Chainsaw Grinding Out Omaha/Stud High-Low

After being one of the chip leaders for most of the day yesterday, I was rather disappointed to end up in 45^th place in the $1,500 Omaha high-low event. All I was hearing was that the play would start out fast but by the end of the tournament there would be much more play in the limit events. Well, that was not the case. By the time we got to the big levels, the average stack had between 6 and 8 big bets meaning you could play one maybe two hands that get beat by the river before being crippled.

Today's stud high-low/ Omaha high-low combo started out at an even faster structure. The very first hand we had a 1,500 pot, and the second hand someone scooped a 2,500 pot. With starting stacks of 5,000 chips this should never happen in a limit tourney on level one.

The structure sheet looks fine but we should have started out one or 2 levels sooner; either 25-50 or 50-100 with the 5,000 starting stacks.



I made two key bluffs in the opening two levels that won me nice sized pots either on the river or with one card to come. I took advantage of my tight Chainsaw image and got people to lay down hands.



I was running really well and chipped up to an incredible 9,000 chips early when I open raised A34 all diamonds in stud high-low, only to be reraised by an ace up. We were three-way and I wanted to see the next card which was the 6. This is a monster in stud high-low but I had a werid feeling I would get none of this pot. We were heads up by fourth street and by 7^th street all I had was an 8 low and a pair of 3s and got scooped.



The last hand of the level I get A A 2 Q with double suited aces on the button and raise a multi-way pot. The board flops 4 6 Q with two clubs, I bet and get 2 callers. The turn is the A giving me three aces but putting two diamonds on the board. The river comes a double counterfeit 2 to complete my opponent's flush with a hand of 4 7 J K that called all the bets and raises to that point. If someone can run that hand on the cardplayer.com hand analyzer Id love to see the percentages on the flop.

Going into level 3 I still managed to keep 7,200 of the chips I had accumuluated even though I could easily have 10-12k at this point with the hands I played.

We are already playing 150-300, so the swings at this level will be huge to say the least.



- Chainsaw