Forgot the cardinal rule

of tournament poker: Survival.

I took AQo up against the big stack (I'm #2). BB SNAP called my pot-size preflop raise.

*** FLOP *** [3c Jh Qc]

SB checks
gsw61515 bets 2,600
SB calls 2,600

*** TURN *** [3c Jh Qc] [Ah]
SB checks
gsw61515 bets 5,600
SB raises to 17,000
gsw61515: KT?
gsw61515: no way

editors note: when one correctly surmises one's opponent has the nuts, one should typically fold.

gsw61515: OK
gsw61515 raises to 20,335, and is all in
SB calls 3,335
gsw61515 shows [Ac Qs]
SB shows [Ks Tc]

*** RIVER *** [3c Jh Qc Ah] [Td]
gsw61515 shows two pair, Aces and Queens
SB shows a straight, Ace high
gsw61515: gg
gsw61515 stands up

I guess I was really hoping they called with AJ and hit the other two pair.

I always considered KT a sucker hand. Especially OOP, and esp. when you're the chip leader and 2nd in chips is in position with a preflop raise....

That being said, I still think that was a fold. Down to the final 10, almost at the FT, I'm dreaming of Vegas, and I think that was a clear fold in the hopes of surviving and getting my money in in a better spot.

I fold there, I still have an OK stack - smaller than average, but about mid-pack... Winner take all event like this, though, I kinda felt I'd have to take a chance that my fear was wrong and that they too turned 2 pair.

Guess I'm not playing in the WS0P this year....

Can you get away from this?

Tulalip $1/$2. Pretty standard; there's really only two of us who are doing much 'playing' while it seems other 4 are only playing their cards. I've got about $260, cut off has over $300. He seems to be a pretty standard tight/passive player.

5 limpers to me in the big blind. I look down at KK, and say "Put ten more dollars in everyone," and raise to $12. 4 callers.

Pot: $48

FLOP:
Kh 7s Th

SB checks. I bet $50. Folds to SB who calls.

TURN:
[Kh 7s Th] 8d

SB checks. I've got a weird stack size now: pot is ~$150, and I've got $200. I'm putting the guy on a flush draw, but I can't just bet the pot here, and 1/2 pot bet would leave me with barely a barrel on the river, so I figure my best move is all in here: the pot is big enough to take down now, and if he wants to chase a heart then he's paying a horrible price for it.

I say I'm all in, and SB insta-calls. I turn over top set, and he turns over J9o for a turned straight.

River is a meaningless Q (just gives him an even bigger straight).

Can I get away from this hand? I can't check-raise the flop with 2 hearts out there, can I? Do I under-bet the pot? Do I massively over-bet the pot to make most any draw not worth it to call?

freeroll fun

Killed a bunch of hours on FTP tonight, played a slew of Bracelet Race freerolls, and a smattering of PAD freerolls. Probably played in something like 16 or 20. Made 4 final tables, and final 2 in 3 others, and top 30 in a couple. If these were cash tournys I'd have made some bucks tonight.

I saw some of the sickest beats in those tournaments. I saw aces cracked by the oddest of hands not once, not twice, not three times, not even four times, but five whole times. Unreal. Twice were mine, and after witnessing my first beat and 3 others, I considered mucking preflop the next time I got them. Duh, I called. And got run down by J6. Check out the screen cap. Raised pre, BB & limper called. Flop was checked to me, I shove (was an overbet, hoping to block any flush draws), and get called in both spots:



I wish I could list the sick stuff I witnessed: people calling their stacks on the turn with gutshots, other craziness... I played solid, standard poker and got pretty deep.

Also played 2 SNGs. Busto in the first one just off the bubble, and 3rd in the other one, busted with AKo vs AKo and the guy catches running flush cards.

Tulalip tomorrow night!

Dreaming of Vegas

Every day for the past week and a half, I've taken about 1/2 my lunch hour (actually my lunch half-hour, but whatever) and scoured expedia.com, travelocity.com, lastminute.com, cheaptickets.com, cheapair.com, kayak.com - and probably some others - for airfare / hotel deals in Vegas.

Funny because I'm not interested in playing a WS0P event (scratch that: I'd play if I had the dough, I just don't have $1500 to plunk down on a tournament, esp. with the lack of tournament experience I have over the past year), I just want action. I want to spend a couple days sleeping as little as possible, parked at a juicy (but admittedly low stakes) poker table for as many hours as I can stand, taking an occasional break to bake in the desert sun, and maybe even catch one of the overpriced shows going on there (Ka would most likely be the show).

I just want to be around action. Memorial day weekend was almost like this at Tulalip for me: due to the huge bad beat jackpot that was going on, there were a slew of action junkies playing all limits throughout the weekend in hopes of hitting it. Some of the juiciest games I've seen up this way in a long time. I put in two long sessions (12+ hrs Sat-Sun and 18+hrs Sun-Mon). It was beautifully exhausting, and wonderfully exhilarating.

