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Day 2 of our poker road trip starts around 11 am. Tony and I both lost last night, so we saw no reason to wake up with the chickens and start playing the regulars at 7am. Instead, we slept in, ate a decent breakfast, and got fully woken up for a day of poker.
Tony and I get seated at the same table - he is two to my left. First hand after I sit down, I open raise in middle position with ace-queen offsuit. Two players call the bet. I hit my queen on the flop as top pair, make a 2/3 pot, and get two folds. Simple game when it works like this. It rarely worked like this yesterday, so an early, simple top pair win boosts my confidence and comfort level immediately.
An orbit later, I raise up KQo in early position and get a caller from the blind. After hitting my king, the blind leads out, and I raise him. He folds. Another easy win.
Pocket jacks - I raise to 10. Three callers this time. On a board of 267, I lead out with a pot size bet - $30. Nobody is interested, and my third pot win in two orbit makes things seem so much easier than they were yesterday. No overcards to my pairs, no resistance, no hidden sets coming at me. Yet.
I'm feeling powerful now, so I raise up two limpers on the button with JQs. Both of these players have been limping into way too many pots - this is basically an attempt to steal, so my mediocre hand doesn't matter much. I miss the flop, and bet $20 into a $36 pot. Both players call. Okay, then, one or both of these guys like their hand. Nobody puts their money in the pot on the turn and river, so we get to showdown. Bad player #1 shows Ace-eight. He had ace high, and had called a $12 raise and an $18 c-bet to get to here. Bad player #2 shows deuce-four suited, and had bottom pair. This was better than anything I had, so I mucked without having to show.
Nothing fundamentally wrong with my play here - a nice, aggressive move in position to win some money. But I obviously did it against the wrong players. If guys are going to call preflop raises with A8 and 24, and then call a big flop bet with ace-high or bottom pair, then they are calling stations, and you don't bluff them. This was not part of my ABC plan for the bad players, and it cost me $30 to find out. It also told the observant players at the table that I'm capable of firing a big bet onto a flop that can't beat bottom pair. Way to trash my image.
After the hand, I hear bad player #2 mention to bad player #1 that he feels like he often has more luck playing small cards than big ones. Good luck with that, buddy, because from now on, if you're in a pot with me, your small cards will be against my big ones.
Soon after, bad player #2 limps into another pot, and once again I isolate - this time with ace-jack. I hit my top pair on an ace-six-seven board, and bet the pot. He calls. The turn pairs the six and he checks. I check my pair behind for pot control. On the river, he comes out firing, and my check might have induced bluffs from plenty of weaker hands, so I call. Bad player reveals "I have a six" and shows six-three-off. Great-Googly-Moogly. I can't contain my astonishment - I call out "Six-three?" I am shocked at his ability to play 6-3o against a raise, but I am not tilted. In fact, I nearly break a sprint across the cardroom to reload my chips - this guy just took a big pot from me, and I plan on getting those chips back.
When I get back, Tony silently tells me "calm down". He thinks I look tilted, but I am not. Just determined. I continue to fold the proper garbage and raise with the good cards.
Many times, you don't get a chance to get revenge on a bad player who takes you for a ride, but I got lucky this day. Pocket kings in the hole, and 6-3 has already limped into the pot. I raise to $15 this time, he calls. No ace on the board, I bet pot again. He calls. The turn is a jack - he checks and I move in. He thinks quite a bit, then decides to call. He has ace-jack and just hit top pair, and I win my chips back and then some. He tells me he figures I might have been on a draw and maybe his top pair was good enough.
Helpful hint, buddy - if I know that you're willing to call pot size bets with bottom pair, and now with ace-friggin-high, why would I bloat up the pot with nothing but a draw?
15 minutes later - I limp along with the other limpers with 78 in late position and catch two pair on the flop. I bet it out, and Mr. 6-3o comes along for the ride again. A fantastic 8 hits the turn, floating my boat, and I turn up the bet-o-meter again, until he's all in by the river, with two pair (counting the two eights on the board, of course). He decides it's time for lunch and leaves the table.
This player is replaced by a much better player. He has just been moved from a table that's breaking up, so he comes fully loaded with a $600 stack. My stack is up around $250 now, so I plan on avoiding huge confrontations with this player if I can. As I mentioned earlier, I'm don't have much experience in deep stack poker - I know the basic concepts, but my lack of playing time would surely lead to some mistakes. Potentially big mistakes.
Things look like they might get testy early. I limp in early position with pocket threes and get a cheap flop. I hit my set but the board is not ideal - 3 4 6. The solid player leads out for $13, and I immediately reraise to $30. I am thinking I will fold if he moves in or raises to $100, but he ends up folding while telling me "your set is good". He says he had pocket fives, for an open ended straight draw, but my raise made it too expensive to chase. Sooooo glad I didn't smooth call with my set there.
Tony is still at my table and isn't faring any better than yesterday. He has been put into two impossible situations with two pair and calling river bets with both, only to be wrong and behind both times. We get involved in our only encounter of the weekend - I limp on the button with king-nine. By the turn, the board is 7-8-T-J, so my nine has hit a straight. Tony checkraises me, so I'm worried about queen-nine for a higher straight, but I call the checkraise anyway, with position, and a redraw to a king high straight if a queen hits.
Tony bets out again on a harmless river, but it's a callable bet with a straight on a non-flush board, so I look him up. He asks "you got the nine?". I'm about to answer "yeah, I suppose you have it too", but when I say "yeah...." he looks up to the sky and mucks, with another brutal two pair decision.
Sometime later, I get my first pocket aces of the day. A nicely-dressed gentleman with a pony tail has limped into this pot (and tons of other pots too), so I raise it up to $1. He calls. The board is the super-scary TdKdTh. I don't mess around and I bet $30. He calls and the pot is officially big, and I'm officially shitting my pants. The turn is a 3 - he checks and so do I. The river pairs the three, and he checks again. No flushes, no straights, I'm good unless he's slowplaying trips or a boat. I decide to find out and bet $32, planning to fold to a reraise, but he folds, showing JdQd. Woah! He had an open-ended straight flush draw (although I had one of his keystone cards, the ace of diamonds). I'm surprised he didn't reraise or shove on this board - I would have had an awful decision. Fortunately, he played it meekly and waited to hit before deciding what to do.
As I am taking notes on this AA hand in my notebook, I have to stop and check my hole cards for the next hand. Pocket aces again, twice in a row! I quickly stuff my notebook away and raise it up one more time, to the identical $13, and once again ponytail call cold-calls. The board is much less scary this time, and once again I get maximum value on a pot size flop bet. On the turn, I check out his stack, which is $42, and exclaim "I'll put you all in", to which he throws his cards into the muck like there are fire ants crawling on them.
My favorite hand of the weekend - I call a tiny $5 raise with Ah4h in the small blind. The raiser - the good, deep-stacked player that replaced the 6-3o guy that I stacked earlier, has used this small raise several times before, and had to show down a couple times. Once, he showed pocket eights - which lead me to believe that this bet is a "pot pumper" raise, designed to build the pot up preflop so that, if he hits his high-implied-odds type hand later, the postflop bets and final pot size will be bigger. With Ah4h, I have a high-implied-odds hand of my own, so his small raise serves my purposes beautifully.
I am rewarded with a legitimate flush draw and two hearts on the flop, on a rather disconnected board. I check-call a normal flop bet. We both check the turn - a non-heart. I am of course singing the mantra "heartheartheartheart" as the river card is dealt, but nobody is apparently listening. We see a black king.
My first inclination is to give up the hand, but then I remember that my opponent is a good, thinking player. Hey, you can bluff guys who are paying attention! I decide to pretend like the king hit me, and dial up a number to value bet. I count out 4 red chips, and at the last second I add one white one, and announce "$21" as I spread the chips over the line. My opponent exhales. "Oh, man, you've got a king, huh?. Damn. Because, you, know, I have a king, too. My kicker is garbage, though. Twenty-one? You had to get that extra dollar in there, didn't you?" I am inwardly beaming with pride that the number I chose for my bet has had the exact, intended effect.
He contemplates a few more seconds. "Will you show if I fold?" he asks. The classic give-up. I promise him that I will indeed show. He folds, turning over king-deuce-of hearts. We were shooting for the same flush, and he might have lost a rather large chunk of money had the fourth diamond come!
I show my busted flush draw as well. He studies my hand and board and realizes what I've done, and then pays me a compliment. "Wow, nice hand, sir - I didn't think you had it in you. Very nice." He seems sincere.
I play for one more hour, but no cards come for me. We break for dinner.
Session total - +254 dollars
Trip total - +54 dollars
Tony and I take the three hour drive to Wheeling Island Casino and arrive around 3pm Thursday. The casino is already hopping with the weekend traffic.
I like to go into a poker game with a plan. My plan this weekend is to buy in reasonably short for the 1-2 table - $120, or 60 big blinds. I know I will be nervous due to my inexperience in the cardroom, and want to mitigate my mistakes by buying in a bit shorter. 60 blinds is also the depth I start at in our Thursday home game, so there's a comfort level there.
The second part of my plan is to play tight-aggressive, ABC poker - especially against those that I identify as bad players. My home game doesn't have any bad players anymore - I'm usually against 5-7 solid players, and winning money is often a chore. In this game, I will raise my good hands, bet the flop when I hit. I will try a few limps in position and hope for monsters. I will setmine. No need to get tricky - I have more experience than the average player, and I need simply execute and I should win money, at least in the long run.
My nervousness manifests itself immediately. I post the big blind in middle position, and then fold 9-5o when it comes around to me! Whoopsie. The dealer says "ooo, honey, you could have played that one for free". I attempt damage control with a reply "those cards weren't worth a play, even for free". I hope the table is watching and thinks it's the first time I've played poker, perhaps I've earned some "donkey equity" or something.
