I have not had a day of losing poker since Friday, September 26th. Since that day I have won over 7000 dollars. After a long stretch of not winning much and breaking even for dozens and dozens of hours, it feels great to be back to winning some serious cash. Today I posted a 550 dollar win in 7 hours at Bay 101, even though this happened. I've never seen a player like this guy before (we call him "The Hippy" because he has long red hair). He usually will tell you exactly what he has, and he will usually be telling the truth. The last two times I've played with him, however, he's been on a sort of "perma-heater", winning racks and racks of chips with stuff like 73s and 85 off. It's kind of tough to take, as he's a pretty arrogant guy who really likes to hear himself talk. I make do though....
Friday night was a very interesting session indeed. I ended up being at Bay 101 for almost 14 hours, taking a long lunch break in the middle of the day to justify playing so long. Also, around 7pm, a friendly regular named Rusty (who is a member of AORBS) took it upon himself to order 2 bottles of wine for the table. Shortly thereafter 2 more were produced, and I am told that the table consumed, all told, 8 bottles (I was told this today by the bearded man himself...I left the table somewhere around bottle 6 because it honestly wasn't a very good game). After starting off stuck 2200, I eventually made it all the way back to +500, then proceeded to dust off an entire rack in my last orbit on three coolers and cash out +87 dollars on poker for the day. I did, however, lose 300 dollars playing Red/Black (before the cards or dealt one of you takes red, the other black. whichever color "wins the flop" is the winner). This guy is a regular who thinks he's hot shit, when in actually he's just a LAG (loose aggressive player) who tends to go on tilt. Anyway he kind of challenged me to it and we did it once for 100 bucks, and I lost humorously (I picked red, but we then both forgot I did so, and ended up flipping to the other sides 10 seconds later), and then I lost two more times (once on the next hand, where I was dealt pocket aces and scooped a 600 doller pot), and once about 20 minutes later when I was feeling lucky. Needless to say he won all 3 and I was sad :(
I guess that about wraps it up, but a closing note: Since my shot started on August 1st, my win-rate for live 20/40 is 70 dollars per hour.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Session Report
Today was a good day. I played 7.5 hours at Bay 101 from 11:30am to 7pm and won 711 dollars. I ran pretty well, but did take a couple of coolers, such as....
I limp 97 of diamonds and we take a flop 6 handed. It is KQJ with two diamonds. The player on my right bets and I just call. Turn is a 5th diamond and I raise the guy. He looks at me and says "got lucky?" and calls. River Q and he check/raises me. I call like an idiot and he shows me Queens full of Jacks. Four big bets didn't really need to be lost there....
A few other interesting things happen. I watched a hand where the action went like this:
Player A raises, player be 3-bets preflop. Player A calls.
A93 with two clubs
Player A checks and calls.
Q of clubs
Player A checks, Player B bets, Player A raises, Player B 3-bets, player A calls.
9 of hearts
Player A checks, Player B bets, Player A raises, Player B 3-bets, Player A 4-bets, Player B cannot believe it but just calls. Player A shows 99 for quads. Player B shows QQ for a full boat. I'm just glad it wasn't me :)
I limp 97 of diamonds and we take a flop 6 handed. It is KQJ with two diamonds. The player on my right bets and I just call. Turn is a 5th diamond and I raise the guy. He looks at me and says "got lucky?" and calls. River Q and he check/raises me. I call like an idiot and he shows me Queens full of Jacks. Four big bets didn't really need to be lost there....
A few other interesting things happen. I watched a hand where the action went like this:
Player A raises, player be 3-bets preflop. Player A calls.
A93 with two clubs
Player A checks and calls.
Q of clubs
Player A checks, Player B bets, Player A raises, Player B 3-bets, player A calls.
9 of hearts
Player A checks, Player B bets, Player A raises, Player B 3-bets, Player A 4-bets, Player B cannot believe it but just calls. Player A shows 99 for quads. Player B shows QQ for a full boat. I'm just glad it wasn't me :)
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Time for Plan B
First of all, to get the logistics out of the way, here's what's gone down since my last post:
Right before my last entry I had posted back to back losses, so the morning of September 27th found me at the tail end of a 4200 dollar downswing. This was, to say the last, not much fun. However, I just kept trying to "play through it" (much like a baseball player is told to play through a batting slump....not much, however, like the times in college where I encouraged my tired or hung-over friends to "drink through it"), and lo and behold I've won over 5K in the last 3 days.
