It’s always said that you cannot win a tournament in the first few levels, but you can certainly lose it. Navigating the treacherous waters early on is important, as is knowing what ranges of hands are going to be good against certain players.
So far it’s not been smooth sailing for PokerStars Team Pro Celina Lin. In only the third level, she lost a large pot with top two pair against a flush draw. That’s not to say it hasn’t been entertaining for her in the meantime. Here, Lin talks briefly about the hand that cost her over 40% of her stack and why she thinks her table are really trying to gamble it up today.
“The blinds were 100/200 and I made it 450, a guy in late position calls and then the small blind and big blind both call. The flop came down A♦ Q♣ 4♦ and so I led out for 900. The guy behind me made it 3,000 and then it went back to the small blind who shoved for 12,750. I reshoved and the other guy tanked and ended up folding ace-ten.”
Peter Kleudgen was the all-in player with K♦ 9♦ . The German managed to hit on the 10♦ turn. The river paired the board but it was the 10♥ meaning Lin took a hefty hit to knock her back down to 16,000 after a previously good start but she’s since managed to recover back to her initial starting stack of 20,000. Opportunities for chip accumulation haven’t gone away yet though.
“My table is actually pretty crazy,” Lin explained, “we’ve busted two players already, chips are just flying everywhere! To be honest, a lot of the players here are the ones from Macau, they’ve all travelled here to play. In terms of the tournament itself, because it’s a repecharge people do tend to gamble a little more. I think instead of playing with the survival mentality people are trying to accumulate chips this first time round and tomorrow on the second bullet they’ll be a little bit tighter.”
When asked if she would re-enter tomorrow if eliminated today Lin replied with a laugh, “Oh definitely, I’m going all the way this week!”
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