Category Archives: poker

I played in both the The Mookie & second chance tournaments yesterday. Meh, I have done worse. I finished 16th of the 40something in the regular event, on a hand that I knew I shouldn’t be playing, and honestly only did play to finish myself off before the second event started. I was sitting on a very short stack anyway, and with the blinds at their current levels I was not long for the tournament. Although I had been managing to steal the blinds, even from the short stack, so maybe I could have picked a better spot. I ended up pushing from EP with an A-7o, and the next two guys immediately pushed their stacks in as well. Woo-Hoo, over 4:1 on my money, if no one has anything better than an A-7o, which everyone did.

The second chance event is only a 5 dollar buy-in, and with only 16 players, I was far more in my element. I don’t do all that well in large MTTs, particularly when the blinds get above 1000/2000 as I am just to scared to try to make pure steals when the stakes are so high. I really seem to play my best when the field is two or three tables, so I approached this one with high hopes, even though the field consisted of the very same people. Now there is some faulty logic!

Early in the tournament I had an A-Ko in early position and limped into it. Gary raised it a bit more than 4x from the button which the big blind and I both called. The flop came out K-J-9 with two hearts. I checked it with TPTK, wanting to see where I stood. Gary immediately bet 2/3 the pot and jeciimd raised his bet a bit over 3x. I haven’t played with jeciimd enough to really know what his/her bet meant, however I have been at the table with Gary quite a bit. In my experience, he is not the type to make that kind of a bet if the flop hasn’t hit him. True, people do things when they are on the button that they don’t normally do, but the 2/3 pot bet looks like he wants a couple of people in it with him. Certainly not something I would expect to see if he was playing on top pair with a weak kicker, and definitely not something he would do if he had worse. I don’t even speculate about what Jeciimd might be holding, but laid down the TPTK because I think Gary has to have either JJ or KJ to be making that bet (99 is a possibility too, I suppose, but that never really came into my thinking). Would Gary have made the 4x pf raise with K-J? I don’t think he would have with a limper already in it (this all in speculation, of course). Gary reraised all-in and Jeciimd called it. Gary did indeed have pocket jacks, and Jeciimd was playing it on a nut flush draw. The turn and river were both aces, giving Gary a boat of Jacks over Aces and Jeciimd 3 aces. I would have won that hand if I would have stayed in it, but that is irrelevant. I made a good read there and was able to lay down the TPTK (which I am usually married to), which in itself shows a huge improvement in my game over the last couple of months.

A short while later, I was in a hand with an A-5 spades. The flop came out 4-6-7 diamonds and Waffles led out with a bet that was about 2/3 the pot (he had raised 4x pf). I have a bit of a reputation as a flush donkey (hell I was in this hand with an A-5 for that very reason, just not in the right suit), and decided to see if I could use that to my advantage. I waited for a few seconds before putting in a min-raise. Hoy loves to do that when he is trying to look weak, I did that hoping that the weak=strong logic would make Waffles lay down what was surely a better hand. Hoy said in the chat “min raise alert!!”, and after some thinking, Waffles laid them down. This wasn’t a pure bluff, since I was sitting on an OESD, but with him potentially holding the Ace of diamonds, I sure didn’t want him to call there.

After the hand, I found that Hoy at least had bought my ruse (too bad it was Waffles that was in the hand). The chat looked like this:

shadowtwin: yeah, I am incapable of raising without the nuts.
hoyazo: ha
hoyazo: that minraise smelled fishy man.
shadowtwin: no really. would I lie?

I wouldn’t last long in the tournament though, because I did something pretty damn stupid. I have spent a lot of time thinking about my play since then, even chatted with Waffles, Hoy and Iak about it. This is a hand where I really should have known that I was beat, but I went ahead and donked myself out of it anyway. The thing is, I should never have been in the position I was in the first place.

A thing about me that you will learn if you sit at my table for any amount of time at all is that I like to see a flop with A-x suited. A-4, A-7, I don’t care, I like to see a flop. I am certainly not going to raise with that crap (possibly short-handed I would, but that is different), usually don’t even call a raise with it, but I like to see the flop with it if I can do so on the cheap. I have played enough to know that this is just about the most dangerous hand to be seeing flops with, at least for me. If I happen to hit top pair, I have to lay it down more often than not. If someone bets at an ace high flop, they probably have an ace also, and when I am taking a cheap flop to see if the flush hits, I usually don’t have a kicker that I should be calling with. I play this hand quite a bit, and I have rules about what I will stay in the post flop with. One of two conditions has to be met, or I will fold to any bet. Either 1) there have to be two cards in the same suit as my A-x, or 2) I have to pair the Ace and the kicker, and even if I pair the kicker it is probably going to get folded to any significant bet since it is likely to be bottom pair.

That was exactly what my intention was last night when I had an A-3 diamonds in middle position. I wanted to limp in with it, then fold if I didn’t hit; as always with that hand, my number one priority is to not go broke. Waffles raised it up to 4x from the button, and I thought about it for a bit before making the call. As I say, I don’t usually call a raise with this hand, but I do take a stab on occasion. In this particular case, I was respecting his raise and putting him on a range of exactly ten hands. I figured he had either A-K, A-Q, or a pair from 7s up. My reasoning on putting him on a good hand in a steal position is that I hope think that most of the bloggers have played with me enough to know that I will usually limp with anything short of pocket queens, kings or aces. So going into this flop, I actually thought to myself “fold if the diamonds don’t hit”.

The flop came down A-A-7. I checked it over to him fully expecting him to put in a bet, which I really was planning to fold to. Instead, he checked it as well. The turn brought a king, again I checked it to him, again expecting him to bet at me. Again he checked it as well. The river was a five, and I had somehow convinced myself that his lack of a bet on the turn meant that he wasn’t holding an ace. I bet just over half my stack into it, he immediately re-raised all-in and I called. He flipped over A-7 sending my lowly 3 aces home with his boat. Now that was a well played hand. Not many people are going to be able to check to the river with a flopped boat.

So, why is it that I decided on the river to completely ignore the rules I set for myself when playing this hand? Obviously, Waffles just outplayed me on this one. When I actually busted, I just stared at the screen in disbelief for a second, then I started looking at it logically. I had made the mistake of pot-committing myself when I made the bet on the river, so really I was going to have to call his push anyway, but the question is, what hand did I think I was trying to beat? By my own read, I had put him on a range of only 10 hands (of course he didn’t have one of the ten, but that hardly matters). Of those ten, the AA wasn’t possible, the KK and 77 beat me, as do the A-K and A-Q. By my own read, I have only a 50/50 shot at winning this hand after all the cards are down. But when I put in the bet on the river, I put him in a position where the only way he could call me is if he had me beat. He can’t call it unless he has a pocket pair of kings, fives or sevens, all of which make a boat, or an Ace, in which case the only way I win is if his kicker is lower than a 3 (well I guess we would split if he has a 2,3,4 or 6). See that? I made a big bet and pot-committed myself on a hand that I can only win if he folds.

I would like to think that if I had made a small bet and he re-raised me, I would have laid it down, but the truth is I wouldn’t have. The fact is that my bet there shows that I really didn’t think it through. I put him on a range of hands before the flop, then his play convinced me to absolutely disregard my read (which was wrong, but I still should have stuck to). As strange as it is, I really enjoyed losing that way. Too many times I lose to coin flips or plays that I know are marginal at best, when this one went down, I had managed to convince myself that I really had the best hand, and I just didn’t. It forced me to actually look at the way it was played, and realize that what I did was foolish. As if I had been hypnotized by the pair of aces on the flop, forcing me to completely disregard the hard rules that I always stick to when I play my A-x suited hands.

