O-Poker

I finished 2nd in the Mookie last night. I had a pretty good lead heads up against Bayne, so I felt confident that I would take it down. It wasn't meant to be though. Bayne was a tough heads up opponent and I had to constantly switch up my play. He was shoving all-in just about every time that I limped. I was waiting to set him up with a big hand. Unfortunately when I finally got AK and limped in, he checked behind. My flop bet took it down.

Bayne got about even in chips when I got all in on an Ace high flop with Ax against his set of 7s. I was able to start to regain the chip lead until we got all in with my AQ vs. his 99. (No way either of us were getting away from those hands heads up.) The board was no help for me and I was left with around 12k to his 110k +/-. I felt like I still had a chance if I caught a couple of hands - definitely didn't give up. I chipped up a little to above 20k. A few hands later, we got all in preflop again. This time my short stacked 99 lost to his A3. GG and well played Bayne.

I am guessing that I have probably made a bigger jump this week than anyone in the Battle of the Bloggers Leaderboard. I was sitting in 32nd place on Monday morning and 21st after my win on Monday night (highest ranked with less than 20 tourneys played). I am curious as to where I stand after my 2nd place last night.

I guess I let Waffles down, since he had picked me as one of his horses on BuddyDank Radio. BTW, I listened to BuddyDank radio for the first time on Monday and really enjoyed it. Great show!!!!

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How Would You Play it? (Results)

The Hand from yesterday's post
I am dealt JJ in mid position and raise to $80 to thin the field. I get 4 more callers including Lucky, Seat 5 (who is steaming), Seat 10 (in the BB) and Seat 1.

Flop comes 8d9d3h. Seat 10 opens for $200. I am 100% certain that I have him beat and pretty certain that he is on a flush draw. Seat 10 has about $200 behind. Seat 1 calls his last $135. I'm guessing Seat 1 has either a flush draw, straight draw, or 1 pair and 1 over. (Really not too concerned about his hand.)

I have a decision to make. Seat 5 is beaming like he has monster. Seat 5 has around $1,300. Lucky looks like he wants to call. Lucky has about $3,500.

I have around $2,100.

What is your play here?

A. Flat Call (and the draws a chance to catch)
B. Raise (if raise what amount? enough to put Seat 10 all-in or more?)
C. Fold

Results:

I may have steered everyone in the same direction with my "Seat 5 is beaming like he has monster" comment - not sure.

My thinking was that I only had $80 invested in the pot. I really thought I had the best hand, but wasn't sure. I decided to let it go, mainly because of the two big stacks behind me. If they weren't there I was going to put Seat 10 all-in.

I folded. Seat 5 shoved all-in. Lucky folded. Seat 10 folded instead of putting in his last $200. He said that he folded 77. Talk about a horrible fold. He had to call a little less than $200 into a $1,135 pot.

Hands:

Seat 10 - folded 77
Seat 1 - KQ (no diamonds)
Seat 5 - Ad10d

The turn and river came 5,6. Not only did the guy that folded 7s fold the best hand, but he also would have made a straight. Ace high took down the pot.

I don't regret folding. I don't like results oriented thinking. If I flat called, Seat 5 was shoving and I would have to fold. If I raised, Seat 5 was shoving and I might have called or might have folded depending on the bet amounts.

This hand really got me thinking about how you play against live bad players that don't understand the value of certain hands. It isn't a big deal in cash games, but it a tourney/sng, especially in a home game turbo format, bad players can actually gain a little bit of an edge over a better player that isn't catching any cards. If you get a good read on a poor player that doesn't understand the value of his hand, he may be giving off signals of a strong hand when he has a draw since he may see his draw the same as the nuts. I know some players that think even a weak flush draw or a straight draw is just about the nuts. Basically, you might wind up getting in bad or folding a lot of hands to these poor players if they give off the same signals (because they feel like they are all monster hands) with the nuts as they do with 2nd pair or a draw. (I'll expand more on this in a future post.)