Adda52 Team Spades Kunal Patni shares his Macau journal with us. It contains the challenges he faced, the fun he had and also contains little snippets of poker knowledge for all to learn. In this edition we present his Main Event logs.
Day 1A : Today was day 1a of the main event and I was really looking forward to it. Played the mega satellite today and busted in first 2 hands. AK first hand lost to 56off. Lol. Then pocket tens ran into pocket queens second hand and it was over. Good part is I at least got cards today. Played cash for a couple of hours after that and had a great run. Won 8.5k. So was very happy. Started the main event after that. It was a good start for me and in the first two levels got great cards. Got queens twice and jacks once. Hit my set on 2 occasions but unfortunately didn’t get paid off. At the end of the first break I was slightly above the starting stack of 15k. The next 4 levels weren’t eventful and I hardly played a few hands. Went into second break with 21k which was slightly above the average stack. I was getting a bit impatient. But I am happy that I didn’t do anything stupid.
During the 9th level I got a good card rush for 10 mins and capitalised on it and got paid off also. Went to the third break with 61 K while average was 32k. After the break I built it up to 75k and was one of the chip leads at the event. Underplayed a few hands nicely from small blind and got paid off well. Was very happy with my game. Made a big fold later in a 50k pot. Guy opened from button and I was A7 in small blind. Flop was A68. I check called. Turn was a 5. Check called again. Should have actually check raised here and most likely the hand would have got over. River was a J. I checked and this guy shoved for 20k. Pot was already 45k. I tanked a lot and folded. Didn’t want to go back to 30k as it took a lot of hard work to build my stack. Guy showed me a 4 later. Most likely a bluff. Only card that was beating me was a 4 7. Unlikely that he had it. But it was a huge fold for me at this stage. Was upset for a bit but thankfully didn’t tilt. Hung in there and played well. Ended the day at 80.3k. Amongst the top 6 in chips out of 25 remaining. Was really really happy with my game today. I think I played some really good poker tonight. Day 2 starts after 3 days and I am totally geared up for it. 5 more Indians including Donkabomber, Kavesh, Bblacklegend and RR have made it to day 2. So it was a great day for Indians.
Day 2 : A day of total mixed bag for me. Started the day being amongst the top 30 chipstacks out of 212 people. First hand UTG I got 77. I opened. Action folded to small blind who 3 bet me. I thought for a bit and called as I had a good stack. Flop was K7and 6 with two diamonds. He bet 20k again and I jammed. On the hindsight I should have just called and maybe got more value from him. Was just a bit scared with the two diamonds. He folded and told me he had queens. I told him I had AK. i was up from 80k to 120k. Couple of hands later short stack shoved from cutoff. I had AK at the button. Snap called. He had AJ and he hit his runner runner straight. Lost whatever I gained in the first hand. Damn.
From there I really grinded well to take my stack back to nearly 100k over the next 2-3 hours. Played some really good poker. We were on the bubble with the minimum payout being 24600 HKD. The bubble lasted for a long hour and half. I had about 120k decently above average and I wasn’t worried about the bubble at all. Unfortunately two bad hands had me crippled again. First one I had AQ on button and raised. Small blind tanked and called. He was the chip lead on the table. Flop was K82. He checked and I check bet. He shoved and I folded instantly. He showed K2. Lost a decent amount here.
After sometime I tried to make a play that didn’t work. People were playing really tight because of the bubble and tried to make a steal. Opened with K10 suited UTG. Everyone folded except button who had me covered. Flop was K86. I bet again and he shoved. I tanked for a good ten minutes. I was pretty sure I was good with my ten kicker but because it was the bubble and that one call was worth 24600 HKD I folded. He showed me king and 4. So it was a bad fold. Later when I thought about the hand I felt I played it badly after the flop. I got too defensive because of the bubble. My intention in any tournament is always to win and not to min cash and that’s why a call there would have given me a good chip lead. Instead I was crippled to 30k I.e. Only 5 blinds. Should have made that call. It’s a learning for me. Going ahead I am not going to change my game so drastically because of the bubble. I am playing to win the tourney. We ended the day in the money and I was happy about that but was disappointed to end the day as one of the lowest chips.
Day 3 : Today was the day 3 of the main event and I started the day as one of the lowest in chips amongst 116 people. Wasn’t happy about that at all as I had decent chip stacks at many stages of the tournament. I was going to start with exactly 5 big blinds at 3k-6k and needed a bit of luck to make it deep. Unfortunately for me I started the day with being in the UTG position. This meant that I was down to less than 3.5 blinds in three hands as I didn’t play any of the first three hands. Then on the button action folded to me and I shoved my stack with 10-7. Big blind called me with 8-9. I hit a 7 on the flop and the turn and doubled up. Next hand I got A4 suited at cutoff and action folded to me and I shoved and everyone folded. Couple of hands later, guy in mid position opened and I was two places after him with AK. I shoved and everyone folded. So I built up my stack slowly.
Fortunately on the other tables people were busting pretty soon and we were quickly down to about 80 people in less than an hour. I gave myself a real good chance now. Played some real good poker from here on and took advantage of my position and cards and built the stack to 210k soon enough. Also got aces twice around this time but unfortunately didn’t get paid off both the times.
Blinds had moved to 5k-10 soon and I was left with about 170k. Got AJ Off in the cutoff position and I min raised. Guy in the small blind with a monster stack of about 800k jammed to isolate me. It was an easy call for me and I was really happy. Called instantly and the guy showed me A2. I had him dominated. Unfortunately for me he hit his 2 and so I was out of the main event at the 41st position AJ < A2. Felt miserable. Took me sometime to get over the disappointment. After playing some solid poker in the last 3 hours I gave myself a very good chance to run really deep in this tournament but really got unlucky. Would have been super happy at the start of the day to come in 41st with such a tiny starting stack but having built my stack so painstakingly I was quite sad. Cashed in 39000 HKD for my efforts. But I took it as a learning and moved on.
