I have played 3 of Planet Hollywood's low buy-in tourneys recently and cashed in all 3. I just wanted to report here that, as I've stated in previous posts, this is absolutely the best low buy-in tournament in town and, as my results suggest, the competition is not staggeringly good. I've also noticed the numbers have been dwindling lately and don't know why considering the good location, low buy-in and good structure should make this extremely popular. Maybe the rumors are true and poker really is on the decline. Anyhow, I think I relayed my experience in the first tournament in my last post so I'll run down my experiences from the last two here.

The first tournament I played was about a month ago and I didn't get very many good starting hands or flop any monsters. There were a shade under 60 runners and I believe they paid 8. I lost between 1/3 to 1/2 of my stack early when I ran into AK with my AQ on an A-high flop. We didn't get it all-in, but the pre-flop raises and bets/calls on every street took a bit of a toll on my stack. This hand was played out by a woman who would be my friendly nemesis for the rest of the night.

My tables in this tournament as well as other PH tourneys I've played have been fairly tight-weak. If the play loosens up at all, it's normally pre-flop. I was able to take advantage of this to work my stack up to around average. I did this through selective aggression which normally allowed me to take the pots without a fight. I never had any cards, but, through betting enough to put other stacks at risk, was able to induce folds. Nobody seemed willing to go to battle without super premium hands and this remained the case even as the blinds increased and the money bubble approached. If I got any play back, I always folded, but since this was rarely the case, I managed to keep an average stack as the bubble approached. Just before the bubble, I was a below average stack and got (another) AQ all-in post-flop against AJ on an A X X flop. My kicker held and we were in the money and I had a decent stack.

When there were 4 left we began discussing a chop. The chop would have paid just under $400 a piece, but the chip leader didn't want it because there were 3 nearly equal stacks and my stack which had about 4BB in it and was half of the others. He wanted to get down to equal stacks before we chopped. I thought I was fortunate on the next hand when I managed to limp heads up with my nemesis while I was in the big blind with J-4 and caught a jack high flop. I pushed all-in and she called me with no pair, but a gut shot straight draw. The back door became a full-fledged flush draw on the turn, but the gut shot hit on the river and out I went in 4th earning a little more than $200. I was happy to get my money in as an 80% fave, but these things happen. To my dismay, the 3 remaining immediately chopped.

The next time I played the tourney there were a little less than 50 runners. I started off with the big stack when, in the first level my AA got all-in vs. my opponents KJ after about 5 raises back and forth. I didn't know what he was thinking that early with super-low blinds, but the A-rag-rag flop sealed his fate and I knocked the first player out.

The deck continued to run hot when I limped from late position with 6-8 suited along with about 5 other players to see a 5-7-9 flop. Another big stack pushed all-in to my feeler bet and I had an easy call. His bad luck set of 7's didn't improve, and I was the chip leader with a monster stack early in the tourney.

I managed to ride my aggression to a decent chip lead at the final table. I was bluffed off top pair/weak kicker by an excellent older gentleman at the table who showed his second pair bluff, but still managed to stay above average. I knocked off the bubble boy and his super mini-stack when he pushed all in for 3,000 against my 2,000 big blind and I was obligated to call with, yep, 7-2 off. I was only a 60-40 dog, so it wasn't a huge suck-out. I knocked out 2 more players when I won one 70-30 with TT vs. A8 and a dominant ace held up and we ended up with a heads up chop that payed me over $500.

In both of these tourneys, I used aggression, more selective when I was the short stack, to cash. It's contrary to the weak-tight style I utilize and believe wins in cash games. It's funny because in the first of the two tourneys, I never knocked out a single player while in the second I knocked out 6 or 7. Just goes to show there's more than one-way to go deep in a tourney. Hope you enjoyed.