Went to Hawaiian Gardens with just under $300 in my pocket last night, disappointed that I didn't get my check yet (for 2k) from PokerStars. Played some 100 NL and decided to sign up for the Thursday night shoot-out ($120 buy-in). Incredibly soft game, but really really small stacks and fast blinds. Three tables, three players at each table advance, pay-out at final is $1060-600-500-400-275. I know, weird, right? I tripled up with TT aipf (versus AQ and K8d, wtflol) in the cash game waiting for the shoot-out to start, and then I won the shoot-out, so it was a good night. I had too much adrenaline at that point to sit down in a cash game and focus enough to play well, and at the same time, I was pretty tired, so I just went grocery shopping and went home. Tired enough that I mostly just bought stuff that would be light and easy to carry in. Except the mandatory 12 pack of Coke. We all have our addictions.
Weird stuff from the shoot-out: Standard AQ fold on the first table bubble to the other big stack's shove, with two small stacks ready to bust. I didn't care if he had Q2, I didn't want to play. He happened to have QQ, or said he did, which I believed. Really cautious player.
In the middle stages, my first table initially seemed ridiculously tough, but then they showed they were clueless about calling and shoving ranges when the blinds got really high (they just folded way too much), so it turned out to be not as much of a cakewalk as these first tables usually are, but still not very tough after all.
Same player, later on, at the final table and on the money bubble, claimed he folded HIS AQ to my M=4 AA shove. I did not think this was a good fold. I had just shoved the previous hand with J8h, although I did not show that hand. I just think that calling/reshoving is so +EV in ICM, although you have to realize that I'm capable of shoving with a really wide range. Okay, I admit that a strong player who knows me would recognize that I am going to turn up with a stronger range that you might expect, since now my M=4 instead of 3, and because I expect my opponents to be more trigger happy since I just shoved with no showdown on the previous hand, but AQ *still* must be ahead of my range, which is maybe 33+, A8+, KT+, QT+, JT, T9s, 98s, 87s.
In this tourney, pretty much the only jump in pay is for first (ignoring a weird slightly larger jump from 5-4 than for 4-3-2), and it's very large, so the tourney's ICM, I think, has strong similarities to WTA ICM, which must make it a clear call for the AQo. He just got superlucky I had aces.
Eventually got HU with a 5:2 chip lead against this same guy and I steamrolled him, T5o > A3 aipf on the final hand, flop KQJ and I binked a five on the river.
Fun fact: no limit cash games with a max buy-in are the brainchild of a man named Dave Simon and they started at Hawaiian Gardens, with one table, before spreading all over the country like wildfire. Also, HG is the only casino I know of that offers cash (not satellite) SNG's, which was also his doing.
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