Before flying out to Foxwoods, I was really excited about playing in the tournament for several reasons. It had been a while since playing at Niagara Falls, and I was itching to play. Also, Foxwoods has always been one of my favorite stops on the
World Poker Tour. In fact, a while back, I wrote a column about Foxwoods; I called it a "hidden gem," and I still believe that. However, a few things bothered me about this particular trip that I'll get to later.
I'd originally planned on flying out in the afternoon, which would get me to Foxwoods the night before the event. I had a first-class flight all lined up to Providence, Rhode Island, and then a car ride to the casino. Well, on the day of my departure, I was exhausted from the night before, so I decided to take a red-eye flight with Erick "E-Dog" Lindgren on Jet Blue that would get us into Boston at 8 a.m. I had totally forgotten that the tournaments there aren't exactly player-friendly, with their 10 a.m. day-one starting times. And that's especially true if you are coming from the West Coast. Why they start their tournaments earlier than
all of the other
WPT events, I have no idea.
The flight was packed, and I was jammed into the middle seat, so, needless to say, it was a terrible night with absolutely no sleep. When we got to Boston, the driver told us it was more than a two-hour drive to Foxwoods, but he was hoping it would be OK with us if he drove fast, since he had things to do. That suited us just fine, and an hour and 13 minutes later, we were there.
We were too early to check into our rooms and too late to take a shower, so we were in action almost immediately. I was tired, but that sometimes helps me in the early stages of a long tournament. When I got there, though, I heard that this tournament was going to be very long. At Bellagio, you play from noon to 9 p.m. on both day one and day two. This playing schedule would be grueling, though, as we were scheduled to play from 10 a.m. to 1 a.m. That's just totally unfair to older players. Poker tournaments should be a test of skill, not a test of endurance. To make matters worse, a 13-hour day was scheduled for day two.
Well, anyway, I was there, so there was no use dwelling on it. I decided that I may as well make the best of it. I scheduled a nap at the $200-$400 (with an ante) level, because it coincided with the dinner break. That would give me a chance to get two hours of sleep, which I'd need if I was going to be alert at midnight.
I was going to implement a very different strategy for this event, using the minimum raise, or what I like to call the "nuisance raise," rather than my usual two and a half times the big blind. The reason for that was related to the typical local player there. They overplay their hands preflop and make some terrible mistakes after the flop. I also decided that I wouldn't be reraising anyone at all preflop, either.
In fact, on day one, I reraised precisely one hand. A tight player raised from under the gun and I reraised with Q-Q. Then, an even tighter player reraised, and I folded preflop. That was the extent of my "coming over the top," as this just wasn't the right group for that play.
There was one interesting hand from day one that I thought would make for a good column: In level two, with the blinds at $50-$100, I made the nuisance raise from under the gun with the A
Q
. The small blind called.
The flop came K
9
5
, giving me the second-nut-flush draw. The small blind checked and I bet $200. He quickly check-raised me to $1,000. I looked back at my cards and called the $800 more. The turn was the 4
and my opponent checked. I took a glance over at his chips and saw that he had only $2,175 left.
So, you are asking yourself, what could possibly be interesting about this hand? Well, my goal here was to get all of his chips while at the same time inducing him to bluff me, protecting my hand,
and making it look like I might be weak, as well.
I gave him a little Hollywood, pretending to be calculating something or other. I was doing some calculations in my head, but they weren't the calculations I was pretending to be making. You see, I wanted to make him think that I was just throwing out a bet to see if my hand was good, trying to lose the minimum. I bet $500 - into a pot with more than $2,500 in it when my opponent had only $2,175 left!
I'd already decided that if he had the ace, oh well, I was definitely going to have to pay him off. I was actually hoping that he was drawing dead, but might decide to go all in with a hand like K-Q or something like that as a bluff.
He ended up calling the bet, and the river was the 10
. He checked, and this time I put him all in. He called me and turned over the J
2
.
Sure, I probably could have just bet it all on the turn, or even checked the turn and got it all in on the river, but by playing it the way that I did, I think I forced him to get tied into the hand on the turn, and then by the river, he thought he couldn't back out after coming all that way.
When you think outside the box, you'll often find that you can be creative in situations in which there would seem to be a standard play. Those situations are rare, but when they come up, you shouldn't ignore the possibility that playing things a little differently may actually win you more chips.
Anyway, on the last hand of day one, I doubled up with A-A versus A-3. On that hand, I called a raise from the button and played a three-way pot against the big blind and the raiser. The flop came 10-9-3 and the big blind check-raised me with A-3. Sweet! I had $67,600 after day one. Read about day two in the next issue.
You can read Daniel's blog or play poker online with him at www.fullcontactpoker.com.
