Mmmm baby pairs

First, before I get into the story, I'd like to say that I'm inordinately pleased that I got to bust G-Rob for $25 in the $25NL last night. I didn't save the hand histories, but basically, I hit my set of 7s on the turn and his Q to match his AQ came on the river and BOOM!

* * *

So, anyway, I was going to pass entirely on the casino last weekend because it's cutting into my, well, life - staying up until 4 am on a Friday sort of kills your weekend, unless all you're doing is playing poker - but my friend R pinged me on Tuesday or Wednesday and said hey he's going to be in town and wanted to take me up on my offer of playing with (and staking) him into the baby NL game at Trump. Ok, twist my arm.

I leave work early on Friday, and after some miscommunication, R gets there (I gave him the wrong area code for the poker room, whoops) and I'm already in the main NL game, so he waits around for a bit until they open up a feeder game, and eventually gets moved into my game. We're both stuck in the game - he had a set of jacks vs a set of kings, and I had a couple of bad sucker-outers against me. R is sitting around $300 in chips (and he's in the game for $500) but not going up or down much at all. At one point I get KK that flops a set cracked by a moron who stayed in with the flush draw, and I tell R that at this point I'm getting up and going to dinner otherwise I'm killing someone. I inform him that he can accompany me, but he is not required to, because if he doesn't want to, I'm making Slim go eat dinner with me and Slim doesn't have a choice in the matter (plus, he'd already offered, kind soul that he is, since he saw me so pissed off. Have I mentioned I totally love my boys?).

R decides to go to dinner with me and while we sit down, I can't help myself and I blurt out "Ok, I need to tell you a few things about your play," as there are a couple of mistakes that he's making. I tell him three things:

1. If you raise pre-flop, do not bet the same amount when the flop comes down, as that says "oy, I am weak but I feel that I must put in a bet because I raised preflop". R did this once, and the guy sitting next to me, whom I play with a lot, looks at me and says "Did you teach him anything?"


2. If 8 or more people limp in, and you're the BB, raise to 50, and if the under-the-gun limper folds, everyone else will fold and you'll take the pot down right there. Our whole table had been doing this constantly - they were very passive and we saw a lot of flops.


3. Baby pairs are your friend. Take a look at your stack, and if someone raises even 10% of your stack, you should call, unless there's a re-raise in front of you, because if you hit, you are so going to get paid off. If you don't hit, you can toss them on the flop; but 11% of the time, you're going to hit, so you're ahead if you call only 10% of your stack.

So, we get back to the table after dinner, and about 3 hands in, I get 99 about UTG+2, and limp in with my $5 (since both the players to my right limped, too). Of course, 6 other players limp in too. R is in the BB, so of COURSE he takes this moment to put my lessons to use and raises to $50, with a smirk at me. And $50 is just a little too much for me to call with 99, even if I know that R is totally making a move. Dammit.

The hand of the night:
About 15-20 minutes later, R is on the button, and the guy to my left, who's a decent player opens the betting at $30 (as a reminder, the blinds are $2/$5). Everyone folds to R, who puts his $30 in, as does the solid guy in the SB. The BB mucks.

Flop comes down: Q 3 3 rainbow

SB checks, Initial Raiser (IR) bets $40, R calls $40, SB raises to $140.
IR pushes for $355.

R thinks, and counts his chips and eventually makes a crying call of the $355 leaving $220 behind. (at this point I say to my friend J on my right that I have no idea what R is doing, or he's got QQ, and I'm pretty sure it's the latter)

The SB goes into the tank, and is really disturbed by all of this, and eventually calls the $355.

The turn is a 5. SB checks, R pushes all in for $220 more, SB sighs and with $1200 in the pot now, has to call, and he does so.

The river card is a brick, and R turns over...

wait for it...

... his pocket pair of 3's. The boy flopped QUADS and got paid off by TWO people! SB later told me he had AQ, and the initial raiser had pocket AA.

I am such a good teacher. Plus, since I staked him, I had 50% of his profit, cha ching.

He then leans over to me and said "I had to push, right? I didn't have any other choice..." I look at him and arch an eyebrow, and the guy continues, "Well I was sure I had [the SB] beat, and [R] raises on anything..." which started me laughing because before the dinner break, R didn't raise at ALL. Granted, after dinner he loosened up and started being more aggressive, but still.

Just a short weekend poker update

Before I start - i was reading a blog the other day that was talking about Poker Edge, and for the life of me i can't find it again - anyone reading this know which one that was by chance?

It's kind of been crazy in the poker world - I tried out the "other" poker room for their $200 min / $500 max NL game, and it was seriously just like playing on party poker! I'm probably going to be playing there much more often, especially if the "big" game at Trump goes up to the "crazy monkey game" (henceforth referred to as the CMG) of $10/$25 blinds with $1000 min buy in, which generally becomes $10/$25/$100 when BBQ raises.

