Horses and Donkeys

Horses and Donkeys

You can lead a horse to water, but only a donkey will follow you to the river.

Running Good

Two good finishes yesterday., 3rd place in 7 stud tournament and 15th in huge tournament (paid 27 places). Discovered that not all button raises are a cheap attempt to steal my blinds...defended with A/8 vs AK...oh well.

Trouble with the Ladies

Busted twice late in two Omaha tournaments with pocket aces vs. pocket queens. Safe to the river then they both caught their 2 outers! One actually had more outs as a 6 would have made a straight, but still......

Results have been very good lately, with lots of very deep runs, final tables and one cash plus lots of points to enter more tournaments (spade club).

Merry Christmas to all!!!!!

Knock Knock Joke

Ralph: Knock Knock
Sally: Who's There?
Ralph: Control Freak.- Now you say "Control Freak Who?".

Christmas Spirit (Mountain)

Last Saturday was my big day at Spirit Mountain. Arriving at noon I sat down at a 3/6 game and was totally card dead. The player to my immediate right hit two high hands in a row for a $600 win ($300 every half hour...both cards do not need to play). When a seat opened up on the 4/8 game I switched tables figuring that I wanted to stay on a low limit table in order to chase the high hands, but also wanting to play a high enough limit to beat the rake. 12 hours later, I had broken even thanks to hitting quad aces for a high hand. Ended up spending the night at the lodge, nice room and covered it with my comps. A good day gambling, but could have quit once when I was about $250 ahead. My "lesson Learned" is that if you make $200 playing poker that is equivalent to a $75,000 a year job ($200 x 5 = 1,000/week = $48,000 year pretax). I am planning to quit anytime I am $200 + ahead for the immediate future.

Good Player or Bad Player Quiz

Today I have a quiz for you. You must decide whether my opponent is a good player or bad player. To give you some history with this player, he is the one who knocked me out of our local (Cannon Beach) "Tournament of Champions" last year on the first hand. If you recall, I raised preflop with pocket 4's, caught a monster flop of 6/6/4, and was reraised by this particular player with his pocket kings because, in his words, "I don't think you have aces", and refused to lay it down despite my reraise all-in with the statement, "don't call me if you like pizza", referring to the free pizza being served at the first break. He called, and the river brought another 6 to knock me out.

Anyway, last night I was playing tight, had won one small pot with pocket 8's (one opponent folded after flop) when I bet out on a 10/10/6 flop. I then pick up pocket kings in middle position with one limper (the villain previously described). With the blinds at 40/80, I make it $350 to go, and everyone folds except the limper who calls. The flop is excellent for me, queen high, with a 10 and another small card, rainbow. He checks, and I bet $800 into the $800 pot. He raises me to $1600 and I question him. "Queen Ten?, I can't beat 2 pair". I then, reraise him all-in. I am not sure of the total reraise, but we started with 2200 and I probably had about a 600 raise. He kind of does some math and calls. When we turn over our cards, he says, "I put you on a small pair". He then proceeds to deal himself (he was the dealer) a 7 to go with his queen/seven suited that he called my raise with, and reraised me, and called my all-in with. I was stunned but not surprised as he usually does go in with the worst hand and gets lucky.

So, my questions are:

1. How bad is his play?
2. How bad is his read?
3. Did I bet too much on the flop? I was representing perhaps what he thought I had, so maybe with a bad player I should have made a more suspicious bet, like maybe 1/3 of the pot, so if he reraised me, then I could push all-in and get a fold. The reason I bet what I did was that I was still worried about a medium or strong ace catching up, which is what I put him on.
4. I think I played it about right and just got unlucky. I got the desired result, all-in with the best hand so what better scenario than that?

Please post your comments...analysis

I Hate Canines (King/nine, or K9)

Today I have been knocked out of two tournaments with K9 vs KQ and KA. The morning moose tournament I raised preflop with my KQ suited and was called by "Dirt Farmer" with a big stack and K/9 suited. The flop K/9/7, he checked (big blind), and I went all-in for pot size. He insta called and I was gone. Twenty minutes later, in an online game, I raise from the small blind with Ak and am called by....K9 offsuit. The flop has some middle cards, 6,7, ten high and I bet 300, he calls. The turn, king, I shove, he calls. River hits an eight for the straight with his 9. Just some really bad luck.

I have turned the corner on tournament play though with 2 online cashes (60th out of 1700, and 2nd out of 134). One of the wins (2nd) was just for a free year's subscription to Card Player magazine, but that is cool. I also place 2nd in the 10 a.m. Moose Friday for a $150 win. Cash games not so good with a small ($100 loss) marathon Saturday game. I felt o.k. with it, but could have quit a couple of hours earlier for a small win. Late Sat. nite play is just....crazy. When you have Tony, Miguel and Latif in the game it can get wild. I watched Tony go from $300 buy in to $700 to the felt. Miguel came in with $300 and had $700 in front of him when I left. Here is an example: Too Tight Randy raises preflop, rut-row! I envision aces, so I immediately muck my A10. Miguel calls with 8/3 offsuit and flops two pair then rivers the boat despite $20 bets to the river. Sick. I only survived by playing extremely tight and pushing hard when I connected. Of course, the problem with this type of play in this type of game is that it is like playing with your cards face up. Someone raised to $7 preflop with one caller and I reraised to $27 with pocket aces and everyone folded. But, just ask Randy how it feels to let them in cheap and get snapped by the 8/3. I will take the small win every time rather than try to trap.

Pulling Out of My Slump

Things are not well yet with my poker game. I am working hard to identify my "leaks" and weaknesses. There is an excellent site called mzonereport.com that will evaluate your play based on the data they pull from all the internet sites. I must warn you though that it is fairly disturbing to see how the statistics view you. I cannot reveal what the stats told me about my game cause too many of you play against me sometimes, but suffice it to say I am making some changes that you may notice. You can subscribe to their service and view other players' tendencies as well, but will wait to see if I think it is worth it.

Update: tonight's cash game worked out for me. After two- one hundred dollar buyins, I cashed out for $328. That was pretty much my peak of winnings, so good timing. Aces cracked by 4/7 offsuit, but made some of it back on the side pot.

Placed 8th in 18 person SNG online. On final table, I open raised with AK suited, was called by A6 suited, reraised by pocket queens, and re-reraised by pocket 10's who had the biggest stack at the table. I knew it was a sick pot, but just too big to fold...whoever won the pot would have about half the chips at the table. We ended up 4 handed all-in and the flop was terrible: 4/4/10 for the flopped full house. The A6 of hearts ended up making a meaningless flush on the river and the queens missed. Maybe next time I will let the other 3 have at it and wait for a better opportunity.