In which I ship one....

Gala Monthly £100 Deepstack Report

On the last Saturday of each month, the Gala here plays host to a £100+£10 deepstack event (30 minute levels with ALL the levels, 10k starting stack) which is far and away the best structured game in Gib. I hadn't been able to play this so far so I was really excited when I had a Saturday off, and even nursing a slight hangover, I made my way to the casino for the 4pm start.

Joining me there were 6 or 7 PokerStrategists from 29 runners in total, but luckily for me, my table draw was beyond sweet. On my table, almost everyone was a huge Spanish fish, except for Aurelien, one of our French Community Managers who had position on me, and an English guy called Tony who is well known for being a laggro type, but plays pretty decent. He also has position on me (I'm in seat 1, he's in 2 and Aure is in 3) so I know that I'm going to have to play a little nittier than I normally would in these structures in the early levels.

Table is playing passively and when I open TT after a limp I just pick up the blinds and carry on. Nothing much happens for a bit until I own Aure in a decent size pot by inducing a bluff on the river with 'weak' play on the turn. He was shocked when I Hellmuth called him on TxxAx with JT but I think it was pretty standard.

Early levels are going fine, and even though I flat a raise with 99 from SB to induce squeeze from Tony (laggro) I then find a fold when I pick up a tell that he has a value hand and not a squeezing hand and the original raiser also calls.

Then some blah blah about blah blah and making a nice value bet with the rivered nuts with AKo on a 4 heart board and some more blah blah about stealing a few pots in position and I find myself with about 18k by the first break.

After the first break the Azbo costs me a bit my refusing to suckout on the Kings of Mr Aggro in a 4bet preflop pot (I c/call, c/call, check/check) with my one pair hand on a low board assuming he has 2 broadways. I win it all back an orbit later when I check behind for complete deception with turned top-top and get a pot sized bet AND a pot sized raise on the river (when I improve to top 2!) from the BB with AK > AT on XXXAhh board.

Anyway, at this point, Coen gets moved to my table. He's a PS.com staffer and a solid player and is opening everypot and threebetting my opens and all sorts. I'm somehow stuck around 15k and nothing is happening. There's another guy who is opening every pot too (young English kid) so when he opens I decide 42o is good enough to 3bet the last hand before the break and I show the 2 when he folds. He's pretty furious with me, convincing himself that I'm value 3betting 22 or A2 and calling me a terrible player and such. Tilting people is quite nice.

First hand after the break I 3bet ship AQ over Coen's KQ but he folds and I'm back to about 18k again. Obviously I can't win every flip though and lose 88 < KT shortly thereafter vs a shorty and back to 13k. Fucking hell man.

Interesting Hand One:

Remember the kid from before? The one who called me a terrible player? Folds to him in SB and at 300/600/100 he makes it 2600. I flat with AA in BB and flop comes JTx. He insta pot bets and I jam for the rest (about 14k total or so) and he absolutely Hellmuth's me with J2 for top pair, shit kicker. I wrap it up on the turn with a lovely Ace.

I then take some more from him by simply calling down with K9dd on 9875Jsss and he gives me a 'how could you call' kinda look but I was confident he had utter air.

He then gives me the rest of his chips on the FT bubble (only 4 places paid) when he picks the wrong time to 3bet shove because I wake up with AA behind him.

Anyway, on to the final table, I have about 41k and average is 30k but blinds still like 400/800/100 I guess, so not too bad at all. Couple of shorties though and one guy just basically gifts Coen 90k by stacking off ultralight on KXX when it was clear Coen had AA.

Again, Coen is opening every pot and he opens to 2600. I 3bet AKs to 6800 and a shortstack with 7000 shoves for 200 more. Coen then goes immediately and makes it 21k. I sigh, announce, you're insane sir, this is always Aces and fold face up. Feel sorry for shorty as he has KK and I've just shown him I passed one of his outs. Actually this is normally a snapfold for me as Coen's 4bet range against my stack there isn't balanced at all. What made me ask if he's insane was that *right before* the final table we were talking about how a cold 4 bet that isn't a shove is always so much more polarised to AA than a 4bet isoshove. Admittedly Coen's 4bet here wasn't cold, but he'd been opening so many pots it might as well have been! :D Basically, I thought he could be levelling me with like TT or AQ.

Interesting Hand Two:

With a stack now at 18k, Coen opens again and I threebet TT to about 6k, leaving myself 12k behind. I'm never folding to a shove, but somehow I get two flat calls (and then Coen passes!) and I shove a JTx board and pick it up. 

What's your line here? Are you threebetting small or just jamming? Can you every 3bet fold?

 Let me know in the comments! :)

Anyway, from there on out it's pretty standard, I win a flip 55 > AK vs Coen for a 65k pot and then another couple of pots from the shorties who are folding too often before I raise button, BB shoves, it's 15k more into 30k pot, easy call. He has AQ, oh well, found the top of his range, oh hai, that's a K in the window and we're three handed.

After playing a while, there's a complete fish with 105k, and Coen and I have 85k with blinds at 1000/2000/200. We both have a huge edge on the fish but are more or less neutral EV against each other so I decide I don't want to flip for £400 (difference between 3rd and 2nd) with Coen, and I defo don't want him getting the fish's chips before me, so we split for £800 a piece plus £100 more to fish because 'he had more chips' -- actually a pretty generous deal, I think.