GJP deepstack report

Got knocked out of this late last night with 30mins left to go in day 1. I was pretty happy with my play all day but have been thinking about my exit hand quite a bit and have come to the conclusion that I should have folded it preflop but its pretty close.

I had a pretty tough starting table with some very good players and people with some very solid results on it. I even had the WSOP main event winner from 1999 on my table and to be honest he was probably the softest spot on the table. Rory Brown was on my right and I later on in the day I was able to pick off a few of his isolation raises against the early limpers who loved to limp and he loved isolating them so I had direct position on him and I done this a couple of times. The first hand I play was interesting, I opened J7s in LP and was called by Mark McKeever from the button. We were 1000bb deep so I wanted to get into a lot of pots early on and build a loose image and hopefully get paid of when I am able to make a hand later on. So the flop comes down QJx with no flush draw as far as I can remember. I bet 350 into the pot and Mark calls, turn comes another J and I bet 750, now it gets interesting. Mark makes a raise an he says he means to make it 2100 but he actually put in 20100 as he put in 2 10k chips instead of a 2 1k chips. He says he made a mistake but I don't know they guy from anywhere so I am a bit dubious, it could be some kind of angle shoot for all I know but to be fair it can be easy enough to mix up your chips at the very start of a tournament. Anyway I fold and show the J, he says great fold and later tells me he had QQ for a full house. He never showed so I don't know but he did say that he doesn't want to get into a raising war early on with QQ when we are so deep so who knows.

The next interesting hand I get is against http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=119895 when he opens in EP and I call with QTs, the flop is AJT and he checks and I check behind. The turn was an A and he bet it and I called, the river was a K making me the flush and he bet 500 into a 750 pot or so and I just called, I didn't see to much value in raising him here as he seemed pretty solid and most of the As in his range have made a full house so I just call and hes got KK for the full house.

I play a few more pots and I basically keep my chip count around the 48k-52k mark and maintain my loose image especially to Nick Slade who is taking a bit of an offense to me raising his blinds all the time
I raise another few hands after this and I am usually attacking Noel Furlong and Nick Slade's blinds all the time as they guys will both call with such marginal hands and I am happy to play lots of pots with them in position. After about the 6th time of me doing it he decides that he will call without looking at his cards. So that's fine with me!! I have AhQh and I make it 450 and he calls, blinds are now 75/150, flop comes down K9x with a spade flush draw, he checks and still hasn't looked at his cards, I check behind as I feel he will definitely raise me here as he's going to try and rep any 2 cards here as he says he will only look once I bet. So the turn is an A and I bet 650 and he calls, the river is another As and he bets 1150 and again I flat call as I feel hes only bluffing or has a flush, I really can't see him having the other case A here to often so I call and hes got Qs4s for a flush. Not looking at your cards it obviously the way to play poker!!

Noel Furlong has obviously had enough of me raising his blinds and for the 3rd time this day that I open and Derek Williams calls Noel 3bets from the blinds and each other time I folded, this time I have 33 and I had opened for my usual 3x to 600 and Noel makes it 3k, I go into the tank for a while and make it 7.4k. The 2 other times he had KQs and AQs so his range is most definitely not monster hands. Also, I have never once 4b or done anything crazy so I think he will give me plenty of credit here and he folded saying he had JJ. I also got the impression that his guy was really really old school and he will think that if I 4b here that I have KK or AA.

A bit later on I get AA and get 2 streets of value out of Mark when he folds Jx to my river bet on a J high flop. We then clash a bit later on in an interesting hand. Someone limps and this start an avalanche of limpers, so I complete in SB with 6d3d and Mark makes it 1100 in BB and everyone calls again so I peel a flop too. Flop is Q96 with no flush draw. Mark bets out 4k and it comes back to me after everyone folds. I tank it up a bit and count out ~12.5k hand put it in the middle, he folds TT after some deliberation.

I get moved table around the 8th level and I see one face I know, Sean Gregory whom I played with for a full day at the JP Masters game back in May. We tangled a hell of a lot that day, I raised almost every single time he limped in that day as he loves to see cheap flops with a huge range of cards. He is a good player and very hard to put him on a range of hands so a tricky player to say the least and a dangerous man to have a big chip stack. I fold all my hands for the first orbit or so just to see what the table is like, there are a few French players on the table, Troy Prendergast and a few other Irish lads.

So the first hand I decide to play is QQ which I have in the BB. Sean limps in early position and 2 more limpers follow, the guy on my right who I don't know the name of makes it ~3k and I make it 7.6k. Next thing I know Sean makes it 16k and I am in utter shock. Everyone folds around to me and I am getting almost 4/1 on the call with all the limpers and the original raisers money. Sean starts talking and he knows I have a big hand. I know hes got KK+, I really doubt he does this with JJ or AK and QQ is pretty unlikely. Sean says that he doesn't think hes good enough to fold it if I shove and he covers me and he could also be saying this with AA so I'm never thinking of shoving here. I was more thinking about calling or folding, I figure if I hit a set I will get paid here and I am getting immediate odds of almost 4/1 and about another 7/1 for his stack so I call and the flop comes A high and we end up checking it down and both know what each other has!!

I open 88 in late position later on and Sean calls me again, the flop is 8d9dQx and he check folds cheakily showing me a Td!! The blinds and antes go through me a few times and I am getting no spots to steal blinds as the laggy french guy and Sean are in the blinds when I am the button and they are never folding so I can't open too loose against these guys. So my exit hand goes like this. Blinds are 500/1000/100 and there is 35 mins left in Day 1. I have 44k and Troy covers slightly. Troy is a good aggressive player and looking back now I should have folded my hand preflop. Troy opened in early position to 3k and I called in late position with Ts8s, I was expecting the French guy and Sean to come along to but they didn't oblige. So the flop came down KsQsTd and he bets out 4k, at this point I had 2 options I though, call and see the turn and perhaps shove it allin on most turn cards or else raise now and commit myself to the hand as I will usually have 9-14 outs here and be in a flip situation unless hes got AsJs which would be a disaster. So I made it 13k and after 5 mins Troy shipped it in with AA and I missed 14 outs and was gone from the tournament.

Overall I thought I played pretty well over the day and picked good spots to make a few re-steals and a few bluffs. Thanks to all the lads that took a % in me and I hope you will know I put in my best effort at this. I plan on playing a few more small tournaments between now and the Irish Open, probably 1 or 2 at the weekend in the casino in Dublin.