I am sure that most people would say I shouldn’t have been in this hand at all, and you would probably be right. But even by my own rules I shouldn’t have been in it. There weren’t two diamonds on the flop and I didn’t pair my kicker, the fact that there happened to be not one but two aces on the flop shouldn’t have any difference at all. I should have checked every street and folded to any bet, just as I would have done if the flop had come up A-K-Q, regardless of how many aces there are, a three is not a playable kicker. I hope that losing this hand, and being forced to look at the way I played it, will make me think about it then next time I end up in this situation playing A-x suited (which I will do, it’s just one of my things). If I can learn from this, and lay it down the next time I am in this situation, I will look back at this as one of the best hands I ever played. Winning hands is great, but it rarely improves my play. I would rather improve my game by losing a hand any day of the week

It seems that my online poker career has almost reached its end. Through an unfortunately timed funk in the hands I have been dealt of late, my bankroll on both of the poker sites that I regularly play has dwindled down to almost nothing. I had never bought into either of them for more than 50 dollars, so it’s no great loss, it just happened that after my last relative score on each of the sites, I have experienced the worst run of luck imaginable.

I learned early on that you don’t actually need to be dealt premium cards to do well in Hold ‘Em, and that has worked to my advantage over the last month. During one stretch of my recent run, I was dealt two pocket pairs in 100 hands, and they were both under 9. I went for about three weeks without getting dealt a pair of faces, which was really only about ten tournaments, so it’s not that bad.

During this run, I only competed in one blogger event, which was the Mookie a couple of weeks ago, and managed to make it to 17th IIRC out of 40 something players. Which I think is pretty commendable, considering the utter garbage I was being forced to play. You can get by with playing the garbage for a while, especially if you don’t play a lot of hands, but eventually someone is going to have a hand when you are making a move and not having cards to back up your betting for, oh, say three weeks or so is going to strip away any shred of table image you may have had.

Over the course of this run, I have also found out just how bad the people playing in your average SnG are -at least the token games, which are the most I was willing to risk with that kind of luck-. I played in about ten of the token events, and out of those I only failed to make it to the “money” once -and even that was a bubble finish. I won a token in all but two of the rest, the other two taking down the 14 dollar boobie prize, which was probably better considering my current situation; it’s not as if I am going to be making a serious run at the 20k right now anyway.

Yesterday I managed to bubble out of the token event (as mentioned previously), when I was dealt kings. slb was there watching me, and after I pushed from the short stack he noted that I should have just waited for one of the other short stacks to blind out (there were three of us painfully low on chips). He was probably right. In that game I needed only to get to fifth, and with both of the other short stacks likely to blind out before it got to me on the next orbit, I probably could have laid them down and made my way to a token. Of course that would be playing like a pussy, I mean c’mon, you can’t fold kings pre-flop when it comes to you unraised. At any rate, I got two callers, and the flop had an ace in it, of course. Not only that, but another guy pushed on the flop as well. What did they have? Why Aces up, of course. I pushed with kings, got two callers, and both of them paired their ace and their kickers (which were a 6 and a 9). I know I am not the only one that has ever lost when he pushed with kings preflop from the short stack, but that is just a microcosm of the way my luck has been going lately -I am actually a bit surprised that the turn and river didn’t come 6 & 9 to give them boat over boat to knock me out.

Then there are the times when I actually do get a hand, and I just play it completely wrong. I have tried to back away from just checking, as I have found that things go my way far more frequently when I am the aggressor, but I still haven’t found the right combination of betting and timing to get people out of pots that they have no business being in in the first place. Take the following hand, for example (just gonna paste the history here):

Seat 1: Furley (1,485)
Seat 2: s_c_i (1,470)
Seat 3: Bordon (1,500)
Seat 4: gatorfansteve (1,500)
Seat 5: shadowtwin (1,500)
Seat 6: NoChatJustPlay (1,545)
Seat 7: mfpd44 (1,500)
Seat 8: nyc1980 (1,500)
Seat 9: Tunabomber (1,500)
s_c_i posts the small blind of 15
Bordon posts the big blind of 30
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to shadowtwin [5c 5d]
gatorfansteve calls 30
shadowtwin calls 30 –just going to limp with the low pocket pair, likely a fold on the flop
NoChatJustPlay calls 30
mfpd44 folds
nyc1980 folds
Tunabomber folds
Furley calls 30
s_c_i folds
Bordon checks
*** FLOP *** [9d 5h 8d]
Bordon checks
gatorfansteve checks
shadowtwin bets 150 –flopped set, so I bet the pot. I don’t like the diamonds.
NoChatJustPlay raises to 300 I put him on top pair or a draw
Furley folds
Bordon folds
gatorfansteve folds
shadowtwin raises to 600 –So I doubled his bet to try to chase him off
NoChatJustPlay calls 300
*** TURN *** [9d 5h 8d] [Jd]
shadowtwin bets 450 –The third diamond scares me, but I still think I am ahead
NoChatJustPlay calls 450 –It took him a long time to make the call. I think if I would have pushed he would have folded
*** RIVER *** [9d 5h 8d Jd] [Th]
shadowtwin checks –Since he called the bet on the turn, I am still afraid of the flush, but possibly a low enough flush that he isn’t sure he will win. Now I also have to worry about the straight. The range of hands that I put him on at this point means that if I bet, he can only call if he has me beat. I check and hope for the best
NoChatJustPlay checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
shadowtwin shows [5c 5d] (three of a kind, Fives)
NoChatJustPlay shows [Jh Qd] (a straight, Queen high)he called off half his stack on the flop with nothing but a gutshot straight draw and 2 to a flush. And won.
NoChatJustPlay wins the pot (2,265) with a straight, Queen high
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2,265 | Rake 0
Board: [9d 5h 8d Jd Th]
Seat 1: Furley (button) folded on the Flop
Seat 2: s_c_i (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 3: Bordon (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 4: gatorfansteve folded on the Flop
Seat 5: shadowtwin showed [5c 5d] and lost with three of a kind, Fives
Seat 6: NoChatJustPlay showed [Jh Qd] and won (2,265) with a straight, Queen high
Seat 7: mfpd44 didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 8: nyc1980 didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 9: Tunabomber didn’t bet (folded)

So, how do I play that hand and get him to actually lay it down? I led out on the flop with a pot-sized bet, which was actually 5x the BB at this point, he raised and I raised him right back. He is putting half (well nearly half) of his stack in the middle with absolutely nothing. Should I have just shoved on the flop and taken down the huge 150 chip pot? Should I have pushed on the turn? I get the feeling he would have called it; he called a bigger bet with absolutely nothing, now he has top pair. So my flopped set went from being ahead on the flop and turn to losing me nearly all of my chips on the river. The only silver lining is that I managed to take my 350 chips (or close) and go on to finish 6th, so I at least got another shot and a couple of bucks out of it.

See, if I can’t win in hands where I actually have them dominated pre-flop, on the flop, and on the turn, I don’t hold out much hope that I can go very far when I am behind at all those points. And unless my luck (or skill) turns around in a hurry, I am not going to have a bankroll at either site anymore, and I sincerely doubt that I will transfer any more money into them.

I signed up for an account on Partypoker a long time ago. This was just before I actually started learning how to play hold ’em. Which is to say that I thought I knew exactly how to play every hand in every situation, based solely on the fact that I had caught a couple of old WSOP repeats on ESPN. It didn’t go well. A couple days ago I was cleaning the PC of unnecessary programs and Partypoker was on the chopping block. Partypoker just has the most counter-intuitive interface of any poker program I have ever played (this in my opinion, of course), and with Pokerstars, Full Tilt and Poker Room still on the PC, I see no reason to keep it.

I logged into the party account to see if I had a balance, though I was relatively sure I had blanked it before I quit using it some time ago. I found that I did have a balance, but only 4 bucks. That was too small to waste the time withdrawing, and too small to get into a tournament with, so I decided to play blackjack until I had either a buy-in or wiped myself. I actually did fairly well with the blackjack and turned the 4 dollars into twenty in only a few minutes. So why didn’t I just continue to play blackjack instead of signing up for a hold ’em tournament? That is a damn good question actually.

I was plugging away in a ten dollar tournament (well, 11 dollars, but 10+1 on every other poker site), noting that the competition seemed to be every bit as bad as it was the last time I played there. In the first fifteen minutes, I saw two all-ins, both of which involved the winner having no better than second pair. It turns out that everyone else in the tournament might have been doing an elaborate hoax to bait me though (yeah, I love me a good conspiracy theory).

