Five Diamond Recap

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Bellagio Five Diamond: Oops … I Have the Seven-High

I'm going to keep my story of the whole Bellagio Five Diamond World Poker Classic series somewhat short because, well, that's how most of the tournaments in the series were for me.

Instead, I'll breeze through that disappointing run so we can get on to good stuff, like getting smashed and playing $2/$4 mixed games at Treasure Island for my birthday.

I played three or four preliminary events during the series, including a $2k, two $3ks, and a $5k. The only one I even came close to cashing in was the $3k, but I picked up A 3 against Bartholdi's 7 7 in the battle of the blinds and went broke.

I made it to the mid-stages of the $5k with a decent stack, but ran A K into a set of fives on a K 9 5 flop. I was pretty sure I was beat, which meant nothing if I didn't fold.

I've heard it called the "Negreanu syndrome" ... you put your opponent on an exact hand you can't beat, and call anyway. Shortly after paying off like a slot machine in that hand, I lost a flip with J J vs. A Q and was eliminated.

You'd think I'd have a much longer story to tell about the main event at Bellagio, since we had $45k starting stacks at $50/$100 blinds. And sadly, you'd be mistaken. I ended up doing something I've only done in one previous World Poker Tour Event that I can think of: become a "Day 1 casualty."

The $15,000 buy-in event attracted 497 players, despite the slumping economy and poker economy. Since there were over 400 players, 100 places were paid thanks to Bellagio's extremely flat payout structure for major events. First place was $1,538,730.

Psyduck

I arrived at my starting table to find was about as stacked as I expected, but with considerably more dead money in the room than the Festa al Lago event had. But I was facing a tricky lineup, including Erick Lindgren, Vivek "psyduck" Rajkumar and Alex Jacob.

I flopped the nut straight on Erick in the first level, but he check-folded the turn after raising pre and check-calling the flop. Then I had a tricky hand during the second level against Vivek and an unknown opponent where I feel I'm still not sure what my best play would have been.

With the blinds at $100/$200, a player in early position opened for $600. Two people called in position, and I called from the small blind with 2 2.  Vivek defended from the big blind, and we went five-way to a 9 2 Q flop.

I led out for $1,800 into the pot of $3k. Vivek thought for about a minute and called; the original raiser folded; the next player thought for a minute before calling as well, and the last player folded. The turn was the K.

This card is a bit tricky since it is a great card if my one of my opponents has K-Q, but it slows down my action against A-Q and gives Q-J and Q-T straight draws. Q-Xc is also a possible hand holding for either opponent, which would now have a flush draw to go with top pair.

The unknown player could also have turned a set of kings, but this is less likely since he'd probably three-bet that hand pre-flop with such deep stacks. But also, if one of my opponents happens to actually have J-T, I'm now on what I like to call a "boat draw."

Boat draws don't really constitute draws.

I eventually decided to check this turn, and I'm still not sure if that was the correct decision. However, I don't want to chase away weaker hands ... especially those drawing dead. Also, if I bet $4k on the turn and get raised to $12k, it puts me in a tough spot.

I'm probably going to want to call and try to fill up if that happens, or in case my opponent has K-Q. However, I may be left with an extremely tough river decision that could cripple me if I end up paying off the nuts. In retrospect, though, I should have figured that the players who called my flop bet probably wouldn't have hesitated much to make the call with an open-ender to the nuts on a rainbow flop with deep stacks.

Vivek bet $4k into the $8,400 pot, the other player called, and I called. I thought that with just two smooth-calls, he may bet value bet K-Q on ragged rivers anyway, cutting down on the value I'm missing my playing my hand cautiously due to the extremely deep stacks.

I'd also like to note that if the stacks weren't a couple hundred big blinds deep, such as in most online tournaments, I'd get my whole stack in on this board with no qualms. But with such deep stacks in a main event, people are capable of folding K-Q to a shove ... so if I get it in with deuces here and get called, they're probably going to be no good.

The river was the 5c, which completed a backdoor flush. Although backdoor flushes aren't usually something to be very fearful of when there was action before and after the flop, the queen on the flop was not a club. That meant that Qc-Xc hands were easily possible, especially Ac-Qc, Qc-Jc, Qc-Tc, with the way the betting went.

The river checked around, and I soon learned that not only did one of my opponents hold K-Q, but both of them did! I was happy to scoop the huge pot, but left wondering if I could have played the hand differently and squeezed a few more chips out of two opponents who happened to be holding the absolute next-best hand to mine.

Keeping the pot small did do me some good later in the day, when I ran T T into Vivek's A A on a 4 6 7 flop to chop me down to about $25k.

A to the J.

Then with three hands left to play in the day, I opened to $1,600 from middle position with the 5 6. Three players called, and Alex Jacob reraised to $7,000 from the small blind with about $35k behind.

Although a reraise out of position like this against multiple opponents generally signifies great strength, I am also somewhat familiar with Alex's game. He is extremely creative (the best example I can think of is him raising under the gun with THE 9 4), and I thought there was a good chance he was hoping to get through me and take down the pot and exploit everyone's desire to quietly slip into Day 2.

With these factors in mind, I eventually decided to move in for over $25k. Although I knew he'd be getting nearly 2-1 on the call, I was pretty sure he either had a monster hand or a suited connector/some total cheese he decided to go for the squeeze with.

He folded quickly, and I'm a hero!!! YESSS!!! And once I finished having that daydream, he called pretty quickly with his two black kings, and we were "off to the races." (I hate it when people use that term when it's not a race!)

I wasn't denied a full sweat, though, as the board came 2 4 8 8-BRIIIIIIIIICK. I wished the table luck, and exited the poker room ... admittedly feeling a little dumb.

I rarely make plays like that, especially this early in major events ... but in this game you have to go with your gut and pull the trigger when you think it's the right time. And sometimes you're going to be very, very wrong.

In my next blog I'll get into the interesting adventure of my birthday ...

Matt Stout

--"All In At 420"

Matt Stout plays online at all the major poker rooms. Think you've got what it takes to play with him? Take advantage of our exclusive signup bonuses to find out!

More Matt Stout Blog Entries

• Exsqueeze Me?
• Festa al Lago Part 2: Whatever it is we HAVE to Gamble for it!
• Festa al Lago Part 1: It's OK, I No Speak-a da English!
• A Great Day ... to Fight Off Tilt