Heartland Poker Tour Gary, IN And The Guy Who Folds Kings Preflop To Me

The buyin was $2700 to play against the best construction workers, farmers, and ghetto black people in the Gary area. There was 208 players and first place was 141k. The structure was not too bad. You start with 15k in chips and blinds start at 100/100 with 40 minute levels.

My table was super weak besides one guy who was playing perfect poker. He had some major game. I was completely owning the first 3 hours. Floating flops when i thought they were weak and taking it away on a later street. Every single one of my bluffs worked besides one. The one that didnt work was a blind on blind war and the guy called me with A-7 on a k-8-9-6-7 board. It went check-check on flop. He bet the pot on turn 400 and i called with a pair of 6s. i put him on an open ended on turn. he bet 500 on river and i raised him 1000 more. I think its a great bluff even though the guy was a major donkey. One guy who i was completely owning was getting really frustrated with me and kept commenting how i bluff all the time. i only got busted bluffing one hand!

I got up to 38k in chips at one point then i made my only mistake of the tourney. this new guy at the table min raised my big blind to 1200 on the button. i called with k-8 (no spades). it came k-3-2 all spades. i checked he bet 1200 i raised 2400 more then he went allin for 6000 more. It was such an easy laydown but i just suffered a mental lapse.

So i basically went no where for the next 2 levels. the blinds went from 300/600 to 400/800 to 500/1000 then to 1k/2k. once it got to 1k/2k it turned into a shove fest. i knew i had win to a coinflip soon to start a run to the money.
i had 26k and shoved in the small blind with k-q and the big blind had 99. i barely had him covered and that was basically it.

I feel like im playing so much better in tournaments now. I used to show a bluff to get paid off easier when i hit a hand but i think the best strategy now is to try and get respect. They will call you anyway if you are being active at the table and i will probably get busted bluffing eventually. This style was working really well when i was playing the $560 satellite the night before the main event tourney. I was showing good hands when people were calling me and i didnt reraise someone once preflop. So i reraised preflop this one guy who i thought was picking on limpers a little bit too much and i thought i would get respect if i reraised. He was a pretty good player so i know he will lay a hand down like 10s to me. He folds less 10 seconds after i raise him saying that he knows i have aces and folds his kings face up!!!!! i had 5-6 offsuit.

i was playing not even close to nitty but i was showing down good hands when i was called. I was trying this strategy in a 5/10nl cash game at the casino the day before the main event and it was working really well. i was showing down good hands at the start then i started just stealing like crazy so easily. It was a good thing i was getting respect because i has having a very hard time hitting a hand. I did two 3-barrel bluffs and both of them worked because they saw me show down really good hands when i was called. Although eventually they did see some of the crap hands i was raising with.

I feel like im really on to something. Watch out world series of poker.