WCOOP 2006 Event #5 Limit Omaha H/L

The World Championship Of Online Poker began (for me) today. I was hoping to break a tremendously bad streak I have been on lately. That didn't happen. The first event I played in was the Limit Omaha H/L event. My experience in that event was garbage, but I'll write about a few hands below the schedule. All events I plan to play in are listed in Bold below.

WCOOP 2006 Schedule

DAY.. DATE.........EVENT...............BUY-IN..GUARANTEE
Sat..September 16..Razz................$215....$100,000
Sun..September 17..NLHE................$530....$1,500,000
Mon..September 18..PL Omaha w/rebuys...$320....$400,000
Tue..September 19..NLHE Match Play.....$215....$300,000
Wed..September 20..Limit Omaha High/Lo.$530....$300,000
Thu..September 21..NLHE (rebuys).......$215....$1,000,000
Fri..September 22..LHE.................$215....$200,000
Sat..September 23..HORSE...............$215....$100,000
Sat..September 23..PLHE................$530....$400,000
Sun..September 24..NLHE................$1,050..$1,000,000
Mon..September 25..Seven Card Stud.....$320....$100,000
Tue..September 26..PL Omaha8...........$320....$200,000
Wed..September 27..PLHE................$320....$400,000
Thu..September 28..7Card Stud High/Low.$530....$200,000
Fri..September 29..PL Omaha............$530....$300,000
Sat..September 30..HORSE...............$5,200..$100,000
Sat..September 30..LHE.................$1,050..$400,000
Sun..October 1.....NLHE................$2,600..$3,000,000


I was looking forward to this event because unlike many hold-em players, I like Omaha H/L. I don't think I'm the best Omaha H/L player out there, but I know a good deal more than many people who just play hold-em. I also have quite a few cashes and final tables in Omaha H/L tournaments (granted they are usually smaller buy-ins and have fewer players than no limit hold-em tournaments). And today's tournament was full of players that were from average to terrible. 953 players signed up to try their luck. Not bad for a tournament with a $530 entry fee.

Tournament started off great, with me winning my hand. But it was a bit strange. Here it is:

Everyone begins with 2500

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Me [Jd 8s As Qc]

rockets23: raises 20 to 40
UofA Thinker: calls 30
Me: calls 20
*** FLOP *** [4c Th Js]
UofA Thinker: checks
Me: checks
rockets23: bets 20
UofA Thinker: folds
Me: calls 20
*** TURN *** [4c Th Js] [5s]
Me: checks
rockets23: bets 40
Me: calls 40
*** RIVER *** [4c Th Js 5s] [4s]
Me: checks
rockets23: bets 40
Me: calls 40
*** SHOW DOWN ***
rockets23: shows [Ah 7d Ac 8c] (HI: two pair, Aces and Fours)
Me: shows [Jd 8s As Qc] (HI: a flush, Ace high)
I collected 320 from pot
No low hand qualified

Why did I play my hand that way??? Because I thought it was Pot Limit Omaha H/L. It is my experience that people make those small bets in pot or no-limit games with either weak hands like 2nd pair or monster hands, therefore when presented with the small bet on the river I figured any reasonable raise would just open myself up for a large reraise by a full house and would probably get a fold from a weak hand. So I didn't raise my flush. Had I realized it was limit I probably would have raised the river.

I had wanted to post more hands from this tournament but I can't find a good Pokerstars hand history converter for Omaha H/L tournaments. So I'll have to give you the summary with a few more poorly converted hands at the end. Basically from there it all went south. I won 1 more small hand within the next orbit to get up to about 2700 or so. Then I stayed pretty quiet. I tried to play a few hands against bad players in position but had to abandon ship to action on bad flops. It's extremely hard to play deepstacked limit omaha h/l bluffing. You have to have cards. And I didn't, for about 2.5 hours.

Now during these 2 hours I made a few questionable plays. Mostly seeing flops when I shouldn't and failing to raise one of the few good hands I got preflop (though this actually made me a little money, but it was still wrong). I also let the frustration of constantly being raised off my AKxx postflop on AKQ flop get to me (yes, this flop with these starting cards happened to me 4 times in 200 hands, I was shown the JT 2x that i folded) and finally paid off one of the JTxx players that hit. I didn't really lose many showdowns other than that, I never made it there. I kept folding on the flop and turn (and on a few bad rivers). Every time I wanted low cards the flop came JJT and every time I wanted a Q or low cards with an A with a hand like QQ23ds in late position the flop came K82r. Basically this whole report is one big bitch session.