Here are a couple of hands from today's monster heater (which ended with me cashing out for a 2000 dollar win, but saw a high-water mark of +2800. Having 38 stacks of chips on the table is a pretty fun thing to have happen). In hand 1 I flop a monster hand and am unsure how to proceed on the turn due to the fact that over half the table is still in the pot. In hand 2, I don't know if I should check/raise to trap a couple of bad players in the pot, or donk bet to try to blast them out of it.
I've settled back into a routine the last week or so now, waking up sometime between 8 (ok, 9 really) and 10, working out, relaxing a bit, and then heading down to bay 101 for six to eight hours of play, getting home sometime after traffic clears around 7pm. I really like the schedule, and caught myself thinking yesterday about how hard it would be to go back to having a real job. It's looking more and more like this is going to stick. My win rate at live 20/40 is now a more than adequate $52.43/hour, and I'm showing almost no signs of burning out. I haven't yet suffered a serious down-swing, but I did basically break even for about 4 weeks and got through it just fine.
So today's humorous story involves a 2p2er I play with fairly often. He's a really nice guy who is always laughing and joking at the table, doing his best to project an image that says "I'm just here to gamble a little guys nothing to see here" instead of the true "I'm going to take all your money eventually" mentality that is going on in his head. Anyway....
I open raise Ace-Nine off from just a wee bit too far from the button (perhaps I was in the lowjack, 3 seats before the button). Someone folds, but the cutoff and button both call two cold. As the button is over-cold-calling, my friend says "Uh oh. Time for Plan B!" I realize now that this story doesn't actually seem that funny, but at the time, with the table dynamic that he and I create, it made me almost laugh out loud. Basically he's pointing out that my goal was to play a small pot, with position, against one or both of the blinds. Now I'm playing a bigish pot, out of position, and probably don't have as much of a hand as I'd like to for this unfavorable outcome. Anyway, I proceed to flop top-two pair and value-bet all three streets, getting called down by a naked Ace-Five that never even made a second pair. I say "Plan B is just easier" and we both have a good chuckle. 2 hours later my friend cashes out 5 racks of chips, saying he has to take his daughter to her softball game. After he left a few people asked me about him, things such as "How much was he in for?" and "He's very patient, isn't he". It would appear that they're starting to catch on to him....never mind that I cashed out for 6.5 racks later that day, and today posted another 6 racker. To my knowledge he and I have taken somewhere around $7,000 out of that game in the last 36 hours :)
| 26-Sep | 20/40 Limit | Bay 101 | 90 |
| 26-Sep | 40/80 Limit | Bay 101 | -1605 |
| 26-Sep | 20/40 Limit | Bay 101 | -1547 |
| 27-Sep | 20/40 Limit | Bay 101 | 472 |
| 29-Sep | 8/16 Limit | Bay 101 | 27 |
| 29-Sep | 20/40 Limit | Bay 101 | 882 |
| 29-Sep | 15/30 Limit | Ajs | 405 |
| 29-Sep | 6/12 Limit | Ajs | 266 |
| 30-Sep | 20/40 Limit | Bay 101 | 2278 |
| 1-Oct | 8/16 Limit | Bay 101 | -40 |
| 1-Oct | 20/40 Limit | Bay 101 | 2022 |
Right before my last entry I had posted back to back losses, so the morning of September 27th found me at the tail end of a 4200 dollar downswing. This was, to say the last, not much fun. However, I just kept trying to "play through it" (much like a baseball player is told to play through a batting slump....not much, however, like the times in college where I encouraged my tired or hung-over friends to "drink through it"), and lo and behold I've won over 5K in the last 3 days.
Here are a couple of hands from today's monster heater (which ended with me cashing out for a 2000 dollar win, but saw a high-water mark of +2800. Having 38 stacks of chips on the table is a pretty fun thing to have happen). In hand 1 I flop a monster hand and am unsure how to proceed on the turn due to the fact that over half the table is still in the pot. In hand 2, I don't know if I should check/raise to trap a couple of bad players in the pot, or donk bet to try to blast them out of it.
