Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Did I play it wrong?

 The big monthly tournament I help organize and play in happened recently, and I had several hands that left em wondering if I had misplayed them when all was said and done. We played a Riverboat style of Hold'em. Inspired by the movie Maverick, you have to beat everyone at your table to advance to the final table. My table had 5 players.

Just the 2nd hand of the night, I am dealt 5-8 off-suite, and I'm BB. UTG raises a standard raise, everyone else folds, and I decide to call. Already, I have made a bad play here with a very weak hand, can't justify this at all. Miraculously, the flop is 8-5-8, I flopped the boat, and I'm feeling pretty good about my bad decision to play rags.

I check, and my opponent, who is known to make continuation bets, does exactly that. He makes another pretty standard bet. I can't seem too eager, and now have to try and make him think I'm on a draw of some kind, but obviously I make the call.

The river brings a Q, and I'm pretty happy about that, because it may give him another excuse to bet. I check again, and this time he checks too. I figure that we probably has nothing. If he had A-Q, he would probably try to win the pot right there after he got called on a bluff on the flop.

The river is another Q bringing 2 pair on the board. I decide I have to try and make some money off this pot, as he likely has Ace high, and would check it down if I were to check here. I bet, not real big tho, hoping he'll call with Ace high and the 2 pair on board. Instead, he raises, about 2 times my bet. 

I didn't see that coming at all. He's an aggressive player, and has be known to take risks to win big pots before, so I certainly considered the possibility he had nothing, not even Ace high. He could also have A-Q, but I rule this option out, because he didn't bet on the turn when he hit his card. He could also have a medium-high pocket pair, making his hand better than the 2 pair on board.

Risking about half my remaining chips, I make the call, feeling my flopped boat is still probably miles ahead. I push the chips in, and as I do so, I see him reach for just one card, and I immediately get a real bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. He flips over a Queen, and I realize I'm now severally crippled just 2 hands in. I still can't understand how he didn't bet on the turn, unless he though he was beat, which would have been one hell of a read.

I managed to rebuild my stack not too long afterwards, and was even the chip leader at my table for a period of time, but didn't manage to win my table due to another weirdly played hand, playing against the same guy.

With 4 players left at the table, and the chips moving steadily from one person to the next, I was now the short -stack, but still had almost 80% of my starting stack. I find 10-10 with my hole cards, and I raise it up to about 25% of what I have left. The same guy as before, from out of position, thinks long and hard, asks me for my chip count, counts out that many chips, then after about 2 minutes of deliberating, he decides just to call.

The flop is 4-8-J, not a terrible flop for me, and with enough money already in the pot to almost double me up, I push all-in hoping he doesn't have the Jack. He does, of course, with a hand 10-J. Again, I have no idea how he even called my raise, let alone considered pushing me all-in. I guess this was a lesson that successful poker doesn't always make sense to me. This guy went on to win the tournament, in relative ease.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Ok, it's been a while....

I've been busy, I hated poker and I'm also a brutal slacker. These are the main reasons why I haven't blogged in quite a long time.

Since my last blog, I have not played a single game of poker online. Frustrated by bad beats, I still have around $15 left in the online account, which was at one time at over $200 ($200.15, to be exact). Of course, as it's all money won from Freerolls, it doesn't hurt quite as much to know I've lost $185, but it still hurts.

I have played in several live games since that time, and my luck has indeed changed, without using the Slumpbuster. I won a 19 player tournament, which was the Championship event to a 11 game season that I had otherwise done quite poorly in. Although I lost countless coin flip opportunities for eliminations in this tourney, I never took a bad beat, and actually got to dish one out for a change. I pot-committed myself to call an all-in with A-9 when a very conservative player came over the top. I knew he had me beat, but the pot-odds dictated I had to call here, and I caught a 9 on the flop to outdraw my opponents A-Q.

It had been 4 years to the month since my last win in this annual series, and it felt great to finally get back into the win column of a multi-table event. In the same month, I also won my Keeper-League Hockey Pool, something I had not been successful in once in the first decade I had been in it, another victory a long time in the making, but it made for a fantastic month.

Much more recently, as in just 3 days ago, I played a cash game with up to 7 guys. Start time was scheduled for 7:30, but only 4 of us were able to actually make it on, or near, starting time. So just for fun, we played some old school poker, and had a great time. Games such as Guts and In-Between, Kings and One-eyed Jacks (with the Power-King), Razz, Stud, Draw, Omaha, Pineapple, Crazy Pineapple made for a fun evening, and reminded me that there's more to poker than just Hold'em.

Then the real cash game began. I started off well, despite consistent terrible play all night. Early on I caught a few lucky flops with mediocre hands, and then spent the rest of the night hoping for the same kind of luck. I lost money on the night, and although I had possibly the worst string of cards I've ever had, I can't complain, because it was my play that made me lose money.

This Friday will be the start of a new season in the above mentioned yearly poker series, and I'm hoping that my multi-table tournament  skills are getting better. I had done quite well in the last 6 tournaments of the season, placing at least in the top half in all of them, better than that in most.