Jimmy Fricke

The $325 bounty tournament yesterday ended in success, with me taking it down for $22,500. The field got about 300 players and I ran very very good throughout the whole thing. At 150/300/50 blinds I started with 4k in chips and two hours later I was sitting with 100k in front of me thanks to a few very good situations that came about.

I chip up to around 12k with 0evg0 on my left has the button when the bb is sitting out for this hand, so his 400 is dead with big antes. I pick up QJcc in the CO and decide to limp because of all the chips in the middle, taking away evg's chance to 3bet shove against my open which I fully expect would happen. He limps, which I think he's doing with a wide array of hands, and the sb completes. 3 to the flop of J87 rainbow with no club. Check, I bet 1000 with the intent to 3bet over evg's raise. He raises to 3800 and he started with about 500 chips less than me. Small blind folds and I shove and he snapcalls with a set of sevens, which I honestly thought there was no way he could have because I would expect him to raise preflop with 77, 88 and JJ. If I were behind, I'd expect to be behind 87, T9, J8 and maybe KJ. Fortunately for me, evg runs worse than anyone ever and it comes running eights so the board is J8788 and I counterfeited his set. So I'm up to about 25k and win a few pots to put me at about 35k when the following hand occurs.

The only two aggro players on my left, and it's pretty clear that they want to 3bet me with a very wide range. I pick up 55 utg at 300/600/75 and make it 1700 on a very tight bb. Folds to the guy two to my left who makes it 5800 and it's clear from the way he 3bet me that he barely looked at his cards, almost in passing. Folds to the bb who was very short for a long time and finally has about 30k in chips after going on a huge rush. He looks at his cards and in a cheerful voice says "I call!" This led me to believe he very very likely did not have AA/KK. With so much in the pot, a decent amount of implied odds to what I thought was a mid-high pair against the bb and possibly the reraiser having a hand or flopping something to bet with, I decided to call. The flop comes 543 with two clubs and we check to the guy two to my left who bets 14k. The bb shoves with JJ, I announce "I would like to re-wager" and shove, and unfortunately for the reraiser he flopped a flush draw and had to call off the rest. I turn a 5 and the river's the ace of spades, cause it's always the fucking ace of spades.

So I'm up to the chiplead at about 100k and from then on I just keep chipping up and getting in amazing situations against the shorter stacks. I didn't really get played back at and picked up cards when I needed it. The interesting thing was, once we got to 2 AM we were playing HU and I had a 5:1 chiplead over a regular live player here at TS and the tournament director all of a sudden said "okay, we're done." He was making us quit at 2 AM because it said on the structure sheet that we would have to. We would come back the following day at 4 PM to play the rest out. There was easily less than half an hour of play left, and honestly I would've preferred coming back the next day to play but I decided to be a nice guy and chop with him. Unfortunately I think being up for a long time on not much sleep screwed up my math because I gave him about $1k more than I should've.

But today was uneventful in the 6max, even though I was looking forward to it a lot. I was actually out in the first level when I lost a huge pot when JJ lost to KK on a ten high board against pretty much the only player at the table I would be going broke against, then lost a 2500 chip pot with AQdd v 99. What can ya do?

Tomorrow's a $500, should be fun, hopefully I can get lots of sleep for it though. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Alright, quick entry because I'm very tired and need to sleep for tomorrow's tournament ($325 bounty tournament).

First hand of the tournament, guy open shoves blind from the cutoff. Structure was pretty good with 2500 chips per rebuy/addon but we couldn't rebuy until after the first hand. So he shoves 2500 and the lady next to him apparently folds AQ even though she knows he's blind. I call in the bb with A9dd and he has J9cc and he hits a jack. Then later on after double rebuying I call a small reraise with 54s and flop a straight on a 632 board against aces and tens and they both open shove into me. I only had about 10k and bled down to about 7500, then took the double addon for 5k more and had a manageable stack for the 50/100 level.

