April 13

After itching to play poker all last week I got up to seabrook with my dad, little brother, and joe for the 6:30 $90-tourney. I really like the 6:30's comfortable structure. 20min blinds starting with 12K at 25/50, and they have a 40min 500/1K level because after the 500/1K level blinds start to double. This is nice because it gets the tourney moving towards the part where averge stack is 15-20 bbs and people make push-folding mistakes.

My brother, who had only been to seabrook once before, elected not to play the 6:30 and to instead watch me play it and wait for some sitngos to start. It was a good choice because I was able to lean back and comment on my table's play when I wasn't in a hand. As usual the play was a mix between loose passive and tight passive, and people were varying their bet sizes, mostly pre-flop raises, according to the strength of their hand (which is the quintessential seabrookian move). I glided my way into the six-table tournament's 500/1K level which at that point had two tables left. I was doing well until I lost a flip and found myself with 10K and the blinds up to 1K/2K. I open shoved from the cut-off with 9-10s into the chip leader's (60-70K) big blind. It folds to him, he makes a crying call with 6-2s. He flops the world, a pair and a flush draw, and knocks me out. On his next break he finds me in the sitngo room and says sorry for knocking me out, but he was the chip leader and he could afford it. I told him not to worry about it. I am planning no revenge.

My question is this: Was my shove correct agianst this player? I thought I was super standard, but should I have taken into account that the chip leader's calling range widens because he is the chip leader? He only risked 1/6 to1/7 of his stack. I think his call is wrong (although it did knock out the best player in the tourny, so how bad could it be?). Would he have snap called me with a K2? idk but it certainly makes me think.

After getting knocked out I made my way over to the sitngos. They have a $60, 5K in chips, 10-player sitngo that runs only after all of the tourny registrations are closed. I offer everyone at the table a last longer bet and 3 others oblige (a nice $80 extra for the winner). Offering this has become standard because it is so much more EV for me. After watching my little brother win his first sitngo, I follow his lead and win first for $235 plus the $80 of Chinese food.

My brother and dad still have some major holes in their games. They still don't have push folding strategy down. I saw my dad min raise 3-bet for 30% of his stack :0!!! With J10o!!!!!!! My brother seems to be a much quicker study. I wasn't able to watch him win his sitngo, but he must have made some good pushes to win. My dad has too many things bouncing around in his head to remember all the poker tips me and Joe give him.

Later, I will blog more about tomorrow's events and how bad Joe is at poker/life sometimes.