I did play at Trump on Saturday in their $200 max NL game, and despite getting quads TWICE in the night, ended up considerably down because of two stupid stupid stupid plays. One, I thought a friend of mine was making a move on me and I didn't put him on the A when there were two As on the board and I hit the baby side of the full house, and then two, moving all in when I made a straight and the board was paired (and the guy turned a full house which rivered into quads). Both times, thanks to me being me, the people who took my money didn't WANT to take my money, I just ended up giving it to them wrapped up with a bow.

On a personal note, I think I'm going to not be playing live for at least a week, maybe two - I need to get some personal things in order and when I go play, I end up staying way too late - I have a hard time leaving the boats, especially when I'm stuck, and it's been messing with my sleep schedule and my social life, so poker is going to be online or not at all for at LEAST this weekend.

The good news is a couple of the regular big game players are beginning to realize that the CMG is probably going to burn itself out, because the guy who is the driving force behind the CMG is going to go broke sooner rather than later, since the increased stakes give him an increased donking off his chips rate, and when he dries up, there will be no one to fill his spot. The "big" game had dried up 6 months ago, and had only started again because some of the baby limit players had 'graduated' to be able to play the bigger one; a jump from $200 max to $400 min is not as big as the jump from $200 to $1000, and the baby limit graduaters are going to go across the street to play the $200 min / $500 max party poker game, and I'll be there to play with them, too, if the game doesn't go back to the $400 min.

I don't actually want to go play at Harrah's, as it not nearly as good of a room as Trump (no windows, worse dealers, etc etc), but that's where the game I can play is, and that's where the action is, sadly.

In other news, Trump did get a little write up in pplayer.com, which was nice to see.

Bad Beats

Ok, while I'm on a conference call and only allowed to browse websites instead of playing poker, I went to espn.go.com to try and find out which events were going to be televised by ESPN this year (as I'm debating which event to go play in; I'm leaning towards the June 3rd $1,500 event, although if I'm wild and crazy there's always the $2,500 short handed event, but I digress), and I found out that Phil Gordon is writing columns for them. The one I started reading was called 'Bad, bad beats'.

In it, he had some very good words to note:

Here is a really simple fact I try to keep in mind: great players experience more bad beats than bad players. Great players get their money into the pot with the best hand and the suckers are forced to draw out. As a corollary, great players rarely deliver a bad beat: they almost never get their money into the pot drawing slim.

I bring this up because I was having a discussion with a friend of mine, who was bewailing his series of bad beats online. My response was, "If you're getting your money in with the best hand, you're playing right and you shouldn't stop." This didn't make him feel much better, but then he kicked my butt in the home tourney by flopping a full house, and that probably did the trick.

For those of you poker bloggers out there, I was more than a little amused when he went on to say:

Here's the bottom line in Hold'em: you're almost never quite as far ahead as you think you are. Ac -- Kc vs. 7h -- 2h? The Ace-King will take a "bad beat" about 30.697% of the time. That is almost 1 out of 3 times.

Who knew the suited hammer was so powerful?!

Oy, what a weekend

It's a good thing I had a monster week last week, because this past weekend saw a -$4k weekend, thanks to the craziness that is BBQ and JT. They decided they wanted to play $10/$25 blinds with $1,000 minimum buyin. Of course that means that instead of it being $5/$10/$60-$80, it was $10/$25/$150 when either Q or JT raised. Ugh.

I had to mix my play up considerably - slowplaying QQ to one of BBQ's raises, and pushing in when the flop came ten high, and then semi-bluffing Q out of a pot when I had 88 to a flop of 8 7 6. Q bet out $500, I only had $1500 in my stack, so I went into the tank - If I raised, I was going to be committed anyway, and the only way I could get him off a hand is to show strength and go all in, since that's what was going to happen anyway. I did so, and Q freaked out - he said he had the smallest straight possible, and did I have the T9? I asked him what he thought I would go all in with, and he was considering calling - something I /really/ didn't want, obviously; I had outs, but he was made already - so I told him I'd show him my cards if he wanted. That got him to fold, and I flipped up my set and he said 'DAYYYYMN! That was a strong play!' I said, yeah, but I had a lot of outs, etc etc.

With the QQ mentioned above, I had to show my cards again because he bet strong into the pot, I pushed, and he said he had a monster hand - AK, and I said that's a pretty good hand. He asked me to show him one card, and since we were heads up I showed him one, then the other, and again he went 'Daaaaaamn' - if I just showed him the Q, he would have called in .032 seconds flat, thinking I had AQ to his AK, but I'd rather take the $1000 pot down right there by showing my hand, which is what I did, since he realized he was way behind and folded, even though he could have caught a 6 outer on me...

