4 way Chop of $14k Party Tourney

I played in a marathon Party tourney last night with over 700 entrants. It was a $20 tourney and when we were down to 4 players remaining (all with similar sized stacks) we decided to chop based upon stack size. A chop is beneficial in this scenario unless you have a monster stack, because the normal payouts are so heavily weighted to the top 2 spots. With 4 players remaining with similar stack sizes, and theoretically similar ability, the actual placement was going to come down to the distribution of cards. Rather than relying on luck at the end, we all preferred to chop. It was a nice payday and the highest finish I have had in such a large tourney.

Since I am a member of PokerXFactor, I have uploaded the the entire tourney into the PXF Hand Analyzer and you can view it for free here (you will need to register, but viewing is free). My overall PUFF was 65 which was slightly above the average of 50. PUFF is a factor developed by PXF that estimates the amount of good cards you were getting in the tourney. A player would expect to have a rating of 50 (ave good card distribution), so my 65 was a bit above average -- I got some good cards, but was certainly not hit by the deck in this tourney.

A couple of interesting hands occurred at the final table and I have described them below:

Hand 282: Right after we arrived at the final table, I had J9o in the bb with a midsized stack of 146k chips. The blinds were 8k/16k and the antes were 400, so there was 26k in the pot to start the hand. It folded to the cutoff who minraised to 32k, the button called and the sb folded, so it was to me with huge pot odds to call -- there was 90k in the pot and I had to call 16k to see the flop. I could try a squeeze play and move in here, however I was not excited about putting my tourney on the line with J9o. Additionally, I had gone out of several tourneys in the 7th-9th spot recently and the payouts are so low there that I really wanted to try to get to the top 6 spots. I called the 16k and the flop came JT4 rainbow and I was first to act.

Now the pot was at 106k and I had 115k chips remaining. With top pair I was going to be all in on this hand and the only question was how to get there. My choices were to lead out with a 1/2 pot bet to induce a raise or lead out with an all in bet. At this point I would really be happy to take the pot with any bet since it would be almost doubling my original stack. I decided that I needed to move all in. If I bet half the pot and was called, I would be kicking myself later if overcards called me and got lucky to draw out. I really did not think anyone else had a J and they both would likely fold to my bet. One player had me outchipped (slightly) and the other was a smaller stack.

I moved all in and the bigger stack called with JQ -- oops I was in some trouble. I really was shocked to see another J, but stand behind my move completely. With so much money in the pot and top pair and a vulnerable stack, I was going to get all in! In the end, I was a lucksack on the river and caught a 9 to take down a huge pot and take over the 2nd in chips position.

The other hand was a mistake I made when we were down to 6 players:

Hand 329: I was the chipleader with 555k and the blinds were 15k/30k with a 700 ante, so each pot was starting at almost 50k. Again I was in the big blind, this time with 87s (diamonds). It was folded to the button who min-raised (yeah same guy) to 60k, the sb folded and it was up to me. The button started the hand with 408k in chips so I had him outchipped. Now 87s is a nice speculative hand, although late in the tourney is not a time to be playing drawing hands since it is so expensive to draw. If I called here, I was hoping to catch a flop or a really good draw and if I caught that draw I needed to be prepared to semi-bluff all in. If I was not prepared to do so, I really should just fold down the hand.

However, with about 110k in the pot I was getting 3:1 pot odds to call the remaining 30k. I could also reraise here which really would have been the smarter move. Then if he came over the top all in I could fold the hand, but hopefully I would take it with the raise. Instead, I made my first mistake and just called his minraise. The flop came 56J with two spades and a heart. I had an open ended straight draw. This actually was a good flop for me and I led out with a 1/2 pot bet of 70k. My options were to check raise him or bet out. I figured this was not a flop that likely hit him so I led out.

He minraised me to 140k --- and here comes mistake #2. I called. This was a perfect semi-bluffing opportunity. He very well could be bluffing here or maybe raising with a pair, but either way he probably did not have a big hand. If I move all in over the top, I really think he would be folding the vast majority of hands he could have and even if I am called by a better hand, I am only 2:1 against to catch my straight with 2 cards to come. I should have moved all in and put him to the test -- likely taking down a very big pot and extending my chip lead.

Instead I called and the next card was the Q of spades. I checked and he moved all in and of course I was forced to fold. I gave up the semi-bluff advantage and compounded the problem by calling off another 70k in chips. I ended the hand with 355k in chips which was a middle of the road stack. This was a very bad play but I feel I learned something from it and hopefully will not make the same mistake next time.

Check out the tournament here and more importantly check it out in PXF's hand analyzer -- it is a great tool for analyzing your tourney results. The tabs on the side, allow you to flip ahead to hands where I won or lost a lot of chips. This allows you to analyze a tourney in a fraction of time it would take sorting through hand histories.

I hope you enjoy it and hopefully I can post some more wins again soon.