In the first orbit, I fold A8 and A9o. A8 would have flopped 2 pair - that's ok, I tell myself. That's the right long term play.
My first win is limping with a suited king on the button - King-Eight of diamonds. Not a stellar hand, but I am confident enough in my own game now that I won't end up with all my chips in the middle if a king flops and nothing else. "You don't play K8s for top pair", I remind myself as the dealer shows the flop - which is a king, a three, and an eight! Two pair looks good on this board. The blind leads out "to find out where he's at", and I tell him with a raise. He folds. Could I have won another bet with a smooth call? Possibly. But this wasn't part of my ABC plan. I most probably have the best hand, and I'm going to put money in the pot. If he's got ace-king or king-queen and wants to come along, great.
A hit a bit of frustration with pocket queens. I raise them up to $15 (with a live straddle on the table) and get a caller. The caller is a gray-hair, "cadgy codger" type. Plays solid cards, a bit conservatively. The board comes king high and I continuation bet 15 more. He calls. There is now a 100% chance that he has a king. I give up on the turn and he bets 30, and I fold. He shows the king. "Yup, I was pretty sure", I reply, and return the favor by flashing the pocket queens to the table. I want them knowing I'm playing normal cards in a normal way at this point - this can help me loosen up later.
You don't play solid all the time, every time. Your "rules" can get you in trouble. I called a raise with A7 on the button. Ace-rag is a hand that gets you in trouble, but as I said before, I'm not going to go broke on top pair. Of course, the ace comes on an ace-three-three board. I call the leadout bet of $10, from a young player. (note to self, "why not raise here?"). I call another bet of $15 on the turn, which is an 8. Yup, I'm putting a bunch of money in the pot with one pair (although the threes on the board increase the likelihood of a chop - if another high card comes - it will counterfeit many kickers). The river is another eight, so the board is A3388. The bet is now $50, and that's just way too expensive for three pair. I fold, and the player can't help but show his quad eights. Great, I let him get there by call/call/calling, when a flop raise would have potentially won me a fold. Donkalicious play by me.
Fortunately, I don't play all my ace-rag hands this badly. I check my cards in the big blind and find ace-ten. Too weak for me to raise up at this point - the poor players will call anyway. I check my option, and we see a AKQ flop. This is the true "find out where you're at" type-hand, so I lead out on the broadway board and get one caller. He's a blue-collar guy who has limped into just about every pot, so his range is just about any two. I decide to check a blank turn, and then bet small on a blank river. He calls the small bet, with king-three. Nice. Also nice that I didn't get wacked by a nutty two pair.
Another button play - I call a raise with QJs. Again, more trouble, but I'm not playing for top pair, I treat QJs more like suited connectors. The board comes A24 and the raiser, another tight older gentleman in a cowboy hat, checks! I think I know exactly what he has here - a pocket pair below the aces (JJ/QQ/KK), or maybe KQ. That's about all his raising range. I shoot out a bet with nothing, but he calls. This tight guy didn't open raise with anything that hit this board hard (A2, A4, 35), except for maybe pocket aces that he now decided to slowplay. I think there's a chance I could move him off this hand, but I basically chicken out after the flop. On the river, he says "an ace is good" and shows down pocket kings. Damn. A lost opportunity.
I'm down quite a bit for the session when I get king-queen. I have been a bit aggressive lately so I decide to limp along with this one, and I hit the board hard with KQx. A solid player bets and I decide to smooth call this time, with no huge draws on the board. The turn is gin - King for the nuts, and the villain bets again, clearly for value. He's got a king too, nice. I smooth call one more time, then raise his river bet slightly, hoping for a shove from AK. He calls with KJ, and I nearly double up.
The killer hand of the night for me - a solid, friendly player to my right raises to $7. I feel like his range is pretty wide, so I re-raise to 20 with AQs. I would like to play him heads up, in position. Before I can execute my plan, though, a red-faced fellow cold-calls my $20 from the blind, and so the friendly guy calls too, now with some odds. The board comes QJx, and the red-faced guy announces all-in, for $32. Friendly guy calls the all-in, and it's now to me. Top pair/top kicker, with nearly 4-1 odds? Ok, I call.
I like the turn a lot - an ace, giving me top two. Friendly guy checks, and I start counting out chips. Friendly guy warns "let's not get crazy now, I like my hand a lot". It's not a threat, really, it's a friendly warning. Earlier in the evening, he made a decent sized river bet, and a bad player was contemplating calling. Friendly guy says "if you have to think this hard, I warn you that you should fold, I have you beat". I checked out the board again - there was a broadway straight out there, and I knew what he was saying - "I can't beat that straight, but I can beat just about everything else". Bad player ignored Friendly guy and called with two pair, and lost to a set of jacks. Friendly guy appears to tell the truth.
Remembering that hand, I thought I might be up against a set of jacks here, so I decided to check as well.
The river bricked, and Friendly guy checked. I felt like he would bet the set, and probably wouldn't call with anything worse than top two, so I checked into the empty side pot as well, expecting to drag an already sizable pot. It was not to be, though- bad cold-caller was in the pot with king-ten. The flop gave him an eight out straight draw, and he decided this was enough to go on. The ace on the turn gave him the win, and whacked a giant chunk out of my stack.
It was 10:30pm, and I counted my stack. I was up one dollar. Delightful.
By 11pm, three guys sat down at our table that knew each other and played in the same home game. They didn't strike me as particularly good. One called a clear river value bet on a four flush board with the jack of that suit, and looked somewhat surprised to see the ace.
I tried a rare blind steal from the button with a hand I already had success with - K8s. Both blinds called, and then checked. I had whiffed but fired out $16 anyway. One guy called. The turn didn't help me, but remembering how I had given up against the old guy with kings, I double barrelled thirty into the pot. Home game guy moved in on me, and I had to bail. I also had to top up my stack another $80, as I wasn't gaining much ground.
I think my luck is about to change when I get my first pair of aces, but I bet and get one caller, and he folds to my flop bet, so I win very little. Damn.
I bleed a bit more off on some nowhere hands - once is a straddle limp with 88 (raising seems wrong because of so many cold callers). I give up on the AKQ flop. Once I raise up KJs to $10 (five times the blind) and get 4 callers, the winner of that hand is the home game guy who wins the pot with 35s and a flush. Oy.
It's 12:30 and I've got $30 in my stack, and I'm not planning on reloading again tonight. I find KQ and raise to 12, committing myself on purpose. Someone calls, and then the blind re-raises to $55. I call. The cold-caller thinks for a bit and says "I'll sit this one out", and flashes king-queen also. Uh-oh. Re-raiser's got the aces, I've lost two of my outs, and my night is over.
Discouraging, yes - but overall I played ok, I think. I lost my biggest amounts on aggressive play with good hands, or attempts to buy pots without cards. That won't work every time.
Net for the session (and the trip) - minus $200
Having lots of fun at the micro stakes capped no limit cash tables this week. Here's a "monster" pot that I won.
First, some history. SB, to my left at the table, is running 65/17. He's playing 2/3 of the time. When it's his turn to act, he bets pot. Every time. If someone has already bet, then he raises - almost every time. He's winning lots of little uncontested pots, and a few big ones.
CO is a very similar player - he's running 58/15, and is also aggressive. CO has lost several pots to SB lately, and appears to me to be on a tilt-revenge fest.
Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, $7.50 Betting Cap, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
BB: $7.98
UTG: $32.27
MP: $24.23
CO: $14.31
Hero (BTN): $40.27
SB: $41.91
Pre-Flop: 4
4
dealt to Hero (BTN)
UTG folds, MP calls $0.25, CO calls $0.25, Hero calls $0.25, SB raises to $1.75, 2 folds, CO calls $1.50, Hero calls $1.50
I follow the CO limper on the button with a pocket pair. SB raises, which is nothing new. He is raising 17% of hands. CO calls. Normally, I would throw away a baby pair in a capped game like this, as the stacks aren't nearly big enough to call for set value. There is also 0% chance of ending up with a small pot, as both of these players bet the pot (or even slightly higher) on every street. I decide to give this one a shot and call, though, since both of these players are horri-bad.
Flop: ($5.75) K
8 4
(3 Players)
SB bets $4.50
CO raises to $5.75, and is capped
We're all in before the betting action even gets to me. I have a set. Uh, ok, I call.
BTN calls $5.75, and is capped
SB calls $1.25, and is capped
Turn: ($5.75) 9 (3 Players)
River: ($5.75) 8 (3 Players)
Results: $5.75 Pot ($1.15 Rake)
CO showed 8 J (three of a kind, Eights) and LOST (-$1.75 NET)
Hero showed 4 4 (a full house, Fours full of Eights) and WON $21.85 (+$20.10 NET)
SB showed 2 2 (two pair, Eights and Twos) and LOST (-$1.75 NET)
I flinched when the 8 came on the river, but then I remembered that this gave me a full house, which still beat trip eights. Whew. Note how SB bet pot instantly, committing himself with these tiny stack sizes, on a pair of deuces. Also note how CO instantly shoved over him with second pair. That's the effect a maniac has on the table.
Here's another hand I played against the maniac.
Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, $7.50 Betting Cap, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
SB: $16.83
BB: $13.57
UTG: $18.58
MP: $40.01
Hero (CO): $24.32
BTN: $27.53
Pre-Flop: K K dealt to Hero (CO)
2 folds, Hero raises to $0.75, BTN raises to $2.60, 2 folds, Hero calls $1.85
I call the 3-bet instead of shoving, because his usual move is to bet the pot no matter what comes. And I will call, even if an ace flops.