We’re in level two of the tournament and I haven’t paid to see a flop yet. I am on the button with pocket 4’s. There are two limpers ahead of me, and I chose not to raise with a small pair in this position. Still in level two of the tourney, if I were to put in a standard bet of 3 or 4x, it would only be about 100 chips. A lot of players who maybe aren’t very good don’t see that as indicative of a strong hand and will call it anyway -particularly on Party poker-, the small blind folded. At any rate, the flop came up Q-7-Q and it checks around to me. I assume that one of the three limpers has a Queen, so figuring that I want to find out right away, I put a pot sized bet out. I got a couple of quick folds, and the big blind called it, which tells me nothing of his hand, though I have to guess that he has either a pocket pair or the flop hit him in some way. The turn comes out another 4, giving me a boat that can only be behind to pocket 7’s or Q-7. It is checked to me again, so I put in another pot-sized bet which is again called by the blind. The river is a rag, and it is checked to me again. I bet out with about half the pot (which was getting pretty big at this point) and got instantly minraised by the blind. I can’t realistically put this guy on a hand. There is no possibility of a straight or a flush and the river was a 2 or 3 that couldn’t possibly have helped him. I am dead sure that he is trying to bluff me out of this one with the minraise, so I push ’em all in. No way he can beat my boat. Insta-call. His cards: Q-7.

In the little chat box, I typed “well played”, which he didn’t get to see, because I was already on the rail and Party doesn’t allow observers to chat. At any rate, he played this hand far better than I give anyone at party credit for being able to play. About 90% of the players at party would have pushed on the flop from first position with a made boat. 9.9% of them would have pushed on the turn. .09% of them would have pushed on the river. I happened to run into the one guy on that site who was capable of checking on every street. I did put out a bet on each one, which made that easier for him, but I have to ask, how many people do you know that could have played the river that way? Checking to me meant that he may not get any more chips out of it at all. Then when he did raise me, it was for the minimum, which he had to know I would read as weak and put him all in on. If other players make it to the river without betting that hand, I bet there are very, very few that would be capable of minraising in that position.

He had been trapping me from the flop, and I never saw it coming. I thought he may have a queen for trips, but never did it even cross my mind that he would be capable of playing a made boat that well for three streets. Well played, Sir.

I played in the Mondays at the Hoy tournament last night, marking only my third poker tournament in the last month. I had made a decision to distance myself from the game a bit, because when I was playing several MTTs a day I found that I was making poor calls in an attempt to make something out of nothing. The only reason I could come up with as to why I was doing it was that I was making the cardinal mistake in a card game: letting the results of previous hands influence my decision making on future hands. That is, my A-8 diamonds missed the flop completely last time, therefore if I play the A-8 diamonds again it is likely to catch a piece of it. I wasn’t actually thinking that, but as I look at the hand histories leading up to my hiatus, it was pretty obvious that such decisions were making it to the felt at least on a subconscious level.

The time away seems to have had the intended effect, as the last three tournaments have all yielded favorable results. Unfortunately, favorable and profitable are two completely different things. There was an 8th place out of 38 players in the Mookie, 9th out of 18 in the WWDN: Not, one which I made an extremely questionable call against a bluff by Hoyazo, where I correctly read the bluff, but alas didn’t have a higher crap card to take down the pot, and finally a 4th out of 22 in Hoy’s tournament.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, these blogger events have the toughest competition you are likely to find in an online poker game. The level of play is so much better than your average sit and go that after a few blogger tourneys you can join a random sit and go and pretty much sleep your way to the money. The blogger competitions also have the same people in them; in any given event, you are likely to have played multiple times with about three quarters of them. That adds yet another dynamic to the game, since you know their playstyles, and they know yours, it is difficult to make straight bluffs, and when you do you have to be ready to get called on it.

The 4th place in the tournament last night really hurt. To play the game for 2.5 hours, 214 hands, only to finish one away from the money is just brutal. For me, this is by far the largest buy-in tournament I ever enter. I play in the blogger ten dollar buy-in ones, but only I have managed to win enough money at the low limit cash table to afford it. It was the same way with this one, and I think this was the second time I have played in it. With the higher buy-in, the bloggers really seem to bring their A game, and it is even more difficult than most of the other blogger tournies. I certainly didn’t expect to last as long as I did, which probably adds a lot to the sense of defeat.

I had to get lucky a couple of times to make it as far as I did. In one instance I had A-Jo and got into a hand with Kat. When the flop came up J-9-8, she bet 300 at it, I raised it to 900, then she pushed. I called that one pretty confident that I was going to eliminate her, but she flipped over a pair of 8s for the set. The turn card was a 7, meaning if the river was a 10 we would split the pot, if it was a jack, I would take it down, otherwise I would have lost about half my stack and been back down to below average on the chip stack. The river bailed me out with a ten. I think Kat must hate me at this point, as that is at least the third time I can think of that she got into a pot with me when she was significantly ahead, yet I have been bailed out each time. Sorry Kat.

Another hand came actually a bit before that one, where I got dealt Kings. I was first to act and raised it 3x. The only caller was the big blind. The flop came up raggy with a couple of diamonds in it, so I pushed hoping to end it right there. Unfortunately he called me and flipped over a 5-7o which happened to be two pair. I don’t know how you call a 450 bet pre-flop with a 5-7o, but call it he did. The board paired on the turn to give me a higher two pair. I really dodged a bullet on that one. That was also the highest pocket pair I would have all night. In fact, I only had two other pocket pairs with faces all night, both of them were jacks. Once it folded around to me, the other time I had to lay them down to pressure on a flop with an Ace and a Queen in it.

I won a race to knock out Jules a bit later. I had about 6000 in chips and called off about 2000 of it with an A-Qo when she pushed. She had Jacks, leaving me a bit further behind than I had hoped, but I hit a queen on the flop and she never improved. Sadly, that was the last race that I was going to win on the night.

The bubble in this one lasted for a long ass time. We were to the bubble before the second break, and it lasted about a half an hour after the break. Each of the four of us had the chip lead at some point during the 4 handed play, and it was pretty clear that no one wanted to be the one to fuck up and bubble out of it. I was in a pretty bad position since the guy to my right was raising damn near every time I was on the button, effectively killing any chance I had to make a steal. I called him on a couple of occasions and got him to lay the cards down, but only once did I have the balls to do it when I didn’t have a hand. I pushed all my chips in on a 3-9o, to a king high flop, when I had no pair, straight or flush possibilities. I was hoping that I had been playing tight enough to scare him out of it, and I must have been, he folded.

When the blinds got to 400/800 and the antes were 50, a blind steal was enough to change position from 4th to 2nd for a while. Unfortunately I wasn’t finding the opportunities I would have like to make that move and I eventually found myself with only 3000 in chips. I was on the button with an A-10 spades when the first guy pushed. I thought a lot about this one before I made the call. The guy who pushed was the next shortest stack and each of the other guys had him covered. I figured it was possible that I could lay down my hand and let one of them call it. If they eliminated him, I would be in the money and could lose on the next hand. No sooner had I run that scenario through my head, some part of me started kicking my ass for even thinking it. I signed up hoping to win, not hoping to make third place. If I layed it down here I might squeak into third, but I was certainly not going any further with less than 3000 chips and the blind hitting me on the next hand. I had to call this one, I had good cards for a shorthanded game and figured I was probably going to be a coinflip to a mid pair. Alas the pair was jacks, making me a huge dog, and the flop missed me in every conceivable way. In my anger and frustration at losing the hand, I subjected the table to the most vulgar, tilt-induced line I have ever uttered in chat. I said “well poo”, and I stand by that statement. After two and a half hours, busting out on the bubble made me think that very thing, and if you can’t handle such harsh words in the chat, you shouldn’t be playing the game.

The one thing that I can take away from this is that I played really well. With one key exception, I think I played the cards I was dealt as well as they could have been played. My reads were right in nearly every instance, and my bluffs got the desired result every time. In 214 hands, I was dealt exactly 16 pocket pairs, only three of which were face cards. I had to play a lot of crap hands because that was what I was getting dealt. The A-Jo that I normally stay away from was the hand I was playing the hardest last night, simply because that was the best that I was getting. In the last hour I didn’t get anything better than that. I really think if I could keep my play at the level I was playing last night, and caught a few hands along the way, I could realistically take one of these down.