Then I had AA UTG to a live straddle ($50 for the real UTG person), and I got cute with it and just called, since it was Q on the straddle, and JT and Slim were still in the hand, so I was sure someone was going to raise it. No, instead JT said "Wow, you're just limping with a straddle out there? Watch out, she's got a monster hand!" Dammit.

The flop came down Q high, JT bet $100 at it, Slim raised it to $500, Q folded, I didn't think what that $500 meant, and I went all in. Slim said he unfortunately had to call me and showed his flopped set of 4s, and that was that. I didn't rebuy in, as I was thinking of leaving when Sam-the-lawyer left anyway, because as Sully had warned me, that game really was too big and gamble-y for me. I went down and terrorized the baby game for a while, and left way too late in the AM.

So much for that...

Suited gappers are great if you hit, but geeeeeeeeez, that means someone needs to not be a dork and realize he's beat and ok ok 4 out of 5 times this is going to pay me SO MUCH MONEY I shouldn't be upset, but there you go.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $1 BB (9 handed) converter



MP1 = (Wanker)/ ($97.15)

MP2 ($132.2)

MP3 ($127.15)

CO ($86.9)

Button ($183.73)

Maigrey ($137.95)

BB ($102.9)

UTG ($46.8)

UTG+1 ($13.05)



Preflop: Maigrey is SB with 2h, 5h.

UTG calls $1, 1 fold, Wanker raises to $3, 2 folds, CO calls $3, Button calls $3, Maigrey calls $2.50, 1 fold, UTG calls $2.


I call here because I'm getting a whole lot of implied odds if I hit.

Flop: ($16) 2d, 5s, 9c (5 players)


And wahOOOO I hit!

Maigrey checks, UTG checks, Wanker bets $7, CO calls $7, Button folds, Maigrey raises to $45, UTG folds, Wanker raises to $94.15 (All-In), CO folds, Maigrey calls $49.15.



Turn: ($211.30) Qh (2 players, 1 all-in)



River: ($211.30) Js (2 players, 1 all-in)



Final Pot: $211.30

Main Pot: $211.30, between Wanker and Maigrey. > Pot won by Wanker ($211.30).



Results below:
Maigrey has 2h 5h (two pair, fives and twos).

Wanker has Jh Jd (three of a kind, jacks).

Outcome: Wanker wins $211.30.

AAAAAGH, you called with an overpair? He said that he thought about trips but I bet so much he put me on a bluff. Seriously, I'd been playing so tight and I never bluffed; and he said he'd never put me on 52, to which I said, dude, you could put me on 22 or 55. Anyway. Argh. He then took his hit and run and left. Argh.

HAH, I have made up for some major bad beats last night

Thanks to this $500 hand...

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $1 BB (10 handed) converter



BB ($71.7)

UTG ($56.75)

UTG+1 ($203.71)

Maigrey ($255.7)

MP1 ($99.5)

MP2 ($143.75)

MP3 ($55.5)

CO ($37.63)

Button ($224.55)

SB ($103.05)



Preflop: Maigrey is UTG+2 with 8s, As. MP2 posts a blind of $1.5.

UTG calls $1, UTG+1 calls $1, Maigrey calls $1, 1 fold, MP2 (poster) checks, 1 fold, CO calls $1, Button calls $1, SB completes, BB checks.


Dude, I flopped the ... almost nuts. Crap, I hope no one has 6s 4s...


Flop: ($8.50) 3s, 7s, 5s (8 players)

SB checks, BB checks, UTG bets $8.1, UTG+1 calls $8.10, Maigrey calls $8.10, MP2 folds, CO folds, Button calls $8.10, SB folds, BB folds.


Hmmmmmmmm.... I may or may not be good.

Turn: ($40.90) Qh (4 players)

UTG checks, UTG+1 checks, Maigrey bets $10, Button raises to $30, UTG folds, UTG+1 folds, Maigrey raises to $70, Button calls $40.


Okay, I needed to find out where I was, and if this guy had the stone cold nuts, he'd put me all in right here.

River: ($180.90) Kd (2 players)

Maigrey bets $176.6 (All-In), Button calls $145.45 (All-In).


The guy thought about it for a LONG time before calling, so I wasn't worried about the straight flush, whew!
Final Pot: $502.95

Main Pot: $471.80, between Maigrey and Button. > Pot won by Maigrey ($471.80).

Pot 2: $31.15, returned to Maigrey.



Results below:

Maigrey has 8s As (flush, ace high).

Button has Qs Js (flush, queen high).

Outcome: Maigrey wins $502.95.


WOO HOOOOOOO!!