I played really well again today but was very card dead, and shortly after moving to a new table, a middle position player makes it 500 at the 75/150 level with about 10k behind. I call on the button with QQ and the bb also calls despite only having about 1600 behind. Flop comes 873, he shoves his 1600 in and MP calls after about 10 seconds. I also just call because he's unlikely to call a shove with anything I have beat and is never folding anything I lose to. Turn is the 9h which is a really ugly card, so when he checks I bet 3k to get it HU with the allin guy. He folds and the bb shows A8o and spikes an 8 on the river to stay alive. I was down to about 8k and after I folded to the 100/200 level, I raised two EP limpers to 1100 with AKo and got reraised by BigEgypt, so I stuck it in and lost to his QQ.

I'm really looking forward to the shorthanded tournament on Tuesday, but tomorrow will be fun too. Take care all.

Sitting here in my hotel room at an ungodly hour (5 AM) when I have a live 200r to be playing in five hours. Turning Stone casino in Verona, New York was the first place I played real live poker in March of last year. I really enjoyed meeting all my friends here, and this trip has a TON of crazy talent here. There are a bunch of tournaments that are going on so I'm just going to let you all know how things go.

Note, this place isn't Vegas. It's only 18+ because they can't serve alcohol and the stakes aren't going to be massive. But as for gaining experience, I definitely picked up basically all of my early live experience here and met some great friends.

Anyway, today's tournament was the smallest of the series, a $300+40 that actually picked up almost 500 runners. Hopefully that means the bigger events will also be pretty big. I registered late, so I was stuck on a table that included two people I knew, one of whom is my friend Nath Pizzolatto, who picked up 2nd place to Bill Chen last year in the $2500 shorthanded NLHE event. He's definitely has a reputation for being very aggressive, and this is a hand that I played against him in the first level.

25/50 blinds, effective stacks are about 5000. He open limps, which is strange for him but not completely crazy. A fairly predictable player limps behind him and I limp on the button with T8dd. The bb checks and the flop comes 843 with two hearts. The bb checks and Nath bets out 125. I expected him to be betting basically anything in this spot, and my eights absolutely crush his range, especially since I think it's bigger than any eight he would be limping. I ruled out pocket pairs and thought he pretty much has to have a small-mid suited connector in this spot. I made it 375, the others folded and he called very quickly.

The turn was the 2s, putting two flush draws out there and completing the only obvious straight draw. He checks and I bet 700, which in hindsight is definitely too big in retrospect. I should've bet about 500 and would get the same information. He quickly raises to 2k, and at this point I tell myself he either has 65s, 43s or a mid level flush draw. The main thing though that tells me he probably has a stronger hand is his raise size. In my experience, anything between a minraise and a 3x raise is damn near the nuts in the player's mind as long as they have money behind. Nath isn't exactly committed to the hand, but in his mind there's no way he's folding once he makes that raise. I don't really think I've seen anyone make a really small raise like this and then fold to further action if the bettor has already defined his hand thoroughly.

In the actual hand, I make a quick call but regretted after the hand was over (and I'll at least pretend I'm not being results oriented). I don't think Nath is messing around enough this early to make calling on the turn profitable, especially with the read I had about his raise size.

So I called, the river is the Js and he bets the rest very quickly and I tanked for a while but eventually ended up making a fairly easy fold (yay being able to fold). Nath told me later he did have 65s, so take that for what it's worth.

Unfortunately I wasn't in the tournament very long, since right before the third level I am down to about 2500 after the Nath hand when a very loose regular limps from EP for 75 at the 50/75 level (strange level but it really does give us a lot more play). The guy behind him limps and I pick up red kings in late position. I make it 400 and the loose player calls. Flop T76 with two hearts and he checks to me. I bet 500, he makes it 1700, I shove and he snapcalls AT and hits an ace on the river to make it an early day.

Alright, I'm going to try to sleep before the tournament tomorrow so I'll let you all know how that goes. Take care.