Dear Herd,
I have been relatively silent lately because I have played in a HORSE tournament that is difficult to relay and then I played in a Pot Limit Hold'em tournament and thought I would try to focus more on the play and less on the blog. So, here are some thoughts on the PLH (PLH plays just like No Limit Hold'em except one can only bet the amount that is in the pot. These amounts grow very quickly and ultimately there's little difference between PLH and NLH, but there are some times, such as a short stack unable to simply push all in, where it becomes relevant).
Yesterday we played for 8 hours. The first four were painfully boring as we never had a hand to play and slowly drained our 15,000 starting chip stack to about 6,000. The last four hours were very active and involved a ridiculous number of bad beats, both for and against us. Having earlier in the day discussed with someone the sadness that we as a poker society only remember the bad beats against us, I have here decided to completely ignore those, as painful as they are, and only tell you the good stories, where we unfairly beat down on players who should have laughed at us as we walked, tail between our legs, to the chariot home.
Our story starts with the 6,000 in chips. Playing 200 400, a small stack raised to 1400, leaving him with only 500 more in chips. He was in an early seat and could have been pushing with almost anything as he would soon be blinded down to almost nothing. We call from the button with KJh. We could raise him and get his other 500 in, but he will put that in after the flop no matter what, so let's see what the flop is first. The flop comes 56K. Great for us! He predictably tosses in his 500 and we call. He turns over AK! Terrible. We are a 12% dog, but the "river delivers"; we river a J to put 2,000 chips in our stack and send him home.
Playing 250 500, an early bettor raises to 1200 and we raise to 3600 with 88. The button raises to a figure beyond our 8,000 stack and the early bettor folds. We call, pushing our remaining 4400 in chips in hoping for a race (e.g. against AK we are a 55% favorite). Unfortunately, he turns over AA. He has the red aces and we have the black 8s, which makes us a 20% dog. The flop comes 3 high spades and the turn comes 7s (important that it's smaller than our 8 because 5 spades above our 8, although difficult to do, would be a split pot). We take it down with a flush and double up! On a side note, this same player about 30 minutes later cracked someone else's aces with TJ and we laughed about it on the way to our cars - our table was a crazy series of bad beats.
Skipping the bad beat story that brought us back down to 5,000 in chips, let's assume that's where we are, at 5,000. From the button playing 300 600 we raise to 1500 hoping to steal the blinds with A2s. The big blind raises to 4000 and we push all in. He shows 55 (heart and club). We are a 33% dog. The flop comes 27Q with two spades! Great flop for us. Now we need one of the remaining 2s, an Ace or a spade. We are now a 52% favorite. The turn comes A, giving us 2 pair! His only hope now is the 5d (because the 5s gives us a flush). The river comes Js, giving us the flush. We went from pair to two-pair to flush to double up.
With 14,000 in chips we limp in for 600 under the gun with 33 and get four other players (including the blinds). Five of us see the flop come 389 with 89 both clubs. The blinds check. We bet 1500 and seat 5 raises to 5500. Everyone folds to us and we push all in. He calls and shows 67c. He has a straight flush draw. he needs a 5 or a T for a straight, or a club for a flush (5 or T of clubs gives him a straight flush). We are in the lead officially, but would love to see the board pair for a boat. The turn comes 4d and the river comes 9d. We take it down and double up. On a side note, the next hand he pushed all in with his remaining 2000 in chips, which we took off of him with KK.
We ended day 1 with 30,800 in chips (average stack is just over 36,000. There are 81 players returning for day 2 (195 started) at 2pm today. I will, again, not be blogging, but hope to give you some good news at some point in the day.
Y'all's
Bad Beatin Donkey
No comments:
Post a Comment