WSOP Event 23

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

WSOP Event 23: $2,000 No-Limit Hold'em

I hope you have other things to do, because this is going to be a very short story. I picked up a couple of big hands in the first two levels, but never got much action on them.

I picked up J J in the second level, but had to fold on an ace-high flop to multiway action.

With the structure of WSOP preliminary events the way it is, you generally need to chip up in the first two hours to have a comfortable stack going to the third level, $100/$200. This is especially true in smaller-buy-in events, since you always start with twice the buy-in in starting chips ($4k for the $2k, etc.).

Unfortunately I was unable to do so on this particular day. I entered the $100/$200 level with just 2,500 chips.

After folding my big blind, Jeff Madsen opened to $550 from early position while I was in the small blind. I moved in for $2,300 total with A K. He insta-called with the K K ... which was not a problem since I hit an ace right in the window.

During the next orbit, a European player (who I later found out was Thierry "BOKPOWER" van den Berg) was moved to the table and placed on my immediate right. European players tend to be extremely aggressive, and it often pays to take a lot of flops in position against these opponents.

It folded around to Thierry in the hijack and he made it $600 to go. I decided to call from the cut-off with the K J.

This is a borderline, speculative call ... especially considering that my stack was only about $5k. But, as I mentioned, Europeans = implied odds. Anyway, the flop came T 5 3, and he led out for $1k.

I moved all-in, expecting to have some fold equity and up to 15 outs (kings, jacks and hearts) if he called.

Unfortunately, he did call and turned over A A. Not only were my pair outs dead, but he had the ace of hearts ... which not only takes away one of my outs but gives him a redraw if I turn a flush.

The turn and river bricked out anyway, and he converted my dollars to euros as I headed out into the desert to find my car.

--Matt Stout

"All In At 420"

More WSOP Blogs from Matt Stout:

• WSOP Event 17: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Shootout
  
• WSOP Event 13: $2,500 No-Limit Hold'em
• WSOP Event 9: $2,500 No-Limit Hold'em
• WSOP Event 7: $2,000 No-Limit Hold'em