Flop: ($5.55) T 7 9 (2 Players)
Hero checks
BTN bets $4.90, and is capped
Hero calls $4.90, and is capped
Turn: ($5.55) T (2 Players)
River: ($5.55) 2 (2 Players)
Results: $5.55 Pot ($0.76 Rake)
Hero showed K K (two pair, Kings and Tens) and WON $14.59 (+$11.99 NET)
BTN showed 6 A (a pair of Tens) and LOST (-$2.60 NET)
Unfortunately, the maniac forces you to have a hand in order to beat him, but if you do get a hand, they often hand over all their chips to you.
This was a great session. The pocket 4s hand above was a 3x-er (three times the cap), and I also won the amount of the cap 3 additional times. I was never "stacked" in this game - I once laid down pocket nines on the turn to the maniac (probably should have called) - this cost me about half the cap, 3.25. This was the largest loss of the session.
I'm loving this capped game. I hope the pickens are as good in slightly higher blind levels.
The table configuration can change your strategy so much. Tonight, I had a 66/17 and a 45/12 to my right. Yup, one player was in 2/3 of the played hands, and the other just under half.
This meant very little blind stealing. I almost always had one limper in front of me, and many times I had two. Also, both players were aggressive postflop. On their action, they would bet the pot nearly every time. This kept them afloat for the most part - winning lots of little pots, until they would make a mistake.
Like this one - limpy limps to my pocket kings. I raise to 4x, he calls, out of position. The board comes 256 rainbow, and he shoves into me (for the 30 BB cap). Uh, ok, I call.
He has 67o. "Top pair", as it were.
A bit later, one of the limpys minraises, and the other calls. I have QQ in the big blind, and shove my 30 BB in. They both call. The initial raiser has Ad6d, the cold caller has Kc5c. Ooof. I am basically racing as if someone had AK. I beat the ace but a king comes and he takes down the main pot.
I play for 200 hands or so, but it's tough sledding this night. My cards aren't good enough to get ahead of these limpers' ranges and have them pay me off. (and they will pay me off). I do win some late pots to go up $15 and get ready to call it a night.
Then I watch one of the limpers (there's only one left by this time) take the worst of it by getting 99 in against QQ. He's got only $1.80 left, and I'm pretty sure he's steaming and will dump it all in on the next hand.
Nice time for me to wake up with the bullets. I finally knock him and his JT off the rail.
Programming note: no posts for a few days - we're going on a road trip to play poker in Wheeling, WV. Will post Saturday night, hopefully part 1 of a successful trip report.
Just like real estate, most of your winnings in cash game poker come from location - or table selection.
I played on two capped NL tables this afternoon. In the first, 4 of the 6 players at the table were very tight for a 6-max table. Stats like 15/11. I was able to steal blinds, but not much else. I got stuck in a few tricky situations, and never hit the monster hand, so I ended up stuck $10 after 100 hands.
In the second, I found a looser table. Guys with stats like 44/2. As I've mentioned before, limping almost half of the hands in a capped no-limit game is playing incorrectly. There are no implied odds to play 67s - you will not make up enough money when you hit two pair+ to make up for the times you have to fold when you flop one pair or nothing. It's a losing proposition.
Since poker is a zero-sum game, when you can find a table where money is flowing away form people, you just need to sit down and make enough correct plays so that it flows toward you. It has to flow somewhere.
In 37 hands, I had made up the $10. Oh, and I was playing at half the stakes on the second table as I was on the first.
update: I stayed on that same table for 2 hours. Total profit, $38.77 in 193 hands. And I met some nice new friends that I want to play with again.
My kid's computer got a virus today that was nasty enough to delete the anti-virus program MalwareBytes from your computer. Even when you tried to re-install, the memory-resident virus would delete the new EXE from your computer in seconds.
This did not deter me. I put a batch file in the MalwareBytes folder named r.bat that looked like the following:
:10
ren mbam.exe tag.exe
goto 10
Then I ran the batch file. It looped endlessly, trying to rename the MalwareBytes exe to "tag.exe". Then I re-installed MalwareBytes. My file-renamer got to the file before the virus file-deleter did, and I was left with a renamed MalwareBytes, which worked fine, and got rid of the virus.
Take that!
PS: the capped NL ring game I have been playing is a license to print money, at least at the micro-stakes I'm playing. So many bad players, and such an easy game to play. I am going to try and creep up in levels and see if the players up there are as bad as I've seen down at .10/.25.
...with one 18 man tourney and some cash games. I was cold-decked in the tourney, shoved queens into aces. Okay-then.
Playing the capped no-limit tables on Full-Tilt- there seem to be LOTS of bad players there who don't get how the cap affects play, and some aggro donkeys who minraise over 50% of the pots and then can't fold bottom pair. Good times. I played 261 hands over 4 tables and was a modest winner on all 4 - despite getting my top set of kings cracked by a flush draw - that one hurt.
That was my day session, will play some more tonight.
A bad sign early - I stopped in a fast food restaurant to grab a burger on the way, and the line held up for over 10 minutes without moving. People were honking and getting irritated. Soon, the back window started giving out food, and I found out that the person at the front of the line was not getting her order correct and was refusing to pull out of the line. Nice.
This made me later than I usually like to be for the tourney (I'm one of those types who is early to everything, so my delay merely made me on time). We started about 7:20 pm, with 33 players.
I started off in the big blind. Two limpers to me, I look at the immortal 72o. I hit my deuce, bet on an all low flop, and take the pot. Nice start.
Second hand, from the small blind, the absymal Q3. Almost always a fold, but this tourney starts with somewhat odd 10-15 blinds, so my pot odds are silly-big. I call and fold the whiffed board
Hand #3, from the button I play as well - 8cTc. I like taking flops in position, early in the tourney. I hit a flush draw and gutshot and call two reasonable bets, but don't get there. When he checks to me on the river, I take a stab at the pot, but I stab too little. He looks me up with second pair. Whoopsie.
Ok, time to tighten up. The poker gods tease me with marginal broadway for the next two hands - QT, then KJ. I fold them both, even though this tourney is a limp-fest for the first three levels. I stay tight. I pat myself on the back as all my folds miss the flops anyway.
Flash forward to the end of level three. I haven't played a hand since the 8cTc. Anthony announces that the current hand is the last before the break. I'm under the gun with 1100 chips, and the blinds will be going up to 50-100 on the next hand. It's starting to look grim, but my cards give me my first playable hand of the night - pocket queens. I raise them up and both blinds call. I'm not happy about this development, until I hit my queen on the flop, with two diamonds. We all check.
The turn is black but puts three connected low cards out there. I make a sizable value bet and get one caller, who is chasing one of the draws.
The river is a black king and no draw gets there. Maybe he's got KQ? That would be sweet. I bet the same amount as my turn bet, but he folds. He's a "show and teller" - he likes to tell everyone what he was holding, and tells me he had an ace and an open ended straight draw. Too bad the river wasn't an ace.
The first break hits and I've got 1700 - just over my starting stack, but alive.
After the break, I'm immediately moved to another table. I know many of the players there and respect their games. My cards get better and I start to make some moves - I reraise all-in with KJ and get a fold from a late position raiser. Later an unknown raises to 500 with 75-150 blinds from the button - I shove over him with AQ. He glares at me and also elects to fold. I'm staying afloat. I also know I've shoved on these guys twice now in two orbits, and probably better not do it a third time very lightly.
The table starts to get more aggressive as the limpers are getting knocked out. I'm staying right around 10 BB - too much to shove, but just enough to shove over a raiser. 10 blinds is also a very tenuous hand to try and steal blinds, so I pass over a few of those opportunities.
I don't find any good situations to gather any more chips, though. I briefly considered making one bluff-shove over two limpers with Jack-Seven suited, and of course would have hit two pair on the flop had someone called me. Drat.
We get to the final 10 and the blinds go up - I only have 7 BB left now. Time to get to work. I can't make anything happen the first orbit around the table - action in front of me and no cards.
I make my final stand when two people limp to me in the small blind. I've got A9o and shove, but I've only got 5 blinds left and figure I'll be racing someone. Not sure whether I'm glad or not, but both limpers call. Then they get it all in on a flop that misses me, so things don't look good. Turns out I was against KQ and JTs - they both hit a pair on the flop, I missed, so down I go in tenth place.
Another decent showing, but nothing to write home about. At least no killer mistake hand to leave me awake at night for three days, like my pocket queens from 2 months ago. I actually got my money in as a (very slight) favorite - A9 vs. KQo and JTs is 36% to win, and I would have tripled up had my hand held up.
If I did anything wrong, I think I got a bit too tight at 10 blinds, and then was too short when the level changed and the blinds doubled. I probably should not have skipped any opportunity to steal the blinds from late position. 2x raises were still getting folds and I could have attempted this once or twice to try and stay afloat. A few more chips and maybe KQ and JT have to fold to my shove.
Close but no cigar.
Many poker players have a fatal flaw, but that flaw often protects them from more advanced plays. We've all heard "don't bluff a calling station". You can't bluff them, because they're calling with any pair/any draw. They don't care what you have or what you're representing (they're often not even thinking about what you have). The way to beat a calling station is to hit your hand and then bet hard for value. Easy enough strategy - if you can hit a hand. Not much in life is more frustrating that being card dead at a table with a calling station or two.
There's another, somewhat similar breed of player to the calling station - the nonbeliever. This player is way better than the calling station - he's thinking beyond his own hand as to what his opponent is holding. However, his conclusions are often wrong, because he thinks everyone is always bluffing. Like a calling station, you can't bluff a nonbeliever, either. If he has any hand at all, he will decide that you're bluffing and continue on with the hand.
In last night's cash game, I had a nonbeliever to my left. I raised him up from the small blind with Big Chick - ace-queen. He, of course, didn't believe I had a hand as powerful as ace-queen, so he called. That's good, right?
Board comes Ace-Two-Three. Top pair, second kicker. I check, since this non-believer is also aggressive - I think he will bet. He does, and I checkraise. He immediately goes all in.
A sticky situation. The non-believer might have pocket sevens here, and he's just refusing to believe I have that ace. Same thing with Ace-nine - he's willing to go to the wall because he simply doesn't believe I have a big ace.
