calls a weak flop bet as well with TP10K. Then when a 10 falls on the turn, he makes a weak bet where he basically has to bet strong here. He's got two pairs and he is clearly trying to bait me into calling. I am so going to nail this guy. I push allin, knowing that he will now put me on a strong Ace, maybe AK or AQ, and he will clearly call and show me his two pairs which are nearly hopelessly behind my flopped trips with one card to come. He shows:











Ouch. I think I'll go home now. See what I did there? I told you this was an "interesting hand" from the 20k, which it was, but what it really was was my elimination hand like I've been posting when I'm able to play in this tournament. But I surprised you with that, didn't I? Man if the ability to do that isn't a good reason right there to love blogging as a medium, I don't know what is. Anyways, I'm not killing myself one bit for this hand. Flopping trips over trips is almost a muggafuggin guarantee that someone is busting in a no-limit holdem tournament, period. I even picked up on his obviously trappy bet on the turn. I just didn't put him on a strong enough hand. I don't see how I could have in this situation. If anyone disagrees and thinks I should have just smooth called on the turn and not gotten more chips in on the river (when he clearly would have moved in on me, regardless of what card fell on the river), I would love to hear your reasoning in the comments. So that's how the 20k ended for me, my first early exit in about a week but not one that I'm going to spend another minute thinking about how I let it happen, unless someone out there thinks I played this wrong and should have picked up on his trips. Daniel Negreanu, if you're out there, please tell me how I should have known he had higher trips and not two pairs or worse. All I know is that I had put him on A9-AQ after the flop, and then the Ten fell on the turn and he played it just like I might expect the guy with AT to play it.

At around 11:20pm ET, the final table of the DADI 9 HORSE tournament arrived:



Talk about a table full of quality poker players! I could have almost picked this final table out just from looking at the starting roll call. We all knew Drizz would play his way in, and that CJ would luckbox his way in. Don surprised a lot of people by final tabling as well, although I can't say I am surprised as Don has been final tabling everything in sight in blogger tournament land for what seems like weeks. In all it was a very talented group of all-around poker players sitting at the final table, and I felt like I was in great shape to take it down.

And that's when full tilt turned into brickland for me. I could not hit a draw to save my life, and everyone else nailed me repeatedly, whether on the river, on seventh street, with overcards, flushes, and counterfeits on the end. Whatever it took to knock me down, it happened. So, for example, when I begun this hand with the chip lead out of 7 players remaining, I called Trauma's allin on 5th street when I knew my 4-card Razz draw was a lock to be ahead of his at that point in the hand:



but then this happened on 7th street:



This same thing happened again a few hands later to me, and in the span of about 5 minutes, I went from the chip leader to near the bottom of the ITM positions. Finally, I got all my chips in heads-up against Trauma once again, this time on 4th street in hilo, when I was leading on both the high side and the low side:



and here was the end result:



Once again, I would like to extend my thanks to 7th street, for making my final table appearance in DADI 9 one of my most enjoyable final tables in my life. Give me those chips against that final table in HORSE ten times, and I'll put the money on me every single time. But last night it was not meant to be, as I headed out in fifth place overall, for a payout of around $30. I played great, but it is always frustrating when I know I've been repeatedly effed out of my chance to win another big blogger tournament. Nonetheless I can certainly take some solace in knowing I lost to what was by the end a collection of all very strong poker players. Congratulations in the end to Trauma for taking it all down, and to everyone else who cashed in the top 6 spots:



And the best part is, while all this fun was going on, I also managed to end my night by cashing in the party 40k:



So in all, another profitable night at the tournament tables for me. And I have to say, playing HORSE with the whole crew is always a blast. Thanks again to Jordan, Trip and Gary for setting the DADI up, and I can't wait for the next one.