Tough Decisions = Tough Day

On Day 2 of my Vegas trip I had several very tough and costly decisions to make.  As I mentioned in my last post, had forgotten my gamble back in the hotel room.  Must. Take. Gamble. When. Gambling.

So, the first tough decision came during the 11:00 Mirage tournament.  With 10K starting chips, blinds @ 50/100 (first level), I limped in 2 UTG with 7/7 after the player to my right, who I will now refer to as "the obnoxious prick", or TOP.  The button, an aggressive golf attired 30 something made it $650 to play.  Both blinds folded and TOP called as did I.  The flop was awesome for me, 7/6/4 with 2 diamonds.  As this was a very "wet" board heavy with draws, when checked to me I made it $3000 to go, which in retrospect was way too much.  I like pot size bets as they really do define hands and will get all-in action from real hands while giving draws terrible odds.  So, not surprisingly the original raiser folded and the TOP called.  He then began earning his nickname by spouting off things like "did you expect me to fold with your huge bet?"  Well, yes, or re-raise if you thought I was out of line.  So, the turn brings a bad card, an 8, but not a diamond.  So, now a 5 makes the straight, and when it is checked to me, I check back.  (Bad idea? At this point a five beats me, as well as 9/10. I imagine A/5 of diamonds calling both the preflop raise and my big bet.  Also possibly in his range, 5/5, 6/6, 8/8, etc. on up to aces.)  The river is a 9, but no diamond.  This increases the hands that would likely call a big bet to 9/9, 10/10, and even 10/J suited.  Also some suited connectors that I have beaten like 6/7, 7/8, 8/9.  So, now the 1st action is on TOP.  He quietly announces all-in.  The pot is around 7,000, and I have 5-6000 behind.  It is so early in the tournament and he is such a jerk, I decide to fold and lose the battle to fight another day.  Bad decisions?  Bottom line it put me slightly on tilt and also slowed my game down, folding hands I would have played had I won that pot.  I made it down to around 14 players and noted with satisfaction that TOP did not cash.

Enough of that, moving to the 1/3 cash game I continue my non-gambling ways which ends up costing me a small buy-in ultimately.  A couple of the memorable hands were these:

Raising to $12 with KK, a very loose lady who I had noticed favored any two suited cards calls.  The flop is Q/x/x, all spades.  I have red kings.  She bets $20 into me, I fold my kings face up and she shows Q/7 of diamonds.  I had lost an earlier hand to her with her big/little suited vs. my AK when she rivered her kicker on a king high board.

The next big hand had a lot of discussion amongst 3 of us.  I checked from the big blind holding AJ of clubs with several limpers.  The flop came down J/9/x with 2 diamonds.  The small blind bet $6 into the $12 pot and I raised it up to $20.  The button, a young good playing aggressive kid with $300 behind re-raised me to $40.  The small blind folded, and I folded my AJ.  Later he said he had the 8/10 of diamonds, while the other guy said he had K/Q of diamonds.  I did the odds calculation and discovered that the KQ was a big favorite with the 8/10 the dog and me the monkey in the middle with the best current hand.

Here are the odds:

AJ   32.4%
KQ  43%
8/10  24.6%

I really thought the combo draw was ahead, but losing his flush draw makes a huge difference.  With only 2 of us (the kid and me) in the pot, here are the odds:

AJ  43%
8/10  57%

If I had gone heads up with KQ it was even worse:

AJ   39%
KQ  61%

There was no scenario that the kid was folding, he was definitely prepared to call a shove, so good fold on my part with top/top, and good play on his part forcing out the better draw.  Like I said, a day for tough decisions.