There are lots of hands in his range that I beat, but I lay the hand down, showing it as I do so. He shows me Ace-Two for two pair - I was crushed on the flop, so the fold was a good one. I didn't go broke on a pair, but the hand cost me $18.
The non-believer is further insulated from danger by hitting amazing hands. Pocket pairs, gutshot straights, great stuff. A great example of his playing style - he calls a raise from the blinds vs. the tightest player in our home game. The board is all hearts, and consecutive - seven, eight, nine. Danger everywhere. The tight player bets, and the nonbeliever raises him. The tight player shoves his chips in pretty quick. This is an all-heart board-remember, against a tight, solid ABC player. Nobody who has ever played more than 20 hands with this guy thinks he's making a pure move here. He's got something.
The non-believer doesn't believe - he calls all-in, with jack of diamonds, nine of diamonds. Top pair (of nines), gutshot straight draw, on an all heart board. Ei-Ei-Ei. I will now take a cheese grater to my face.
Our tight friend throws over the pocket aces, with the ace of hearts. This is probably the weakest hand he would be in this pot with, on this board, but he's crushing the non-believer. The non-believer hits a river nine for trips and wipes the tight player out of the game. (Where's that cheese grater, again?)
On this night, the nonbeliever has achieved a perfect situation - the table is simply staying out of his way, waiting for their big hand to trap him. I do get him to pay off a small pot with a runner-runner full house, but that's the extent of the money I win from him. The overbloated, nuts vs. second nuts type of hand never hits him, so he walks away a big winner.
Later in the night, we're playing a small pot, and I have middle pair. The river is scary - completing flush and straight draws. I check behind him, and he proudly announces another big hand - a straight. Someone wonders out loud "I wonder if you bet big there if he gets scared of the flush and goes away" I laugh out loud. "You think he would believe that I have the flush?" No way. Nope, the only way I could win that pot vs. that player would be to have the flush.
One more real pot with the non-believer - I limped with the powerhouse Kc3c (we were four handed at this point, so there was only one blind). I hit the three and two clubs. Against many players, I might bring this hand to war - a pair and a flush draw has 14 outs to beat top pair, plus fold equity, makes me a favorite vs. many players. Against this player, though, my fold equity plummets to near-zero, meaning my hand is pretty much a coin flip against his top pair. The nonbeliever bets the flop and turn hard, and I check-call my way to the river, where I miss and give up. A poor way of playing, but probably optimal against this player - I want to hit my big hand and get paid off, and I cannot get him to fold to aggression, so his style forces me to play a passive game.
Not many more opportunities to make money for me on this night. I raised up jacks and they stayed an overpair, but Tony checkraised me all-in and once again I laid them down, refusing to go broke on one pair. This could have been a semi-bluff on a 79T board (no flush though), but I took the safer course of action. He checkraised me two more times as well - both times I had good starting hands that I raised up but whiffed the flop. Looks like Tony has officially adjusted to my game.
I re-adjust. I raise up A7s and he calls from the blind. I whiff the board - he checks and this time I do as well. I hit my ace on the turn and bet it out. Tony exclaims "looks like I played this one wrong" and flips over pocket kings! I tell him, "well, after checkraising me three times, I decided to take a look a free turn card instead". Good plan.
A rough night - a nonbeliever card rack hitting over and over, and a good player laying traps for me left and right. Not a great table to make money at. I ended up down $40 all-told. But I feel as if I played well - I laid down top pair-good kicker and an overpair to aggression and was right both times, and didn't start playing too many hands trying to chase the losses.
I won a $20 9 man tonight, then I was watching my friend Mr. Pietzak playing on a 6 man, $1/$2 capped NL table for a bit.
Capped tables are odd. You can have as much money as you want on the table, but the maximum each player can put into a pot on any one hand is 30 big blinds. This provides a safety net for those who overplay their hand get sucked out on.
The cap also drastically changes the strategy, in my opinion. Speculative hands go way down in value - and I would venture to say they are probably unprofitable in the long run. If you play 78s, for example, the times you will have to fold will not make up for the times you finally hit your flush or straight and stack someone, because that "stack" will yield only 30 big blinds. Even small pocket pairs go down in value. Say you call a 3.5 BB raise every time you hold a small pocket pair, and fold if you don't hit your set. You will flop a set 11.76% of the time, so you will miss 88.24% of the time. Here's the math:
.8834 * -3.5 BB = -3.0884 big blinds lost when you miss.
.1176 * 30 BB = 3.528 big blind when you hit.
Looks like a profit of .44 big blinds, but that's assuming we get someone's stack every time we flop a set. That's a pretty big assumption. Say a normal TAG raises it up with AQs, we call with 55, and the flop comes K95. We flopped a set, great, but the TAG isn't putting 30 blinds into this pot. He missed! He might throw a c-bet out there, which we'll call or raise, and that's about it. Unless the turn gives him one of his 6 "outs" (not real outs since we have him crushed), you're winning 7-8 blinds on this hand, not 30.
So let's say your opponent hits a hand he's willing to go to the wall with 1/3 times (that might be generous, but remember that he should be willing to stack off with top pair/top kicker type hands vs. 30 BB in the capped game). So I'll take a third of the 11.76% and give us the full 30 blinds ,then take the rest and let us win 8 big blinds (the preflop raise and a c-bet). Now the math is this:
.8824 * -3.5 = -3.0884 (we missed and fold on the flop)
.0392 * 30 = 1.176 (we hit our set, he hits top pair/overpair and stacks off)
.0784 * 8 = .6272 (we hit our set, he whiffs, we win a c-bet)
Now the total is -1.285 big blinds - a distinctly unprofitable situation.
(math ends here)
So anyway, the capped game looks to me like a "hit top pair and shove" kind of game. Two pair, trips, and higher are the nuts - worth a shove every time. But the suited connectors and small pairs don't look to be worth a play, at least against a raise.
I talked myself into sitting down at Pietzak's table, even though $1/$2 is above my online bankroll. I had two justifications for this:
1. the cap prevents me from losing too much at any one time.
2. I'm playing $1/$2 in a casino next week - a bit of practice couldn't hurt.
I played very well for an hour or so, and was up $30. Then the roof fell in. I got involved in a blind vs. blind battle with Pietzak. I played J9 from the small blind and hit a board of J33, and lost $20 because he held JT and outkicked me. Oof. I called a shove from him with the very weak AT because he was riding an up/down rollercoaster, and I thought he might be on tilt. Whether he was or not didn't matter - he had pocket kings. Oops. I chased an open ended straight flush draw that didn't come in, and had to fold the river (I got a free play in the blinds, I didn't play a speculative hand that time). Drat.
We even got Tony in on the action - he joined the table as well. I won a nice pot back from him by ignoring my own analysis of the capped game and playing 79s from under the gun (I got into a cheap limped pot), and hit a hidden straight on the turn. (he paid off a turn raise, but folded the river).
The net damage was $80 lost, not so good. I gave Pietzak himself $100 (now he has enough to play in the live cash game tonight, ha ha). Since I had won a tourney earlier, I think the net result on the night was nearly even, maybe up a buck or two. But I squeezed in some non-tourney experience.
Last two nights I have lost one tourney and took third in a second, for a net loss of half a buy-in or so. Sucks. I played really well in the second one tonight - had a read on both the players left while three-handed - one guy just bet/bet/bet every single time it came to him. I reraised over him, to put him to a decision for all his chips, with Ace-Seven offsuit. This is an extremely light threebet shove for me, but he just couldn't have a big hand every time.
I was right this time too - he didn't have it, but he decided to call my shove even lighter, with jack-ten offsuit, and then managed to outflop me. Great call for all your chips, sparky. I had him covered, though, so I was still alive.
Same guy got low again, and shoved all his chips into the big blind. The big waited until time was almost out, and then called - with pocket aces. The slowrolling bastard! In a fit of poker justice, Aggro guy hit a runner-runner straight with jack-eight to double up and crack the aces. Slowroller called him a douche for sucking out, and I couldn't let it go. I replied "you're the one who slowrolled with aces", which gave him license to call me lots of names and berate me, even though it was clear that he didn't know what slowrolling was.
Slowroller knocked me out by limping with jacks, I had 7 BB and pocket sevens - so no way I'm just checking the big blind. I knew he was capable and ready to limp with a big hand, too - too bad he didn't do it with something I could more easily crack like AK. Oh well. He got in a final "later, douche" after knocking me out. I gave him one more lesson by saying "try slowrolling aces in a casino and you'll get punched in the mouth". Maybe I'll save some of his teeth, or maybe he'll ignore the advice and try to get dramatic in a live card room.
This tourney was not without at least a small measure of revenge, against someone. When we were four handed, the guy to my right took 3 small pots from me in a row, and I was slowly losing my stack to him. Very frustrating to have position on someone and have them take pot after pot from you. I got a free look at a flop with him and one other limper with 89s. The board came 6TQ rainbow - the old double-gutter, where a jack or seven gives me a straight. The turn hits the jack - a good but not great card for me as I've got the idiot end of the straight now. Furthermore, the villain bets into me on the now-scary board. I take one more look and realize that he would have had to limp with ace-king in order to have the high end, and I just couldn't see that. Plus, I figure that he has "rush equity" in beating me over and over in the past hands, so there are lots of reasons for him to bluff. I shove my chips in, figuring I'll see a pair with an ace or something similar, or a fold. He calls with two pair, queen-ten, and I only have to avoid 4 outs. Whew.
So I got to nail one guy and double up through him, and I got my money in good against Mr. BetEveryCard (but lost), and slowroller douchey-caller-man got the better of me at the end. And I lost $8. Hard to call the night (or the night before) a success, but the 3rd place finishes keep my bankroll and monthly ROI in a near-hover, at least.
