anomaly16

The Random Outs reformed for this year's OP team event on Saturday. We had a couple of substitutes and even had to get one substitute substituted in the final minutes!

I was team captain due to me being the only full member of OP at the moment. The format was the same as before - each team member playing a one table tournament for points and 3 teams with the most points taking down a prize. There had been some issues with the previous format but a £60 prize for each table winner helped - last year there had been players still in, knowing that their team had no chance and with nothing to play for. I'd played 7 sngos in the 24 hrs before the event and I had 4 1sts, a 2nd, a 3rd and a 6th so was feeling good.

I started out pretty tight and picked up a couple of pots - the standard of players was wide and there were some odd early position min-raises. I called one of these with AT on the button along with 2 other callers. The TT6 flop looked pretty sweet and one player bet after the PFR checked. I re-raised which he called and the turn brought a 7 : he check-raised me all-in and I called. He had TQ and the river A gained me a point and the chip lead on the table.

At the break we discovered our last minute substitute had gone out first - a similar sounding hand to mine - his A7 vs K7 on a 774 flop but with a river K. From previous experiencewe knew it was going to be tough unless the 4 of us left all made top 3 on our tables.

After the break it started to get a little more agressive with the increased blinds, but also pretty loose and bluffy. I called a shortstack allin with QQ and his QT didn't suck out, but stayed out of most other hands. One player had expressed his non-interest in the whole thing earlier but had quite a decent stack and was making some quite wild plays. He shoved allin UTG with about 20BB and was called by another loose big stack who knew him with 77. He showed 72o and the sick board came A35T4 for him to gain a dominating chip lead and eliminate another player.

Another team member was eliminated so we knew it was pretty much over for the team even though the three of us remaining were in with a chance of a table win.

My table was down to 4 - Mr 27o with 30k chips, me with 12k and the others 5k & 3k. It was pretty much a lottery at this point with huge bets coming from the chip leader and no room for any kind of play - I'd raised from CO with AJ which he called in SB and then donk-led 8k into a low flop. I doubled a shorty leaving me with just under 8k then I had a sign..!

I had 7700 chips UTG with 77 and shoved all-in. I hadn't noticed exact chip count until asked, but it was truly a hand to play 7s! I was called and the board brought 2 more 7s for me to get quads :) We were now down to 3 with pretty even stacks - it only took a few hands but the 72 player was eliminiated in 3rd for me to go heads up with a french dude : his 37k to my 13k.

I've not played a lot of heads-up, especially live but was looking fowrward to it as we were both pretty deep with blinds at 600/300. My oponent had been pretty tight-weak all tournament and he didn't really change his game HU, folding on the button a lot when i had a run of 23 27 37 82 62 type hands. When he did raise from the button he tended to betsize the strength of his hand.. he insta-folded a button raise when I shoved with JJ. I tried the same again with 77 but he called this time with K9 and my 77 held up to take the lead. A few hands later I limped from the button with 89 and was raised 2-3k which I called. He'd done a mixture of checks and raises when limped to so I figured he had 2 big cards or a pair. The flop was a pretty decent 79T - he made a large cbet and I shoved. He called with his open-ended JQ. The turn was a Q to give him top pair but the river 6 gave me the straight, 12pts and £60 :)

The others finished in 3rd and 5th so we didn't stick around to see how the team had done overall. I was very pleased with the way I played (and ran) and it was good to actually walk away with more money than I arrived with for a change!