Day 2 of EPT
I ended up drawing a pretty sweet first table on Day 2. There was a girl in the 8 seat (Day 2 was 8 handed or less the entire day) who didn’t even know how to really play poker, I’m pretty sure. She was giggling and just being a loose monkey pre-flop who was maybe the easiest opponent ever to read I’ve encountered in my life. There was one guy from Spain on my immediate left that came into Day 2 with a top 5 chip count stack who tried to string bet twice and didn’t know what was wrong with it and ended up making some other brutally bad plays. My goal was going to be to mooch off of his stack the entire day. There were three other guys at the table who looked like they had a semi-clue, but were probably easily exploitable. The blinds were 200/400 with a 50 ante and my stack was only 9200, so I knew I was going to have to be aggressive as I didn’t want my stack to dwindle down too much. My table was perfect for this and I really outmaneuvered and outplayed them. I raised J3o, Q8o, JJ, K5s, and ATo in the first two rounds of the day and won every single pot without a showdown putting me up to about 14k or so. The blinds went up to 300/600 with a 75 ante when the following hand came along about an hour and a half into the day. I casually raised to 1700 from middle position with the good ol’ AK of clubs, and a guy who had been losing pots left and right shoved over the top for about 11k, I of course insta-called and his JTs didn’t fare well after I flopped trip Aces. What I didn’t know at this time, was how he was going to get me back for busting him from the tournament (read my next blog about a 20/40/80 PLO cash game hand against him). I was excited to bust somebody and almost double up, but unfortunately, that was the final straw for the table as one of the tournament directors had the table break as I collected the chips from that pot.
I drew a seat at a table where there was a bunch of younger, European guys with huge stacks. Almost every single hand on this table was raised, and re-raised. They were acting like total animals, but unfortunately, I just never hit a flop when I saw one, and with their pure aggression and being the calling stations that they were, I had no choice but to fold a lot. I finally got TT all-in preflop with a stack enough for only 7 more rounds at 500/1k-100 ante blinds, and I failed to improve against KK. The play at this table was truly horrible, as one time two guys got KT and K8s all-in pre-flop after going 5 bets and raises! I was very disheartened to bust as I felt if I just had a few more chips, I could’ve really taken this table for a ride if received the slightest bit of help. That was that though, and I was very disappointed and out of the tournament in 88th place.
I ran into Timex and Ansky who both busted out on Day 1 before I got my taxi. We chatted a bit, and Ansky and I decided to make plans for the next day to hang out. I played a little bit online when I got back to the hotel and managed to put down a $32,000 winning session after being stuck about $30,000. That made my night’s sleep just a little bit better. I know a few high stakes players who quit after losing two or three buy-ins. They think that some sort of stop-loss is going to help their results in the long run. I feel like this is some of the most foolish thinking out there. As long as you are sure you are playing your best and still have an edge against your opponent(s), not tilting or spewing, and not tired or hungry, there’s no reason why you should ever quit a game. I’ve heard these guys talk about stopping after they lose a couple buy-ins all the time. There’s really no point in this. All the variance in poker is random and probability based. Just because you received three bad beats in a row, DOES NOT make it’s more likely you’re going to receive a fourth bad beat in a row any more than the next day. If you’re tilting and angry, that’s one thing, but just because for the simple fact that you lose a couple buy-ins doesn’t mean you should quit. It’s amazing how some seemingly intelligent people do this and think it’s right, when they aren’t thinking logically at all. They might as well call up Ms. Cleo and try to get some psychic powers so they can find out which days they won’t get any bad beats.