More Day 1

Here are some more hands as best as I remember them:

The first hand I play, maybe 3 hands in:

An early position player raises to 300 and I reraise to 1200 from late position with KK. The flop is J high with 3 spades and I have no spades. Opponent leads into me for a small amount, maybe 800 and I call. Turn is a meaningless non-spade low card. Opponent bets a big amount into me, maybe 2500 and I call thinking he's probably trying to protect a hand like AJ. The river is a 4th spade and my opponent makes a big bet of about 5K. I fold, mutter "nice river" and he shows AQ of spades for a flopped flush. I quickly change my muttering to "nice river for me" as I likely would have paid off a non spade river.

In level 2 I raise JJ from mid-position and a somewhat tight player reraises me from the small blind. The flop is QTx and he bets the pot, maybe 4K, (betting pot was his standard c-bet). I think for a while and decide I'm only in good shape against AK but as a result can't even play my hand aggressively if a J hits so I decide to fold. He shows KK.

In level 2 I raise 44 one seat off the button and a loose aggressive player on the button calls. The flop is 873 with one heart. I bet 2/3 pot and my opponent calls. I think this opponent is very capable of floating so I think he has a pretty wide range in this spot. The turn is a 7 pairing the board and I check. My opponent bets about 2/3 pot and I call. The river is an 8 of hearts, double pairing the board, which gives me 4 high. I lead out for about 4K which was was about a 1/2 pot bet. My opponent instantly raises to 8K and I fold. He shows the A9h - he had picked up a flush draw on the turn. I thought his river raise was weird and probably bad. He has a hand that can call my bet and his raise likely doesn't fold out any better hands. Also if I had really taken my time and gathered up the courage, I might have been able to muster a re-raise that could have forced him to fold. I'm fine with the way I played the hand, I just wish I took a little longer on the river to consider what hands he might have. If I'm in his shoes, I would be thinking that an 8 is very much a part of my range when I lead the river which makes it very difficult for him to raise without one. So his hand should either be an 8 or a bluff most of the time, probably weighted more towards bluffs. Why he decided to turn a hand with showdown value into a bluff, I don't know.

Late in Level 4, I'm down to 12K, still about 40 big blinds as the limits are 150-300 w/ 25 ante. I limp UTG with 9T of spades. I don't normally limp but this is something I had been doing all tournament because we were so deep - I figured I could play a lot of hands even against isolation raises. I also had been limping some big hands and was able to limp reraise TT and KK earlier in the day, one of which was shown down. Back to the hand. 3 people call after me and both blinds are in. The flop is AQ6 with two spades. The big blind, also the chip leader at the table, who appears to be a good, aggressive player leads out for about 1200 into an 1800 chip pot. I contemplate moving in but decide he probably has an Ace because he led into 4 people and is unlikely to fold given that I'm relatively short-stacked, and just took a bad beat along with losing a string of 4 hands immediately after. The turn is a J and my opponent checks. I think for a while before deciding to bet. I thought that I might have some fold equity since my hand now probably looked stronger to him after the flop call. And if I didn't get a fold, I still had 12 outs to fall back on. He unfortunately called. The turn was an offsuit K making the board AKQJ6, giving me a straight. My opponent checked, I paused about 5 seconds, and then moved in. My opponent tanked for about two minutes before finally making the call and I doubled up to about 24K. My opponent didn't show his cards but it was almost certainly an Ax hand.

My plan going into Day 2 doesn't change too much. I still have about 60 big blinds to start the day which is a lot. I don't anticipate I'll be limping any more hands but I'll still look to get involved as much as possible. If I do drop down to less than 20 big bets, then I'll be looking for spots to reraise all-in preflop. Hopefully it doesn't come to that and I'm able to build some chips. The structure is a really slow one so I should still have some good opportunities. More to follow after Day 2...