Bax, LAG, & Players Taking a Shot

JohnnyBax, who is tied for first on the Extreme Tilt Leader Board, is currently playing in the Borgata Winter Poker Open, a World Poker Tour event in Atlantic City. There is only one way to describe his play there: CRUSHING.

At the end of Day 1, he is the chip leader with $376,000. Eric Seidel is second with $134,000!! Of course, it's no easy task to go wire to wire to win any tournament, but Bax with chips is no easy thing for his opponents either.

You had a feeling that it might be a big day for Bax when he won his first monster pot with his "signature hand" 9 7 sooooted (in this case clubs). In the hand, 3 players call a preflop raise of $850. Not sure what the blinds were but there is at least 2600 in the pot. Flop is Ks 8s 5c. The preflop raiser bets $1100 and Bax calls with just an inside straight draw and backdoor flush, but his opponent certainly didn't protect the pot. I suspect that Bax read that bet as weak and indeeded to steal the pot on the turn, but he didn't have to when 6c hits. They get all-in and the opponent flips top two pair (K 8) and he doesn't hit his boat and Bax takes it down.

EDIT: Update -- In a Cardplayer video, Bax says they got it wrong -- he had 9 7 spades, so he had flush and inside straight. Video.

Later Bax called an all-in by Sdouble (Josh Schlein). Bax had trip queens vs the nut flush draw. The queens held up. Finally, near the end of the night, Bax did suck out when his two pair were up against a straight, but he hit the boat on the river.

See coverage CardPlayer and PokerWire.

I cashed last night in the UB $200, finishing 75th out of 742 players. I should have gone deeper I think but tried to steal on the bubble (isn't that ALWAYS suppose to work?) but it backfired and I lost half my chips. I had played most of the night with JSUP on my left and I enjoyed watching him play.

For me, it was a pretty straight forward tournament because I had very few decisions to make. I only had maybe one post flop laydown that I was wondering about (I had top pair from the big blind with a terrible kicker and I folded to a reraise). I never had AA; never hit a straight, flush, and I can't even recall two pair. I hit trips once but didn't get paid off. Just nothing. I finally had to race twice before cashing and won those. The only hand I regretted was when a loose player raised pretty significantly preflop and I wanted to call with my little 66 but a second player reraised all in for about 900 chips. I had 2900 at the time and wanted to call that but I figured one of them was ahead and folded (one guy had AK, the other 88). The flop was 6 2 2 and that would have been a nice time to more than double. I finally went out with two pair, which beat AA in the hand but lost to a guy who hit trips. I did win 6 tecs this weekend, so that's nice.

LAG and Players Taking a Shot

"LAG" stands for a loose aggressive style of play and it's becoming more and more popular. I don't mind playing against LAG players at all because it is EXTREMELY hard to master. Basically, if you ever show weakness, say with a tough laydown, these players who don't really get LAG target you. It's great. The next time you hit your hand, you make some weak 1/3 pot bet post flop and they will double you.

But, the irritating thing about these players is that they often take a shot at you preflop when you have a good pair. I have noticed a HUGE increase in this.

I need to learn how to handle this situation. Essentially, you have AA or KK and raise it up big preflop. But if it's early, it's not a huge bet. Say blinds are 10/20 and you raise it 140. You are pretty much announcing your hand. These players call with any two cards and hope for two pair or better. In recent days my big pairs have lost to Q 10 (trip 10s), Q 7 (flush), and K 9 (two pair).

I'm starting to think the only way to play is simply to go all-in preflop. You, of course, win the hand almost all of the time right there, but you do get called from time to time by players with AK, AQ, and almost any pair. I'm still struggling with this.