Raise pocket queens, caller from the blinds, ace flops, blind donks into you.
Next hand, raise pocket kings, caller from the blinds, ace flops, blind donks into you.
Bonus points if you restrain yourself from shoving over the second guy.
It doesn't happen too often, thankfully, but I suffered an "insta-tilt" tonight. I raised up 88 from middle position, and someone three-bet over me. I took a quick glance at his stats and saw 46/20/7.0. Looking at his stats instantaneously pissed me off. I said to myself "you goddamn aggro-donkey - no fuckin way this time!" I shoved in with 88, he called right away with AK.
Nice job, dumbass - race the bad player for 22 big blinds. Well done.
You would think that my tilt would not improve after we saw a King-Ace-King flop, but it did. I laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of it.
Fortunately, I had doubled up early in this tourney, so I was still alive with 1000 chips. A few hands later, another pair of eights saved me - I had them in middle position (three off the button) with only 12 blinds. Shoving in seemed wrong with so many people behind. Folding was out. Limping couldn't be right, either. I chose a normal 3x raise, which I'm sure isn't correct, but none of the options are good. The big stack, small blind called me, and I was sure I was going to have to fold and curse myself for playing badly, but I got the miracle flop - A K 8. The blind checked, I bet nice and weak, and he checkraise-shoved over me with his ace, and I got my doubleup. I was able to parlay that lucky stroke into a third place finish.
The last hand was sick as well - while three handed, I shoved KJ, and was insta-called by AQ. Never mind that we both got dealt powerful hands while three handed, that's weird enough.
We both hit our top card on the flop, so I had five outs left. Like a bolt from above, I hit one of them on the turn - A jack, giving me 2 pair, but the villain had a fair number of outs to out-2-pair-me (a queen or seven, 6 outs), or another ace (2 outs), or a ten for the broadway straight (4 more). The ten of diamonds completed the way-behind-then-way-ahead-then-oooo-too-bad-you-lost rollercoaster.
I played a second one, too, but I bombed out of that one. Someone raised my blind and I had AK, and I reflexively shoved over him. Never a horrible play with big slick, but this one wasn't optimal for a couple reasons:
Blinds were still low - 40/80.
Raiser was 38/6 after 32 hands.
Raiser was the big stack.
Raiser only made it 2.5 big blinds to go.
Surely, this is not a great player - limping into 32% of the hands, but this was a raised pot - I've got to put him on something pretty strong here. Why not just defend and see if you can hit your ace or c-bet a garbage flop?
The combination of all the above made it pretty likely that he would call, and he did, with pocket tens, and I lost the race.
Why am I racing the bad players when I don't have to? More mistakes I need to correct (in this case, correct again).
I took first place in an 18 man tourney for the third time this month. The tipping point was soon after we combined into the final nine- I was around 8 big blinds, and a player whom I didn't know (he was at the other table for the first part of the tourney) limped into my blind from early position.
I was in the big blind with AQ. I had no read, but in the end I felt like it was time, and that was a much better chance that this guy was playing badly (high blind limping) than slowrolling a big hand. I shoved over him. He thought for a good bit and then called - with KQ. Whew. From 9th to second in chips just like that (after the small matter of avoiding the 3 out suckout, of course).
I was able to build up chips on the bubble with some stealing and one nice resteal with A9. I was not stealing liberally, though - the giant stack was the big blind on my bubble, and the guy to my left seemed donkish enough to call incorrectly. Correctly or not, I was playing patiently, waiting for a big hand or for the bubble to break somewhere else.
The bubble broke soon (a set of kings vs. a nonbeliever with pocket sevens), and then a "post bubble euphoria" hand ensued where two people got it all in with Q6 vs. J5. Yikes. That brought us to three. I knocked out #3 in a standard AK vs. JJ race (I won with jacks, holy moley!).
Heads up was a pretty long affair - my opponent seemed pretty good and we were both changing strategies. He limped in with AK and buried my AJ when I raised. I mixed up limps and raises with both good and bad holdings.
I had one read on him - when he checked instantly, he had nothing. I would bet and take the pot. If he checked after a moment's thought, then I had to be more careful - with a checkraise or at least a call often coming my way.
I think he ultimately got frustrated. He started raising bigger preflop - 5 times the blind, which was committing. He raised my limp three times this way, so I knew I just needed a hand I could go with. That hand came Ace-Jack suited - no powerhouse, but good enough against his current level of aggressiveness. I limped, he raised, and I shoved it in. He correctly called (after committing himself) with K8 and I held up again.
A couple hands later, he limped into my 95o and I checked. I hit top pair and bet out - he shoved over me. "Damn, he limped with a monster", I thought, but I had to call. I was half right - he had limped with AK, and now decided to shove, even after missing the flop. My call was good. He hit his ace on the turn, but I hit my own 5 outer on the river with a five and took the tourney. Hey, the best hand (when the money went in) won.
No mistakes this time, and a win to show for it.
How the hell does a full table fold around to me in the big blind holding pocket kings? There's a 59/18 at my table, and a 37/5, and a 53/6, but this time they all folded.
So lame.
tried a 45 man tonight. I started well but made a bad mistake that cost me all my chips. I was focused on this one bad player. So bad. Very very bad.
The first hand of the tourney was a three way all-in between A9o, K3s, and T7s. Good times. T7s hit a seven and tripled up. He played over half the hands, raising preflop calling to the river with any ace, or any draw, no matter how slight. I so much wanted to win some of his chips. His first hand triple up became an average stack in no time.
I limped with 55. He minraised. A player in the blind called, and so did I. Good news/bad news on the flop - I hit my 5, but the board was all clubs. The blind checked to me, and I bet hard - knowing the donkey bad player would call with worse than my set. He folded, but the big blind called my big bet.
Here is the point where I make my error - I don't shift my plan. I was not playing against bad player anymore, so I should have shifted my plan. That check-call should have set off some warning bells.
Turn came, no club. Big blind checks - I figure he's on the club draw and I've really only got a pot size bet left in my stack. I push and he calls right away with 6c9c. I've got 10 outs to boat up but do not, and he has slowplayed his flush right into all my chips.
Horrible play by me there. I've got position and therefore the ability to control the pot size. All I have to do is check behind. I might even pay off a small river bet to the flush, but my stack is still intact. Nope, I pushed all my chips in as a big underdog. Pretty bad.
Fired up an 18 man afterwards - that didn't go much better. Again, so many bad players at the table. I'm not even sharkscoping at the moment because my subscription is running out, but I'm finding I don't always need it. When you see a guy cold call a raise with K7s, and play 6 of the first 8 hands, you really have all the information you need).
In this one, someone raised me and I shoved my last 13 blinds in with big slick. I had plenty of fold equity, but he called with 8Ts anyway and knocked me out. Eight-Ten-Suited was good enough to risk 13 blinds on!
One more try - a 9 man. Bad cards, bad cards, bad cards, but then I made a little run while 5 handed and kept myself in the game for awhile. It was just enough to pull me off that sinking, tilting depression and bring back a bit of my confidence - that is until I made another borderline play - this time an ICM call with AT. The pusher had KK and knocked me out.
Of course, it's tilting enough for an aggressive player to wake up with KK just as you decide to take a stand - but you really have to analyze your call against the range of things he might be pushing with before you decide if you made a mistake or not. SNGWiz says my call is ok if pusher is shoving over 30% of his hands, and that seems high to me for this particular situation, so I think this was another clear error. When I dial up what I think is his most likely pushing range, Wiz says I can only call with 99+ and AK. Yikes.
The rest of the bubble looks pretty clean according to Wiz - a couple hands they mark as "mistakes" - one of them was shoving with 72o into the small stack! Although mathematically correct, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. There are sometimes table dynamics reasons why I won't shove a really weak hand - like maybe I shoved the hand before. Anyway, I think I'll give myself a pass at failing to recognize this situation.
So I played fine until the end. For SNGs, it only takes one mistake.
I'm not lucky or good right now.
Compared to my fellow blogger bastin, my life is pretty dull. He gets to regale you with tales from the farm, taking care of the ducks, status of the crops, interesting photography. My tales are almost always poker because, quite frankly, there ain't much else going on. For once, this week, though - the mundane gave way to the note-worthy Friday morning.
Our nutty dog Carmine rules the backyard with an iron paw. No foreign animals allowed past the gate. He has chewed up three or four toads this summer - usually getting sick along the way.
Friday morning, I was sitting on the couch while the wife was calling him in from the back door. Then her voice got a little higher and more excited as she told him "Carmine, stop, stop". Then, a high pitched shriek! This was no toad.
I shot up and hightailed it to the kitchen. My wife looked shaken - I figured he had nabbed himself a rabbit or some "cute" critter and the wife was not pleased. But it wasn't a rabbit - it was a vole - Carmine had it in his mouth. Worse yet, when Janet yelled at him, he whipped his head up, and the vole shot out of his mouth and came tumbling towards her, still alive and squeaking for its life. The airbound vole hit her in the shoulder and landed on the deck, at which point Carmine scooped him up for another round.
By the time I had gotten up off the couch, the incident was over - the vole was dead and on the patio. I grabbed Carmine's collar so he wouldn't swallow it down, and brought him inside. Then I collected poor Mr. Vole and disposed of him.
The wife was duly shaken by having a live rodent chucked at her.
I'd like to say I drove out to a new venue to play in a live tourney tonight. I'd like to say I sat down, made a few new friends, and got some cards in as well. Well, actually, I did all those things, but the poker part is quickly becoming a memory, because I barely played any poker.
My table was completely wild, with players who all knew each other, and seemed to like making fancy moves on each other and showing. I saw squeeze three bets with absolutely nothing. I saw the Johnny Chan play. I saw lots of crazy stuff.
