POTD #287 I Battle Local Hero Michael Addamo on His Home Turf
Can I win a difficult road match?
Yesterday I wrote about a hand I played in the $100,000 Challenge in the 2020 Aussie Millions, but today we are going to go back in time a couple days to talk about the other tournaments I played on that trip. The first tournament I played was the $25,000 Challenge. It had 169 entries and I came in 4th place. I don’t remember many hands from that tournament, and even reading through the Pokernews live reporting, my memory was not jogged— there was a lot of “Sam Greenwood gets all in with AK and beats JJ,” Perhaps it was the jetlag, perhaps it was just an uneventful tournament with a successful result. The next tournament I played was the $50,000 Challenge. It had 82 runners and it was another tournament I entered just one time and got knocked out in 4th place. I would have preferred some wins, or at least some podium finishes, but I could not complain: Two bullets and two fourth place finishes requires running very hot.
I don’t remember many hands from the $50,000 Challenge either, but I certainly remember my bustout hand because it featured an out of character play from me. I was never a big preflop clicker even when that was a big part of the metagame, and in the hand I five-bet bluff-shoved into Michael Addamo, got snap called by AA, and Addamo flopped 99.9% equity. I did not hit my 1/1000 shot and had to settle for another fourth place. Earlier in this paragraph I described this bustout hand as “spectacular,” but I did not use the word punt, because I am still a little unsure about it. I am unsure if it’s a solver-approved play or a good exploit, but as I was playing the hand I was definitely thinking exploitatively. I had a plan to exploit my two opponents, but I’m just not sure if it was the right plan. The only way to find out is to do some digging and see if I could have done something different or just got unlucky to run into AA.
2020 Aussie Millions $50,000 Challenge
(5k/10k/10k) (SB/BB/BBA) We are 4 Handed
4th: 398k 3rd: 477k, 2nd: 716k, 1st: $1.074M
Pokernews Update
Michael Addamo (1.45M) makes it 22k, Cary Katz (1.25M) calls on the button, Orpen Kisacikoglu (570k) folds in the SB, I (820k) make it 105k with K♠️Q♠️, Addamo makes it 230k, Cary folds, I jam 820k total, Addamo snap calls with A♣️A♦️ and I am drawing dead to a running royal flush on A♠️4♠️4♣️, which I do not hit on the T♦️ turn or K♥️ river.
