5:25pm: Score one for the HFL crew, as SteveK takes down the first “MTT” in HFL’s history. What’s most impressive about this victory is that he was behind a number of times, and had to resort to solid short stack play to complete each and every comeback.

The final match was pretty much handed to him, but make no mistake: SteveK’s money went in with the best hand nearly every time. Another factor that went into the victory was some great timing, and also him finding the right balance between when to take a stand and when to fold.

Congrats to Steve. I hope he the first of many HFL members to take a tourney down.

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

5:02am: Today’s live session was definitely not easy money. It was a table full of local sharks, and had it not been for the amount of trouble I went through today in order to play live (which I won’t get into), I would have sooner turned around and went back home for a full heads up sng session.

I decided to stick it out, and in doing so I decided that I was going to have to mix things up a bit today because everyone at the table knew what my usual gameplan is. Today was a day where I only played hands in position, and I picked up a bunch of small pots by playing the button and the cutoff very aggressively. The plan worked to perfection, as no one really caught on to what I was doing.

Then, there was this one hand where I made a “blocking raise” preflop of $15 with Ac9c from middle position. I knew I wanted to see the flop, however I knew if I just limped, someone was going to make it at least $25-$30 to go. Whenever I enter the pot there, I usually get a lot of respect, so everyone (5 people) just called and we see a flop of 7c 5c 2d. The guy first to act folds unprevoked (checked out) and the action was on me. I decide to bet $30. The man to my left (loose/passive) calls $30, one guy folds, another guy folds, and the LAG player on the button makes it $130 to go. I thought about pushing right here, because I did have two overs and the nut flush draw, but I wanted the third guy in too so that I’d have better odds for the hand to hit. For that reason, I decide to just call the $100 and so does the man to my left. The pot is now $480 going into the turn.

The turn is a very beautiful card for me: Jc, giving me the absolute nuts at the moment.

I thought that if I checked it at this point, there’s no way in hell someone else would bet a scary card like that on a flushed-out board without a flush themselves. Even a set would probably take the free card here, and try to pair the board cheaply. Keeping these things in mind, I decided to lead out pretty strong ($300) hoping and praying that someone else had completed the flush OR that someone would figure, “there’s no way he could have a flush here, he would have checked. Who in the hell leads out when they hit the flush?”.

Unfortunately, no one had a flush and no one figured any of that stuff I mentioned above. Everyone folds, and I take down the pot as it stood at that point.

The rest of the night was just maintenance and picking up small pots, as I mentioned above. After a 5.5 hour session, I decided that I was indeed lucky to be up nearly $400 in a very “sharked out” game so I took my loot and left with the intention to continue my session via heads up sngs when I arrived home.

In regards to my online mini-session, there is nothing significant to report other than those who ran better than me, won the match, and those did not, lost. This enabled me to finish 3-2 on the night, and hopefully tomorrow I will be able to play a longer one. Here is the last hand from the last match I played (against a pretty solid player), for those who are interested:

PokerStars Game #18736711128: Tournament #95280719, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level II (15/30) - 2008/07/11 - 05:58:10 (ET)
Table ‘95280719 1′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: prodigies (1000 in chips)
Seat 2: trujm (2000 in chips)
prodigies: posts small blind 15
trujm: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [Qc Js]
prodigies: raises 60 to 90
trujm: calls 60
*** FLOP *** [Kc 3c Ts]
trujm: checks
prodigies: bets 90
trujm: calls 90
*** TURN *** [Kc 3c Ts] [Ad]
trujm: checks
prodigies: bets 240
trujm: raises 720 to 960
prodigies: calls 580 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (140) returned to trujm
*** RIVER *** [Kc 3c Ts Ad] [8s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
trujm: shows [Qc Js] (a straight, Ten to Ace)
prodigies: shows [Qs As] (a pair of Aces)
trujm collected 2000 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2000 | Rake 0
Board [Kc 3c Ts Ad 8s]
Seat 1: prodigies (button) (small blind) showed [Qs As] and lost with a pair of Aces
Seat 2: trujm (big blind) showed [Qc Js] and won (2000) with a straight, Ten to Ace

More later..

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process