I made one play of my own early. In a limped pot, I played a weak ace on the button. The board was Q-7-7. Everyone checked to me, so I bet. The big blind called. Of course I immediately think he's got a seven or at least a queen, but he's one of the crazy aggressive ones and might just be floating me with nothing. The turn bricks and I feel like I need to double barrel, but of course he raises me and shows the seven after I fold. Betting into trips usually doesn't work, and I'm down about 1600 of 10000 chips early.
That's the first hand I played. The second was calling a minraise, again on the button, with AT. That missed entirely so I folded there.
Hand 3 was trying to steal the blinds from the button. I had 62o. The big blind, who played as fewer hands than I had, pushed all in over me. Uh, I folded that one.
Hand 4 was a shove in middle position with 12 big blinds and ace-king. I thought about playing it differently and trying to get a smaller ace in, but I've been burned by that before, so I just shoved and hoped for a call. I didn't get one, so I won the blinds. That was my only hand won of the tourney.
Hand 5, with 5 big blinds left, and under the gun - is a shove with ace-rag. The big stack calls me, with a bigger ace, and down I go in 14th place.
I had one tough decision on the night. An early position, aggressive player made it 4 big blinds. A female player who played well but perhaps a bit weak-tight - cold called the 4x bet. She didn't have the chips to cold-call, she should have folded or pushed all in. I looked down at king-jack suited. I had 12 big blinds, and felt like I still had enough to push out the first player, but I was pretty sure the female player would look down at her chip stack and then realize she had to call me. I also thought that her playing style might be hiding a much stronger hand - unaggressive players might easily cold-call with pocket jacks or ace king and my king-jack would be in trouble. I folded.
As it turns out, the fold was a good one, but I would have gotten lucky anyway. The board came ace-jack-rag and the early player lead out. The female folded, saying it was a bad board (I put her on a small pair then). The aggressive player didn't show but said he had king-queen. Had I shoved, I would have beaten KQ if he called by hitting my jack, and also beaten the (presumably) small pair. Easy to look back with regrets, but my logic and fold were sound, I think.
So there it is. Five hands played in 3 hours, I win the blinds one time, and that's my tourney. I was looking all along for some opportunities to re-steal or make a move, but my cards were such that any of these would have had to be a naked bluff into players I didn't really know. I tried a couple "standard" plays and neither worked out. My mood stayed positive - I did not get frustrated one time. I kept the mantra of "make the correct play, make the correct play", and managed to do so time and again.
I think I played well, but had no opportunities to win chips, and took a quick exit. It happens.
I came home and played one online - that didn't work out too well, either. I got low early and started shoving correctly until the guy behind me called me with pocket aces, and I went out 10th of 18th.
My friend and I stayed at the nearby Winking Lizard and had a few cocktails, so we missed the opening band, Gojira. They are shaded just a bit too far on the growly/screamy side for my tastes, so I wasn't disappointed.
Next on the bill was Lamb of God, who I also usually avoid, but they sounded very good and tight, and their music was quite hook-y. The mix was also a sane, safe volume - the crew wasn't trying to blow the doors off of the arena, for which my aging ears were thankful.
Metallica took the stage at 9 pm, and opened with the opening track on their latest album "That Was Just Your Life", followed by the next track on the same album "The End Of the Line".
They then traveled back into their catalog and played "Harvester of Sorrow" and "Sad But True".
I don't remember the entire set, sorry. From the new album, they also played "Broken, Beaten & Scarred", "The Day that Never Comes", "Cyanide", and "The Judas Kiss". Older stuff included "Master of Puppets", "Hit the Lights", "Seek and Destroy", "One", and "Enter Sandman".
What impresses me about Metallica is their musicianship. Metallica songs are not 3-power-cord repetitive numbers- they are fast-paced, multiple-changes, machine-gun-staccato affairs that require all four band members playing in unison, and this band pulls it off effortlessly - often wandering around the huge "in the round" style stage, not even looking towards each other, as they blast out a complex riff in 1/32 time.
They are impressive.
Stayed home from work yesterday - the last in my family to get sick. By evening, I felt like my low fever had broken, and although I didn't feel 100% this morning, I hauled my butt to work.
No cash game tonight - attending the Metallica concert instead (yes, I'm an aging headbanger). Tomorrow I've got a live tourney with the CPMG. Next week the schedule should get back to normal, with live poker on Thursday and Friday.
And the week after, it looks like a road trip to Mountaineer is in the offing, for some casino-pokering. Yee-haw!
I sat down all ready to play tonight, but my normal stake SNGs were filled with multitablers, making the tables tough. There were no multi-table SNGs filling up. What's an addicted gambler to do?
Fire up a 6-max cash game, that's what! I haven't played a cash game online since July, and that was only 27 hands. Before that, you have to go back to February for any "volume" (a very relative term, I've played less than 3000 hands ever in a cash game online.
I see one benefit of the tourney - your tourney always ends at a fixed period of time, whereas your cards can suck for hours on end in the cash game. Mine sure did tonight. Sure, I was probably playing a big tighter than normal to get the lay of the land, but my stats were a ridiculous 13/4 for the 99 hands I played, on a 6 max table! I will now pour battery acid over my face....
I only needed one hand, though. Pocket threes - the light three better tries to raise over me and one other limper. We both call. The flop - T 3 T. Glory be, a flopped boat. Let's hope he's got aces, or better yet, a ten. He thinks a long time, then bets half pot. I call, the other guy folds. Turn is a seven, no flush out there. He thinks a bit longer, and bets half pot again - $4 into 7.55. He likes his hand. I raise to $10 - not a minraise, but enough to look like I could still fold. He shoves it in. I call of course- he shows 8Ts. Beautiful - now I've just got to avoid seven outs to the overboat. The river takes an extra beat to be revealed, but it's a meaningless deuce, and I've stacked him.
I wait one round around the table and duck away with my winnings - 73 big blinds worth, thank you very little.
I haven't been 2-outed in awhile. This one hurt badly. Aggro-monkey to my left, 50/30-type stats, pushing, pushing. His stack went way up, then back down when he would push into trouble. I actually doubled through him when I button-raised preflop with 97 and hit two pair. We got it all in because he had T8 with a pair and an open ended straight draw. He avoided ending my tourney early by not hitting one of his 13 outs.
His bet sizes told me how strong his hand was. 2x was not strong, 4x was. He bet 2x under the gun. I had ATs in the big blind and was the only defender. I hit my ace and checked, 100% sure he was going to bet. He did, and I checkraised him all in. I figured he would fold with no ace, or call with a worse ace, but he did even better - he called.... with pocket eights. A beautiful setup, well-conceived and executed, but the river eight denied me the satisfaction of victory.
I did get one more double-up after that to stay alive, but the monkey got the final laugh by taking me out with sevens against my ace-rag shove.
He was all-in as a 70-30% dog twice in the tourney, and the 90-10 dog to me, and survived them all. No justice.
Two other tourneys - no help there, either. I actually 3-out sucked out on someone, but I only had 3 blinds left after losing a race, so it just brought my stack up from pitiful to desperate.
Looks like a made a big mistake in the last one - I had the huge stack to my right, pushing into my puny stack over and over. I finally took a stand with KT - he happened to have A9. SitNGo Wizard says my call is bad (very bad, in fact) unless he's pushing about 55% - a ridiculous number, but it's hard to get put all-in four times in a row and then fold a top 15% hand. Guess I need more work on my ICM game.
didn't feel like getting too deep into multiple tourneys last night, so I fired up a single 18-man, and ended up winning the thing.
Got my needed double-up by raising with 77 and getting a caller from the blinds - looked to be a bad player that might get himself into a rough situation. The board came 6 high and he lead out. My "overpair" might be crushed by eights or nines, but it seemed like the best chance I had to this point, so I went for it and got a call by A6. "top pair" vs. "overpair" was never so weak.
At the final table, the player to my right was a 9000+ tourney grinder - he was stealing and re-stealing liberally. I caught him trying to take my blind once with AQ, 3 bet over him, he folded. The second time, I three bet all in again, this time with a weaker ace - he called with Q8 and my ace high held. I hate those pot odds calls like he had to make, I actually stop stealing with garbage when the stacks to my left are such that I will be compelled to call their shoves because of pot odds. Actually, in this tourney, I don't think I stole the blinds much at all - the players to my left were calling too often and their stacks were set up for them to shove over me too easily. It was an ABC poker game, for the most part.
I eventually got heads up with a beginner player who didn't speak much English - I think I could have beaten him, but the blinds were so high that it was going to come down to a lucky A5 vs. KJ type-hand, and I was tired. I got him to agree to a chop - 131 for me, 120 for him (based on stacks at the time), and was able to stuff a second first place finish in an 18-man under my belt this month.
In non-pokery news, my entire family has gotten either the flu or a bad cold this past week. I have somehow avoided it to this point. The wife and younger one are over their ailments, the Gabber needs one day off of school today and I think she'll be ready to go. In dodging getting sick with the rest of my household, I feel like I've gotten to fourth street with the better hand - I just need to avoid the suck out on the river.
I have read that only 7% of poker players make money online. In that light, I suppose I should appreciate any day at all that ends up in the black. But playing poker for three hours to win a total of one dollar - that, my friends, is taking things to an extreme.
When your hourly wage is about .30, you better love what you're doing.
Anyone sitting at our short-handed live .50/$1 table last night would have seen new evidence that PokerStars, Full Tilt and Bodog do not employ "rigged" decks to encourage suckouts, because crazy, improbable things can happen just as often in live play, too.
My favorite hand of the night - Wiley got himself short-stacked and decided to play short instead of topping up. He raised to $3.50 on the button, and Crane, a fairly tight player, puts him all in for like $10 more. Wiley says, "ok, good enough, let's go" and shows KJs. Crane shows the powerhouse pocket threes - two strangely weak hands considering it's a 30 BB pot, but these two have logged thousands of live hands together and there was probably some type of metagame of which I was unaware.