I have such fond memories of Caesar’s Palace $1/$3 game: was playing more like a $2/$5 game but with mostly players worse than me. Or the Venetian $1/$2 game, which was even more passive than Tulalip games (hard to believe!)...

And of course I'd love to wander through the Rio and see the round-the-clock degeneracy going on.

I really wish I'd been more mindful of my bankroll: I've been using winnings to pay for stuff (classes, contacts, new shoes, concert tickets...), that I really haven't grown my 'roll into anything significant. I play on a very short bankroll according to most 'expert opinions,' which means that 3 or 4 really bad sessions could make it vanish.

If I hadn't spent so much of my roll on stuff I'd have a little extra to spend on travel to Vegas and have a good chunk left for aggressive poker playing.

We'll see after this weekend: if I end up with a killer session Saturday night, I'll contemplate heading down the following Sat-Mon for a long weekend...

How do you get stats like this?

Guess this would be the epitome of "running good":

Weekend Degeneracy

Friday night: after dinner, I hop on the bus and head to Goldies for some limit poker. I played limit for the first time in MONTHS last week, and it was an interesting change of pace. Still not my cup of tea (I ended just below even for the two sessions), but I think it's a good thing to come back to every now and again. Limit is the place for good, solid, standard, ABC poker: nothing fancy about it.

Session time: 5 hours

Saturday I took a skate around Greenlake park, had some lunch, and around 2:30 headed up to the Tulalip. As I was sitting down to play (waited less than 5 minutes), a line of about 20 people came streaming through the doors to get on the poker lists. Within minutes the $1/$2 list was about 10 deep.

I played that session through the night / morning, and ended up leaving the casino around 6am.

Saturday to Sunday session time: 15 hours

Well, Sunday;s action didn't disappoint! Though I got their later than usual (7:00pm), I was sat within 5 minutes. Awesome action. Awesome. The $1/$2 game dwindled from 3 tables to 2 down to 1, and let me tell you: the 4am-7am table was juiiiiccceeyy!! That game never broke, and at 1pm on Memorial Day, there was a list about 10 deep for $1/$2.

Session time: 18.5 hours

And I have no clue how I am keeping my eyes open right now. Matter of fact I've been drifting in and out on occasion, and when I do it's interesting because whatever dreamlet starts going through my head starts to come out in what I'm typing (yes, I can type with my eyes closed and apparently half-conscious).

Poker goal / hand analysis:

Aggressive deep stack 6-handed home game. $0.50/$0.50 blinds, $100-200 buy in.

UTG: big stack ($300), very aggressive player. Apart from big hands, he has not had to show down many. Smart player.

SB: $130. Tight, careful player. Less aggressive than the other 5, but the only big re-raise he's put in were holding the nuts.

Hero on button: $150; tricky, slightly unorthodox image; winners I've recently shown down vary from 94o to flopped boats, turned flushes; successful bluffs I've shown down range from 2 overs to nothing near the board. I have a good feel for the risk-tolerance of the rest of the table; my steal-raises and re-raises have been spot-on all night, as have my value bets. I was way on top of my game: not to toot my own horn too much, but it was some of the best poker I've played in a while.

UTG raises to $2 (standard raise); Hero re-raises to $6 with AJ0. SB looks and thinks I open-raised to $6, comments "that's a big opening raise OK I call" (comma intentionally left out as he didn't speak it). He then sees that I reraised and says "Oh, that makes sense then."; UTG also calls.

FLOP: 9c Th Qh

SB bets $12; UTG instacalls. HERO announces raise; calls the $12, considers the pot, and raises $50. SB stares down HERO for a good 2 minutes. SB announces All In. UTG shows his cards to his neighbor and says "can you believe I have to throw this away?"

I ask for a count, it's $100 even to call.

I can't put him on KJ or J8: he's WAAAYYY too tight to call what he perceived to be a preflop overraise with these. It's possible he has AK/AQ/TT/99/QQ/KK/AA. Outside of these hands, all of which are ahead of me, I can't figure anything else out.

possibilities

I need an 8 or a K for the probable nuts. That's 8 outs, twice. ~32% to the winner. Slight chance an A will give me a winner, though I'm not convinced so I won't count that, and I have no backdoor flush.

And unfortunately, my emotions ran too hot for me to properly do simple math. See, I'm fairly bad at the math-end of poker (perhaps why I suck at limit). If I had done the math, I would have seen that I was being asked to call $100 to win $242. I was getting 2.42 to 1, which really meant that all I needed was a better than 29% chance to win to make the call. I actually had the perfect odds to call. Even if I was down to 7 outs, I would have been right at the borderline to call.

I mucked. And then unfortunately I paid $1 to see his cards. Guess what he had?

AJ.

Because I failed the math, I let myself get outplayed.

NEW POKER GOAL: become proficient at quickie pot-odds calculations, even under intense scrutiny and emotional duress.