I've settled back into a routine the last week or so now, waking up sometime between 8 (ok, 9 really) and 10, working out, relaxing a bit, and then heading down to bay 101 for six to eight hours of play, getting home sometime after traffic clears around 7pm. I really like the schedule, and caught myself thinking yesterday about how hard it would be to go back to having a real job. It's looking more and more like this is going to stick. My win rate at live 20/40 is now a more than adequate $52.43/hour, and I'm showing almost no signs of burning out. I haven't yet suffered a serious down-swing, but I did basically break even for about 4 weeks and got through it just fine.
So today's humorous story involves a 2p2er I play with fairly often. He's a really nice guy who is always laughing and joking at the table, doing his best to project an image that says "I'm just here to gamble a little guys nothing to see here" instead of the true "I'm going to take all your money eventually" mentality that is going on in his head. Anyway....
I open raise Ace-Nine off from just a wee bit too far from the button (perhaps I was in the lowjack, 3 seats before the button). Someone folds, but the cutoff and button both call two cold. As the button is over-cold-calling, my friend says "Uh oh. Time for Plan B!" I realize now that this story doesn't actually seem that funny, but at the time, with the table dynamic that he and I create, it made me almost laugh out loud. Basically he's pointing out that my goal was to play a small pot, with position, against one or both of the blinds. Now I'm playing a bigish pot, out of position, and probably don't have as much of a hand as I'd like to for this unfavorable outcome. Anyway, I proceed to flop top-two pair and value-bet all three streets, getting called down by a naked Ace-Five that never even made a second pair. I say "Plan B is just easier" and we both have a good chuckle. 2 hours later my friend cashes out 5 racks of chips, saying he has to take his daughter to her softball game. After he left a few people asked me about him, things such as "How much was he in for?" and "He's very patient, isn't he". It would appear that they're starting to catch on to him....never mind that I cashed out for 6.5 racks later that day, and today posted another 6 racker. To my knowledge he and I have taken somewhere around $7,000 out of that game in the last 36 hours :)
Thursday, September 25, 2008
1,000,000 to 1 shot
Yesterday I played for 12.5 hours at Bay 101. Playing so long was a bad idea, but I got it stuck in my head that I was going to take today off (which I'm doing) and decided around 8pm to stick it out for the evening. This ended up costing me about 1500 dollars for a couple of reasons:
1. I ran bad.
2. I made 2 pretty bad mistakes (paying off a loose passive who had to have my second pair beat in a blind steal situation and not recognizing the power of speech against an opponent whose Aces did in fact beat my Tens on a board of 89236...in that second one it is questionable as to whether or not I can ever lay down an over pair against a LAG, but I didn't have to lead the turn and charge myself the full 3.5 big bets to get to show down).
3. I stubbornly remained at an awful table for over 2 hours, something I almost never do.
As a result of this, and the way I felt afterwards, I am implementing a maximum session length of 10 hours. No matter what at 10 hours I will pick up and go home. I realize this probably isn't the best way to maximize my profits, but it will help me stay sane and we're in a pretty delicate balancing act here, are we not? In the end I lost about 900 dollars yesterday, but had I left after a mere 9 hours would have shipped a 600 dollar win.
So now on to more interesting things. I played this hand and am not sure what kind of feedback I'm going to get on 2p2.
I also lost a sports bet with Pete. He was quite sure the Oakland Raiders had made the Super Bowl recently. I said hog wash, and we settled on the last 7 seasons. Turns out 6 wouldn't have even saved me, as the Raiders played in the Super Bowl after the 2002 season. Ship Pete 1 big bet (I even laid him 2 to 1 because I was so sure). As I was making the bet I went through it in my head: Pats, Colts, Steelers, Pats, Pats, Ravens, Pats. I was sure of it. Turns out the Raven's spot was actually where the Raiders played, and they were a year earlier. Oops. Ni Han, Pete, Ni Han. Just realize this means I'm going to spend the next 2 months trying to get that 40 bucks back.