The board is an odd and somewhat eerie five-five-five. Crane has flopped a full house and pulls ahead. The turn doesn't change things - Wiley will need a king or jack to overboat him, or, one other interesting river card - the fourth five! With four fives on the board, Crane's boat is counterfeited and Wiley's king wins an improbable kicker battle.
I crushed Pietzak early. A limped pot came to me in the big blind. I checked my cards and found the bullets - pocket aces. It was the second orbit of the night or thereabouts - I decided to get cute and check, but also vowed I would not overplay them on a scary board. I felt much better with a draw-free Ace-Queen-Four rainbow flop, and was able to check top set. The turn brought a seven with a backdoor flush draw, and I had to lead out and protect against the flush and 5-6. Folds all around except for Mr. Pietzak, the man most likely in our game to have 5-6. The river paired the four, giving me top full house. Now I was hoping he had a four in his hand and couldn't get away from trips, so I threw a bet of decent size out there, hoping for a call. What I got was even better - a raise! Pietzak indeed had the trip fours, and his remaining stack wasn't too large, so I put him all in. As he counted up the chips and ran them into the center, he queried "what, did you slowplay aces or queens again"? I proved him right by flipping over the rockets, he just shook his head and said "that is sooo sick" as he showed 4-7. Bottom pair on the flop, two pair on the turn, and a full house on the river. A hand that improves all the way to the end, but loses to a hidden monster. He was right - that is sick.
The cards continued to be sick enough and improbable enough that the game actually changed. People were limping into pots with all kinds of crap, hoping for a big, implied odds payday. It was like the bad-beat jackpot was suddenly present, like in a casino. People were also paying to see turn and river cards when they would normally not do so, coming along with bottom pair or weak draws. I myself made a small call in a multiway pot with a gutshot draw and nothing else!
I was trying to counter this action by making it expensive to come along when I had a made hand. I raised up ace-queen one time and hit my queen as top pair, top kicker - and did something I rarely do, I bet the full pot to chase away the suckout demons. Come along now, ladies - no free cards for you!
Tony and I traded paint late in the evening, following along with the improbable suckouts theme. I limped in with a suited Ace-Seven. The board missed me completely and I was content to fold, but I got a free turn card where my ace came. I protected with a solid bet but Tony came along for the ride - he didn't believe I had the ace - that I was just betting the ace. The river paired the second-best-card, a jack. I bet again, out of position, and Tony raised. He most obviously could have the jack in his had, but he could also have a weak ace as well and we are chopping on the double-jacked board. They say you shouldn't call a bet hoping for a chop, but Tony knows this as well - all the more reason to raise it up. The price was good enough to take a peek, so I called the raise, and lo-and-behold, Tony had hit the 5 outer with jack-rag (from the big blind) and overtook my top pair.
At around 12:30 pm, I had announced that my next deal would be my last, and the cards were handed to me for dealing. I am wary of playing the last hand just because it's the last hand, so I usually caution myself to avoid potentially costly situations with marginal cards. I apparently threw that admonishment out the window, though, by limping along with King-Nine offsuit, on the button. We got a cheap, raggedy flop that missed me, but everyone checked to me and I took a shot at taking the orphaned chips with a solid bet. Tony, from the big blind, came along for the ride. There were no draws to chase - so I put him on a pocket pair (that might have setted up), or a second-pair type hand. I didn't consider a queen unless it was a queen with an awful kicker - say queen-three.
The turn gave me a pair as well - a nine. Tony checked and I continued my aggression with another solid bet - this time with an actual hand. Tony called again, which had me officially worried. The nine fit in with a couple of straight draws, but there was no way he could have called a flop bet with any of those hands (JT). Maybe his weak queen-kicker was a nine and he had two pair now, or he had two pair from the start on this limped board.
The river improved me even further with a king - I now had my own two pair on an uncoordinated board, and I figured to be best unless Tony had been slowplaying a set or had king-queen. I continued right along with my aggressive play and tossed three red chips into the middle - $15. Tony dropped his head - "tell me you don't have pocket kings." Uh, no - that would have been a sweet last hand of the night, but that's not what I've got. When players name out a hand they don't want you to have, they're usually telling you in a roundabout way what hand they have, but this information flummoxed me a bit. Did he have QQ and a set of queens, played slow? I don't think so. AQ, maybe?
He calls but doesn't look too happy about it. I say "two pair" and flash over my king-nine. His shocked face tells me I have won the hand, but I can't figure out what he could have been check-calling me with on all three streets - until he flips it over.
Pocket aces.
The sneak! He was trying to trap me at my own game. I got cute with the aces last week and stacked him (and Pietzak earlier tonight, although Tony wasn't at the table for that hand). The runner-runner gods sitting around us last night weren't in the mood to have me trapped, I guess - I wriggled out of a 97-3% deficit on the flop to win a nice-sized hand. (though I would have been gone-gone-gone with any flop bet, or a raise on the turn, so there was no way Tony stacks me in this case).
I'm officially running hot, I guess. I doubled my buy-in, and didn't play particularly tricky or tough. I did fire a bluff with ace high into a river, but got called quickly and picked off by Crane who was holding some small pair and had absolutely zero fear of my bet or the two jacks on the board. That was odd - I should probably spend some time figuring out how he picked me off so easily there. I had pocket aces a second time and flopped top set again - this time I won a decent pot by checking the flop, and having my turn bet raised by someone who thought I had checked the flop because I had zero aces instead of two. He ran away quickly when I put him all-in, though. Most of the rest of the night was ABC stuff, which kept me out of trouble.
One thing I need to be wary of in my own play is "fancy play syndrome". I have won two pots with pockets aces in recent weeks by playing them slower. I have spent much time away from the table studying and writing about the light 3-bet - basically "fast-playing" cards like suited connectors or medium aces. What I need to avoid is playing all my hands "backwards'. Playing your cards in a non-standard way is know as "non-standard" for a reason - these plays are not the optimal way of making money. With pocket aces, for example, you want to raise to isolate and get heads-up, if possible - big pocket pairs lose much more often in multiway pots where people are chasing and hitting draws. Hands like nine-ten suited play much better in multiway pots (and in position), where the payday can be big if your own draws come in.
Some of my recent play has been opposite to the norm. In a regular cash game against the same players, I think these plays are good in the long run - my opponents need to keep guessing. "Did he slowplay aces like that one time?". "Is he three-betting me with connectors again, or does he have the nuts this time?".
I just need to make sure my non-standard plays stay just that way - non-standard.
I busted out of an 18 man tourney tonight in about a dozen hands. Pocket Jacks, of course. Someone minraised, and a bad player cold-called. I raised LARGE, and the bad player cold-called again.
The flop came with a Queen. I was in position, and decided I would shove if he checked or bet small. He bet small (like 100 into 700), I shoved - AQ. Lovely. A major donkey tilt-off by me.
I thought maybe this was a sign that I should try something different. I have been meaning to give multi-tabling a try, so I fired up four simultaneous 5.50+.50 SNGs, arranged them so I could see them all on my monitor, and off I went.
I think I played ok. I made one mechanical mistake - folding my hand at the upper left table when I thought I was acting on the lower right table. (there should be no mistaking this - a thick red outline borders the table with current focus). This wasn't a big deal as the hand I ended up accidentally folding was unplayable, anyway.
As for finishes, I finished second, eighth, and two fourth-place bubbles. A net loss of $8.50.
In the eighth place tourney, I lost a third my stack early with pocket jacks (yet again), then my cards went away and I just held on. I was second to bust out but the blinds were 80/160, so I lasted as long as I could there.
It's pretty hard to analyze my play at these tables because of all the suckouts, both for and against me. I got it in with A3 and 7 blinds, was called by A2, and the board came K22. Egads. While three handed, an aggressive guy raised my big blind, and I shoved over him with AQ. He called... with AK. Christ, that's bad luck, a super-aggro player winding up with AK when I have AQ, three handed. That luck is almost as bad as my hitting a Queen on the flop and doubling up against him.
When heads up, I got it in with A8 against his KJ. He hit a jack on the flop, but running 8-8 on the turn and river gave me the win. Ridiculous. Our final hand was exactly the same - my A8 vs. his KJ. This time, he hit QT for an open ender and then a nine for the 2-1-odds-against straight.
One more - I played a blind vs. blind hand where I bet my K4 after hitting my four as bottom pair, he called. The turn gave me trip fours, I bet again, this time bigger, he called. I was going to win a big pot...
The river paired the top card on the board, a queen, and my opponent shoved. Ugh. With a board of Q544Q, Any queen beats me. He could be shoving a pocket pair or a missed straight draw, but that's a real donkey move considering I have bet the flop and turn so far, and the river gives a queen a boat. I fold a full house and lose 560 chips.
Actually, this hand is a good example of my ability to continue paying attention even though I was multi-tabling. I was able to see the board, follow the betting action, and put him on a range of hands (as well as my skill set currently allows) that told me it there weren't many hands except pure bluffs that I could beat with my one card underboat.
I made some other reads, as well. I was at three of the four tables with a decent player - and on two of those tables, he was in late position during my blinds. He was blind stealing often (I both noticed this and my HUD confirmed it), but stealing with a 2x raise. At one point, when we were both fairly low in chips, I reraise-shoved over him with a mediocre QJo and got him to fold.
In the final analysis, I think I did ok. The big question for me was whether I liked it or not. Is playing a bunch of tables at the same time fun, or is it more like work? Not sure I know the answer to that question yet. Perhaps as I get more comfortable, it will be just like playing one table. We'll leave that last question open. I have tons of vacation coming up in the next three months, and it looks like I'll be getting in more multi-table practice.
3 losses tonight. My cards were not good enough to win anything, and I lost all the races when desperate. My TT vs his KQ lost, my AQ vs. his 88 lost, my JK vs. his 77 lost. I think they were all ok plays.
