I have always been confused as to why people play king/jack so aggressively. To me, it is a good hand, but not a great one. It is dominated by AK, AQ, AJ, KQ, and is flipping coins with any pair, with JJ and KK a huge favorite. So, last Friday night, I survived to the final table, but pretty short stacked. Finding AK suited under the gun with only 4 big blinds (500/1000), I of course shoved. It was folded around to the button who is young, aggressive, thinks he knows everything, and had a big stack. He called with KJ suited (hearts) and said, "I put you on a small pair". Right, genius. So the flop comes with 2 hearts and now instead of being a 2/1 favorite, I am a dog. The eight of hearts seals the deal on the turn. Wow. To me, KJ suited is a shoving hand much more than a calling a shoved hand. He is behind my entire range, including any ace. Your thoughts on KJ please.
So my next poker excursion was to the Tulalip Casino in Marysville. Spending a few days in Seattle, made the trip up on President's Day. It had been a while since I last visited there and they had relocated the poker room, nice but slightly downsized in my memory. Also serving pastries and coffee for free. Nice. I got there early and good thing. There were a total of 115 entries in the tournament, with a ton of alternates. I chipped up early and turns out I would need every one of them. I flopped a set of 6's, bet the flop and turn and folded when an obvious straight came in and there was action before me. A few hands later, playing pocket 6's, I again flopped a set. This time the more obvious straight came in on the turn and my bet was met (same player) with a healthy raise. I called, knowing what he had but hoping for the board to pair. It didn't and I folded on the river to his crap straight with a 7/9. The same player made it to the final table and was possibly chip leader when they chopped. Unbelievably, the last 6 made only $300 each. The buy-in was $25, with $9. going to the house. I am definitely spoiled by our rakeless tournaments.
Sitting in a 1/3 cash game managed to drop $300 in about 3 hours. Would have to say that every one's draw came in against me, while I couldn't hit flops or draws. It seems that I don't need good luck so much as not having my opponents get lucky against me. Also, I am pretty rusty in a cash game and probably could have done better with better play.
So my next poker excursion was to the Tulalip Casino in Marysville. Spending a few days in Seattle, made the trip up on President's Day. It had been a while since I last visited there and they had relocated the poker room, nice but slightly downsized in my memory. Also serving pastries and coffee for free. Nice. I got there early and good thing. There were a total of 115 entries in the tournament, with a ton of alternates. I chipped up early and turns out I would need every one of them. I flopped a set of 6's, bet the flop and turn and folded when an obvious straight came in and there was action before me. A few hands later, playing pocket 6's, I again flopped a set. This time the more obvious straight came in on the turn and my bet was met (same player) with a healthy raise. I called, knowing what he had but hoping for the board to pair. It didn't and I folded on the river to his crap straight with a 7/9. The same player made it to the final table and was possibly chip leader when they chopped. Unbelievably, the last 6 made only $300 each. The buy-in was $25, with $9. going to the house. I am definitely spoiled by our rakeless tournaments.
Sitting in a 1/3 cash game managed to drop $300 in about 3 hours. Would have to say that every one's draw came in against me, while I couldn't hit flops or draws. It seems that I don't need good luck so much as not having my opponents get lucky against me. Also, I am pretty rusty in a cash game and probably could have done better with better play.
2 comments:
I made a comment on this earlier and now it's just disappeared. Weird. Anyway, I didn't have much to say except that I don't like KJ unless I'm the original shoving player and very short on chips. I don't think it's reasonable to call an all-in with KJ unless you are super chipped up and it won't hurt you more than 10% of your stack. It's an OK hand, just not a great one.
I played Steve Stark's little tournament yesterday. I finally won the damn thing and my granddaughter Kayla took second. I mainly won because I crippled the chip leader. I limped in on the button with K7. Final board was KQ727. The chip leader had Q7. She went all in on the river. Ouch. I felt sorry for her really. It was just ugly.
Lynne, the reason your earlier comment disappeared was because I had to delete the post due to problems with copyright pictures. Just pasted my original back minus pics.
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