Hand of the Day

You are in the BB of a very loose passive 2-5 NL cash game. You have $280 in front of you after your oops bluff move three hands earlier left you short. You are playing around to the blinds, then will take a break and come back and rebuy up to a dime. You don't pay attention and get dealt a BB hand without posting, then the dealer asks you to post the BB and you do.

UTG makes it 10 (standard for the guy), he gets four callers and you look down at QJo. Flop comes 10 8 3 rainbow. $62 in the pot.

What do you do? Check of course, five way action and your first out. UTG then bets $30, gets two callers, two folders, then its to you. You have $270. What do you do?

You call of course. You have two overs, one of which is bound to be good and a 11-1 gut shot (twice 5.5-1 or so) to the nuts. $152 in the pot.

Turn is an Ace. Now?

CHECK Kindly sir. HOPE UPON HOPE that it gets checked around for your free shot. You know that can not happen. You check, UTG waives a white flag and checks, MP1 (not a good player, loose and wierd hands turned over) makes it $80 ($900 behind). MP2 (tightish, but solid player with $1000 behind) calls. Now there is $312 in the pot, costing $80.

1. 3.8-1 pot odds.
2. 7-1 odds on the straight.
3. implied odds out the ..............

I recommend calling and kicking your self for not having rebought so the implied odds are off the charts. You call leaving $160 behind. $392 in the pot.

River card is your absolute gin card, the King. Now?

Actual hand from Metropolis. I will post the results later. Until then.....

Good Luck and See You at the Felt.......................

What Would You Do?

First of all, let me put out some props to Bulldog Mafia. Well played last night while I was at ur table. Did not see how you finished but appreciate the comments. That being said, I will take the Dog's advice and put out a hand from last weekend's trip to Metropolis for thoughts and discussion.

My Hand: X X

I am in the big blind, UTG opens for 20 gets four callers before it gets to me. I call with "XX."
Six way action, flop comes down 24J rainbow. SB checks, I check, UTG bets 30, call, call, call, fold and I call. Turn is a 2 (224J), I check, and the other four check behind. River is a 4 for a 2244J board. Before I can do anything, the UTG checks and the next two players check behind. I speak up and say "I have not acted yet guys." I look at the UTG player and tell him "You were suppose to bet the turn card." I then bet $150 into a $240 pot. All the players fold.

1. Would you call my bet?
2. What would the minimum hand be that you would call with?
3. What did I have?

Until next time,

Good Luck and See You at the Felt......................

Stupid Mistakes Hurt Sometimes

$10 Rebuy last night

I play very solid, I am in for $30 total midway through the third hour. I have 25,000 in chips, average stack around 30,000. T Soprano, a top notch rebuy player that plays this event every night and is hyper aggressive is two to my right and is the table chip leader with 106,000 in chips. We are down t0 265, 180 getting paid. My PokerStars account is low, so a cash would help going forward. $15,000 to win. I have not made any plays, stole once in an hour, and just doubled up with KK to get to 25,000.

Blinds are 600-1200 with a 75 ante and I'm in the BB with A9s. folds to T on the button, he raises to 3,600. SB folds. I go all in after thinking about it for 5 seconds. He instacalls with 33. The board turns me a lot of outs, but I missed and got eliminated. I don't know why I did it looking back, making the money was the goal and I was in good shape to make it there with my stack.

Got impatient and got eliminated short of my goal. Until next time, stay patient and.....

Good Luck and See You at the Felt.......................

Tournament Update

Metropolis, more than the fictious hometown of Superman. It is the home to some of the worst poker players in the world.

Tournament, Saturday, September 24, 2005. $450 +50 NLHE.

Get to the poker room, or poker corner (four tables only) and pay the entry fee. Sit down with 2,000 in chips. Blinds start at 25-50 and double every thirty minutes. 37 players vying for 4 spots in the final on Sunday night. The winner was guaranteed $20,000 in cash and a WSOP seat. Note to Harrahs. If you are going to put the WSOP name on a tournament, you might ought to do two things.

1. Improve the structure ALOT.
2. Teach both your floor people and dealers the correct protocol to use in tournaments.

The structure was bad, but I knew it was before I went. So I cannot complain too much. I will say that I will not play another tournament there unless they GREATLY improve the structure. As for the personnel, just a training session with Johnny Grooms would be very helpful. That's enough to mention now.

On the bright side, the players in the tournament were clueless. They did not know how to play, nor did they seem to want to learn. That was good for me, until the last hand. Lets back up just a little. Five hands before I was knocked out (you knew I could not bad mouth this tournament if I won the damn thing do you?):

Hand one, early in level three with 1100 chips (lost 60% when I had to muck my set when a clueless player paid for and then received his obvious rivered flush at the end of level one - sigh). In the BB with 62. Two limpers and I see the flop of 245 rainbow. I check, mid position guy checks, button throws out 200 in what is possibly the worst steal attempt I have ever seen. I check raise all in for 700 more. He mucks and looks angry about it.

Hand two, five hands after Hand one. Same player that folded his steal attempt limps in EP, I look down at them. Yep my cursed hand at the WSOP, AA. I raise to 800 (100-200 blinds). Folds to him, he looks over at me and says "All in." I beat him into the pot and flip those beauties over. He has ................

K10 of spades. Of course they are good. I told the dealer to flop him his draw, she did. I told her to give the flush to him on the turn, she didn't, but she did river it for him. Sigh. What an idiot. I thought all really bad players were on line. I was wrong. I laughed and walked out.

I chilled out with $100 on let it ride and went back to play 2-5 no limit with BV, a player that I grew up playing poker with in high school and college. He had told me the game was soft, but oh my. While I may not play one of the tournaments up there, I will definitely be back for that NL game, and soon.

Bad players make the world go round. Until next time.................

Good Luck and See You at the Felt