Playing 150-300 with 25 antes.
Seat 3 raises to 1050 and seat 5 calls. We call from Seat 8 with 68d. The BB raises to 3300. Seat 3 calls and seat 5 folds. There's 9000 in the pot and it's 2250 to see the flop. 3 way action with a possible big pot is exactly what we need. We call and the three of us see the 39T flop with 2 diamonds. We need a 7 for a straight and a diamond for a flush. We likely have at least 12 outs, or about 44%, against anything. The BB bets 3000 and seat 3 folds. Oddly small bet into a pot over 10,000. We push all in hoping he will fold and he goes into the tank. The pot is now about 25000 and it's about 9000 for him to call. We would be thrilled with a fold, but he calls with KK. We have 12 outs. The turn comes As. The river comes 3s.
Donkey down. 6.5 hours into the main event. Can't say I'm not disappointed but it's been a fun season and next year is 10.75 months away. Until then,
Your Donkey
Saturday, July 5, 2014
The Big Dance - Round 3
Our table breaks and we move to the amazon room, purple 437 seat 6. When we sit down an argument ensues over how player 5 is seated - specifically whether he is truly in the middle of the table. Sitting next to him it appears that he is but i stay out of the discussion as it turns toward angles of vision. Back to poker.
Playing 150-300.
Seat 4 min raises to 600 and gets called by 6 and 7. We call from the button with 79d and the BB calls. Five players see the flop AQ2 with AQd. Everyone checks to seat 6 who bets 1100. Seat 7 folds and we raise to 3300. Everyone folds. Great!
We raise to 850 in seat 6 with JJ and get called by seat 8 and the BB. Flop comes 25Q rainbow. BB checks and we bet 1300. Seat 6 raises to 3100. BB folds. We have no experience with this table. If he had a Q, would he raise or slow play. Two more betting rounds coming so best to decide now what to do. We fold. He shows 33. It was a bluff or a semi-bluff and it worked.
Seat 7 raises to 900 and we call from the button with ATh. The BB calls and the flop comes A86 with one heart. They both check and we bet 1600. The BB folds but seat 7 raises to 4200. Oiy! 2600 more for a pot over 10k. We call looking for an A, a T or a heart, or at least hoping he checks the turn. Turn comes Jd. He bets some large amount and we fold. Ouch. We have just under 20,000.
Seat 3 limps for 300 and we limp from seat 8 with 77. The SB calls and the BB raises to 1350. Seat 3 calls. Do we call? We like 77 in a four way pot because if we flop a 7 we should get paid. However, the only strong hand is the BB so maybe we raise to 4900 and try to steal it? However, if the BB pushes we will never see the flop. We call and the SB folds. Flop comes 3TA. Not good. BB bets 1600. Seat 3 calls and we fold.
Seat 4 raises to 800 and we call from seat 5 with A9s. Seat 7 and the BB call. Flop comes 57K rainbow (no spades). Everyone checks to seat 7 who is short-stacked and bets 2500. Seat 4 calls. We fold. Seat 4 took it down eventually with AK. Seat 7 had 78s. Wish the spades had come . . .
Sensing a pattern here? We are getting slowly cut down. We have 16,500 now.
We raise to 800 from seat 3 with JQs and seat 4 raises to 1750. Oddly small raise. Everyone folds to us and we call. Flop comes red 57K and we fold to the first bet.
Play that last hand a couple more times with minor variations. This has been a brutal round filled with predominantly unplayable hands interrupted only by the hands that are playable until the flop hits. We are down to 13000 in chips.
Everyone folds to the SB who raises to 750. We are in the BB heads up with T2. These chips mean a lot to us. We've been folding everything because we cant get a hand. We raise to 2700 advertising our first big hand in 2 hours. He goes into the tank and folds. Good.
Seat six races to 700 and we call from seat seven with JQh. The button and the big blind both Call, making a pot of about 3000. The flop comes 27Q with one heart. The BB and seat 6 check to us. We bet 1500 and they all fold. Good result.
We close Round 3, after six hours of play, with 15,075 chips. That's half of what we started with, but in light of some of the horrible luck we have had and the litany of bad cards and flops for the last two hours, I'm frustrated but not upset with the final number.
