Key Hands from Lake Tahoe Circuit Event 2 Day 1

[Brad Jensen]

Had a first day of ups and downs in my first event this circuit series. No real surprises in terms of opponent quality. I did play with a few pretty good players.

Here are some of the key hands from the day:

Hand 1: Level 2 50/100. I have about 11K off 10K starting stack. Villain has around 8K. I raise from UTG +1 with AK to 300. Folds to the cut off who calls. fold to the BB who calls. Flop is A26 with two hearts. I have K hearts. I bet 400 into 950. Cutoff folds and BB calls. Turn is Q hearts. BB checks. I bet 850 into 1750 pot. BB raises to 2K. BB had two set hands earlier and had played them pretty fast so although 22 and 66 are in the range I discount them as unlikely. AQ seems pretty likely. Heart flush or draw are possibility, the most reasonable one would 45 based on board and action. I don’t really like it a lot but I call with top top and nut flush draw. River is another Q. Villain deliberates for a long time before deciding to check. I check back and he turns over AQ and I muck. He says “I thought you had AK” I guess expecting me to fire again.

Hand 2: After hand 1 I am mostly card dead. I call a few spots with pairs for set mining and don’t get into favorable spots and have to bail. I lose 2 more times with AK. I am down to 6K and in the big blind at 150/300/25. My stack consists of ten blacks and a 5K chip. This plays into the hand.

UTG raises to 700. Two players call and its to me. I have T8o. I decide to complete getting 4:1 with a hand that flops pretty well and should be easy to play post. 858 flop. I check. UTG makes it 2K. It folds to me and I put in my 5K. I make a point to cascade the chips so they fan out toward villain so he can accurately count them. I always do this. He turns over his hand which is KT. The dealer asks him if he calls and he says “yeah”. I turn over my hand and the turn and river are inconsequential. UTG thinks that he had covered my shove with his 2K bet and doesn’t realize that I had the 5K chip. He complains a bit but my chip was visible for quite some time and he was sitting next to me. The dealer also didn’t tell him to open up which he did almost immediately after I raised. Weird hand but I am now back up to 11K.

Hand 3: Same level. Again I am in the big blind with about the same 11K. It folds to button who makes it 750. SB folds and I call with J9s. I have some history with this player who is from Sac and I’ve played with him in the HPT and Ante Up. He starts the hand with about 22K. Flop is QT8 rainbow. I check call 900 into 1500. Turn is a 2 and puts the rare 4 suits on board. I check call 2500 into 3300. At this point I think he has a monster, either a set or AA or KK based on history. I plan on check jamming any hand that doesn’t pair the board. river is a 4. I check and he bets 3200 into 8300. I jam my final 6800 into the pot and he practically beats me into the pot with QQ and sees the bad news that I flopped the nuts.

Hand 4: Now at 200/400/50. I have about 24K. I’ve won a couple of raise and take its since Hand 3. UTG +1 I make it 1050 with 55. Folds to CO who calls and button who also calls. Blinds fold. 56Q flop with two spades. I c bet 2500 into 4200. CO folds and button calls. Button has about 55K to start the hand and has been very aggressive and lucky. He beat me earlier with one of my AK losses with AJ. Turn is a 4. Generally this could be a bad card but his MO for draws had been to raise them up and he didn’t do that so I figured him more for a hand like AQ, KQ, QJ, QT with one spade (again because I think he’d floor it with a big draw). I bet 3800 into 9200. He calls. River is a non spade 2. I bet 7700 into 16800 and he calls and turns over KQ before I can even table my set.

Hand 5: Now at 300/600/75. I start this hand with 36K. I’ve lost a few smallish pots so down off my 40K high point from Hand 4. I am on the button. UTG +1 makes it 1200. Player next to him calls. It folds to me and I have 97s and I call. SB folds and BB calls. Flop is 684 2 spades. BB checks UTG +1 bets 2K into 5,775. Player next to him calls and I call although I know two of my outs are likely not good as I don’t have spades and either villain could have it. BB folds. Turn is a non spade 3. UTG +1 bets again, 3K into 11,775. Player next to him calls. I am getting almost 6:1 to hit my hand so I make the easy call. River brings a non spade T. UTG checks and player next to him checks. I have a pretty decent read on UTG +1 and his body language tells me that he really likes his hand. I take a bit of a calculated risk and over jam 29K into 18K. UTG tanks for several minutes before finally folding. I am disappointed but I still think it was a good line to take. I expect the other player to muck immediately but he starts tanking. This was unexpected. I figured him for the busted spade draw. He takes for a good four minutes and eventually hero calls with KT spades for his stack. Right before he called he said he didn’t think he could fold and that he thought I had busted spades. This guy is apparently a mid stakes cash guy from Reno so I think he leveled himself or just had other shit to do.

