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08.05.08
Legends 8: Time To Go To Work
posted by Absinthe | 2:57 PM
Got a late start today so this’ll be a quick one. $335 NLHE today, probably the usual minefield. And to play it I’m missing a) Pauly’s 5th anniversary tournament shindig and b) my wife’s birthday, proof once again that all you other married guys are playing for second, because I have the best one ever.
Cards have been pretty cold over the first two HE events; my “good” starting hands, in order of rank, have been KK, 88, 55, 44, 44, 33, AKo, AJs, AJo. The KK hand was pretty much my undoing on Friday; here’s how it went down.
Start the hand with about T4100 at 50/100 blinds. I raise from middle position to 350, SB (a solid player) calls. Flop comes 8s9cJc, a little scary. SB checks; I bet 500, he minraises to 1000, I go into the tank. I hate folding here because even a solid player will checkraise a tight player with top pair here. On the other hand the texture is, shall we say, unfavorable. I peek to see if I have Kc or Ks, since I know I had one black king. Spades. Damn. Not that the second-nut backdoor four-flush draw is anything special but it pays to know where all the emergency exits are, y’know?
So I’m in a quandary. I don’t want to lay down the best hand I’ve seen in three days in an undefined situation, but I don’t want to jam here and find out I’m drawing to two outs. Another card is highly unlikely to help me - if he has QT for the flopped straight, or if Kc comes and gives me a set but him a flush, my hand’s improved but is still behind. If I smooth call his raise and he fires the turn I’ve just wasted my call.
I end up embarking on a disastrous middle course, a play that either looks absurdly weak or incredibly strong - I threebet to 2100, making it just more than a minraise and leaving myself with only about 1500 in chips. It offers him easy odds but may be enough to buy me a showdown against top pair or get a free shot to outdraw something like bottom two. It definitely slows him down; he thinks for a while and calls, then checks the turn. Unfortunately the turn is 8c, making the board 8s 9c Jc 8c, about the scariest of all possible turn cards. I don’t think I have enough to get him to lay down any hand and frankly I’m not sure how I could be ahead given the action, so I check too.
River is Td, so there’s a pair, a three-flush and a four-card straight on the board. Ugh. He checks. I can’t think of anything I can beat or any reasonable hand he wouldn’t call me with and so check behind too, saying “kings”. Turns out he has pocket aces, meaning that I had the one hand in my range he could beat, and he had the one hand in his range he couldn’t bet. If I’d smooth-called the flop and pushed either the turn or river (if he’d given me the chance, that is; good chance he’d lead the turn), I’d have had enough chips to get him off the hand, but, well, that’s not what happened.
Blinds go up the very next hand and suddenly I’m a shortie, mildly tilted, get dealt 55 and decide to go hunting for a race. Unfortunately the woman two to my left has 66 and calls me. By the turn the board is 6789 with three diamonds, I have a diamond and she doesn’t, giving me a ridiculous number of outs given the situation, but none of them hit and I go home.
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August 5, 2008 at 10:06 PM
6789?
August 5, 2008 at 10:23 PM
6789. She has a set of sixes, I have a straight draw, flush outs, and the two remaining fives for a chop.
August 5, 2008 at 10:24 PM
(er, sorry. 678T. Brain misfired. Repeatedly.)
August 6, 2008 at 2:26 AM
Heh, heh, heh.