Off to dinner break. Hopefully no commentary for 3.5 hours.
Donkey
Playing 150-300.
Seat 4 min raises to 600 and gets called by 6 and 7. We call from the button with 79d and the BB calls. Five players see the flop AQ2 with AQd. Everyone checks to seat 6 who bets 1100. Seat 7 folds and we raise to 3300. Everyone folds. Great!
We raise to 850 in seat 6 with JJ and get called by seat 8 and the BB. Flop comes 25Q rainbow. BB checks and we bet 1300. Seat 6 raises to 3100. BB folds. We have no experience with this table. If he had a Q, would he raise or slow play. Two more betting rounds coming so best to decide now what to do. We fold. He shows 33. It was a bluff or a semi-bluff and it worked.
Seat 7 raises to 900 and we call from the button with ATh. The BB calls and the flop comes A86 with one heart. They both check and we bet 1600. The BB folds but seat 7 raises to 4200. Oiy! 2600 more for a pot over 10k. We call looking for an A, a T or a heart, or at least hoping he checks the turn. Turn comes Jd. He bets some large amount and we fold. Ouch. We have just under 20,000.
Seat 3 limps for 300 and we limp from seat 8 with 77. The SB calls and the BB raises to 1350. Seat 3 calls. Do we call? We like 77 in a four way pot because if we flop a 7 we should get paid. However, the only strong hand is the BB so maybe we raise to 4900 and try to steal it? However, if the BB pushes we will never see the flop. We call and the SB folds. Flop comes 3TA. Not good. BB bets 1600. Seat 3 calls and we fold.
Seat 4 raises to 800 and we call from seat 5 with A9s. Seat 7 and the BB call. Flop comes 57K rainbow (no spades). Everyone checks to seat 7 who is short-stacked and bets 2500. Seat 4 calls. We fold. Seat 4 took it down eventually with AK. Seat 7 had 78s. Wish the spades had come . . .
Sensing a pattern here? We are getting slowly cut down. We have 16,500 now.
We raise to 800 from seat 3 with JQs and seat 4 raises to 1750. Oddly small raise. Everyone folds to us and we call. Flop comes red 57K and we fold to the first bet.
Play that last hand a couple more times with minor variations. This has been a brutal round filled with predominantly unplayable hands interrupted only by the hands that are playable until the flop hits. We are down to 13000 in chips.
Everyone folds to the SB who raises to 750. We are in the BB heads up with T2. These chips mean a lot to us. We've been folding everything because we cant get a hand. We raise to 2700 advertising our first big hand in 2 hours. He goes into the tank and folds. Good.
Seat six races to 700 and we call from seat seven with JQh. The button and the big blind both Call, making a pot of about 3000. The flop comes 27Q with one heart. The BB and seat 6 check to us. We bet 1500 and they all fold. Good result.
We close Round 3, after six hours of play, with 15,075 chips. That's half of what we started with, but in light of some of the horrible luck we have had and the litany of bad cards and flops for the last two hours, I'm frustrated but not upset with the final number.
Off to dinner break. Hopefully no commentary for 3.5 hours.
Donkey
Big Dance round 2
We are still playing 5-handed which is a little strange. They are slowly filling seats with late arrivals. In any case, for now it means weaker hands play stronger.
Playing 100-200:
We are now playing 8-handed. People are flooding in i guess.
new player in seat 8 raises to four hundred. Everyone folds to us in the big blind and we raise to 1200 with 9 10 of clubs. He folds. Good.
We also won our small blind with pocket eights and a flop of 247. Guy with K7 paid us about 1500. I don't remember the exact play because the next hand took all of my mind.
Everyone folds to us in seat 8 with KK and we raise to 625. New player on the button calls and flop comes 7KA with 2 diamonds. We bet 600 with our set and he calls. The turn comes 7. Amazing. We were just hoping to avoid a diamond but now we have a full house. We check and he bets 1200. We call hoping the river is a diamond for him or something good (just not an ace or seven). Jd hits. Hopefully he made a flush. We bet 2400, hoping for a call and he RAISES to 6900. We go in the tank and fiddle with our chips. We only lose to two hands - pocket aces, which probably would have pre-flop raised or raised on the flop to avoid Letting us see a diamond. We also lose to pocket 7s but we cant play afraid of quads. We have to know we have a winner here. We only have about 13000, so 6900 is over half. As if to say, why not?, we push all in. He calls and shows A7 for a smaller full house. WE DOUBLE UP!
