LAPC Tourney Report

Last week I played the Los Angeles Poker Classic main event at Commerce Casino also referred to as the LAPC. Even in a faltering economy people came out of the woodworks for this event for a total of 745 players. That’s pretty remarkable for a $10,000 event. As well, there were tons of satellite winners unlike previous WPTs of the past year. Full Tilt, Ultimate Bet, and Party Poker were all running satellites to the event and that helped a lot in making the field a bit bigger. It reminded me of the good ole days before the UIGEA bannings took place. Ahhhh yes, the golden years.

So day 1 of the LAPC I ended up late registering and they put me in the tent outside. While I always love being in the main room of the tournament, there was way less commotion and it was much easier for me to be focused during the tourney. I had a few decent online players at my table but the majority of the table was rather fishy. Initially I really liked my seat at the table with position on the good players and the bad players on my left. After a few orbits I quickly realized the guy two to my left was playing every hand. When I say every hand, I mean EVERY HAND. It was unlike anything I had ever seen and I had to readjust my gameplan for the table. I don’t care who you are. If there’s someone playing 100% of hands to your left, it’s going to be an issue and force you to tighten up. So I nitted it up for a level or two and picked my spots. Thirty minutes before our table was about to break, I bricked a straight flush draw against top set to knock myself down to 12k with 20k starting stack.

After our table broke, I got moved to a tougher table with Glen Chorny, Marco Johnson, and Benjamin Zamani. With Zamani on my left, I had to play conservative. Luckily early on at the table there was an uber fish who was tilted from a string of hands lost in a row. I hit top pair in a 3-way pot on a K108 rainbow board with KQo. I bet 1200, he made it 4k and I called. Turn was the 8, he bet 5k and I shipped for 12k total. He called and I flipped over my hand. He made some sigh and then never flipped over his hand. The dealer never realized this and the river came a queen. It was clear I had won the pot but to what hand I had no idea and never did find out. It was a very weird situation but I won the pot so I wasn’t going to demand the guy tell me what he had. I ended the day with 30k and was pretty happy with it after having 10k at my lowest point.

Day 2 I had a pretty good table and hit quads and Aces full and got lots of action on both. Then bad a pretty bad call against Poker Jamers but later busted him in two straight hands. After I had to fold Kings on a 1010592 board I ended the day with a solid 80k. I still have no idea if the fold was correct but after talking about it with some top notch players everyone said to fold the river.

The next day was hectic. I got caught in traffic on a Sunday and due to some heroic backroads driving I only missed one hand. After I got there I quickly dusted off 50k to Hoyt Corkins after playing AKo a bit aggressively in a reraised pot postflop. He said, well I guess I’m beat and shipped it in with 88 on a 2356 board and was good. After winning a flip and some other pots I found myself back up to 90k. At this point I got moved to “the table of death”. Literally everyone at the table was some form of a sicko. The table was as follows: Shawn Buchanan, me, Wretchy, Allen Bari, Begs Clutch, Agrifrod, Jason Mercier, Tony Cousineau, and Sketchy1. Pretty ridiculous table for a field full of plenty of fish left. I knew I was going to have to play my best at this table. Initially I set my super tight image and then started opening some pots. After I started raising some hands, I raised 108hh in the cutout to 4500 at 900/1800. Yes, a Matt Savage main event structure has that level in it and it was awesome. Well, the few hands I played during it. BegsClutch reraises to 14.5k with about 100k total. We have a lot of history online and it just seemed like a spot where he was trying to 3bet me light. I decided it was time to go for it and shipped for 90k. He then took definitely way too long to call with the hand he had. He even said “I got a big hand bro”. That meant to me I guess that means he’s folding. Then 10 seconds went by and he repeated excepting saying “I got a GIGANTIC hand bro”. Now, I had no idea what to think. Then 5 more seconds went by and he called with Kings. I flopped a 10 but bricked out and that was that. It felt so gross busting like that. It felt even grosser to basically get unintentionally slowrolled to bust. I mean, the dude had Kings. What’s he thinking about!?! I know he’s a nice guy but regardless, no need to take that long in a hand.

So if there’s one thing you learned from this blog, it’s don’t 4bet 10 high for your tourney life! It feels so gross busting out of a 10k buyin tournament like that. I was just in shock for a bit and quickly scampered home and sulked for a bit. Oh well. At least I went out fighting!!! Alright, this blogs getting too long. Talk to you guys soon.

Posted on by Roothlus in Blog

One Response to LAPC Tourney Report

  1. Bacary

    Did you read the Sklansky tourney book? If not, you solhud. I don’t know if it all translates to the one-tables, but it will help you with the multis.Oh, and I have the What would a top player have done with my hand? thought all the time.

Reply to Bacary