WEAKend Warrior (Days 2 & 3)

Day 2 of the WCOOP was a LHE and 2-7 Triple Draw tournament. Since limit is my favorite game, and basically nobody knows how to play triple draw, I was basically counting my money already.

Oh, wait, I also have to get cards as well.

Bummer.

The limit started off poorly with two river straights being caught against me and pretty much went downhill from there. Got up to almost 4k (from the starting stack of 3k) at my high point and then lost a few crucial hands. The worst was a button vs SB battle where the SB had AK and bet/raised at every opportunity. I was happy to keep putting bets in with my AJ when the flop came jack high. We went one bet on the king river.

Had a couple of comeback hands after that. Played AA aggressively and got called down by 99 on all streets. Had 57hh on a 236hh board and went a couple bets on the flop, hit a 4 turn and an 8 river to give me the super-nuts.

After that, I played A8 in position vs a loose player. The flop came down 553 giving me a runner flush draw and ace high. He bet out and I figured that he is weak here so often that I have to call on flop with plans to bet/raise any diamond or scare card on the turn. The turn peeled off a beautiful ace and I just called because I didn't want to scare him off. I knew I had the best hand and wanted to keep him in to get at least one bet on the river. The river came a 4 and the trapper became the trapee when he rolled over 22.

After that I had to find a spot to stick the rest of my stack in, and I took it with AJ folded to me. The SB woke up with AA and I was gone.

The triple draw went about as well. The thing about triple draw is that it's all about position. If you have position on a player, you have a huge advantage since you can see what they do before you act on every decision. This means you can adjust how many cards you draw based on what you see them do, you can react to bets easier (betting when they are weak, when they will never know if you are weak until after they bet), and you can force more people off of hands (or the converse, you can stay on mediocre hands knowing that you are ahead when they are drawing).

Sadly, in triple draw as well as limit hold em, you still have to make hands. I made very few hands and was out early. Here is something I typed up right after the hand played out to give you another example of triple draw strat:


The last hand before the break was an interesting example of 2-7 strat, so I'll share it. I started with 98732 in the cutoff and 3bet a raiser. The goal was to get the button to fold so I'd hopefully be HU in position. This would make me a big favorite in the hand as I could stand pat in position if he drew two and get a fold (or make him call bets with him drawing and me ahead), or break and draw to the 87 if he drew one and then stood pat on the second draw. My being in position would help me tremendously as I can see what he does, and he has to try to not make a mistake based only on how many I'm drawing. The button called 3 cold, though, and they both drew 2. I drew 1 b/c in a three way pot without position I knew I'd have to at least improve to a 87, and even then my hand wouldn't be very strong. I 2bet after the flop to try again to get position and the button called along again. At this point I was done with the hand, as I had to catch well just to have a fairly weak made hand. Everyone drew 1 on the turn and river and no bets were put in and I took it down with my J, which was a fortunate outcome to a well played hand.