That was a ferocious beat to deliver to someone. Donkey has gone from some blood on the lips to full on bathing in it.
Note that shortly after this we lost a hand with 2-pair to someone who also had sevens full of aces. Strange that our opponents had that twice in rapid succession. Still, at the end of it we had just over 34,000 in chips. Back in the saddle!
Seat 8 raises to 400 and we have AKh in the SB. We raise to 1050 and he calls. Flop comes 889 with one heart. We bet 1200 and he calls. Turn comes Tc. We bet 2400 and he calls. River comes 6. Unless he has a big ace, cant really see him folding now, so we check. He bets 5200. We cant beat anything but a bluff, so we fold our premium hand.
Very next hand we get AKs. Crazy. We call an early raise to 500 and see the flop with the raiser and the BB. 25Q all clubs. Oiy! They check and we semi-bluff 700. They fold. Good result.
Seat 6 raises to 400 and we call from seat 8 with 57d. BB calls and flop comes 3TJ with 2 diamonds. Seat 6 bets 700 and we call as does the BB. Turn comes 4d giving us a flush and a straight flush draw. They check. We can't let another diamond come (unless it's the 6), so we bet 1650. They fold. That's fine.
In seat 4 we raise to 625 with TKs and the BB re-raises to 1600. We call to see the flop, which comes 89K with one spade. Good flop. He bets 2800 and we call, afraid of AA or AK, or even KQ. The turn comes 7s giving us a straight draw and a flush draw. There are literally 20 river cards that give us a flush, straight, set or 2 pair. He checks and we bet 4200. He calls and the river comes 2h rag. He checks and we check. He shows AA to take it down. Ouch. Back down to about 23,000.
Seat 5 raises to 400 and we are on the button with KK. We have had crazy good starting hands today. That means a lot of betting but too many of them have gone sideways. We raise to 1250 and he flat calls. Okay, he probably doesn't have pocket aces. Flop comes 9TA. Terrible. He checks and we take a stab with 1300. He calls. Turn comes 8. He checks but he will likely continue to call so we check. River comes 7 putting 4 straight cards on the board. Bluff? He checks and we check. He shows AQ to take it down. We are being slowly cut up.
There are also some small hands we've won. We called a raise to 600 from the BB playing an absurd 69h to see a flop with seat 5 and the SB. Pot odds might justify the call in light of the deep stacks (Sensei?). The flop came A38 with 2 hearts. SB checked and we bet 800. They folded and we took it down. Nice 1200 profit.
We end the round with 22,075. Much better than we started the round with, but about 14,000 shy of our peak!
Head in the game -
Donkey
Playing 100-200:
We are now playing 8-handed. People are flooding in i guess.
new player in seat 8 raises to four hundred. Everyone folds to us in the big blind and we raise to 1200 with 9 10 of clubs. He folds. Good.
We also won our small blind with pocket eights and a flop of 247. Guy with K7 paid us about 1500. I don't remember the exact play because the next hand took all of my mind.
Everyone folds to us in seat 8 with KK and we raise to 625. New player on the button calls and flop comes 7KA with 2 diamonds. We bet 600 with our set and he calls. The turn comes 7. Amazing. We were just hoping to avoid a diamond but now we have a full house. We check and he bets 1200. We call hoping the river is a diamond for him or something good (just not an ace or seven). Jd hits. Hopefully he made a flush. We bet 2400, hoping for a call and he RAISES to 6900. We go in the tank and fiddle with our chips. We only lose to two hands - pocket aces, which probably would have pre-flop raised or raised on the flop to avoid Letting us see a diamond. We also lose to pocket 7s but we cant play afraid of quads. We have to know we have a winner here. We only have about 13000, so 6900 is over half. As if to say, why not?, we push all in. He calls and shows A7 for a smaller full house. WE DOUBLE UP!
That was a ferocious beat to deliver to someone. Donkey has gone from some blood on the lips to full on bathing in it.
