Excellent Play at STS (Single Table Satellites)

Today was a great day for the poker club. I played in two single table satellites and won both of them. The single table satellites were at the Venetian; it is a $130 buy-in with first and second place getting a free seat into the $540 tournament with the opportunity to play for a first prize of over $80,000. That is prize they have been averaging for the last few days. So the next two tournaments I have won entries from the satellite play.

I played very well and got off a few good hands by making great reads on other players; one time I had KK and raised a guy called, and then another player moved in. I thought about it for a while and new this was a tight (doesn’t play a lot of hands) player so I decided to fold as I had a pretty good chip stack and didn’t need to risk it at this time; the first player called and the raiser had Pocket AA so that was one good read.

The second was when I was in the big blind with AQ and a guy in middle position raised to $300 from middle position and I smooth called. The flop came 788 and I checked, and he bet out $350 I put him on either AJ or KQ based on his past betting patterns, and decided he was trying to buy the pot. On the turn came a 4 and he checked and so did I. The river brought a 7 so there was two pair on the board. He moved all in immediately.

I took a few minutes to think about his betting and why did he not bet the turn and give me a free card but then bet the river and so much; if he wanted me to call he would have bet a small value bet that I would call so I the thought more that he had to have either an ace also or maybe a King so I called and showed my Ace high with two pair on the board; he mucked his hand and got up from the table busted… as he walked away under his breath he says, “dammit I shouldn’t have tried to steal from that guy, he is too good.” So that helped the ego as I cruised on to my second win.

That is the best way to win entries as we get a $1000 worth of events for only a quarter of the price. I will be playing in tomorrow’s Venetian event and will update the blog tomorrow night.

Until next time…