$1K rebuy tournament report

I promised a tourney report and today had some interesting hands so it should make a decent one.

Rebuy period: I usually clown around a bit in live rebuy tournaments in the rebuy period. I kept my 4 $1K chips to rebuy with on the table, and then try to make a few "crazy" image plays. Most people in these tournaments aren't planning to really rebuy at all, maybe if they bust or something, so you can get away with a lot knowing you can always rebuy if something backfires. One of my favourites is to shove from the binds when a bunch of players limp with any two cards since they basically never have a hand to call. Then you show your rags and start setting up an image. So I did that a few times today which was ok. The best hand was when I limped 44 UTG and announced I was setting the trap. Mark Goodman raised my limp and he was the only guy who seemed to not be averse to gambling a little. The BB called his raise and he has nothing approximately always. I now sprung the trap and moved in, Goodman called with KTo and I won the race. From there people didn't fold when I bet, but I never had a hand so I lost the chips I had won. Double add-on and on to the real poker, I'm in for the "minimum", $4K.

Hand 1: I had won a small flip with 99 vs AJ but then lost some back as my bets still weren't getting much respect and I wasn't making pairs. with around 6600 I raise UTG with T9dd to 300 at 50/100. Probably a somewhat questionable raise but whatever. A late position player calls and the BB who is pretty bad calls. Flop TT5, I bet 650 and the BB calls. Turn 5, I bet 1250 hoping to induce a bluff shove and the BB calls. River 7, he checks again, I bet 2750, he moves me in for 1700 more, I obviously call and he has 66 for some reason.

Hand 2: I went on a bit of a rush from here but I can't really remember all the hands. I know i busted Mark Goodman when he called my position raise and checkraised all-in with a flush draw on the flop. He was short though so I had an easy call with top pair which held. I'm now up to about 22K.

Hand 3: I have a semi-active image but have mostly shown down good hands lately and I've never reraised anyone. It folds to a young Aussie guy in MP who raised to 600 at 100/200 a25. He's been pretty active and seems to know what he's doing, and he also has a pretty decent sized stack. I decide to make it 1850 in the CO with Q9o, but he calls. Not sure what he has here, could be trapping with a big hand, could have small pair or suited connector hoping to flop big and bust me, or maybe some random big cards he doesn't want to fold if he's worse than I think he is. Flop A87, he checks and I have to bet this flop as it he shouldn't usually like the ace. I bet 2750, he hums and haws about how unlucky it he is that an ace flopped and calls. The turn is an A, I obviously don't put any more money in. It checks down, and a key point in Australia is that the last aggressor always has to show their hand first. So I roll my Q9o so I can see his hand, and he the AA for quads. Anyways now my image obviously sucks, which is important for this hand.

Hand 4: A young German player Daniel Zink makes it 550 in EP. I still have around 16K and he covers me, and I find T9dd in the SB. I figure with my new bad table image I should get some action if I flop big and call. The flop comes 875 two diamonds, and I lead 1150, intending to reraise all-in if he raises my bet. He just calls though and the tuen is the 8d completing my flush b ut pairing the board. I bet 2675 and he calls. The river is a 5. I really think he has a big pair that he's playing pot control with, and given my new bad image I just might get a river bet paid off. It seems very unlikely he has a fullhouse given he didn't raise the flop, and a bigger flush is only a little worrisome. I make a fairly big bet of 6425, and he thinks for a bit and moves me in for 4250 more. I think I thought for 3 minutes or so, though most of my energy was probably dedicated to being angry and hating my life more than figuring out what to do. I really didn't see how it made sense for him to have a big hand here unless he slowplayed a monster on the flop, which on such a draw heavy board should be less likely. Anyways eventually I just talked some sense into myself and realized that he probably played his hand poorly on some street, but it's impossible for him to be bluffing and this is an easy fold. So I folded angrily.

Hand 5: Steveol7 raises to 800 at 150/300 a 25 on my right. I move in with 66, the button shoves over the top and I outflip his AK to get back to 10Kish. OK maybe I have a chance again.

Hand 6: From here not much happened. I blinded down a bit, I tried to raise the blinds twice butgot reraised both times despite they were the only two times I put chips in the pot during the 200/400 level. I got into pushbot mode to stay afloat. Eventually I got moved tables with 7500 at 300/600 a75. A player who Bond had told me is rkruok from online shoved his very short stack on my BB. I found AQ and instacalled but lost to his T6o. I then beat JJ with KT0 the next hand though to get right back where I was. My bustout hand was when I shoved 66 in EP with around 7K at 300/600 a75. The BB called with 88 and that was that.

Tomorrow is a $1500 bounty tournament that has a kind of weird structure I need to check out. In other news, the Full Tilt plane from LAX got in today with all the Full Tilt pros and people who won seats to the main event on their site, as well as some others who hitched a ride, so pretty much everyone is here now. I crashed the Full Tilt party for a bit tonight with Leo and a couple others which was alright. I also had kangaroo for dinner tonight, and it was actually pretty good. Still haven't headbutted or boxed any kangaroos yet though. They're avoiding me imo.

Mike