mixed omaha/stud hi-lo 8/better

I won't hold the outcome until the end of the story, I was knocked out around 60 from the money at the end of the 8th level, AGAIN!!!, lol. I guess I need to avoid the 8th hour of tournaments here. Interesting tournament though, my starting table of 8 contained Chris Reslock, Joe Cassidy, some high stakes internet player and Daniel Negreanu. It was interesting in that my biggest question mark regarding players like Daniel/Phil Ivey/Hellmuth, is how many hands do they play under these structures? How hard are they pushing in marginal spots? Hand ranges and all strategic adjustments they make in tournaments. Unfortunately Daniel got very unlucky in a few key stud8 hands and was out early in level 5. If you can picture taking draw out after beat after card out and then having to take pictures and sign autographs in between. Anyways, like you can imagine, he plays well, is enjoyable to be at the table at and generally seems to be as kind as he is portrayed. The class of the table last night, in my opinion, was Joe Cassidy. He plays very, very well. I never saw him out of line and he never called a bet without a positive expectation to do so.

I lost a few very key pots last night that determined the outcome of my tournament. The first hand I lost was in Omaha8/better for a 6k pot. I had 90% equity on the flop with As2s6s6h vs. QhQs9s4s on a 6h8h9s. I have bottom set and nut low draw vs. an overpair+flush draw with no low possibilities. Bloop a Q on the turn then an Ace on the river to counterfeit me.
The second crucial pot I lost came in Stud8/better. I start KhKs As (52%) vs. 7d8d9d (48%) at the 600-1200 level. Anyways, it's not a mathematically bad beat as our two hands run fairly close in equity when heads up. I bet every street with buried KK, board of A552 on 6th street. His reads 9Q56. He raised my board on 6th. I looked at him and based on his play up to that point, just knew he started 789 and had made a straight that had me drawing to a K or 5 just to win a high (he's still drawing to a live low for at least a low split). Anyways I mucked and lost around 5k on the hand. I then start A234 after fourth street in another stud 8 pot vs. AA74. I end up making a 7smooth low with no high and the AA pulls a 2 and 3 to 3/4 chop me in another pot. So these three pots crippled me. I ended up busting with KKA vs. 567. Our boards ran out KKATTQ9 vs. 5679K28. His 9 high straight on the river knocked me out of my 2nd tournament.

I know these mixed games are complicated to write about but you have to run super hot in these tournaments if you expect to go deep. Losing the 55% favourite hands HU in large levels just can't happen with a shallow stack and I definitely can't be losing these 90% favourites. Anyways... onwards and upwards. I think I'll take today and tomorrow off tournaments. There is another Omaha8/better 2k buy in tournament on Sunday I'll wait for. The overlay (money put in by bad players) is large in these mixed tournaments and Omaha8 especially. It's a grind and I miss no limit but I think my expected value is larger in these. I didn't feel out-classed yesterday despite having those 4 big name players at my table. Maybe it's over-confidence but I mean it's just poker. I've played 500k hands this year online in all the games and that's probably more than Daniel, Reslock and Cassidy have played live between the three of them in the last 2.5 years. Anyways. I'm going to try and qualify for the 50k horse online. It'd be a blast to play in that event. Outcome's irregardless.

Stay Low.. talk to you all soon.