A question for those of you better than me. The call that eliminated me from the tournament, how bad a call was that? A-10 spades on the button, 3000 in chips. First to act pushes, he is second shortest with 4800. Blinds are at 400/800, antes are 50. 4 handed play. I will blind out in six or seven hands. That is a call I have to make, isn’t it?

The last three days, I have seen the final table in three blogger events. Though this is obviously a product of extreme luck, it still feels pretty good. The blogger events still always include at least a dozen people who I don’t have any business being at the same table with, let alone actually competing with.

The Mookie went pretty well, and I think I actually played that one pretty solid. I didn’t make a lot of stupid mistakes and I was able to win a couple of races when I needed to. I did get my chips all in on a pretty questionable call against Drewspop when he pushed from the small blind:

I haven’t ever read a poker book, and I let a lot of things influence why I make a call. The cards come into it a bit for sure, but usually only after a whole bunch of other factors. On this particular hand, I put a lot of thought into his stack size before I made the call; If I fold it right here, he adds 30% to his stack uncontested. I have a pretty fair hand, but not one that even I would normally call an all in with (push with, sure, but not call with). Trying to put him on a hand here, I figure there are really only two possibilities 1) he has an A-x, and I get into the flop as an underdog. 2) this is a straight bluff, and I get into the flop way ahead. I eventually call it, fully expecting to either win or lose a coinflip, and it shakes down like this:

I wasn’t expecting to see him flip over an Ace-Queen of hearts, I was thinking it was more likely to be like A-7o or something. So I was more of an underdog than I thought I would be, but the poker gods gave me one here. But like I said, I knew I was going to be looking at a race, and had I lost the race, I would have still had 2400 in chips with the blinds still at 75/150. I would have hated to lose the chips, but I knew that it was a very real possibility when I pushed them in.

Not much more that I really care to comment on happened in this one. Well there was this time at the final table where I raised 3x from MP and got the table to fold around to me. That was just wonderful, since it was the first time I have ever been able to show this at the final table:

Shortly after dropping the hammer, I found myself with a pair of 9’s. I raised to 3x again, and Tripjax scoffed at this 1200 bet. He threw some godawful huge bet out there, which would have left me with only a few hundred chips if I were to call. I really thought he was trying to teach me a lesson about stealing blinds, after the hammer just a few hands before, so I decided to go all in. I figured he probably had two over cards, and that I was going to be looking at another race. But when he flipped over aces, even I don’t have that kind of luck. So I managed to donk myself right the hell out of this one, again, in 7th:

This was a call that I really shouldn’t have made just because I would have still been in really good position if I would have laid them down. Tripjax had been stealing pots with abandon, but I really should have waited for a better (or worse) hand to take head to head with the chipleader. He had no reason to be risking that much of his stack when he could easily just watch everyone else kill each other off. I should have given his raise in that position some respect, and in the end the reason I didn’t was because it was so insanely large; I thought he really didn’t want me to call it. I think I would have gone out on that hand if he would have just called it though. Unless the flop would have come up with three over cards, I would most likely have pushed on the flop anyway.

Then last night, I signed up for the WWDN: Not. I had been playing Guild Wars (geek alert! geek alert!) and barely made it in time, but make it I did. Unfortunately, my pc required a restart after an afternoon spent slaying demons, and I completely forgot to fire up my screen cap program, so the few that I am going to throw up here were ripped off directly from this photo album. I absolutely have to put them up here though, ’cause I was sucking out like nobodies business.

I started it out innocuously enough, donking off a third of my stack early. I happened to get jacks early on, raised pre-flop, then called a bet on the flop even though it had a king and an ace in it, and eventually layed them down on the turn -which is exactly one more card than I should have paid to see, but I am new to this-. The good news for me is that this was the last stupid play I would make the last time that the board wouldn’t bail my ass out on a big hand. I made a couple of calls that I really shouldn’t have made, but I was feeling lucky, and each of them paid off. It did lead to a lot of apologizing in the chat, but when I am hitting the cards, I am going to take more chances than when I’m not.

The first hand that I am going to post about is one where I got into a pot with Hacker. As I said before, a lot of things go into why I do or don’t make a call, and the cards I am holding are only a small part of it. In this particular hand, Hacker is the short stack with 1448 in chips. Superman raised it to 600, which I called, and then Hacker pushed his 1448 in chips into the pot that was now at 1500. Hacker just doubled up if I don’t make the call here. I have an A-6 s00ted, and figure Hacker could be pushing with any two cards at this point (note that he doubles up even if no one calls). I really think that my ace is probably ahead, and I call off the additional 800 chips to find out:

What I got instead was that suckout. I am posting this one only because someone asked how I made that call, and I wanted to explain it. It sure is easy to look at it after all the cards are dealt and say that it was a horrible call, but I really didn’t think he was holding anything at all. If you were the short stack, and you could double up if you pushed and the other guy folded, would you make that push regardless of the cards? I would. It sucks that I was wrong and then went on to bust him out with a lucky card, but in my mind that is a call I have to make. We are all trying to win the game, and letting the short stack double up without a challenge, when I am holding an ace, is something that I just can’t do. Had it not been raised on the way to Hacker, that would have been the easiest lay down of the night for me.

The next in my long line of suckouts was a push I made with a suited A-J. This one really should have sent me home. I thought I was going to be ahead when the chips went in and instead I was way, way behind:

Yeah, that one really should have sent me home. Hoy even wrote that only a fish calls an all in with A-J, so what do I do? But, on a 1-10 scale of suckouts, this one was right up there. But it was nothing compared to what was about to come. With three people left, I make an all in call on the turn with nothing but a king high and a flush draw. There are no face cards on the board, so I am figuring that we are in a battle of high cards, until he flips over pocket queens. I got about ten outs and, well, I got lucky again:

I went on to win the heads up, which is only the second heads up I have ever won. I didn’t really get a lot of good pocket cards, but the poker gods were bailing me out there as well. Except for one hand where I would have ended it when I made a flush on the turn and got all in, only to see him complete a flush on the river, and his ten beat my 8(?).

Like I said at the beginning, I made some pretty big suckouts that led to a lot of apologizing in chat, but that’s poker, and after having this done to me a while back, I can’t feel all that bad. I hope that I can limit the foolish calls (notably those last two shown) in the future, ’cause it sucks to have to write about making a bad call and sucking out huge. Also, it sure is nice to see this once in a while:

I was having a conversation the other day with slb about how we both play much better in the Tuesday night WWDN than any of the other blogger events. He is on the east coast, and he figures that the earlier start time just means that he is more patient since it isn’t so late. That is some pretty sound logic. I am in Arizona, so the majority of the blogger events start at 7:00 my time, which is hardly late -in fact that is the same time I take my nearly daily crack at the ftp 20k. The only reason I can come up with as to why I might do better in the Tuesday events is that they generally have a larger field (though not lately), and I ususally don’t end up at a table with 5 guys that I am terrified of. See, I don’t play well terrified.

Before I get to my recap of the game, though, I want to share a couple of screenshots that I thank my stars I didn’t want to take my 3-8o to war with. The first one here is a perfect example of what happens about 98% of the time if you get all in preflop with Queens:

The next one I am glad I was not in because as the play unfolded, I was fairly certain that Aquaverse was sitting on a queen based on the betting. The way Sires played the hand made it seem like he was scared, and I think everyone at the table bought that act:

Well played, Sires, well played.

Anyway. I said that I usually end up at a starting table without five people that I am completely terrified of, and that held true of last night’s game. There were, in fact, only three people that I was completely terrified of. Hoy scares me on principal alone (though getting the opportunity to see some of the crap he bluffs with -as posted on his site- has taken some of the edge off), Hacker seems to be at the final table, or at least near it, at every damn blogger event, and this horse guy has smacked my ass around on a few occasions. The other people at the table, I didn’t recogize, which just means that I wasn’t smart enough to be terrified of them. So the starting table looked like this (though not for very long):

Last night, I decided that I wasn’t going to call anything in the first three levels if I didn’t have the absolute nuts. And what is funny is that I really believed that I was going to stick to it, yeah, like that ever happens. I was forced to lay down a pair of jacks early when an A-K-x hit on the flop, and was coupled with an aggressive bet. I paid too much money to see one more card, praying it would be another jack, which it wasn’t (donkey call! donkey call!), but I was able to only piss away a third of my stack on that hand -it could have been much worse.

