The Ken Cashell Memorial Tournament

I think I played well in this tournament and was unfortunate in some situations. My opinion of the play there was all over. It ranged from passive, to tight, to weak, to limit-like, to anything but aggressive. Almost every hand people would limp in, never raised, and you couldnt get a read on anyone. I saw one guy limp preflop, check a 9 high flop rainbow, check a blank turn, and blank river, only to show his QQ and take down the blinds on a board of 2 4 9 7 4. Not ONE bet! Now was it more insane is that he wouldnt bet, but he sure as hell would call anything. I saw a guy call an all in with K7o only to take out AJ hitting a bigger full boat! The absolute worst play I saw however, came in one of my key hands.

Starting stacks of 1500, the blinds had gotten up to 75 150. Im the Big Blind with A4 hearts. There is a min-raise preflop and I call. 4 Players. The flop comes Qh Ts 5h. The small blind bets out 200 (mind you, 1200 pot). I call, the guy next to me moves all in for 700 total. The guy behind him calls, and the guy in the small blind(original bettor calls). Now I have to put in 500 to get involved in a 3600 pot(not counting my call) This is an obvious decision as I am at least 33% to win. Turn blank, river blank and we checked around. The guy who moved all in shows TT for a set of tens, the small blind shows JJ for a pair of jacks. I muck my missed flush that if hit would have put me in sick position to win. Then, this other guy, this insane cold-caller who called 700 after a bet, a caller, and a re-raise all in. He shows A9 offsuit. Thats right, he called with Ace high. The only explanation is collusion or utter stupidity. anyway, onto my three most important hands.


Early on in the tournament I have made the toughest fold in a long time. Blinds are 20/40 and I am dealt JJ UTG. I limp and there is one caller before the blinds. The small blind calls and the big blind makes it 80. I make it 300 (i had around 1200). Only the Big Blind calls. The flop comes Kh Js Ts. The big blind pauses for less than 10 seconds and goes all in. He has about 1100 and I have 900, the pot is a little over 660. I think for awhile and figure out his possible holdings. I narrowed it down to 5 possible holdings. AA, KK, AK, AQ, and TT. Only two of which I was in trouble. After more thought I did not put him on AK because I would have either expected a re-raise preflop or and smaller bet on the flop. I also thought he would have re-raised preflop with AA or KK. So now, he has AQ or TT. I dropped the JJ face up to find out. He mucked, which was a good sign for me. The next hand he looked at me and said "If you called you would have been the first person out of the tournament.

Later on, I got mixed up with this guy again. 3 limpers blinds are 25 50. I have A9 of hearts. I limp also and the small blind folds, so 4 players to the flop. The flop comes As 5h 8h. With four players I didnt want to scare anyone away as not only did I most likely have best hand but I could have improved while someone else makes second best hand. I check, and 4 of us see a free card. The turn comes As 5h 8h 6h. Well now I have the second nuts and am pretty content I have this hand on lock. First to act bets 100 into the 225 pot. I say "Ill see one more card", making him think Im on the 4 card flush draw, hoping a blank hits and that he trys to steal. The other two players fold. The river comes As 5h 8h 6h 5c. First to act bets 100 again. At this point I might have been able to realize this was a possible sucker bet. But of all of the situations he would make this play with a 5x (trying to steal on the turn with low pair then sucker betting with his trips. He would also make the play with an AK, AQ, AJ, A8, A6, and maybe AT. The reasoning for this is that he knows I have an ace of hearts after I said I wanna see one more card. So with a K-T kicker he has to be confident with two pair and a decent kicker. He would bet the 100 on the turn with an Ace. and bet the 100 on the river because he has a feeling that his kicker is good but isnt sure of my hand. What one would call a feeler bet with backup. He makes the play with A8 and A6 betting out a sucker bet on the turn to keep me in, and now that his two pair are better than the two pair he almost knows I have Aces and Fives, he wants to keep me in and sucker bet the river. So after thinking about all of this within less than 1 minute. I raised. I made it 300 and he made it 500. I called and he showed 56 for the full boat. That hand hurt me pretty bad.

The hand I went out on was the last hand before the fourth break. I have JT in the big blind. three limpers including the small blind. Blinds are 100 200, so the pot is 800. Flop comes J 7 8 rainbow. The small blind bets 200, and I go all in for 1300 total. He calls and shows 88. No suckout for me and Im out of the tournament. Now, for anyone who doesnt know this guy, this was a sick play by him. Slowplaying his pair preflop and post flop. But anyone who knows this guy, knows that 1. he likes to drink, and 2. hes not all there in the head. Either way, bad play by me and bad read, and Im out in something like 19th place.

comments about hands welcome and encouraged.
unless your quoting Matusow(tadley) post whatever you want.