Now on to the million to 1 shot. I had been taking quite a beating and table changed to more comfortable situation. Shortly after I sit down, this happens:
I get dealt KK in the small blind. Late position guy raises, I flat it because he's almost all in, daring the fishy big blind to enter the pot. I've played with her for probably 50 hours and I'm sure she's never seen me cold call from the small blind against a lone raiser (cause I've never done it), but she calls anyway. Flop comes down like J-high or something and I lead right out. She calls the bet, the raiser raises almost all-in now, and I decide the jig is up and 3-bet. She folds reluctantly, he puts all his chips in and shows pocket 9s. I win, quite happy to have collected the extra 40 dollars from the big blind.
Next hand I am dealt AA on the button and win a sizable pot when two players call me all the way down on a paired board. I roll my aces and everyone is like "Kings then Aces!?!?!" and has a good laugh.
So the dealer pushes me the pot and as I'm stacking it up I look up and the guy I busted last hand has been replaced by a 35-45ish white guy I've played with before who I once saw cash out 18K from the 80/160 game. I think he's fallen on hard times....Anyway I really like the guy and do a little "sit back in my chain in astonishment" thing cause I hadn't noticed he'd sat down in the chair and posted in. This slows my chip stacking. Now it's on me and I peek my cards and see...Pocket Kings! I raise it and this guy and two others come along for a flop of:
6KK
They check to me, I bet, some guy check/raises me and I'm like "OK, he doesn't have 66 and that's all he can call a raise with...me make slow play now" Everyone else folds and I finally raise him on the river and he turbo mucks his hand. I flip over my quad kings and the table is in stitches. The pile of chips in front of me is doubled and I get to stacking....
The odds of being dealt pocket Kings or Aces 3 hands in a row is over 1 million to one :)
1. I ran bad.
2. I made 2 pretty bad mistakes (paying off a loose passive who had to have my second pair beat in a blind steal situation and not recognizing the power of speech against an opponent whose Aces did in fact beat my Tens on a board of 89236...in that second one it is questionable as to whether or not I can ever lay down an over pair against a LAG, but I didn't have to lead the turn and charge myself the full 3.5 big bets to get to show down).
3. I stubbornly remained at an awful table for over 2 hours, something I almost never do.
As a result of this, and the way I felt afterwards, I am implementing a maximum session length of 10 hours. No matter what at 10 hours I will pick up and go home. I realize this probably isn't the best way to maximize my profits, but it will help me stay sane and we're in a pretty delicate balancing act here, are we not? In the end I lost about 900 dollars yesterday, but had I left after a mere 9 hours would have shipped a 600 dollar win.
So now on to more interesting things. I played this hand and am not sure what kind of feedback I'm going to get on 2p2.
I also lost a sports bet with Pete. He was quite sure the Oakland Raiders had made the Super Bowl recently. I said hog wash, and we settled on the last 7 seasons. Turns out 6 wouldn't have even saved me, as the Raiders played in the Super Bowl after the 2002 season. Ship Pete 1 big bet (I even laid him 2 to 1 because I was so sure). As I was making the bet I went through it in my head: Pats, Colts, Steelers, Pats, Pats, Ravens, Pats. I was sure of it. Turns out the Raven's spot was actually where the Raiders played, and they were a year earlier. Oops. Ni Han, Pete, Ni Han. Just realize this means I'm going to spend the next 2 months trying to get that 40 bucks back.
Now on to the million to 1 shot. I had been taking quite a beating and table changed to more comfortable situation. Shortly after I sit down, this happens:
I get dealt KK in the small blind. Late position guy raises, I flat it because he's almost all in, daring the fishy big blind to enter the pot. I've played with her for probably 50 hours and I'm sure she's never seen me cold call from the small blind against a lone raiser (cause I've never done it), but she calls anyway. Flop comes down like J-high or something and I lead right out. She calls the bet, the raiser raises almost all-in now, and I decide the jig is up and 3-bet. She folds reluctantly, he puts all his chips in and shows pocket 9s. I win, quite happy to have collected the extra 40 dollars from the big blind.
Next hand I am dealt AA on the button and win a sizable pot when two players call me all the way down on a paired board. I roll my aces and everyone is like "Kings then Aces!?!?!" and has a good laugh.