I got to limp into a hand a short while later with a pair of sixes. Glad I could limp, ’cause after losing a third of my stack on a previous horrible call, I wasn’t exactly stoked about the idea of paying even the minimum to see if I could flop a set. But flop a set I did:

Boy it sucks to flop a set on a limped hand like this, eh? Either one of the blinds could easily have just flopped a straight or a flush. The straight is a lot less likely from the other guy who limped into the pot, but the flush is still a real possibility. Since I was on the button, and both of the blinds checked the flop, I decided to call the pot sized bet here, mostly to see if the blinds were going to lay it down, but also hoping that the turn would pair the board and make me feel a lot better about my position. The board had different ideas:

I really think the pot sized bet here probably means that he doesn’t have a flush, probably not even a pair; my best guess is that he is in it on two high cards. Unfortunately, either of those high cards could be a heart, and I really can’t justify putting nearly half my stack into a board of hearts, especially knowing that I am all but guaranteed to get called all in on the river regardless of what card happens to hit. If the board were to pair, I would surely take it down. If another heart hit, I would probably split the pot, but it could also cripple me if he had just made a backdoor flush. I layed the hand down here just hoping that I would be able to use the chips I saved on a hand in a better position later.

Instead of using the chips on a better hand, or a good hand in a better position later, I went ahead and confirmed all theories of my donkicity (is that a word?). The next big blind, I have K-garbage offsuit, and get the joy of seeing a flop (if I had a dollar for every time I am in the blind, pair on the flop, then bust out to someones two pair or trips, my bankroll would be booming). Of course the flop hits my bottom card (and they don’t get much more bottom than that), and drops a pair of queens. Why I didn’t immediately fold to Hoytlite’s bet is a mystery even to me. In this instance, I don’t think I even ran through what he could be holding before I made the call. I know that I was thinking he didn’t have a Queen, beyond that, I got nothing. When it got to the river without another face card hitting, I figured I was either way ahead or way behind. He bet 210 into the pot, which looked a little fishy to me, if he would have pushed here, I probably would have folded. The small bet though, lent credibility to my theory that he could be in it with two high cards and didn’t pair either of them. Since a straight call would cripple me if I lost, I decided to make my stand right here, on a frikking K-3o:

He took a long time thinking about it, but eventually called. I was almost shocked when the chips got pushed my way at the end of this one, but it is a call that I wouldn’t have regretted making if it had gone the other way. From the time that I made the decision to call his bet on the flop, I think I knew that I was going to stake my tournament life on this bottom pair. A horrible, horrible call to be sure, when any pocket pair but deuces dominates me, but when no more face cards hit, I just couldn’t put him on a queen with the minimal bets. I knew I dodged a bullet on this one, and I was going to do my best to keep from putting myself in that position again.

I would catch an actual hand shortly thereafter, again from a blind, and again it would be Hoytlite that was in it with me:

He raises 4x from under the gun, which I take to mean he probably has a high pocket pair. Of course the bet was enough to get us in the hand alone, so there was nothing to do but call and see the flop, which I hated: Q-J-10 with two spades. I had guessed that he was in it with a high pocket pair, which could easily be queens, jacks, or 10’s, but when he led out with a bet that was a little than half the pot, it either meant that the flop missed him, or that he just made a hand and wanted to suck every last chip out of my stack. Of course there was also the possibility that he had A-10 or A-J and had just paired his bottom card, but I am more of a worst case scenario speculator. The turn was a rag, and at this point I figured I was going to live or die by this hand, unless he pushes on the turn. The board looks like this:

I missed the screenshot of the end, but, if memory serves, I think he had a pair of 9’s. We ended up all in on the river and I won the hand. This is another hand that scared the holy bejeezes out of me, just because of the obvious straight, flush, and set possibilities right there one the flop. With the range of hands that I was putting him on, I am really surprised that I won this one.

The next big hand that I got into, I almost feel guilty about. I don’t know why, I’m sure if the situation was reversed there wouldn’t be any such feelings. I can just imagine how the guy felt, though, when he pushed his flopped set into my flopped straight:

And, unlike my luck of late, the flopped straight actually held up:

I was all set to go to war with an A-K, when Vtepes pushed from under the gun, but someone else called it, and I figured I would let them battle it out (at least I don’t think I played this hand). Anyway, once Weak Player was at the table, the chat got fun. I made mention of his avatar looking a bit like my brother, which led to a brief Q&A session, ultimately capped by Astin making the observation about my brother that you can see in the chat of the screenshot below (and it almost made me shoot diet coke out of my nose):

Upon arriving at the final table, my only goal was to outlast one other guy. That is kind of a shitty goal, considering that I was actually in second when I got there. This is actually my third final table in a WWDN (remember about the doing better in the Tuesday tournaments?), and would ultimately put my average finish in the event into the high teens. Not much of note happened to me at the final table, except that I actually wasn’t card dead for the first time at a final table. Unfortunately, the cards that I was getting weren’t quite good enough to actually be betting big with, but they also weren’t crappy enough to fold with. Let’s just say that I saw a lot of suited face cards that I got to lay down to big bets on the flop -which completely missed me in every case-.

I got into a race on this hand figuring that I was going to be a slight underdog:

I wasn’t sure if TransFish was sitting on a pocket pair or a high card, but I was relatively sure that the push at this point had a lot more to do with the size of the pot than the hand she was holding. With the pot at over 6,000 already, figuring that I was about 50/50 to a mid pair, and a slight underdog to an A-x (not to mention being way ahead if it was a stone bluff), I eventually made the call. Trans was holding an A-4o, making me the dog. The flop helped no one, but the turn paired her ace, then the river dropped a 4, as if the poker gods were trying to say, “well dude, you had a good run, but from this point forward bend over. Oh yeah, if you got some lube, you may want to use it”.

Then I went card dead. After a couple of orbits which involved folding and more folding (someone was raising every damn hand, effectively eliminating any possibility of a steal -at least for a donk like me), I eventually ran a 4-9o into a hand that two people were already all in. Again, this call was made for no reason other than the pot size. My chip stack would have been just enough to cover the blinds another time and pay the antes along the way. My river suckout capabilities usually bail me out of those situations, but last night, it was not to be. I busted out in 7th, which is pretty respectable from a field of 52:

After I busted out, I stayed around to rail (Matt Damon!). Someone, though I forget who, asked me if I was in a cash game. I told them that after the buy in to the tournament, I had exactly 96 cents left in my PokerStars account (I am not exactly what you call a high roller), and I think that people thought I was joking. So, this one is for you guys:

With the 7th place finish, I live to fight another day.

I hadn’t been in an ftp 20k for a while, so last night I decided to go ahead and sign up for one. I didn’t have a decent hand to play for the first hour of the tournament, which has become the status quo around here, but thanks to playing with Guin quite a bit over the last week or so -and having him chatting at me on the girlie chat thing- I have gotten a lot better at using my tight play to steal enough blinds to keep me around. Why this newfound stealing has yet to work its way into my blogger tournament play, I may never know. Perhaps it is because the field there is so much better, and most of them are willing to call that huge preflop raise with crap cards since they figure you have crap cards too? I dunno.

I was able to double up once before the first break, on what had to be the most insane play I have ever been involved in that I have ever won. I was on the button with a 3-9o, and when it folded around to me, I decided to go for the steal again. It seems that the big blind took offense to my having my way with his stack (which I wasn’t really doing, since the big blind in this case was also the chip leader at the table). In the end, I think I just raised a little bit too much here and made it pretty obvious that it was a steal. I raised it 6x preflop, since I obviously don’t want to see a flop with those cards, but that was also 1/3 of my stack, so I really needed to get my chips back (I could have gone on without them, it just would have been tough). He took a while to think before eventually calling, no raise, just a call. Of course if he raised it I would have been setting world speed records for how fast I fold.