actually playing again

Its been a long time since I have played cards. Not Since the last tournament at franks house have I played cards(by the way congrats Gladden). Anyway, Ive been wanting to play cards alot lately but with people not being around and people going back to school(as well as me going back to school) I havent found the time or the players to play. Well last night I found one of the more challenging games. A 4-way $5 buy in tournament, winner take all. I managed to take every last player out until I won. It started with my 46SUITED all in preflop with one caller who only had a measly AK(moose you donk) . Anyway, the flop was 6AK and I couldnt believe he drew out on me, I mean, I was soooted. The turn was a blank(like an 8 or something) and going into the river I was 4%. I hit, thats right, a 6 fell on the river. Man am I goood. Anyway, I then preceded to take out Donegan with My A8 against his measly AJ. I hit an 8 of course. Finally, On the last hand I floped a pair of 8's on a board of A68. Cook made a small bet and I called, the Turn was a Q, cook made a slightly larger bet and I called, the River came a Q and he checked to me and I went all in and he called with A5. Took down that one....

With a win like that under my belt I am ready for the biggest live tournament I have ever been in. Its a $60 buy in tournament with 32 players this sunday. Winner should be taking in over $900. I am pretty excited to finally get to play again. This will be the third time I have played in the Ken Cashell annual Memorial Tournament, and After a good 3rd place showing 3 years ago, and a poor showing last year, I think I am ready to cash this year. There are alot of old school players in this event, some bullies, and some dont even know where they are, but all in all it should be a good time and I can finally play some real poker.

Big hands from franks last tournament include, Amoriellos attempt at a King Crab victory dance fell short when he was cracked(and left will a very small stack) by Kilgus' 88. Another big hand was the hand in which I went out on, Brandon took out two of us as He had KK, to Tad's JJ, to my TT. Suprisingly they both hit their set on the flop and to pour salt on the wound brandon hit quads on the river. I am also excited about franks next tournament which is Seven Stud. I think it will be a good time, but hopefully we dont have to wait till the end of march to play in it.

Sit N Gos Part 2

Ive realized now that getting deep in the sit n gos is not what is difficult, its picking the right spots to pick up pots here and there, and hopefully building a large stack when it gets to the final 4. This way you can play TAG and cruise into the money. I have stopped playing sit n gos now that I started up classes again. But recently I have played in the guarentee tournaments on full tilt. In my first attempt it was a $6500 guarentee with 360 entrants. I placed 33 and 27 got paid. It was not all in bad effort however, during the tournament I managed to knock out Huck Seed and earn myself my buy in back plus a free t-shirt. The hand I knocked him out with was AK vs QQ. I hit an A on the turn. I was still bitter having come just 5 places out of the money. Once I got my buy in back from that tournament I entered the $10500 guarentee last night on full tilt. With 566 entrants I ended up coming in 37th. I got $44 for my troubles. What I need to work on now is getting my stack bigger before the blinds and antes get up there. When they do I am basically all in or fold every hand even though I might be middle of the pack stack size. The reason for this is that you get blinded out so quickly because they rise so fast.
What is most interesting is how heavy the money is distributed to the top 3 places as compared to the rest of the payouts. Ill be trying again tonight to get even further.

Winning Online Sit N Gos(Part One)

While there is already plenty of good articles on winning online sit ‘n gos,(especially at flopturnriver.com) I decided to write my own article on them for two reasons. The first reason is that I believe Sit N Gos are easily the most profitable games in online poker. The second reason is that I just took down two Sit N Gos multi-tabling and won both of them within a few hands of eachother.
The first thing to Sit N Gos is that you must understand that they are extremely different than live one or two table tournaments. The biggest difference is the starting chips and how fast the blinds go up. You must learn to adapt to these and when you do you can start cashing very quickly.
Pre-Flop Play
Tight is Right. This is first and fore-most as far as rules are concerned. Position is the biggest factor in deciding which hands to play. For example, when I have the chip lead in a Sit N Go, I fold hands like 22 33 44 55 and sometimes 66 in early position. Because with no money committed to the pot(that’s right, NO antes) why bother risking it when you know you are most likely going to need to hit your set to win enough money to make the call profitable. Late position you can limp or even raise with these hands to either flop a monster or steal the pot.
Another play I like is raising 2-3 times the blind when it is folded to you(from any position) when you have not played a hand in awhile. This play is more profitable when 1 or 2 people are already out and the loose players have been established. After about the third round of blinds, it is most likely that everyone left in the tournament are tight players. I like to take advantage of this.
The last play I like to use Pre-Flop is when I am on the button and it is folded to me. I like to try and steal the blinds with a decent sized bet and show them I am capable of stealing their blinds. After once or twice of doing this, I don’t do it again until I hit a big hand, and then I do it and just wait for a raise. This play works a lot because you are sitting in the same position on the same guys for the whole tourney. People do remember things, more than you would think.

That’s it for now, next update I will put in there some Post-Flop play and some stuff about when to go all-in. Comments always appreciated(good or bad).