Hand 6: I’ve been moved to another table and have 71K. Villain in the hand has 36K. We are now at 600/1200/200. I am in the CO and Villain is to my right. It folds to him and he makes it 2800. I call with QJs. Blinds fold. Villain was at my previous table for a while and I liked how he was playing. He got seriously cold decked on numerous occasions but never lost his cool. He left the table with 8K at 200/400 so he seemed to have righted the ship. Flop is 269 all hearts and I have hearts so I have flopped Q high flush. He bets 3700 into 9200. I decide to raise now and make it 11500 to go. He jams. I figure he must have A or K hearts with AK, AA, or KK as I don’t see him getting crazy otherwise. I call and he flips AK hearts. I lose half my stack on a cooler. I think even if I flat I pay him off in the hand as there were no more hearts that came. If I flat flop, I think he check jams all non paired turns and I still call. If he check calls turn and then jams river I think I still have to call.

Hand 7: Same level and I still have 35K. UTG +1 raises to 3000. button calls and it gets to my villain in the previous hand and he calls. I am in the BB with A9s. I don’t like the spot much but I don’t feel I can fold getting better than 3:1. Flop is A89 all spades. SB checks, I check and original raiser makes it 5600 into 12,675. I decided to check because I felt that UTG has a lot of aces in his EP raising range as I have history with him. His bet tells me that he does. Button folds and SB raises to 11,500. I actually think this is a close decision between shoving and folding. I have 32K back and I would be jamming into two players with interest in the pot. My raise would be about half pot so I am getting called in at least one spot by someone with some equity. I make the decision to jam figuring that I have outflopped original raiser and that SB has a ton of draws in his range that I am in decent shape against. original raiser tanks and finally folds what I believe to be AQ or AJ and no spade. He seemed very anguished by having to fold. SB makes the call and turns over AK with K spades. I found his pre flop flat interesting but we talked about it later and he explained he felt that the same as me that raiser probably had a decent hand but didn’t want to get into a race for his stack which was about 45K to start. Once he flopped huge he was fine with the hand even after I shoved. I faded spades and kings on turn and river and got my stack up over 80K.

Hand 8: Same level. I raise UTG with AK to 2800. I start with about 85K. Old Asian dude jams 30K from button. It fold back to me and I call. He has QQ and it holds.

Hand 9. 800/1600/200. After losing the flip I go pretty card dead and am only involved in a few smallish post but I find myself back down to 35K. Old Asian dude raises from CO. to 4000. SB calls and I jam with ATs. I think I am ahead of Asian dude’s range a lot plus he has been three bet off back-to-back hands by the current button and current SB so I think he finds some light calls here. He confidentially calls and leaves himself 19K back which is weird. He stares at me with his lazy eye and I try very hard not to laugh. SB then puts Asian all in and we all turn them over and I know I have to be smoked. Asian has AQ and SB QQ. Flop is T42 giving me some life. Turn J and River A. Ace from space gives me the triple up. Asian dude wins the side and SB makes what I thought was a great move by flatting knowing that I shove there a lot. He gets himself into a great spot and just loses. I now have 95K. SB, true to form, doesn’t lose his head and eventually wins a monster with AA vs KK.

Hand 10: I get moved with about 20 minutes left for the night. I now have 120K at 1200/2400/400. I won several decent pots at the previous table to get from 95K to 120K. I had actually dipped down to 80K so I made a mini run. At 10:00 minutes left they stop the clock and tell dealers we will play five more hands and then bag. On the fifth hand I get AK UTG +1. I get one caller from an older lady and it folds to BB who jams 65K. He had been talking about doubling, etc so I made the very easy call knowing I am at worst a flip. The caller folds and BB opens AJ. He flops the J and I am left bagging 55,500 going into 1500/3000/500. 180K would have been awesome but I still have enough chips to survive to the bubble with is about 14 spots away. 72 pay and I think 86 are left unless there were any busts on the final hand.

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