This is exactly the kind of hand that I really need to not be in at all if I plan to advance in MTTs. There really shouldn’t ever be a time when I am seeing a flop with a 3-9o, but that was the way the poker gods (read: my flawed steal attempt) willed it, so I sort of had to. The flop hits 3-9-K rainbow giving me two pair, oh how I hate this hand. He checks it to me, but remembering Hoy’s observation that everyone will check if they hit a set, that could have meant anything. I checked right back. I am not sure what I should have done in that situation. In all likelihood, two pair had to be ahead right there, barring the set of course. But with the way my luck runs, it was entirely possible that he also had two pair, but that he hit with a king and a nine. When the turn came up an ace, he bet into it, but he just went straight all in. Normally, in my experience, if they want you to call it, or possibly get all your chips into the pot, the bet will be less than pot sized if they believe they have the best hand. The ace did put two clubs on the board, but at this point I don’t think either of us were really afraid of a flush. I took that bet to mean that he probably just hit a pair of aces, but didn’t really want to see the final card, and certainly not a showdown. After some thinking, I decided that my bottom two pair was good and pushed. He thought for a lot longer than he probably should have, but eventually called it and flipped over a pair of threes. Yep, that flopped set that I should have been worried about was about to take me out. Until a nine hits on the river, giving me a boat of 9’s and 3’s to his boat of 3’s and 9’s. Guin would be proud of my river suckout capabilities.

That left me smack at average as we went into the first break. I was also a bit gunshy after coming so close to going home on that flawed steal attempt. Thankfully, I would get a hand right after the break (possibly the third hand or so) that would get me back into the fray, so I thought… I had a pair of aces in the big blind, two guys limped in on the way around and the small blind raised it 4x. I made a minimal raise to that to get it to a nice, round 500 going into the pot, which one of the limpers as well as the small blind called. Flop comes up A-J-6 rainbow, which is just gravy for me. The pot is at 1500, I have about 2700 left in my stack and the small blind has me covered..barely.. I figure now is the perfect time to put out a bet on flopped trips (take that Hoy!), but I want at least one of the other guys to come along for the ride. A pot sized bet puts one of the guys all in, and probably makes them both fold, so I decide to go with 2/3 the pot. But two thirds would be exactly 1000, and that doesn’t feel right to me, so I bet 950 instead, no idea why. The guy to my left thinks about it for a while before calling it (what is he drawing to? Does he have the other ace?), and it is on the small blind’s timer when my wife goes to melt some cheese on top of her chimichanga…

See, for reasons I can’t explain, the microwave runs on the same circuit as the television in my living room. Since the room where our pc’s are located is on the other side of the living room wall, her pc shares a circuit with the microwave. Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to me at the time, my DSL modem also shares that same circuit. So while I had decided to wait until the end of this hand before going to reset the breaker that had just tripped, I didn’t realize that I had just lost my connection. By the time I did realize that, I was not able to get to the breaker box and get the DSL reset before my hand timed out. Since sitting out forces you to fold to any bet, my flopped set of aces, as well as the 1500 in chips (about half my stack) were lost right there. Which absolutely sucks! Sure, it’s possible that one of them flopped trip jacks or 6’s and went on to win with quads on the turn or river (also no able to see hand history once I reconnected) but I have to believe that I was going to take that pot down. That pot would have taken me to well above average stack, possibly way above, as the one guy ended up all in and was eliminated by the time I got back to the table. That one hurt.

So I was back to about 1700 in chips, which was far from ideal, but the blinds were still low enough that I could take my time. Which I didn’t do, of course. About three hands later, I had a suited A-J that I called a min raise with. Flop hits an A-x-x and I decide that third kicker is good and push. Well, third kicker would have been good, had the other guy not been holding one of the x’s. Fortunately for me, the x he was holding was the lowest card on the board. I say fortunately because the poker Jesus was about to bail me out again. The turn brings up the fourth ace, and the river pairs the other card on the board (a 7 I think) giving us a split pot with the boat. Saved. My. Ass.

So score that Awesome hand being folded by circuit breaker:1 Having my ass totally bailed out when I make a questionable call:2

Now you guys only think you have seen me play tight. I am here to tell you that after these two near death experiences I was ready and willing to fold anything up to (and possibly including) aces. I didn’t play a hand for roughly the next century. Down to about 360 people left in it, and I had folded my blinds enough to put me squarely on the list of short stacks. I ended up in the small blind with 870 in chips -100 (possibly 150, can’t remember for sure) already in the pot. I had a 6-10o, and three people had pushed in front of me. I was to the point that I needed to double up nearly three times to get back to average, and I was the short stack of the tournament. 6-10o is good, right?

I pushed in that situation knowing that I needed a miracle, but also knowing that I was going to have to push sometime during the next orbit anyway. With three guys already all in, if I were to hit it I would have life again, but I knew that there was virtually no chance that I was going to win it. Though I wouldn’t get to see any of their cards until the river (one of the guys in it was the chipleader, and he and one other guy seemed perfectly content to check it down), I would have been happy had I seen what they were holding. There were two A-K’s and an A-Q in it, pretty much eliminating the possibility of the other ace coming, I would have liked my odds, actually:

Of course the other Ace came on the flop to take me out of the running -which, again, I didn’t know until the river, not that it really mattered. I made my decision to go in and pray, and I think I forgot to pray. At any rate, no 6 or 10 hit the board, and even if they would have, I would have lost to the eventual two pairs of Aces and Queens. So I went home somewhere around 350th (360th?).

I know that I am far better at making excuses than I am at playing poker, but I can’t help but wonder how much better I would have done if I had been able to finish the hand with the aces. I sincerely doubt my result would have been all that much better, but I wouldn’t have felt the need to get my chips in knowing that I was way behind at that point. I probably would have had to make a similar move, but I would have been able to make it a half an hour or so later, unless of course I happened to hit a couple of big hands along the way -something that I no longer had the luxury of waiting for once the blinds were raising as my stack was falling.

I am generally able to make it through the first half of the field in the 20k tournies by playing smart and tight early. Now that I am learning how and when to attempt steals, I should be able to put myself in a better position to actually make a run after the first break. If I could just get a couple of playable hands once the field is thinning, something that has yet to happen, I don’t see why I wouldn’t be able to make it to the final table in one of these bad boys. Well, except for the fact that I suck at poker, but since when have I ever let that stop me?

I sat down to a token game on FTP today, and the trash talk and name calling began right after the first hand. That is always fun. Of course both of the guys involved in the hand thought that they played a good, smart hand, yet only one of them won the hand, therefore either one of them didn’t make such a great play or one of them sucked out. Now, I sure know which guy I am agreeing with here, but since both of these guys are seasoned pros -the very best to ever play the game, just ask them- I don’t know for sure which one of them is the bigger donk.

I didn’t do a screencap during the hand, but since the trash talk was still going on when we reached the final table (from a table of two, huge achievement), I went back in hand history to get a screenshot of the hand. Which shook down like this:

Before I get started on what actually happened, I just want to note that I in fact did not call the 4x bet with my Q-4 s00ted, see I am improving.

Okay, so first hand of a low buy-in turbo. No one knows anything about the way anyone else plays the game, unless they happen to have notes on people, but I can say that this is the first time I have seen most of these people -although I do know that I have played a couple times with one of them. The cards come out and UTG instantly bets 4x. It quickly folds around to the button, who calls, the small blind folds, the big blind calls. The flop comes out 4-8-9 with two clubs and the big blind bets out 120 into a pot of 360. UTG folds (what he says was an A-Jo, which doesn’t really matter, but if you are raising 4x UTG with that on the first hand of a tournament, you probably bust out early a lot, or double up, more likely the former), and the button calls.

