Tourney: Venetian March 15th $120 7 PM nightly recap

After my disaster at the MGM Grand, I decided that I wanted to play in a tournament so that I could cool down. Losing the $400 in no way affected my mood so I was determined to play in something where I could win. I looked at a Vegas tournament schedule and found that the Venetian had a $180 tournament at 8 PM for me to play in. I didn’t know the structure or anything, but if anything I wanted to go to the Venetian so I could figure out the parking situation and how to get there in general. When I found my way to the poker room, it was 7:40 or so and I found that the tournament actually started at 7 PM and it was $120. The blinds were still low and I determined that there would still be value in registering for the tournament (I don’t know if there was/is but it really didn’t seem to affect what happened. Even so I will probably not be doing late registration like this again.). There were 7500 in starting chips and I sat down at 100-200.

The table of players was just unbelievably bad (I didn’t realize this at first) but eventually, I saw that almost every pot was opened for a raise to 1000 and called by 2 or 3 spots. This is why I was lucky to win the first pot when there was one limper and I raised to 475 from the button with A9cc. The BB called and so did the limper. The flop came J85 and they checked to me and I c-bet 825 and somehow, it worked, so that was a good start.

A couple hands later I limped with A10ss. There were 5 people to the flop and it came 766 2 spades. Everyone checked to the button who bet 500. The sb was an asian lady who played pretty poorly and she raised to 1000. I probably made a mistake here but I called the 1000 and so did the button. The turn was a blank and the lady bet another 1000. I would normally just fold but to only 1000 I have to call there so I did and the button folded. The river blanked and it went check check and she showed 87 which sucked because if I would have known she was that weak, I would have probably won if I would have raised her at any point in the hand.

The next 30 minutes or so were uneventful and I was down to 5500 at 200-400 25. The asian lady limped and everyone else folded to my bb and I found KQo. I checked the option and the flop came Qh9h4x. I checked and she bet 800 I raised to 2200 and she called. The turn came an offsuit 9 and I moved all in for 2800. She timebanked for like 3 minutes and finally made an obvious call with Ah7h. She missed and I doubled to 11000. After this double, I started to move backwards again. With everyone playing such gigantic pots with such shitty hands, I just needed to wait for my opportunity. After the blinds had gone around a couple of times, I was down to 9000 or so. The terrible asiain lady raised up front to 1200 and got 2 callers and I decided to call from the button with q9dd, missed the flop, and folded. By my next blind I was down to 7000.

Maybe it was the fact that everyone else at the table had such huge stacks but for some reason, I felt really badly about my stack. I know that I shouldn’t because I know that 7k is more than enough at 300-600 50 but for some reason, I got complacent which caused me to make a bad play. I was in the bb for 600 with about 7k behind and it folded to the cutoff who was an aggro gentleman who played decently. He made it 1800 and it folded to me. I found 33 and decided to push allin. The guy snapped me and showed AA (he obviously wakes up with AA here) and I was not able to outdraw him. I don’t know, he could have had any suited connector, or I could have gotten called in a coinflip, or he could have folded a midpair (he folded and showed 88 to a similar play earlier on). Also, I was looking at him before I moved and he was giving what I thought was a weak tell to me but boy was I wrong. Neither of these is an excuse for making a poor play like that.

I don’t know why, but the last 3 tournaments I played in I got in with the worst. This needs to stop happening because 90% of tournament I play in I should be busting out with the best hand. Im wasting tournaments in which that will happen by making bad plays and getting myself in with the worst hand. Oh well, tomorrow is another day and making poor plays like this just motivates me to play better so I don’t have to write about how badly I play. I think that I will probably be playing in that Venetian tournament more often. It’s a good value with good structure and bad players.