So the dealer pushes me the pot and as I'm stacking it up I look up and the guy I busted last hand has been replaced by a 35-45ish white guy I've played with before who I once saw cash out 18K from the 80/160 game. I think he's fallen on hard times....Anyway I really like the guy and do a little "sit back in my chain in astonishment" thing cause I hadn't noticed he'd sat down in the chair and posted in. This slows my chip stacking. Now it's on me and I peek my cards and see...Pocket Kings! I raise it and this guy and two others come along for a flop of:
6KK
They check to me, I bet, some guy check/raises me and I'm like "OK, he doesn't have 66 and that's all he can call a raise with...me make slow play now" Everyone else folds and I finally raise him on the river and he turbo mucks his hand. I flip over my quad kings and the table is in stitches. The pile of chips in front of me is doubled and I get to stacking....
The odds of being dealt pocket Kings or Aces 3 hands in a row is over 1 million to one :)
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Good Old Fashioned Session Report
Today I played 6.5 hours of 20/40 at Bay 101. I woke up thinking I might take the day off, puttered around the apartment for 3 hours doing some chores and catching up on stuff, then quickly realized that 8 more hours of that was just not gonna fly, so I went to play. Sadly Danielle called me at 6:30 to inform me that she wasn't going to be able to get home after work, so I had to come home to take care of the dogs, meaning what I meant to be a 9+ hour session was cut short. I've decided that I want to try to play longer sessions, as it's more efficient and will allow me to take more days off.
For the day I lost 400 dollars, which was actually a pretty good result given how it started...I was down over 1400 at one point and was very excited to get out that cheaply. Here are some funny hands.
At first I'm seated with my two plus two friend Pete (again the names have been changed to protect the innocent). Pete plays 20/40 at lunch, seemingly every day. He has a job, yet somehow manages to gamble from about noon to 2 or 3 every day. If I ever decide to go back to work, his employer is one of the first places I'll try....moving on....
A week and a half ago, Pete was the recipient of 300 of my hard earned dollars in the following hand:
Complete lunatic raises UTG. This guy is...well, a complete lunatic. It folds to me in the small blind and I call with pocket 6s. Pete 3-bets, the guy caps, I try to fold but can't bring myself to do it and call.
Q45 is the flop.
I check, Pete bets, the maniac calls, and I call, getting 14:1 closing the action with a pair.
Q45-2
I now have, in my estimation, 6 clean outs. If I spike a 6 it's almost certainly good, and if a 3 rolls off I'll have basically the nuts. To note there are 7.5 big bets in the pot, and there is also still a small chance I have the best hand.
I check, Pete bets, and the maniac raises. His raise means that he has a hand that improves the board. That's it. Any pair will do. The fact that he didn't raise on the flop honestly probably means he has a 2 in his hand, and that's it.
10.5 bets in the pot....I call 2 bets cold.
Pete 3-bets. Maniac caps it.
4 million bets in the pot. I call two more cold again.
River bricks off, I check, Pete checks (???) and the maniac bets. I call, Pete raises, I cry, maniac calls, I fold.
Pete rolls QQ for top set. Maniac rolls A2 for...bottom pair (Ace Kicker!). My calls on the turn were questionable, but I thought Pete and I were like 4 levels above the rim here and that he was capable of playing a lot of hands that way. Of course, they can always just have top set, and I should have remembered that. The place to ditch the hand was for 2 bets cold on the turn the first time...I didn't really have odds to make that call unless my hand was currently winning a decent percentage of the time....the question is how often does Pete show up there with AK? I think a decent bit of the time actually.
So today this horrible loose passive woman limps in early/middle/some position and I decide to raise A7 suited on the button. Pete 3-bangs it from the small blind, the big blind clears out, the woman calls and I call, no doubt looking like a cat with the canary in his mouth. Then:
A73
Pete bets, the woman calls, I raise, Pete calls only (darn, him has only pocket pair), woman calls.
A
I have the stone cold nuts. Pete checks, she checks, I bet my nuts, and Pete raises me. She folds, I hollywood the appropriate amount (which is to say, very little) and 3-bet. Pete now looks like the aforementioned cat and dutifully calls me. The river produces a 9 and Pete calls my bet...of course MHIG against his AK....afterwards I ask him why he didn't 3-bet the flop and he mumbles something about not discussing strategy at the table :)
Another gem from today:
Funny shirt wearing guy who likes to take strange lines with big pairs (Twice he and I have put in 4 bets on the big streets with single pairs) and obviously wears really weird shirts limps and I raise with AK suited. We take the flop 5 ways and I see a pristine, yet dangerous, board of:
A95 with two hearts
At this point I should note that the order of action is: SB, BB, Funny Shirt guy, Me, Late position cold calling maniac.