So at this point, we have the Big Blind betting 1/3 the pot on nothing more than an OESD, but there are 2 clubs on the board. He has to know that the flush is a possibility, right? the button is making that call knowing that he has second pair top kicker, and he has to be thinking that the only way anyone called the 4x preflop bet with a 9 would be if it was along with an ace, right? I am guessing here, but that was what I was thinking as the hand was unfolding before me. I was putting them both on an ace, figuring that one hit top pair, one hit second pair, but that one of them was suited and had the nut flush draw. Part of all that was right, and that was that one of them did hit their pair and was on a nut flush draw, the guy being in it with a 10-Jo, after a 4x preflop raise, that I could never have guessed. If that is how you are supposed to play 10-Jo, I am never going to get good at this game.

When the turn was a 10h, the big blind bet 420 at it (roughly 2/3 the pot). The button quickly called. I don’t know what either player was thinking at this point, but I know what I was thinking. I was thinking that there was no way that a 10 could have improved either hand. I still think that both of the guys are holding an ace, and that both of them paired their kicker. For my theory to be true, no one can be holding a 10 or the J-Q that would have made the straight. I thought the bet was the big blind’s attempt to scare the button out of the pot, so that made me think that the big blind was probably the one holding the A-8, and that his weren’t suited. So at this point I think the button likely has A-9c and the big blind has A-8o (I don’t know how he calls 4x with that preflop, but I can’t think of any other hand he could possibly have called with and still be in this hand).

When the river brought the little club, I don’t think that anyone doubted that one of the guys had just filled up his flush. Confirming my previous suspicions, the big blind checked. The button bet at it, but only 210. I think he did that because he knew that the other guy knew he was beat, but thought it likely that he would pay a final 210 (into the over 1k pot) to see the cards. Then I see that it was actually A-8c, so I was pretty close on that one, but when I looked in the history and saw the 10-Jo, that I wasn’t expecting to see.

For about the next ten minutes, the trash talk stayed at roughly the level of three-year-olds: Donkey this, your momma that, fish this, tuna that. Once the dude who lost with a pair of tens and fourth kicker calmed down a little bit, he started trying to rationalize his play, while at the same time explaining why the other guy was a complete and utter dipshit. I really disagree with the guy who made the 4x call with nothing but a 10-Jo though, so I joined in on the fun. A couple of quotes from the guy who lost: “how could you possibly think that second pair was ahead on that flop?” I am looking at the hand history and thinking to myself, how could he possibly not think that second pair was ahead? The only way I could justify someone pairing a nine on that flop was if they were in it with an ace, and if someone indeed had top pair top kicker, wouldn’t they bet more than just 1/3 of the pot? Especially with a flush draw on the board? Wouldn’t you want to scare anyone that is drawing out of the hand?

Another quote:”How could you call a bet for 1/3 your stack with nothing but a flush draw?” Well, he didn’t have just a flush draw, he had a made hand with second pair and top kicker, and he had every reason to believe that he was ahead, at least in my mind. The bet of 420 just seemed so odd to me; it was small enough that he would be able to come back if he was forced to fold, which made me think that he was weak, and it obviously made the other guy think that as well.

More quotage:”Only a donkey plays A-8s from early position” Even if we disregard the fact that the guy playing it was on the button, which isn’t exactly “early position”, are you telling me that good players just lay down A-x suited if there is ever a pre-flop raise? I am sure that some players do and some don’t, hell, even my donkey ass will play it in some situations and lay it down others. If I have already paid to see the flop with it though, and I paired my kicker, and I have a nut flush draw, I am probably going to pay to see the turn, and likely the river, depending on what the cards on the board are, and how much I will have to pony up for the privilege.

By far his best argument, though, was:”I was 70% to win on the turn, how can you make that call?” This one is great, ’cause it kind of implies that we are playing with the cards face up. How else would anyone know that he was still in this hand with a 10-Jo? So, to join in on the fun, I went to that handy odds calculator, checked a couple of odds, and said, “He was 68% to win on the flop, how did you make that bet?” To which he replied, “I had a straight draw and two cards to come.” So, I said, “he was 100% to win on the river, how did you make that call?” To which he said, “I thought I was ahead, only a donkey would be in it with nothing but a flush draw.”

So I am just curious. Was the guy playing with the A-8c really playing horribly, or was the guy with 10-Jo the one that needs more schooling? I obviously side with the guy who was playing the A-8, since there is no way he can be putting the other guy on 10-Jo, but even aside from that, is playing second pair top kicker such a bad move on that flop? While I was assuming they both had an ace, it is far more likely that in that situation one of them is in it with nothing more than two overs, K-Q for instance. When the turn is a ten, could you possibly think that it somehow improves one of their hands, taking into account the betting both before and on the flop?

The guy who had been playing the 10-Jo also made the following observation, “You have no idea how to play this game”. This was directed at me, after I was asking him why he was betting with nothing but a draw on the flop. While I really do think that this was his only valid point during the entire tournament, I don’t think that the way I am reading the play of this particular hand has anything to do with it; my lack of understanding and ability is certainly unquestioned, but it has nothing to do with thinking he was an idiot for being in that hand at all with a 10-Jo. This all IMHO of course, YMMV.

Sometimes I start wondering if it is possible, however impossible it seems, that my thinking influences the cards that are dealt. When I first started playing, I would make an all-in call on the flop with nothing but a nut flush draw, and I would have every confidence that I was going to hit my outs and take down the pot. What’s more is that I generally always did. If I ended up in a pot with Kings where I had an ace kicker and the other guy had a queen kicker, I had every confidence that my hand would hold up until the river. It was good to be so naive.

Since the horrible beat that I put on Hoy (who had a horrible beat recently in the WSOP, making my lost buy-ins look like so much chump change) in a blogger tournament a couple of weeks ago, things haven’t been going my way all that often. Sometimes I will just make a horrible call, which is bound to happen since I am so new to the game. But all too often I am making the right call, getting my chips in when I am favored, and still losing the hand. I understand that this is the way of poker. If I am a 65% favorite to win the hand, that means that the other guy is a 35% favorite to either win or tie. The thing is it would seem like that 65% should be holding up at least half of the time, and it just doesn’t -at least not right now (variance sucks).

After losing so many favored hands my confidence is just shattered. I am finding myself extremely reluctant to make an all-in call pre-flop, regardless of what I am holding. Sure, I’ll still take a stab at it if I am holding a pair of Kings or Aces -very rarely with Queens, I have extremely bad luck with them- and I do win some of them, but I go into the pot almost expecting the miracle cards on the flop, turn, and river to come and bail the other guy out. So now I find myself slow playing hands out of fear. I have to at least see the flop before I commit a sizable chunk of my stack to a hand, not that it seems to matter since the last two cards always find a way to fuck me over anyway.

The last hand that I played is a microcosm of the way poker is going for me right now. All I could do was get my chips in when I was ahead -way ahead- and stare on in shock and disbelief as the poker gods saw fit to bend me over and take it to me donkey show style. I think I may still be in shock.

This was in an FTP 20k event as it was nearing the bubble. I had about 8,000 in chips, the big stack at the table had about 25,000. I found myself with the black kings on the button, and the hand was folded around to me. I raised 1,500 (I don’t remember exactly what the blinds were at this point, but they were still three digit), which pushed out the small blind, but the big blind insta-called it. The flop came up K-J-J with two hearts. Big blind thought about it for a minute, then pushed over 20,000 chips at the pot -which the more I think about it was probably because he thought he was behind and didn’t think I would call if he pushed his whole stack-. This should have been an instant call for me, but I thought about it for a long time. What could he possibly have? There was almost no way that he was ahead. The best hand that he could have was K-J for a lower boat, unless he happened to have a pair of Jacks, in which case I would really be fucked. No way he has Jacks, so I eventually call it. Since I didn’t take a screenshot, I will show you one that I recreated with a nifty odds calculator:

Huh. He only had queens. I guess he must have been putting me on a mid pair or something. Anyway, when he saw my cards, the guy said, “um. What were you thinking about?” Since it was on FTP, I became an observer faster than I was able to type in a response.

