First WSOP Main Event Attempt

With my trip to Vegas looming, I'm going to be trying to win a Main Event seat via Poker Stars or Full Tilt Poker. The past few Sundays have been booked, so I finally had a chance to play the Poker Stars $650 Main Event satellite this past Sunday. This tournament was an epic failure, outside of maybe winning 5 hands, I played tighter than Watts - and thats quite an accomplishment. Here are just a few hands I wanted to highlight for the time being.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2740417

This was about 30-40 hands into the tournament. I have been basically folding every hand so far, except for a couple of hands where I limped behind a limper or two in late position with a pocket pair and whiffed the flop.

UTG+1 has been relatively active preflop - calling raises on a regularly basis. Hero here decides to take a flop in position to see if I can flop anything.

Flop is relatively dry, UTG's bet into 2 players is either weak, or super strong. Since I got a piece of it, I did get a piece of it, so I decided to make a raise to see where I am at. If re-raised/called, I'm behind, otherwise I'm hoping to make the players with two overcards fold. On another hand, they both can't have air, so I MOST LIKELY should've folded the flop as I'm probably never ahead. As played, I guess I should've probably made the raise on a flop a bit bigger. In any case, the call by UTG+1 obviously means hero is behind on the flop, but the turn brought a miracle 5 and there is no way UTG+1 sees hero playing a 5 in this spot. The river check might be a bit weak - but posted the hand to get comments on 2p2.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2740450

Second hand of interest comes about 20 hands later. This hand's raiser has been raising quite a few hands preflop after losing with QQ, and after showing down 56hh, hero's table image obviously took a different turn. Preflop call a bit on the loose side again, but I figured with the original raiser's tendency, and the fact that I beat him with 56 against his QQ earlier, I will probably get paid off if I make a decent hand.


Not sure what the check on the flop means, but I can't give a free card with this board. Made trips again on the turn, but this completed the flush and villain makes a check-raise. This probably could've been a fold, but I am not good enough yet to make a fold with trips + second best kicker yet. I guess with villain's stack, I could've moved him in as well and if he had a flush, I still had outs. Reviewing my play, calling seemed the worse out of raise/call/fold - with raise/fold being equal and calling being the worse. The river doesn't exactly bring the best card in the deck, as a hand like QJ just got there, but the horrible turn play put me in this situation, and I was glad to see villain turning over 86 and win a decent sized pot.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2740467

About 30 hands later this hand comes up. Table has been pretty limp happy, and I decided to come along in late position with a relatively high implied odds hand. The flop brings hero a pair + flush draw, so a raise behind the bet was in order - his push gave hero 6 to 1 odds, and there was no way I was folding. Ran into a set but turned the flush immediately for another decent size pot.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2740474

Nothing happens for a good 150 hands, and I was just stealing the occasional blinds, and 3-betting once in awhile to an active LP player to stay relatively with the same stack.

UTG has raised 5 of the last 8 times UTG (did not know the exact # until I reviewed the hand histories - but I knew he has been very active UTG while I was "in the moment"). In retrospect, hero should've did a stop-and-go if I was planning to play for his stack with my hand. Nothing more than that to comment on with this hand.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2740485

I push-botted a bit, and then won a race here to get back to a decent stack. I was still 1/2 of average stack at this point though.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2740487

Pushed-bot for awhile again, and this happened. GG me.

This weekend Poker Stars is running a $370, 200-seat guaranteed satellite. Hopefully I come away with one this weekend or something...time is running out.