Note that shortly after this we lost a hand with 2-pair to someone who also had sevens full of aces. Strange that our opponents had that twice in rapid succession. Still, at the end of it we had just over 34,000 in chips. Back in the saddle!
Seat 8 raises to 400 and we have AKh in the SB. We raise to 1050 and he calls. Flop comes 889 with one heart. We bet 1200 and he calls. Turn comes Tc. We bet 2400 and he calls. River comes 6. Unless he has a big ace, cant really see him folding now, so we check. He bets 5200. We cant beat anything but a bluff, so we fold our premium hand.
Very next hand we get AKs. Crazy. We call an early raise to 500 and see the flop with the raiser and the BB. 25Q all clubs. Oiy! They check and we semi-bluff 700. They fold. Good result.
Seat 6 raises to 400 and we call from seat 8 with 57d. BB calls and flop comes 3TJ with 2 diamonds. Seat 6 bets 700 and we call as does the BB. Turn comes 4d giving us a flush and a straight flush draw. They check. We can't let another diamond come (unless it's the 6), so we bet 1650. They fold. That's fine.
In seat 4 we raise to 625 with TKs and the BB re-raises to 1600. We call to see the flop, which comes 89K with one spade. Good flop. He bets 2800 and we call, afraid of AA or AK, or even KQ. The turn comes 7s giving us a straight draw and a flush draw. There are literally 20 river cards that give us a flush, straight, set or 2 pair. He checks and we bet 4200. He calls and the river comes 2h rag. He checks and we check. He shows AA to take it down. Ouch. Back down to about 23,000.
Seat 5 raises to 400 and we are on the button with KK. We have had crazy good starting hands today. That means a lot of betting but too many of them have gone sideways. We raise to 1250 and he flat calls. Okay, he probably doesn't have pocket aces. Flop comes 9TA. Terrible. He checks and we take a stab with 1300. He calls. Turn comes 8. He checks but he will likely continue to call so we check. River comes 7 putting 4 straight cards on the board. Bluff? He checks and we check. He shows AQ to take it down. We are being slowly cut up.
There are also some small hands we've won. We called a raise to 600 from the BB playing an absurd 69h to see a flop with seat 5 and the SB. Pot odds might justify the call in light of the deep stacks (Sensei?). The flop came A38 with 2 hearts. SB checked and we bet 800. They folded and we took it down. Nice 1200 profit.
We end the round with 22,075. Much better than we started the round with, but about 14,000 shy of our peak!
Head in the game -
Donkey
Big Dance Round 1
As we saddle up to our table in the Brasilia room, table 92, the dealer tells us that our table was already broken and we are moving to table 21. We were going to be in seat eight, which is a good starting seat. Now we are nine, which is slightly better. It is really a trivial difference, but it still feels good.
First hand of the tournament playing 50-100 seat 4 raises to 225. Small raise and no one is sitting in the SB seat so there's dead money. (There are 4 seats with chips but no players). We are a little jittery when we look Down and see QKd on the button. We raise to 625 and the BB and seat 4 fold. We won hand one!
In seat 4 we have AK and raise to 225. Seat 4 and 7 call and we see the TJQ flop. Amazing! We would slow play but there are 2 spades and we are a little too afraid to give a card away. Hmmmm, who are we to be afraid. We check. Seat 4 checks and seat 7 bets 500. Now it's time. We raise to 1400 and seat 4 folds but 7 calls. Hmmmm, a set? 2 pair? Spades? Small straight? KQ? Turn comes 2s. Not good. We certInly can't let another spade fall as we don't have one. We bet 1900 and he RAISES to 3600. We cant get better on the river so calling now means calling a river bet too. Even if another spade doesn't fall, it seems likely that he has it already. We fold. Ouch. Big loss ten minutes in.
They have removed the empty seats from play and we are now playing 5-handed.
