What's that they say about the best laid plans?

So my Aussie Millions campaign commenced the past weekend and I have no played three Aussie Millions satellites for 0 results. It has been an interesting week though and I struggled to deal with a bad beat which I found slightly concerning.

The campaign kicked off for me on the Saturday; I was participating in two events one at 7.05am and one again at 7.00pm (local Victorian Time). The event in the morning was for a phase three entry on 888 which, the Phase three tournaments have a $17,000 Aussie Millions Main Event package guaranteed and was scheduled to run Monday Morning. I fell just short of the tickets and went out in 7th place (1st - 5th were GTD tickets).

The second event was the 888PL Limited rebuy event, once again on 888, with a $1,500 Opening Event package GTD. This is an event were players are restricted to two rebuys maximum and one add on is available at the break. The event was well supported with just over 55 runners and still there was a $100 overlay. Unfortunately I went busto about halfway through the field and played some pretty terrible poker, this weekend I plan on tightening up a lot and only playing top 10 - 15% of hands during the rebuy period. There were just too many players playing 50/5 (VPIP/PFR) for my liking!

On Monday Night I went and played the $50 cubed event at the Royal Oak Hotel in Cheltenham. This was a 5,000 start stack and you could only rebuy/addon once for a further 5,000 chips. Whilst the structure was something new it was very turbo through the middle stages but allowed for some solid play on the final table with everyone wielding about 20 big blinds on average. My starting table was pretty passive and overplayed hands a lot and hence after the fourth blind level I was on 40K with no rebuy or addon used.

I made it to the final table second in chips to "Wombat" who was definitely playing some top quality, aggressive poker. After passing a few rounds my 100K stack was soon reduced to 50K and I found a double up through Wombat when I reshipped with AK to his pre flop raise and he called with A8 suited; it was a sweat though with Wombat flopping the nut flush draw and then turning a gut shot straight draw.

Eventually we are down to four players with the payouts as follows:

1st - Aussie Millions Event 19 entry and $300 cash

2nd - Aussie Millions Event 1 entry and $200 cash

3rd - $200 cash

Pretty big pay jumps there and I was 2nd in chips with close to 110K in chips when this hand occurred. Blinds are 3,000/6,000 when UTG moves all in for 24K. This player has been open shipping every hand on the final table (as she should with her short stack) and I knew her range was all pockets and as loose as KJ suited upwards. I am in the Small blind and look down at AQ of  hearts, without even thinking I announce all in and before I can blink the player in the big blind announces CALL.

UTG rolls over TT, BB rolls KK and I show my AQ. The board bricks out for me and to add salt to the wound the river rolls a Ten and not only have I not eliminated a player I am now the short stack on the table with 56K. In review, with the prize structure and my stack AQ is actually a fold and at worse a call here. I should not have ISO shoved against the Big Blind player. I doubt I could have got away from the hand even if I did call and the BB reship but still the correct play is to fold and it is key to remember that for my next event.

I take a deep breath and move on the next hand which finds me on the Dealer Button with QQ. Now I slow down and think it through. The player now in the SB (BB in the last hand) will call just about any raise if he is in the blinds and with a stack. I also know he will donk lead at me if he hits the board with any pair, draws and low pockets. I also know that he will call my all in bet on the flop with any top pair and draw type hands. So I put the following plan into action:

1.) I only raise 2,.5x from the dealer button making myself look weak (in his eyes) so I raise to 16K and sure enough SB comes along for the ride.

2.) The flop falls 8,7,7 with two diamonds and immediately SB leads for 8K. This is a pretty small bet and concerns me that he may have a 7 here for such a value bet. But in all honesty I feel this is a weak bet and that he has at best an 8 or an Ace high hand, possibly a flush draw. 

3.) I decide that I want max value for this hand and if I reship now for my remaining 32K he will call and I should be at least a 3 to 1 favourite to win this hand against his range. If I just call here and he bricks the turn or it doesn't add any value to his hand he will probably check fold (too many novice players are willing to gamble it up on the flop as "there are still two cards to come" but will slow down on turn cards as it is now "only one card to come"). So I move all in and the player leans back and utters those awesome words: "Am I feeling lucky?" I respond with "Are you kidding me you just woke up with KK four handed to two all ins before you, of course you are lucky?". After awhile he announce call (for almost 80% of his stack) and rolls JT for the gutshot draw. 

5.) I am gobsmacked as I did not expect me to be this far ahead as he is really only chasing a nine. I applaud myself on executing my plan and am licking my lips in anticipation of shipping  an AM seat in my first live satellite, that is until the nine drops on the turn and the crowd goes wild ( I am quite amazed at how many 888PL players love anti-sweating me!).

I shake my head and feel a bit dumbstruck, this beat heated me up and I needed to maintain some composure. The SB player was laughing and offered his hand for me to shake it and I just shook my head and said "No it's ok!" (bad sportsmanship FTW). And I stood up, said goodnight and promptly left the venue. I got in the car and let loose some expletives and the obligatory "How can he call there? What is he thinking? What does he beat? How do these idiots get so lucky?". Too say I was ashamed of my thoughts and actions would be an understatement.

The next morning I wake up and run through the hands and decide that the biggest mistake was the AQ hand and not thinking before acting all because the "cards were pretty!". I also sit down and contemplate my final hand, I come to the realisation that this is the first time in quite awhile that I have read a situation extremely well, anticipated a players moves and created a plan around it, and add to that the plan was very successful was something that I should not underestimate. So I turned that into a positive; I once had AA and found a caller with JJ for the chip lead in a big Crown Tournament (first place was $100K) and on the door was a J and I walked away with $24k instead of possibly $100,000 and I still didn't act as badly or take the beat as badly as I did Monday night.

So in my mind that's what true poker is about, acquiring information, creating the plans using all available information, and executing them, it's also about learning from the bad and moving on with that. Always review your hands and try and find the negatives in your game and turn them into a positive, whether that be changing your game, training yourself to respond/react differently or understanding why it is a negative to begin with.

Also understand that bad beats will happen and that whilst it may steam us up there is no point in taking it out on another player. We need players to make bad calls and get there money in bad otherwise this game becomes even more difficult.

So anyway this week will see me playing the same 888 satellites this Saturday and on Sunday I will be offer to Hoppers Crossing Club for the $100 Freeze out (10K start stacks) and a GTD prize pool of $5,000 in Aussie Million Seats. I hope to see a few of you down there!

Good Luck on the felt and thanks for reading!

Garth Kay