The TT was the trickiest - I was not totally desperate, and a tight player (17/5) open raised from under the gun. I was right behind him - lots of players to act behind me. None of my options sound correct. Folding is too weak, so is calling with under 15 BB. Shoving seems the best, although I had 5 people behind me.
I could be crushed - he's definitely not folding a pair higher than TT, and I'm pretty much racing the rest of his range. Can I get anything to fold? I think AJ/AT fold, maybe even AQ. I wouldn't even put KQ in his range, but that's what he had, and he called all-in with it, too. Seems like a hand that could be easily dominated, and therefore a bad play. It worked out for him, though - he hit two pair on the flop.
The other two races were standard.
Played a great deal of poker tonight. Lots and lots.
Things were not going well early. Bad cards, good hands dominated, losing races - you know, all the usual stuff. But I got the ultimate comebacker with a 1st place finish in an 18 man.
The end was so sweet - there were three of us, one big stack and two little stacks. The big stack did not know how to use his chips - he kept limping into pots, then betting pot. You know, allowing us to hit. Sadly, I couldn't hit anything.
Finally, I shoved A6 and the other small stack called me with A2. I avoided the suckout and crippled him.
In the next hand, the big stack limped again, knowing the guy I just beat had less than 1 BB left. He put it in, and I checked QT. I flopped an open ended straight draw, and the dumbass big stack bet pot again, unaware of the concept of implicit collusion. I should have folded, but my recent double-up allowed me to peel off one card, and... I hit the straight! Dumbass big stack bet pot again, I shoved over him, he called with top pair, 3 kicker, and I doubled up while knocking out #3. We were about even in chips.
Very next hand, I hit top pair of aces and checkraise him all in. He calls with second pair of kings. Just like that I had almost all the chips. I dispatched him 2 or 3 hands later.
I went from fighting for my life to whacking the big stack in like 3 hands. It felt good - real good, and turned my early October numbers around.
Tony and I joined an 18 man tourney online tonight, and he was seated two to my left.
At the proper time, I raised from the button with Ah8h, and he defended. We got a 2 heart board. He checked, and me, thinking he might have called with strength (like I did to him the night before), went for the check behind and a free shot at the flush.
The turn paired the top card, a nine. Tony lead out. His bet was on the stronger end, which made me think weak. I thought I could represent the 9, and if he called, I could river him with a flush. I went all-in, and he called pretty quickly - with QQ. I missed my 12 outs and Tony sent me to the bottom of the chip leaderboard. I was knocked out an orbit later with A9s vs. a donkey call by Q9s, who rivered a flush. Ugh.
Well-played by Tony - he defended with a strong hand, avoided danger when his queens stayed an overpair, and got his money in as a 4-1 favorite. Not so good by me - I thought I had some fold equity but did not, though he did admit to me after the hand that I made him sweat with my shove. That's worth something, I suppose.
Played one more tourney after the 18 man- this one a nine man - no luck there either. Dude to my right kept limping, limping, limping, and I raised over him (with cards) at least three times. He kept folding, and I figured he was going to call me light pretty soon. The fourth time, he minraised (not the first time he had done that, either), and I shoved over him one more time with AQ. Bullets for him, 5th place for me.
SNGs are trickier to analyze than cash games. In a cash game, you get your money in as a dog, then you probably made a mistake, easy as that. The rising blinds of the SNG increase the danger and get you desperate - you have to take chances. If someone wakes up with a giant hand while you're taking a necessary chance, then whoopsie, you got your money in bad, but it still doesn't (necessarily) make your play a bad one.
I had raised this limpy-limperson up so many times, I figured he was ready to play sheriff with plenty of worse hands than AQ. His aces gave him a final revenge on me, the pest to his left. I still like my play there.
I've been working on shuffling poker chips for weeks now. I can easily shuffle two stacks of three, but when I add the fourth chip to each stack, the last two on the left side seem to want to stick together. Every once in awhile, maybe one time in 5, I get my hand just perfect, the chips at just the right angle, and the correct pressure on them, and the eight chips all fall perfectly into place.
Winning a giant pot often goes the same way. The perfect confluence of your cards, your prior actions, your opponent's cards, and the flop come together every so often for that rare event - stacking a really good opponent.
Thursday night cash game - another weak turnout - only 6 players. I tried to recruit some new blood but it didn't come to pass this week.
I got to play the part of "card rack" this evening. Big hands that held up. The first of the night was pocket kings in the hole. I raise and get a caller who has position on me. The board is queen high, a bit scary but not terribly so. I play the value game, as I've been doing lately, and lead out. Let your strong hands protect your weak ones, so they say. My opponent with position raises me. He's a good player and his read is probably perfectly logical - why would I lead out with a strong hand here? More likely I have a second pair type hand and I'm seeing where I stand. His hand smells like AQ/KQ/QJ to me - top pair, decent kicker, and now he's seeing where he stands. There isn't a logical two-pair combo out there, and no big draw to raise on, and this opponent isn't the "raising with draws" type anyway. I could be dead to a set, as always, but you're not going to win much money in the long run playing scared of sets. Nope, you need to go with your read (even if your reading skills are still a work in progress) and take the step off the ledge.
I push all in with my overpair, and my opponent folds. Looks like my read was true.
Very soon after this hand (maybe even the hand right afterwards, but I can't recall), Tony raises the pot preflop. I'm sitting to his left, so I check my cards right away, and glory-be - two black aces in the hole.
The most logical play of course is to three-bet the aces. I've been blogging about light three betting for a couple weeks now, and how the play is most successful when you've been doing it over and over, and then you finally show up with the bullets on the hand where someone decides to take a stand and shove all in with pocket nines or Ace-Queen. You also never want to play a multiway pot with pocket aces, as your chances of getting them cracked rises precipitously.
One problem with this logic, though - I've been thinking and writing about light three betting lately, but I really haven't actually done it. It's more likely that Tony would see the three bet for what it is - a value raise with a strong hand.
The alternative is to simply call preflop with the aces, for deception. You run the risk of letting multiple people in the pot behind you, as I mentioned. You also might get lucky and have one of the blinds try the old squeeze play - hoping to force the original raiser out of the pot, and then you pounce back. I recently learned that this play is called the "New York Back Raise".
One thing about Tony - he's one of the best hand readers in our cash game. He is always considering what his opponent holds, what is he drawing to, can he be pushed off the hand. These skills win him pots without the cards to do so, and keep him out of trouble. Against most opponents, the right play is to reraise here and hope the original raiser has a big enough hand to go to the wall. But against Tony, simply calling with pocket aces should throw a wrench into his "range finder" and just might lure him into a big mistake.
As I said, it's a risk. But sometimes you need to accept a bit more risk to for the potential for more reward. I call the raise with the pocket aces. It's probably the first time in my life I had ever done so, short of occasionally doing so when heads up in a tourney.
We get one caller behind us - Mr. Pietzak - the other master hand reader. His cards are more worrisome - he gets mixed up in lots of pots - lots of pots - and he could easily crack aces with an impossible-to-consider K4 two pair or somesuch.
I have made my deceptive play, and now I need a flop plan. The plan is to take my hand to the wall unless the board is drop-dead scary, like all one suit, and/or 9TJ-connected.
The three of us get a board of Queen of Diamonds, Eight of Diamonds, and a black rag (5?). One flush draw and one straight draw. No obvious two pairs. Since the flush draw is at the top end of the cards, combo hands like top pair + flush draw aren't available. (someone can't have AdQd since the queens of diamonds is on the board). The scariest combo draw is something like 5d6d - bottom pair + flush draw.
Nope, the board is dry enough. Time to go the wall.
Tony leads out for $8, into a $11 pot. He would do this with top pair, an overpair, any pocket pair, and complete air. His larger bet size here usually indicates a weaker holding, but I'm staying with my plan. I made a big re-re-raise on the flop a few hands ago with my kings, and I need to continue that aggression and hope someone has the cards and inclination to play sheriff. I make it $20 more. That bet commits us if he wants to continue.
Mr Pietzak folds behind (whew), and Tony takes his time considering. I know that he's going through the hand in his mind, and after all his consideration, he decides to go all-in.
It's always a scary proposition calling an all-in, but like the pocket kings before, I need to go with my read now and step off the ledge. My biggest read, of course, is that I'm 99% sure that Tony has not considered aces in my hand, and therefore has many more hands in his holdings that can beat this board. I call - Tony shows pocket kings - and predictably gives out a yell and looks at the ceiling when I reveal the bullets. We run the turn and river, and I have stacked Tony for what I believe might be the first time ever.
You might say "big whoop - just another aces vs. kings hand". And, in most cases, you would be right. But I'll tell you exactly how this hand would have went had we played it the standard way:
Tony raises to $3.50 preflop.
I make it $10.
He makes it $25.
I shove.
He folds face up, saying "I guess you have the aces".
I win a $40 pot.
Tony won't play an all-in pot preflop with anything but aces. He'll fold kings, he'll fold queens, he'll certainly fold Ace-King. Why guess preflop when he can usually outplay people postflop? Nope, my little tricky call bloated this pot from $40 to $140.
A nice start to the evening, but look how fragile luck can be in poker. In the space of two hands, I had to go all-in with pocket kings on a queen high board, and got a fold from an opponent who didn't have the cards to nail them. Then my opponent Tony made the exact same play - with the exact same hand - on a nearly identical board, but this time I did have the cards he didn't want to see. My first opponent could have called with aces against me and nailed me just as easily, or I could have slowplayed my aces into a set of eights or queens against Tony. Everything went right this time - just like my occasional eight-chip-shuffle.
The rest of the night went well, too. I won a few small pots and lost a couple, also. I rivered quad-freaking-kings but my opponent couldn't call a river bet with a pair of aces on a paired and three-to-a-flush board. $147 profit on the night, 2.5 buy-ins.
