Archive for December, 2009

Yep, tonight was a disappointing as poker gets, aside from going out on the bubble.

Here’s the stats:  I played for just over 3 hours, (I tweeted 4, but it was actually 3).  In those 4 hours I didn’t get a single pocket pair.  Not one.  Not deuces, treys, nothing.  I did get AQ 4 times – each time I opened the pot for about 3 big blinds and took it down with no action.  I took the blinds with K5 (the Hog Roast!) on the button once, again with no action.
Those were the 5 hands I won all night.

I limped from the small blind twice, when there were a few limpers.  Each time I had to throw it away on the flop, apart from on one occasion when I bet out into a rag flop, hoping my ultra-tight image, and that they’d miss the flop, would make the other 2 fold.  One of them raised big, and I had to fold.

And those were the only hands I played in the 3 hours – 3 flops, of which I hit none and folded all.

Until I went out of course, and this is how it happened.  I had just over 4000 left, with blinds at 150/300 with a 25 ante.  Given that I was getting no hands, but had a very tight image, (I hadn’t shown a single hand and had only raised 4 times in 3 hours),  I was looking for someone to raise, so I could bang it all-in over the top and have them fold.  I needed someone to raise who wouldn’t be committed, and who could I felt fold.  I must admit that I failed to pull the trigger a coupe of times when I felt such an opportunity presented itself – however much you know it’s the right play it can be tough to act with garbage.  I’ll be stronger here next time.

Anyway, I got K10.  They looked pretty and they gave me the courage to do what was necessary.  Actually K10 is worse than garbage to do this with, because if someone calls they could really have you dominated – something like low-suited connectors or something would be better.  However, a guy in early-ish position made it 1k, and I banged in the 4k, hoping he’d fold.

He thought it about for a while, before saying “I know I’m behind” and calling, with AJs.  I didn’t hit, and went out.

Now I have to say, with no sour grapes, that I think AJ is a terrible call here.  A truly abysmal call.  Here’s my thinking – if I am NOT bluffing, (which I am), then he really must be behind, and he is probably dominated with me holding something like AK or AQ.  If I don’t have a big ace then I must have a pair there, so he is losing either way.  When you look at this way, AJ is only ever beating a stone-cold bluff there.  It’s half his stack, he can’t afford to be making this kind of call.

I was bluffing tho.  Was it a good call?  Did he read me for the bluff?  Not a chance.  He had no info to read me for a bluff, I’d played so few hands.  When he said “I must be behind” he meant every word of it – he was just incapable of laying down AJs, and that’s why the call is a bad one…

..in my opinion.

So really I hardly played poker at all tonight.  It’s the most card-dead I’ve been since the 3 days I was card-dead for at Caesars Palace a couple of years ago.
However, next poker for me will be the Main Event on Saturday afternoon which I qualified for on Tuesday.  Looking forward to that – hopefully I will find either the cards or the positions to enable me to play a bit, that I didn’t have today.

We started this afternoon’s satellite for the main event with 16 runners, each with 1500 chips.  We estimated there would be 3 seats up for grabs, with a £50 double add-on at the break.

Last year when I played this I played very tight, didn’t get too involved and really only started to play after the break.  At that point blinds are 100-200, so if you have 1000 of your original stack left over and you add-on, you now have 4000 to play with, which is not exactly life-support.

Not this time tho, the table was very tricky and limpy, everyone wanting to play flops and re-raise with middle-pair etc.  I got involved a bit early and didn’t really know where I was, which wasn’t great, and I was forced to re-buy.  However, from there things went my way…

I’d played my second 1500 up to around 2500, when I picked up jacks.  There was a small raise, and a call, and I could either shove the lot, or see a flop.  I didn’t want to be one of those who re-buy, shove, re-buy, shove etc, and I figured I could build a stack form where I was, so I decided to see the flop and bang it in if there were no pictures.  Well, there weren’t any pictures.  The first guy shoved all-in, the second player folded, and I obviously called.  Sadly, the first guy had kings.  Happily, the turn was a jack   I now had around 7000 and was pretty comfortable.  The KK guy actually had aces, kings and jacks beaten at this first table.

