So this past Sunday I made the short trip up to Edgware Road for the £220 PLO8 at the Grosvenor Victoria Casino. I use the term "short" loosely as London traffic decided that getting to tournaments early is uncool and thus I should spend an hour on a bus rather than the usual 20 minutes, and also that it should terminate 3 stops early. Running bad before I even step in the door, great sign of things to come!
The structure of the tournament allowed for a decent amount of play early on. We started with 15k chips and starting blinds of 25/50 and 30-minute levels normally after which the blinds doubled. The table was what I expected from a live PLO8 tournament, mostly older live players with a lot of NLHE experience but close to none when it came to mixed games. Everyone was very friendly and the atmosphere at the table was pretty jovial, they all seemed to enjoy having a splash around at a game many of them barely played. Only one player at the table seemed to be completely useless and he managed to bust within ten minutes. After a casual limp pre-flop, he called the full pot raise from the BTN and proceeded to get it in on the J86ss flop with a bare J6xx hand, no ace, no low draw. The BTN flipped over AA2Kss and scooped the lot after the 3s turn and blank river. Those of us actually playing attention to the hand shot everyone else a look and smirk but no one said a word, never berate the fish they say, especially when there's the possibility of a re-entry.
So with literally hundreds of BBs, it was time to get to work. As you'd assume, there was a lot of limping and generally passive play, so isolating wasn't really the way to go. I raised up my premium hands as per normal and limped along with any semblance of a decent drawing hand. Again, the passive play made it easy for me to take away pots on flops and turns so I kept up the aggression, my red line would have been sexy. I got to the first break with just under 30k so I'd near enough managed to double my stack without needing to play a big pot. I hoped more was to come.
After the break the table started playing back at me, or so it seemed that way. I got 3-bet two or three times and played back a little on a few flops so my stack dipped a little over the next two levels until the table eventually broke. The new table seemed to be a lot more competent, the average age was a little younger and everyone was actually focused on the game rather than reading their iPad or breakfast. Yes, I said breakfast, at 7pm, yes. It was here that I got into my first big pot of the tournament. I flopped trips on a JJ3r board with AJ45 and improve to a boat on the 5x turn. I didn't manage to get any flop action but on the turn I managed to get most of my stack in check/raising the quite loose passive BTN. I wasn't too thrilled about the 8x river as I thought A2xx may be a decent part of his range but with at least half the pot locked up there was no reason not to get the final third of my stack in but somehow the BTN found a fold. I literally have no idea what kind of hand folds the river after getting the majority of effective stacks in already but I wasn't going to complain.
After that hand things got a bit dull, at least from my point of view. I lost a semi-decent pot raising AAxx pre and bet/folding the flop to fairly loose player who later on told me he'd flopped two pair. Then there was a lot of folding, or raising it up, flopping air and getting full potted into, not a lot to be done. Then finally, my bust out hand. So a little back story, the LAG opener had managed to amass a huge stack, close to 100k, mostly before I'd got to the table. He lost a small flip to a short stack, maybe only a 30k pot, and then somehow managed to bet/stack off on a J224 board with AJK6 against a truly terrible player's AJJ3 in a huge pot, close to around 100k. The terrible player was a much older gentleman who clearly didn't know the rules of Omaha, let alone Hi/Lo and half slowrolled the LAG by only showing the AJJ after they got it in, it was left to the dealer to reveal that even the LAG's low draw was no good. This was the hand immediately before my bust out hand.
The LAG pot opens UTG with blinds at 600/1200, the newly crowned table chip leader folds while stacking his chips and I look down at A35Ks with my stack around the 25k mark. Previously, this player had only min-opened and after the previous few hands I thought it quite possible that the player was on tilt and would happily get in a less than premium hand. I also thought that 20BBs was probably not a large enough stack for me to assert my skill edge over the table given how loose/passive the game was pre-flop. I discerned that this was definitely a great spot to take a shot at doubling up, probably as a favourite but not by much. I pot raised, it folded around to the LAG who was all too happy to get it in with me and revealed A2K9s, having me pretty much dominated. The flop came K29r drawing me all but dead to a chop and the Tx turn and 8x river sent me home in 19th out of 33 runners.
Looking back at the hand now I'm still fairly happy that I got it in there. If I stayed short for too long I wouldn't have been able to play a good loose-aggressive game and use my experience and skill edge to my advantage so taking a gamble was the right choice. The tournament was very well run and everyone seemed to enjoy it so I hope this encourages Grosvenor to run similar tournaments in the future and I'd like to thank them for putting this one on. I'm sorry this wasn't a brag post complete with winners picture but there you go, we'll get 'em next time! I'm back on the online grind now which as you know comes complete with regular blog updates so expect to read some more soon including a deep TCOOP run summary! Good luck at the tables everybody and speak to you all soon!
