The Big Dance - Round 3

Playing 150 300

Side note - during the last break I mentioned to Melissa that I'm hoping to get 99 and play it in honor of the 9 month old twins at home. Read on.

Seat 5 raises to 800 and we call from the BB with JT. Flop comes 24K. We check, he bets, we fold.

He raises again to 800 and we call from the SB with J9d. Flop comes 457. We take a stab at it with 900 but he calls. Turn comes A, which is really the worst card for us. We check, he bets, we fold.

Quick loss of 2500, but I feel like we're minimizing losses for the most part.

S6 raises to 600 and we call with A9d. BB calls and flop comes 4TK with 2 spades and a diamond. They check and we consider betting but don't. Turn comes 7s. BB bets, S6 calls, we fold.

S3 raises to 700 and everyone folds to us in the BB with 58d. For 400, we call. Flop comes KJ2 with 1 diamond. We check, he bets! We fold.

We need to get out of this rhythm.

We limp from seat 6 with 56c. Seat 8 raises to 1200 and everyone else folds. We call and flop comes 448 with 2 clubs. Great flop. We check, he checks and turn comes 2h. We need a 7 or a c. We bet 1600 hoping to take it down. He goes into the tank for a bit and then mucks his hand. We finally won a hand this round. Good rhythm breaker.

They've squared us up to play 9 handed. Evidently they didn't sell all the seats. That's fine. It's more comfortable to play 9 handed.

Seat 6 raises to 700 and we call from S8 with TT. Flop comes 457. He bets 800 and we raise to 1600. He calls. Turn comes 5 and he checks. We bet 2000 and he calls. River comes 7. Again he checks. We bet 2500 and he goes into the tank. He ultimately calls and shows QQ to take it down.

Ouch. We're back down to just over 30,000 in chips. Head in the game.

Seat 5 raises to 800 and gets called by 6 and 9. We're in the BB with 22 and call. What a great time to flop a 2! Unfortunately, no 2 flops and we fold to the post flop bet.

Seat 4 limps and S9 raises to 800. We call from the SB with 68h. BB and S4 call and we all see the 38K flop. Everyone checks to S9 who bets 1600. To call or not to call. If we do, we have 5 great cards that could turn, and we get to see if he bets the turn. We call. Turn comes Q. Terrible card. We check, he bets, we fold. Hmmmphhh.

Seat 3 raises to 700, S8 calls and we have JJ in the BB. We raise to 2800 and S3 calls. Flop comes 39K, all diamonds. Wow that's not so good. We do have the Jd, but, we check and he bets 5000 into the 6450 pot. What could he have? KK would have re-raised pre-flop. Same is true for AA. He could have AK or AQ, in either case a diamond in his hand would be higher than mine. Worst case is AK with the Ad. The bet just doesn't make sense because any of these hands would have re-raised pre-flop and would bet an amount post flop that would keep me in, maybe 3500. Suppose he could have top 2 pair or a set of 3s or 9s? We call. Turn comes 9c putting a pair of 9s on the board and one more thing to worry about. If he had a set or top two pair, he now has a full house. We check and he pushes all in with enough chips to cover us. This hurts, but we fold. Better to lose 7600 than 27,000. We're down to about 19,000 in chips.

After the hand he claimed to have AA but not the Ad. I doubt it as he didn't re-raise pre-flop, but if he did have that, our play was perfect.

S4 raises to 600 and we call from the BB with 89. It's just 300 more right? Flop comes 3JA. We check, he bets, we fold. Here we go again! We have had barely playable hands for the most part, which we've ditched pre or immediately post flop. We still have a decent stack of chips, about 15,000, but we need to turn this around.

In S7 we raise to 750 with KT and S8 (Mr AA) calls. Flop comes 7TK with 2 spades (we have Ks). Great flop! We bet 900 and he raises to 2200. He's been very aggressive and as much as we want to raise, we don't want to scare him away. So we call. Turn comes 9. Highly unlikely that helped him. He'd have to have raised with 99 or 8J or 68. We check and he bets 4000. We only have about 11,000, but we do the "Hollywood" in the tank thinking and the push all in. He calls and shows AK. As long as the river isn't an A, we'll win. River comes J and we double up. We're back to 30,000 chips.

7 hands later we're on the button as Round 3 ends, but they're dealing our cards. S8 raises to 900. We have 99. The raise to 900 was odd, the 99 is odd, I'm getting goose bumps. The only imperfect thing is I thought of the kids as hearts (Storm) and diamonds (Kiara), not the club and spade in my hand. Anyway, I call and the BB calls. Flop comes 9TQ with 2 diamonds. I've flopped a set! They check and we bet 1100. BB calls and S8 folds. The turn is 3s. Perfect. That card could not have helped him unless he's in with something like Q3. We bet 3100. He only has 8000 and his chips don't break into 3100 (he has a 5000, two 1000s, and two 500s). I'm making him break the 5000 chip or push. He pushes and we call. He has KT. As long as a J doesn't river (which would give him a straight, we'll win. I don't remember what the river was, but we won.

We close Round 3 with 42,400 in chips. After about 100 minutes of getting slapped around, we had a huge turn and finished just above where we started the round thanks to a couple of huge flops.

Now on a 90 minute dinner, followed by 2 hours of poker. Hopefully more in 3.5 hours!
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman

Kurtzman Carson Consultants
2335 Alaska Ave
El Segundo, CA 90245
voice (310) 751-1500
fax (310) 751-1550
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