Made Day 2 of $300 NLHE 2x Chance WCOOP

After a frustrating Sunday on which I didn’t always play my best, I seriously considered taking Monday off. I had, after all, played poker, often a lot of it, every day for the past 12 days. But the weather was less than ideal and I didn’t have that much else to do and who can ignore a WCOOP tournament? I registered just four tournaments: the $300 2x Chance WCOOP, the $265 WCOOP Turbo Knock-Out, the Big $150, and the $200 2x Chance Second Chance, which I busted just a few minutes after the end of the rebuy period without ever using my rebuy.

Despite accumulating 6 bounties, enough to pay my buyin and then some, I didn’t cash in the Turbo KO, so for much of the day I was one-tabling the $300. I sure am glad I ended up playing it, because of the 2200+ who entered, only 22 remain, and I am 3rd among them! We resume play at 2PM Eastern today.

Obviously I had to run well to make it this far, but I do believe that I took some creative lines to extract maximum value with my big hands. Here’s one pivotal one:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 320 Tournament, 3000/6000 Blinds 750 Ante (8 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button (t446697)
SB (t308587)
BB (t152437)
Hero (UTG) (t216530)
UTG+1 (t308548)
MP1 (t204342)
MP2 (t146740)
CO (t494589)

Hero’s M: 14.44

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 7♠, 8♠
Hero bets t12000, 3 folds, CO raises to t26750, 3 folds, Hero calls t14750

Flop: (t68500) 7♥, 5♥, 7♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets t25770, Hero calls t25770

Turn: (t120040) 10♠ (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets t57895, Hero calls t57895

River: (t235830) 10♦ (2 players)
Hero bets t105365 (All-In), CO calls t105365

Total pot: t446560

Results:
Hero had 7♠, 8♠ (full house, sevens over tens).
CO had Q♦, A♣ (two pair, tens and sevens).
Outcome: Hero won t446560

This is a great example of what I wrote about in a recent 2+2 article, When A Scare Card Isn’t Scary. The T may seem like a bad card, in that a lot more combos of hands could now beat me. Realistically, though, Villain is extremely unlikely to have those hands, and this card is probably one of the best in the deck for getting paid off. An Ace or broadway card, while creating some second-best hands, may well slow him down with pairs smaller than that card. Likewise blank rivers may get me paid by pairs but not by Ax. With the board double-pairing on the river, I can make a suspicious-looking shove representing a counterfeited underpair and get called by both his pairs and his Ax. Maybe he would even call with less – I mean KQ will win just as often as AQ when he makes this call.