Sadly my Ace and King are of the club variety, but I nevertheless bet. 3 players call me (the small blind managed to find a fold, somehow)...The turn is a heart. Two checks and I bet again. Cold calling maniac folds, and so does the BB. Funny shirt guy calls. The river is a brick, for a final board of really no consequence other than the 3 hearts. And funny shirt guy Donk Bets. I am visible struck back in my chair by the absurdity of it. The third heart came and I bet again. I clearly possess an ace, and if he has half a brain he should know I'm going to bet that ace. He also probably knows I can't lay that ace down in a pot of this size on the river if he check/raises me....anyway, as I usually do when I get confused, I call. Funny shirt guy rolls KT of hearts for the stone cold unbeatable nuts. I am confused and muck my hand, then get to thinkin....
1. On the flop, he had perfect position to jam his nut draw. There is no reason to think at that point I yet had an Ace for sure, and had he check/raised me he could have built a large pot when he had excellent equity.
2. His turn/river player is lol bad. To make a long story short, he stop 'n goes the absolute nuts, getting in exactly 2 bets against an aggressive player in a large protected pot.
Previously I had thought funny shirt guy was a tough and solid opponent. Turns out he doesn't have much of a clue :)
And for my final act....
A guy I don't know much about open raises from pretty late position (perhaps the lo-jack? 3 seats before the button) and I defend my blind with 87 of spades. The flop comes down:
K75 with one spade. I have middle pair, a back door straight draw, and a back door flush draw. Heads up against a young Asian dude who open raised in "not early" position, this is a hand I like to call "the freaking nuts". I check raise him and he confirms my hand is the nuts by merely calling the second bet.
The turn is another K, putting two spades on board (K75-K). I bet. He calls. Now I'm a little concerned. He shouldn't have called that bet, and the fact that he did leads me to think he has one of 4 types of hands:
1. A couple of big spades that just picked up a draw (something like AQ-AT). This is ok.
2. A pocket pair he intends to show down between 7s and Qs. This is bad.
3. Something like A7 or A5 he decided to get tricky with preflop. This is sorta bad.
The river blesses me with a 5th spade and I bet. He now raises and I am stunned. I go into the tank and eventually just call the bet. He tables KQo for "the worst played monster I've seen in a long time" and all he can say is "runner runner....I can't beat runner runner....guy keeps bluffing me". I am in shock, and Pete has a hearty chuckle.
For the day I lost 400 dollars, which was actually a pretty good result given how it started...I was down over 1400 at one point and was very excited to get out that cheaply. Here are some funny hands.
At first I'm seated with my two plus two friend Pete (again the names have been changed to protect the innocent). Pete plays 20/40 at lunch, seemingly every day. He has a job, yet somehow manages to gamble from about noon to 2 or 3 every day. If I ever decide to go back to work, his employer is one of the first places I'll try....moving on....
A week and a half ago, Pete was the recipient of 300 of my hard earned dollars in the following hand:
Complete lunatic raises UTG. This guy is...well, a complete lunatic. It folds to me in the small blind and I call with pocket 6s. Pete 3-bets, the guy caps, I try to fold but can't bring myself to do it and call.
Q45 is the flop.
I check, Pete bets, the maniac calls, and I call, getting 14:1 closing the action with a pair.
Q45-2
I now have, in my estimation, 6 clean outs. If I spike a 6 it's almost certainly good, and if a 3 rolls off I'll have basically the nuts. To note there are 7.5 big bets in the pot, and there is also still a small chance I have the best hand.
I check, Pete bets, and the maniac raises. His raise means that he has a hand that improves the board. That's it. Any pair will do. The fact that he didn't raise on the flop honestly probably means he has a 2 in his hand, and that's it.
10.5 bets in the pot....I call 2 bets cold.
Pete 3-bets. Maniac caps it.
4 million bets in the pot. I call two more cold again.
