Rebels is Back! And 2010 PCA
Posted Tuesday, January 19, 2010 by bparis
Hey everyone, it’s been a while. Rebels was getting moved to a new server so it was down for a while, but the issues have been resolved now and the site will be back up. Check back periodically for new hand of the day installments and blogs.
The 2010 year kicked off in style for me at the PCA, which is probably the most fun live tournament on the schedule. Spending a week in the Bahamas is always a great way to start the new year, regardless of how you do in the tournament. Last year, I managed to make Day 4 before finally going down in 29th on a lost coinflip and a bad call. I was hoping to top that this year, but PCA is definitely one of the toughest 10k live tournaments, as it is comprised almost entirely of online players. I knew I would have my hands full trying to fight through a large, tough field.
My initial table draw on Day 1 was pretty favorable for me, with a couple of Europeans, some decent online players, and a Brazilian Full Tilt pro. I got a chance to tangle with one of the Europeans very early in the day, about 15 minutes into level 1. I had about 28,000 (from a starting stack of 30,000) at 50/100 blinds when a young guy from Norway opened the hijack to 325. The cutoff, a tight, solid live pro, flat called. I was in the button, and before I even looked at my cards I thought to myself that I wanted to squeeze fairly wide here. I looked down at black AA, thought for a second, and made it 1225. The young Norwegian instantly made it 3500, and the live pro folded.
This was obviously a dream situation for me, sitting there facing a huge four bet in position with AA 15 minutes into the day. The safe play would definitely be to five-bet, hoping that he’d be aggressive enough to stack off for 300 big blinds with less than AA, but I didn’t think that was very likely. Europeans are aggro, but not stupid; he would surely know that a five bet from me this early had to be AA and nothing else. If I called, on the other hand, I would be in position, with an SPR (stack to pot size ratio) of about 3.5, meaning that there would only be 3.5 times the pot left to bet in our stacks after the flop. Since I expected him to attack the pot after the flop a lot more often than he would stack off with worse pre-flop, I opted to just call.
The flop came down great for me, 3h 4s 6h. (I had AsAc.) He led for 3500. Figuring that he likely had only 2 outs, I decided to just call and let him keep firing.
The turn was a 9h. He thought for about ten seconds before announcing all-in for roughly one and a half times the pot. I called pretty quickly and he turned over AhKs, for the nut flush draw. Luckily, I faded the river heart and was working with almost 60,000 chips 15 minutes into day one. I was very happy with how I played that hand, but the rest of day 1 was pretty uneventful. My table gradually got tougher as the day went on, with HSMTT reg HustlerGrune coming in on my right, and 2008 WSOP Main Event runner-up Ivan Demidov, an aggressive Russian, on my immediate left. Without many opportunities, I nursed my stack into day 2, going in with about 50,000 in chips.
After a relaxing off day spent on the endless river, I faced a tough table draw going into day 2. I had Full Tilt pros Isaac Baron and Vivek Radjumar on my right, both of whom are incredibly good players who originally made their names online. I also had HSMTT regular JBT449 and Irish pro John O’Shea at the table. My original gameplan was to wait for fairly good hands and try to three- and four-bet Vivek and Isaac, both of whom were on my immediate right and were not going to be shy about raising and re-raising. The day started off somewhat badly for me as I 3-bet with AQ and was forced to call a cold four-bet by a short stack from behind. He had TT, and I lost the race, knocking me down to about 40,000. The blinds went up and my stack slowly dwindled until I fluctuating around 30,000 with the blinds at 800/1600. I went into classic sit and go mode and picked up a few pots by open shoving marginal hands in late position, but was unable to do much more and found myself with 25,000 chips at 1000/2000 200 ante.
I hadn’t pushed in a while, and live players tend to be tighter in calling open shoves than online players, as the math is a bit tougher to do on the spot live. I picked up J9s second under the gun and decided to push, calculating that I’d show a clear +chip ev against calling ranges of AQ+, 88+. Sure enough, everyone folded, as I would have expected to happen roughly 2/3 of the time. The next hand, with 30,000 chips UTG (M of 6), I picked up KQs. Despite not wanting to shove two hands in a row, KQs is also a clear +CEV shove here assuming those tight calling ranges, so I went for it again. Much to my surprise, a much older guy who had been sitting behind me and folding everything all day immediately pushed the rest of his chips in. My heart sank, as I expected him to only be showing up here with absolute monsters, but I was somewhat pleasantly surprised to see him turn over AJs (although it was the same suit as mine). I had about 40% to double up and continue in the tournament, but it was not to be, as the board bricked off and I was knocked out.
My main event dreams were over, but the fun was just beginning as I still had a week to spend in the Bahamas. The weather was surprisingly awful this time around, but there’s still lots to do out there, both on the resort and in the city of Nassau. Even a few celebrities showed up, as Nelly was sighted playing 25/50 multiple times (I tried to get into the game, but the list was a mile long), and my fiance got pictures with Montel Williams and playboy model Jade Nicole. Pokerstars did an awesome job hosting the PCA as always, and it was still a great year despite the worst weather I’d ever seen there. Only 11 months to go until next PCA, hopefully I’ll be seeing some of you there.