Seat 4 raises to 300 and everyone folds to us in the BB where we wake up with AA. Giddey-up. No slow playing here. We raise to 800 and he calls. Great. Flop comes 48Qs. Hmmmm, we don't have a spade. Three on the board is trouble but it's unlikely he has 2. We bet 1100 and he raises to 2800. Not good. He could have a set, a big queen, two spades or anything with the As. We put 1700 in to call to see the turn and it's the best possible card, Ah. We have top set. Unless he has 2 spades, we have him beat. We bet 2800 and he raises to 5800. Hmmm, he could have 2 spades, AQ, A of spades with anything else, a set, 2-pair maybe but probably not? We call as the river is huge. A spade and we are out. If it pairs the board we are all in with a big boat or quads. If it's neither we will call down and hope he doesn't have 2 spades. It's neither. The 6h comes leaving us with top set. We check and he bets 8800 into the 19000 pot. We call and he shows 69s to take it down.
I took a photo of that. Not because i want to remember it. I pray i forget - although you are welcome to a copy if you'd like. Nope - i took the photo so i would have something to do to prevent myself from throwing my chair across the room or doing something really bad.
We are suddenly short stacked, sitting with 6000 in chips when the field average is 30000 and we are not even an hour in. We have had two premium hands, one that flopped a broadway and one that turned top set, both taken down by flushes. Want to scream.
80 minutes in we get our third premium hand. That's a lot in 80 minutes, hopefully this one won't turn into a third disaster.
We raise to 325 from seat 3 with AQc and get calls from seat 4 and the BB. Flop comes 88Q. Great flop unless someone has an 8. We bet 600 and seat 4 calls. The BB folds - good, that was the more likely place for an 8. Turn comes Q. Amazing. We bet 1000 hoping for a call. He folds. All good.
Seat 3 raises to 225 and we have AK in seat 4. Our 4th premium hand. We raise to 800 and everyone folds. Okay. We likely don't get any more from him unless he hits the flop, which would be bad. Okay result for what he likely had.
Seat 3 throws in a big chip and states his raise a little quietly. The dealer asks him to repeat and his voice croaks "three" in a "i am weak please don't raise me" way. Everyone folds to us in the BB and we raise to 1200. He folds. Our cards are irrelevant, but we had 48o.
We have rebuilt the stack to just over 15000. Huge recovery and Donkey likes the taste of blood. In seat 4 we raise to 325 with 99 and get called by the BB. Flop comes 45T. We bet 450 and he calls. Turn comes 3. We bet 800 and he calls. River comes 2. He checks. We check. If he has an A or T he wins and he likely calls with nothing else. He shows AK to take it down. Wow. He slow played the pre flop action and then got lost and wandered onto treasure. He probably shouldn't have called the flop, he shouldn't have called he turn. But he made runner runner for a straight on the river and then checked it hoping we would bet the river.
We see bad flop after bad flop and slide down to 12000.
In seat 3 we raise to 325 with JKh and get called by the BB. Flop comes 5TJ rainbow. He checks and we bet 400. He calls and the turn comes 7. He checks and we bet 900. He calls and the river comes 3. He checks. Hmmmm. Pretty confident we have a winner as the turn and river rags unlikely to have helped him so we want to bet as much as we can and hope for a call. We bet 2100 into the 3300 pot. He calls and mucks when he sees our hand. Great!
We finish round 1 with 17,300 in chips. That's pretty bad, but still a great recovery from 6,000.
Hopefully more to come in two hours - no sooner.
Pleasantries from
Blood-on-the-lips Donkey
First hand of the tournament playing 50-100 seat 4 raises to 225. Small raise and no one is sitting in the SB seat so there's dead money. (There are 4 seats with chips but no players). We are a little jittery when we look Down and see QKd on the button. We raise to 625 and the BB and seat 4 fold. We won hand one!
In seat 4 we have AK and raise to 225. Seat 4 and 7 call and we see the TJQ flop. Amazing! We would slow play but there are 2 spades and we are a little too afraid to give a card away. Hmmmm, who are we to be afraid. We check. Seat 4 checks and seat 7 bets 500. Now it's time. We raise to 1400 and seat 4 folds but 7 calls. Hmmmm, a set? 2 pair? Spades? Small straight? KQ? Turn comes 2s. Not good. We certInly can't let another spade fall as we don't have one. We bet 1900 and he RAISES to 3600. We cant get better on the river so calling now means calling a river bet too. Even if another spade doesn't fall, it seems likely that he has it already. We fold. Ouch. Big loss ten minutes in.