River bricks off, I check, Pete checks (???) and the maniac bets. I call, Pete raises, I cry, maniac calls, I fold.
Pete rolls QQ for top set. Maniac rolls A2 for...bottom pair (Ace Kicker!). My calls on the turn were questionable, but I thought Pete and I were like 4 levels above the rim here and that he was capable of playing a lot of hands that way. Of course, they can always just have top set, and I should have remembered that. The place to ditch the hand was for 2 bets cold on the turn the first time...I didn't really have odds to make that call unless my hand was currently winning a decent percentage of the time....the question is how often does Pete show up there with AK? I think a decent bit of the time actually.
So today this horrible loose passive woman limps in early/middle/some position and I decide to raise A7 suited on the button. Pete 3-bangs it from the small blind, the big blind clears out, the woman calls and I call, no doubt looking like a cat with the canary in his mouth. Then:
A73
Pete bets, the woman calls, I raise, Pete calls only (darn, him has only pocket pair), woman calls.
A
I have the stone cold nuts. Pete checks, she checks, I bet my nuts, and Pete raises me. She folds, I hollywood the appropriate amount (which is to say, very little) and 3-bet. Pete now looks like the aforementioned cat and dutifully calls me. The river produces a 9 and Pete calls my bet...of course MHIG against his AK....afterwards I ask him why he didn't 3-bet the flop and he mumbles something about not discussing strategy at the table :)
Another gem from today:
Funny shirt wearing guy who likes to take strange lines with big pairs (Twice he and I have put in 4 bets on the big streets with single pairs) and obviously wears really weird shirts limps and I raise with AK suited. We take the flop 5 ways and I see a pristine, yet dangerous, board of:
A95 with two hearts
At this point I should note that the order of action is: SB, BB, Funny Shirt guy, Me, Late position cold calling maniac.
Sadly my Ace and King are of the club variety, but I nevertheless bet. 3 players call me (the small blind managed to find a fold, somehow)...The turn is a heart. Two checks and I bet again. Cold calling maniac folds, and so does the BB. Funny shirt guy calls. The river is a brick, for a final board of really no consequence other than the 3 hearts. And funny shirt guy Donk Bets. I am visible struck back in my chair by the absurdity of it. The third heart came and I bet again. I clearly possess an ace, and if he has half a brain he should know I'm going to bet that ace. He also probably knows I can't lay that ace down in a pot of this size on the river if he check/raises me....anyway, as I usually do when I get confused, I call. Funny shirt guy rolls KT of hearts for the stone cold unbeatable nuts. I am confused and muck my hand, then get to thinkin....
1. On the flop, he had perfect position to jam his nut draw. There is no reason to think at that point I yet had an Ace for sure, and had he check/raised me he could have built a large pot when he had excellent equity.
2. His turn/river player is lol bad. To make a long story short, he stop 'n goes the absolute nuts, getting in exactly 2 bets against an aggressive player in a large protected pot.
Previously I had thought funny shirt guy was a tough and solid opponent. Turns out he doesn't have much of a clue :)
And for my final act....
A guy I don't know much about open raises from pretty late position (perhaps the lo-jack? 3 seats before the button) and I defend my blind with 87 of spades. The flop comes down:
K75 with one spade. I have middle pair, a back door straight draw, and a back door flush draw. Heads up against a young Asian dude who open raised in "not early" position, this is a hand I like to call "the freaking nuts". I check raise him and he confirms my hand is the nuts by merely calling the second bet.
The turn is another K, putting two spades on board (K75-K). I bet. He calls. Now I'm a little concerned. He shouldn't have called that bet, and the fact that he did leads me to think he has one of 4 types of hands:
1. A couple of big spades that just picked up a draw (something like AQ-AT). This is ok.
2. A pocket pair he intends to show down between 7s and Qs. This is bad.
3. Something like A7 or A5 he decided to get tricky with preflop. This is sorta bad.
The river blesses me with a 5th spade and I bet. He now raises and I am stunned. I go into the tank and eventually just call the bet. He tables KQo for "the worst played monster I've seen in a long time" and all he can say is "runner runner....I can't beat runner runner....guy keeps bluffing me". I am in shock, and Pete has a hearty chuckle.
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