So, from there I was picking and choosing, no need to get involved in the endless shove-rebuy-shovefest that the end of the rebuy period becomes, but there were still some opportunities and I grew the stack to 10k by the break, so 13k with the double add-on.  Given that I’d have been alright with 4k-6k, I was now really thinking that all I needed to do was nurse the stack thru to the final table and one of the final 3 spots, no risk-taking required.

One guy actually re-bought often enough that he’d invested £250 to try to win a £500 seat, not the greatest economics.

We got to a final table fairly quickly, and I had about 17k, having taken no risks and picked spots to pick up cheap chips.  I did bust one or two, but not in any particularly spectacular ways.  On the final table I had the big stack by a fair distance.  Our table had been aggressive, and there had been a lot of rebuys, but the other table was more passive, so the stacks were smaller.  I would say that the next guy behind me had about 12k.

We were 10-handed at the final table.  I didn’t need to win, or move up the money ladder, I just needed to finish in the top 3, therefore it’s a very different strategy to a ‘normal’ final table.  It’s all about avoiding risk, surviving etc.  I raised early with a couple of nig hands, including aces, and no-one wanted to clash with me.  It whittled down fairly quickly – I busted 2 guys.  First, a guy raised my big-blind from the cut-off, and I flat-called with AK.  I did this because I have no need to get into a coin-flip and lose a big chunk of my stack, when I can comfortably coast thru, so I’d rather know I am ahead when the money goes in, if it has to.  I missed the flop, and checked, preparing to throw it away if he bet.  However, he checked behind and the turn card was an ace.  I now believed I should be ahead, and that he would bet big if I checked – he didn’t have a huge stack and couldn’t really afford to check-it down all the way and lose.  He moved all-in and I called.  The ace had left him with middle pair and a flush draw, so I had to avoid any more hearts or 9’s, with 1 card to come.  No help for him, and he departed, with my stack now well in the 20k’s.

The second bust-out was odd.  The small-blind, who had around 5k, flat called my 1600 big-blind from the small-blind.  I had 10-6off, and I decided to check, so that if he was trapping with a big hand I wouldn’t lose much.  The flop came 10-high.  He pushed all-in, now I have to call, and he showed 10-3.  He was unlucky enough that the river was a low card so no split-pot, but what a weird way to play the hand.  With 10-3 in the small-blind, short-stacked against the big stack, you surely either fold it or shove all-in on the steal?  10-3 cannot be a hand to see a flop with…

Then we messed around for a while until eventually we got down to 3, with no drama on my part.  My plan from the moment I turned the jack to beat the guy’s kings was to nurse that stack thru to the final 3 with no risk and no drama, and I was pleased that this is exactly how it turned out.

The Main Event is on Saturday afternoon, concluding on Sunday.  Next for me is the £150 freezeout tomorrow night, with a £25 bounty.  That’ll be it for me before the Main, due to work, so here’s hoping I can turn this successful table time into a good result there.  It’s nothing major yet, but it’s a start after a while away from the tables…

The Christmas Cracker Festival at the Rendezvous Casino, Brighton Marina, is a festival I’ve had some success at in the past.   Last year I qualified via satellite for the £500 Main Event, and cashed for a couple of thousand or so in the £200 freezeout.  This year I haven’t got the whole week off, but at the same time my goal is still to qualify for the Main and play at least one other event.  Now I haven’t had a lot of poker in the run-up to this one – I busted pretty early in a £25 freezeout at The Grosvenor in Brighton when my nut-flush ran into a flopped full-house, and a few sessions online, (which I don’t particularly like and am not that good at), have gone ok but nothing to write home about.

But the satellites make for a good way to get back into it all again.  I think I have a decent understanding of how to play satts, and so am fairly confident going in.