My streak of second best in the PAPT

Last night was our regular home game tournament, the PAPT. 10 runners, top 3 gets cash and points for the player of the year award. Our points leader, Tyke, has been in somewhat of a cold streak and hasn't gotten past 36 pts in several weeks. On the other hand, Ramel and I have been on quite a tear - Ramel has won 3 weeks in a row recently, notching a win basically 3 out of the past 4 weeks. In the past 6 weeks that I played in I've come in first or second 5 times.

The funny thing is that about two or three months ago, when Hoy did his "scouting report" on the BBT Top 10 bloggers, one of my friends said that it would be interesting to do something like that for the PAPT crew. So, I went ahead and did it. For all the regulars in the game, I did a fairly detailed write-up on how I thought their game was (or the lack there of). It's amazing what putting thoughts down on paper does. It made me realize how I was playing against this competition so incorrectly.

What do I mean? I know some of the PAPT crew reads this blog (ahem, Tyke) and I think knowing this might benefit them. So, obviously, I'm not gonna put the whole write-up I did for every player but out of our 10 regular runners, there are approximately 3 players that will fall in love with their starting hands. What do I mean? I don't mean that they can't let go of the hand after the flop or the turn if they don't connect. But rather, if they decide that they like their hand, they don't care what the other players do. So, when they raise, I tighten up a little, but when I have a big hand, I go ahead and bump up the pot significantly. In other words, I do the overbet for value early in the hand, preflop, when they are still loving their AQ or something like that.

Then there are couple that I know I can outplay. Those are few and I think the PAPT crew here reading this would know who I am talking about. I mean they just play a weak passive game. I'd say weak tight except when their idea of a good hand is as bad as KTs, I can't say that that's a tight player. But there's a lot of instance where some players will limp then fold to a raise. It's almost a tell. Last night, there was an instance where this one player limped from the cut off. I knew he was weak. I look down and I see K8. Cards don't matter here. I bumped it up to 4.5x the BB (I think it was 2-4 so I bumped it up to 18). Now shockingly, a fairly tight BB called my raise so I didn't like that too much. Flop comes 10-5-x, completely missing me. But again, cards don't matter here. BB checks, CO bets out. Now cutoff isn't stupid so I knew he must have hit the hand. But I also know he plays his connectors weak (that's what weak passive players do). So, I thought at best, he has J-10. So, he bet out 20 into a pot of over 50. So, I raise him another 50 on top. BB looked pained but he folded to my aggression. The said CO? He mulled over it for a while, mumbled something about a kicker, and folded. Don't play weak if you're out of position against me. I WILL punish you for it.

In the end, I amassed a huge chip lead going into heads up battle... against my recent nemesis Ramel. I had a 3 to 1 chip lead but after a few ill timed bluff attempts, we were even in chips. And then the final hand. I felt like I trapped him fairly well. I had AQs. I call from the small blind. Ramel bumps it up another 100 on top (blinds are 15-30), we both have about 700-800 in chips. At that point, I knew he had a moderately good hand. Two face, Ax, or a pair. But again, he'll do that with any ace or any two face. So, I liked my chances and he's one of the guys I peg as one to fall in love with their starting hands. I thought I probably have him crushed. So, I just shoved. He instacalled. I was close but a little off. He had KJ (I was hoping a hand like AJ or KQ - basically anything but two live cards). Well, the river brings the K to an otherwise unimproved board and once again, Ramel takes it. 4th time in 5 weeks. And I, once again, come in 2nd. So sad...

For those of you keeping track, I have updated the points on the side as well.