Eventually not hitting flops (or turns or rivers) took its toll on me as the blinds increased. My starting stack of
2500 had been hovering between 1600 and 1100 for about 30 mins. I hadn't played a hand at all in a while and the blinds were to go up to 75/150. I decided to try to steal the blinds and/or hit a flop/represent hitting a flop with a weird hand. Its not done in omaha too much for good reason. Its hard to misrepresent your hand too much because its impossible to definitively put a pplayer on NOT having a hand. Everyone has 4 cards, and many raise any A2 so they can have any cards at all for the other 2. So I'm pretty sure that this move was really dumb and just me trying to make something happen because nothing was happening with me sitting and waiting. That normally causes silliness like the below hand to happen

Seat 1: Chubagabra (4414 in chips)
Seat 2: route66 (2527 in chips)
Seat 3: Katja Thater (1753 in chips)
Seat 4: Me (1162 in chips)
Seat 5: briaann1 (5946 in chips)
Seat 6: MysticMisty (5655 in chips)
Seat 7: BJCAS (2084 in chips)
Seat 8: jethro (2105 in chips)
Seat 9: octane190 (2569 in chips)
BJCAS: posts small blind 50
jethro: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Me [Jh Kd 7h Qs]
octane190: folds
Chubagabra: calls 100
route66: folds
Katja Thater: folds
Me: raises 100 to 200
briaann1: folds
MysticMisty: folds
BJCAS: calls 150
jethro: folds
Chubagabra: calls 100
*** FLOP *** [2s Ts 4c]
BJCAS: checks
Chubagabra: checks
Me: bets 100
BJCAS: calls 100
Chubagabra: folds
*** TURN *** [2s Ts 4c] [Ac]
BJCAS: checks
Me: checks
*** RIVER *** [2s Ts 4c Ac] [9c]
BJCAS: checks
Me: checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
BJCAS: shows [As 4h 6h 3h] (HI: two pair, Aces and Fours; LO: 6,4,3,2,A)

Basically I was hoping to buy the button and isolate against a weak preflop limper. The SB calling complicated matters a bit and flop is really not very good for me but I thought I still may be able to get 2 folds after the flop and if i turn a draw i may get to see a free river. Once my flop bet is called and the A comes out I wisely figure it is time to shut it down. This leaves me with 862 chips as the blinds hit 75/150.

The next hand I'm posting would have veen great had I actually played it. In the BB with 712 chips behind this happens

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Me [3c Ks 5h Qd]
briaann1: folds
MysticMisty: folds
BJCAS: folds
jethro: folds
octane190: folds
Chubagabra: folds
route66: raises 150 to 300
Katja Thater: raises 150 to 450
Me: folds
route66: calls 150
*** FLOP *** [Qc Kd Kc]

I would have called the first raise and seen if the flop hit me at all (and it woulda hit me hard). But I didn't feel like totally committing myself to the pot with a raise and immediate reraise with such a marginal hand. Of course once I saw the flop I crapped my pants. The turn was another K to give me woulda-been quads. Both players had A2xx and AA3x and I would have tripled up to over my 2500 starting stack.

I'm able to survive another orbit by taking the blinds with A23x once before my bustout hand occurs and I go out ~675th.

Me: posts small blind 75
briaann1: posts big blind 150
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Me [Ah Qs Ac 8d]
MysticMisty: folds
BJCAS: folds
jethro: folds
octane190: folds
Chubagabra: folds
route66: folds
wytails: folds
Me: raises 150 to 300
briaann1: raises 150 to 450
Me: raises 150 to 600
Betting is capped
briaann1: calls 150
*** FLOP *** [Th Js 4d]
Me: bets 112 and is all-in
briaann1: calls 112
*** TURN *** [Th Js 4d] [Ts]
*** RIVER *** [Th Js 4d Ts] [5c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Me: shows [Ah Qs Ac 8d] (HI: two pair, Aces and Tens)
briaann1: shows [Kd Qc Tc Qd] (HI: three of a kind, Tens)

All the relevant action occurs preflop. At that point I have 71% equity and a slightly better 77% chance of at least getting some piece of the pot and a cool 65% chance at scooping the whole thing. Even the board isn't scary (He needs JJ, 44, 55 or a T to beat me) Except he does have a Ten.

Bottom line: I have no luck. I haven't been on a bad streak like this before, but I know that the bad luck eventually turns, and when you are running good its the best feeling in the world. I hope that happens soon. Another 6 months like this last one and I'll need to borrow some money.

Damnit I missed the 2nd chance event typing this. I'll have to wait until Saturday to enter more. My next entry in this blog will be Saturday. In it, I will be making some $$$$$$, getting drunk and talking smack.