I have not played in a WSOP Step 5 tourney yet. Mostly because I haven't earned another ticket but I'm getting close. I have another Step 4 ticket so I'm getting close. I think I'm running out of time for this as well.
A week from today I leave for Vegas so I have 6 more days to play in these tourneys before I leave and I think PokerStars may be ending these tourneys soon. So I probably only have about 2 more weeks to try to win Step 6.
I watched a Step 5 tourney and it didn't seem that much different than any of the tourneys I have played so far. There usually seems to be 1 or 2 donkeys who try to make a move early in the tourney and lose against a made hand. Otherwise there seems to be a lot of tight play and it comes down to a lot of races where 1 players goes all-in with a pocket pair and the other calls with a big Ace (AK, AQ or even AJ).
I have still been playing in a bunch of these Steps tourneys but mostly at level 2 or 3. I have been having terrible luck in all of my races and haven't been able to get more than the 1 additional ticket to Step 4.
This brings me to some examples of the terrible flops I've seen lately. A couple of nights ago I was playing in a Step 3 tourney and we were down to 4 players. The blinds were pretty high and I was the short stack. The other short stack who just barely had me covered pushed all-in from UTG (first after the blinds). I called from the button with AJo.
Since he was short stacked also and next to hit the blinds I was hoping to be against a worse Ace than mine or a small pocket pair at best. After the 2 blinds folded, he turned over AcJc so we were basically even. He was probably slightly ahead since his cards were suited.
At least that was the case until the flop came down KcQcTc. Yes, he flopped a royal flush. I think that's the first time I've ever seen that and I know it's never happened against me before.
On the same night, I was in about the same situation except I think there were 5 players remaining. I was on the button with TT and the UTG player pushed all-in pre-flop. The player after him also pushed all-in. I was 4th in chips and thought this was a decent opportunity to triple up. My only fear was that one of the 2 all-in players would have a bigger pocket pair than me.
I decided to call and to my surprise, the big stack in the Big Blind also called all-in for over half his stack. If he loses he's still alive but without very many chips. Then to my incredibly pleasant surprise, all 3 of my opponents turn over AK!
Unless the board comes with QJT, they have 2 outs between the 3 of them to beat me. Then to my horror the flop comes out AKx. I don't even remember what the 3rd card was because I was so shocked. So the 3 of them end up splitting the pot and I go out in 5th place :(
Those hands seem to be the turning point for my bad race results lately. It seems I'm on some sort of streak where I can't win a race and therefore can't win any of these tourneys. Of course this comes after I won a bunch of races to earn my Step 5 ticket so I can't complain too much.
And I definitely can't complain since I'm leaving for Vegas in a week!!!!!!
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