Lots of stored up poker

Guess we’ll make this one about some poker. Been trying to write for the last couple days but something, including my own freaking mind, keeps interfering.

We’ll start with last Sat. Simple $50 buy in, .25/.50 NLHE with friends, munchies and beer. My nephew decided to play which helped the transportation problem since I had a ride down but was going to have to rely on the kindness of strangers to get home. By the time the night was over he wishes he hadn’t but we’ll get to that in a moment. Knew about half the players at the table, Game started out decent for me if not great. Took down a few small pots early to put me up a bit and never really went into the red. Most of the pots I took down thru the night were smallish. Only one decent pot and two memorable hands, one the last hand of my night, one connected to the other in a way. Game was fairly straightforward which was a bit surprising given that at least two of the payers I did know aren’t exactly shy about being lagtards at times. Guess this wasn’t one of those times though there was at least one hand between the two where it did show thru. It was one of the biggest pots, and biggest suckout of the night. Our host Doug, who some may remember from Al’s bash, decided to pull one of his Doug moves and do a reraise shove on the flop with air. He got himself called and then proceeded to hit runner, runner for the nut flush. Doug is shitty that way. A similar situation later developed although at least this time the pusher had a hand. Ron shoved with top pair, good kicker and was called by Dave, the victim of Doug’s suckout, who flopped 2 pair. Ron then proceeded to runner, runner the nut flush. If I was Dave I think I would have called it quits right there but he gamely bought back in. A while later he was again involved in another massive suckout but this time he was playing Hoover. Guess he deserved it.

It was all these suckouts that contributed to my nephew’s disgust with the night. He had been playing fairly conservatively up to this point, he later told me his cards sucked all night and he had only a few really playable hands, but this had he called a preflop raise and the shoved on the flop. Think it was a reraise but he might have been acting first. His opponent, Kevin, also known as dogballs, called. Again some of you may remember Kevin from the Bash game. He was the “thinker”. My nephew turned over K-Q suited for two overs and flush draw while Kevin had 8-8. With that name should have known he wasn’t going to release them. Turn and river came up blanks for my nephew; in fact I think the river was an 8, adding insult to injury. Of course my nephew remarks that everyone hits their suckouts that night but him. He buys back in but not much later I hit my one decent pot and sorry to say it’s at his expense. I’m OTB with 9-9 and I raise it up and he’s SB and calls as does another player or two. Flop hits J-9-x, two suited and the nephew bets out $12 and it folds to me. Seeing the straight and flush draws out there, not to mention he’s my nephew and is already down a buy in I jack it up to $36.rather than slow play. He tanks for a bit and then pushes all in which I snap call. He turns up J-9 suited for top 2 and goes down in flames as blanks hit the turn and river. He gives up after that and goes wandering and since he’s driving I play a bit more and give my half hour rather than let him sit around. Besides he has to work at 7 and it’s getting near midnight. Not much went on in that last half hour except I dropped about $20-30 to Dogballs. I’m in the hijack with suited connectors and raise it up and Kevin in BB calls. Fop comes down 3 high cards giving me an open ender and Kevin checks so I put out a pot sized bet on the semi bluff and he calls. Turn is a blank and he checks again and I now know he’s either got a mid pocket pair or maybe paired one of the under cards on the flop and that if he didn’t fold to that flop bet there was no way a second bullet was getting him of them so I need to hit the straight so I check. River another blank, we check down and he’s got the damned 8s again. Oh well. So now it comes to my last hand but Doug, the ma in charge of the bank is dealing, so OK, I tell him I’m cashing out after the next hand. Great timing. Doug’s deal I get 8-6 off and fold. Next hand I get A-Q, raise and get a couple callers. While Doug is getting the bank the flop comes 2-A-2, not bad. Checks to me and I bet the pot, about $20.and it folds to the guy on my right, friend of Doug’s who has been playing fairly good poker all night, manly folding. He looks and says”20, I only got about 30 altogether.” This is where I should have smelled the rat. He then proceeded to go all in, not for $30 but more like $45. Since there is no way I can put him on the deuce unless he played A-2 or 2-2 to the raise I figure he’s got to have the A and I can’t figure the K since he limped. Could have been that since anything is possible but since it was only a bit more than a min raise I call. Then I found out what exactly was possible. He turned up his cards and I’m staring at a 2-3. A 2 fucking 3? WTF. So I don’t catch my A or runner Qs and after leaving $10 for the house I wound up cashing out up about $10 instead of about $60-70. What a freak combination of circumstances. An extra hand that I hadn’t planned to play because the banker was busy, good hole cards, catching the frikkin flop and having someone play a 2-3 to a raise and smacking the flop. Not a good night for the family in terms of luck but at least I came up in the black.


Online I’ve been playing a bit of O8, limit on UB, PL on Tilt. I started off decent the first couple night but the last few have not been kind. In O8 I usually only raise preflop on 3 types of hands, double suited spreads of 9 and up, corner spreads with at least 2 suited and low spreads containing an A. Other than that I’m usually content to play the game post flop. Basically I’m looking to build a pot for the scoop because at low limits a 2 bet in limit or a 3x in PL isn’t really scaring anyone off and all of those hands give great scoop opportunities. Well I’ve been getting a bunch of such hands lately. Problem is they aren’t synced with the flops. When I’m playing hi, lo cards flop, lo and I see the hi ones and somehow when I have the corner it never fails to come either a paired board or mid cards. I’m bleeding like a stuck pig here preflop. Add to this the chips I’m losing due to those characters who don’t seem to recognize the word quarter when all they have is the nut low and insist on reraising with it and all the winning hands I keep getting bet off by people who don’t seem to realize that trips and straights are not power hands on the turn with a paired board and the cash tables are now to the down side.