Now, I have been in almost this exact situation before. The last time I was in it with Aces, flop was A-J-J, we got all in, he showed kings, then hit the 10 and miracle queen to win with a royal flush. This time, he was out of suit for that to happen, so I was golden. I mean look at those odds for the kings to hold up. 99.8%, that is about as close as you can get to a sure thing. Well, by now you probably know that I didn’t win the hand, so I will get right to the next odds generator produced image:

Well, I am still almost 98% to win it, and he only has the one out… Which he hit, of course, to send me home. The flopped boat loses to the rivered quads. *sigh*

Just the luck of the draw, right? I will try to find solace in the fact that since I lost it this time, the next 99.8 times I get that hand it should hold up. Comforting…

Well, with that I am gonna take a step back from poker for a couple of days. Not that I am going to quit playing based on one horrific beat, more that I am going to watch from the sidelines for a couple of days after losing a lot of races where I was ahead on the final straightaway. This one was just the shitty icing on the crappy cake.

I started playing a token game on FTP yesterday at about 4:30. I had already won a token for the 20k that night, and I generally only play one token game a day, get the token and that’s it. Yesterday, I just jumped in another one ’cause I was bored, and I can now say that I totally agree that the game is rigged -in my favor this time-.

I didn’t get any screenshots, but I did save the history of this one. First hand I got Queens, which ended up busting someone. Second had was 9’s that I layed down to an ugly flop. Third hand was garbage. Fourth hand was 8s. Fifth hand was 10s that turned into a boat to send someone else home. And it just kept going. By the time about 30 hands had been played, I only had about half a dozen hands that weren’t playable, and had had Aces twice, Kings once, Jacks twice, Queens once, A-Ks twice -on back to back hands, in the same suit- , tens twice, 8’s once, 9’s once -it was just insane. I was actually laying down hands that were probably ahead just because I didn’t need to play them, only to find the next hand even better than the last. Hell, the two Aces were only a few hands apart (I don’t like posting hand histories since it just looks like a bunch of technical gibberish to those who don’t play, but I will certainly email it to you if you want to see just how rigged the game was this time). During this amazing string of luck, I decided to sign up for a 10k tourney that started at 5, just to see if the luck would carry over. And, not so much.

The 10k tournament was the polar opposite of the other game. I was not getting anything remotely playable, and was banking on the other guys not wanting to bust out early with my stealing. My first ten hands were all absolute garbage, but I managed to come out of it a bit above starting position, so that was good. The luck was still in my favor on a couple of hands though, as I sucked out huge exactly twice in this tournament. The first one wasn’t for all the marbles, but it was a suckout nonetheless. I had A-Jo on the button, and it was folded around to me, big blind was on the short stack, and I thought about calling him in, but decided to just raise 3x to see if he would take it, which he did. Flop is A-K-7, putting me in pretty good position with the top pair. He bets the pot and I call it. Turn is a 3 and he pushes. It’s only 200 more to call, and the pot is about 1000. I am in pretty good shape with top pair and a decent kicker, so I call. He flips over A-3o for top and bottom pair. Damn. I am praying for a jack, but the river wants to be a little more brutal to the guy and pairs the king instead. Sending him home, quite understandably, pissed off. Like I say, that one wasn’t really huge, since it would only have been about a third of my stack, of course I bet the other guy thought it was pretty huge.

A short while later, my tournament life would be on the line. The guy two seats to my right is the big stack, and being a bully like the big stacks often do. I have about 2k in chips to his 9k. As the blinds near his side of the table, he starts getting push happy. He pushes when he is UTG but gets no callers. Pushes from the BB but gets no callers. Pushes from the SB but gets no callers. Then, when he is on the button and I am in the big blind, he pushes again. I have Q-Js, which I normally woudln’t think about calling with, but man, this dude has pushed four hands in a row. I call. Aces. I say in chat “I have to call on the one hand that you aren’t bluffing”. He says, “heh. Probably.” (who knows, maybe he was on a string of luck like I was having in the token game). Flop hits with a 9-10-x, two in my suit. He says “Nice flop”. I start to type “Wait till you see the river”, but can’t get it in before the cards come down. Turn is garbage. River is an 8 to give me the straight. I decided against hitting enter to show the line in chat. To his credit, he took it in stride; all he said was “nice catch”. Then the FTP gods decided to give me a break and moved me away from that table, ’cause you know that guy has a bulls-eye painted on me at that point.

I got a crucial double-up shortly before the second break, when I got in on the turn with a paired King -Ace kicker-, and it miraculously held up against his open-ended straight draw (I shouldn’t say miraculous, since I was like an 85% favorite when the chips went in, but man I lose a lot of similar hands). It was during the break that I realized that all of the screenshots I had been taking weren’t being saved. See, after I restart the PC I have to load the program, and I had completely forgotten that I had to restart it due to graphics issues just before I started playing cards. Which sucks, ’cause I thought I had caps of both of my huge suckouts. I always post the ones where people suck out on me, I thought it would be nice to do so the other way around. Unfortunately, you have to settle for text, since the monkey at the keyboard forgot to run the damn program first.

The 20k was starting at about this time, so I had that running as well. I went and found Guin at his table, and was chatting with him for the duration of my 10k tourney. He came over and railed for me for a bit, which was nice, no one has ever railed for me before. Also, it gave me a bit of confidence to know at least one other person out there thought I was doing just fine. I was very near the bubble, when I found a pair of 10’s in the BB. At Guin’s table, I typed, “uh-oh. I could bust on this hand”. MP raised it 4x, which was about a third of my stack, and I called it (but should I have?). The flop gave me a set, and he pushed into me. The call was a no-brainer. I doubled up to 12th place out of about 60 left. Barring some horrible fuck up, I was going to make the money at least.

Unfortunately, I wouldn’t have a hand worth even calling with for the next eternity. I did push at one point when it folded around to me (I think I actually had K-J at that time) but didn’t have to play it. The play was ultra tight, and whoever pushed their chips in first took down nearly every pot. I was blinding and ante-ing my way out of it, without ever seeing any paint. I was in 38th when it went to hand for hand, and managed to not fuck up all the way to the money. Much like my last experience in the money, everyone got all push happy once the bubble broke. There was no sense in trying to limp into any hand unless you were willing to call an all-in with those cards, ’cause someone was going to push. For the remainder of my time in the tourney, I don’t think there was a flop that didn’t involve two guys being all in before it.

The guy to my right was a calling station, and Guin noted that in the other chat. He told me to push every time the guy before me didn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to do that with the 3-7 and 2-8 offsuit crap I was getting though. At one point, Guin said, “You have to do it. Push this hand” That was when it was folded to me on the button. I thought about it for a bit before folding. What then happened was the small blind pushed and got called by the big blind. One of them flipped over jacks, the other queens. I noted to Guin “Good advice”, to which he said “Maybe not that hand”.

They were dropping like flies, and again I found myself in the position of being a “they”. We made it down to 27 players and I was the short stack with about 6,500 in chips and the blinds at like a million or something. I got a Q-Jo in late position (maybe a blind, not sure) and someone had made a 2.5x raise before it got to me. I pushed, hoping that my cards were live, yes, I was actually hoping to see him flip an A-Ko or A-10s when I made that push (preferably the latter). I knew I was going to be an underdog, but if he had either of those hands he would only be a 60 something percent favorite, and that is barely better than a coinflip. Unfortunately, he had a Queen, thus eliminating a lot of outs for me, and making him a 75% (or so) favorite. His hand held up, and I go home in 27th:

The good news is that I am getting a lot more comfortable playing as the stacks get deeper and deeper. I think my biggest problem (well, aside from the lack of any skill whatsoever -and don’t get me wrong, I know that is a problem too-) is my inability to take advantage of how tight I play to win some pots late in the game. By the time it gets to the money, everyone is doing pretty much exactly the same thing. Everyone knows that when someone pushes it is probably based a lot more on their table position than the cards that they are holding, but no one wants to risk their tournament life on it. Last night, I wasn’t really able to do that because of the stack monster on my right (at least that is my current excuse), but I need to be able to. If I would have pushed with any of the other hands I had, I would probably have had a better chance of winning with them, simply because if someone calls my push, the 3-7 I have is almost guaranteed to be live. While my percentage to win certainly doesn’t go up in that situation, I would have had a lot more outs. A huge gamble to be sure, but when you are on the short stack with blinds that high you either need a lucky flop or a monster hand, and with an M of 3, you can’t really be waiting for the monster.