OTOH, the SnGs are still good to me, usually providing I with my MTT buy ins. Still working on my multi table game. Friday night I was playing a $5 KO tourney when the Donkament started up KOs don’t normally fit my style as I usually try to play to accumulate rather than chip up big. It’s a hole in my game that when I have the big hand I don’t seem to recognize how much my opponent will be willing to call so I probably underlet my hands trying to make sure I get something rather than going for the kill for fear the fish will spit the hook. Was doing reasonable in it had already collected 2 KOs and was in the top 15 in chips. When I got tangled in the screens between the two games, not once but twice, and had Tilt fold me when I probably had a winning hand. Damn mouse pad on this laptop is quirky and I have to stop multi tabling Tilt because their time doesn’t give you much fudge factor to play with. So with that I had to give up the Donkament. The game is more fun to play but the KO had a lot bigger payout. And since I was sitting so well in it I had to concentrate on it. Well I cashed it, though not big. I got my entrance money and a few extra in KO money and went out somewhere in the 20s for about another $20 some. Was sitting in the low teens in chips when 3 bads got me in the space of a few hands. Bad luck, bad read and bad timing. Bad read was when I had A-J and UTG raised pre. I called and 3 low came out and UTG bet. For some reason I put him on a steal and raised thinking the A might be good. He pushed and really didn’t have enough behind him that I could lay it down. He had a pair of tens and my overs didn’t hit. Bad timing came a couple hands later when I had A-4 suited in the hijack. Folded to me and I raised figuring I might have a shot to get the blinds and antes with some outs if called. In his I was dumb because I wasn’t paying attention to stacks and didn’t notice that 2 of the following 3 players had stacks that committed them to all ins if they played and would cost me about double the bet I laid out. Well of course the button goes all in for a bit less than a min raise and I have to call and he has A-J to my A-4. We hit the A but his kicker holds. A couple hands later, down to a lo stack I catch A-K and shove and get called by the big stack. Love it when I see A-J but of course here is where bad luck joined the party. River J put the kibosh on my hopes of making a come back and put those visions of decent cash back in the closet.


Finally, I had intended to write this post yesterday while waiting for the RPT TOC to start. How I qualified I don’t know since I spent the first month of the period in the hospital and my playing time since has been severely limited. but I guessed I did well enough in those I played to get the points to qualify. I thought I was going to get there early with time to kill and I would write this but it seems I misremembered the starting time and got there with only about 30 min to spare so no writing and the tourney gets included in the post instead. Not much to write about with the tourney. I managed to hang around to about 50th before going out. Got my chip stack up early but never really big and basically just futzed around. I have come to the conclusion that to do well in these things one cannot play the steady chip accumulation game. The blind structure after the first couple of levels requires you chip up early. That and the fact that there is always going to be some donkey willing to call off their stack with a draw make it impossible to play poker rather than cards. Twice I tried to make a move in the mid levels and both times the guy in the BB called me down both pre and post flop. It made 6 times total that he called preflop raises on me. He just hated to give up that blind. Later, about halfway thru the tourney and at a blind level where a lot of people start dropping out I saw a woman who, if not the chip leader at that time, was damned close to it, call off half her stack on a flush draw. She originally called two all ins and a call by another big stack with A-5 suited. Not a bad call given the size of her stack. However the after the flop the other big stack pushed all in, something not usually done in these situations unless one has a big hand since you really don’t want to risk keeping the all ins in the tourney with a good size stack . So you usually don’t bet unless you are sure you can take out the other players. She thought for a bit then made the call for somewhere about half the stack. Now half might not sound like it’s that bad a call but we were at a point in the blinds where the basically start doubling so you don’t have much time to recoup if you lose. BTW, she hit the flush on the river. So as I stated you need to be willing to gamble at these things. As for myself I lived and died by the suckout sword. About halfway thru I was down to 3 times the BB with an A-7 suited in EP. Figured it was that hand or the next as I never wait for the blind in that situation so I put it all in and get a caller. Oooppps. He turns A-K and I’m getting ready to call for my ride. A hits the flop but that’s no help. Turn a blank and I look at the dealer and say “I’ll take a 7”. Damned if he doesn’t oblige. That and another double up after I get moved keep me playing for another hour and a half but I push with A-K and get called with A-J and instead of doubling and possibly making the prizes the J on the river kills my tourney. Guess I deserved it. Just to give you n idea of what you play against in these games there was one hand, blinds 50-100 and the little old lady in the BB only has 60 behind. UTG goes all in for 165. Snap call on part of BB right? Nope. Lady shows a 3-4 and folds saying she can’t play that. Lady, in that situation you play atc and pray.


OK, down to the final 7 players in my league game. Ooops, now itm and have taken the chip lead. Time to concentrate. Won’t bore you any longer. Thanks for the visit.