They have removed the empty seats from play and we are now playing 5-handed.
Seat 4 raises to 300 and everyone folds to us in the BB where we wake up with AA. Giddey-up. No slow playing here. We raise to 800 and he calls. Great. Flop comes 48Qs. Hmmmm, we don't have a spade. Three on the board is trouble but it's unlikely he has 2. We bet 1100 and he raises to 2800. Not good. He could have a set, a big queen, two spades or anything with the As. We put 1700 in to call to see the turn and it's the best possible card, Ah. We have top set. Unless he has 2 spades, we have him beat. We bet 2800 and he raises to 5800. Hmmm, he could have 2 spades, AQ, A of spades with anything else, a set, 2-pair maybe but probably not? We call as the river is huge. A spade and we are out. If it pairs the board we are all in with a big boat or quads. If it's neither we will call down and hope he doesn't have 2 spades. It's neither. The 6h comes leaving us with top set. We check and he bets 8800 into the 19000 pot. We call and he shows 69s to take it down.
I took a photo of that. Not because i want to remember it. I pray i forget - although you are welcome to a copy if you'd like. Nope - i took the photo so i would have something to do to prevent myself from throwing my chair across the room or doing something really bad.
We are suddenly short stacked, sitting with 6000 in chips when the field average is 30000 and we are not even an hour in. We have had two premium hands, one that flopped a broadway and one that turned top set, both taken down by flushes. Want to scream.
80 minutes in we get our third premium hand. That's a lot in 80 minutes, hopefully this one won't turn into a third disaster.
We raise to 325 from seat 3 with AQc and get calls from seat 4 and the BB. Flop comes 88Q. Great flop unless someone has an 8. We bet 600 and seat 4 calls. The BB folds - good, that was the more likely place for an 8. Turn comes Q. Amazing. We bet 1000 hoping for a call. He folds. All good.
Seat 3 raises to 225 and we have AK in seat 4. Our 4th premium hand. We raise to 800 and everyone folds. Okay. We likely don't get any more from him unless he hits the flop, which would be bad. Okay result for what he likely had.
Seat 3 throws in a big chip and states his raise a little quietly. The dealer asks him to repeat and his voice croaks "three" in a "i am weak please don't raise me" way. Everyone folds to us in the BB and we raise to 1200. He folds. Our cards are irrelevant, but we had 48o.
We have rebuilt the stack to just over 15000. Huge recovery and Donkey likes the taste of blood. In seat 4 we raise to 325 with 99 and get called by the BB. Flop comes 45T. We bet 450 and he calls. Turn comes 3. We bet 800 and he calls. River comes 2. He checks. We check. If he has an A or T he wins and he likely calls with nothing else. He shows AK to take it down. Wow. He slow played the pre flop action and then got lost and wandered onto treasure. He probably shouldn't have called the flop, he shouldn't have called he turn. But he made runner runner for a straight on the river and then checked it hoping we would bet the river.
We see bad flop after bad flop and slide down to 12000.
In seat 3 we raise to 325 with JKh and get called by the BB. Flop comes 5TJ rainbow. He checks and we bet 400. He calls and the turn comes 7. He checks and we bet 900. He calls and the river comes 3. He checks. Hmmmm. Pretty confident we have a winner as the turn and river rags unlikely to have helped him so we want to bet as much as we can and hope for a call. We bet 2100 into the 3300 pot. He calls and mucks when he sees our hand. Great!
We finish round 1 with 17,300 in chips. That's pretty bad, but still a great recovery from 6,000.
Hopefully more to come in two hours - no sooner.
Pleasantries from
Blood-on-the-lips Donkey
Friday, July 4, 2014
The Big Dance
Dear Herd,
On July 5 we will launch into the World Series of Poker championship, along with many thousand other players, from Pros to Wanna-Be Donkeys. I will do my best to discuss as many relevant hands as possible. If you want to add any commentary, you can email to everyone on the blog by using the address: esethk.pokerdonkey@blogger.com .
It's been a good series so far, only cashing twice this year, but playing fewer events than usual and getting to the final table once. Very executing for the Donkey, but didn't get the bracelet, so we'll have to pick it up this time. Just about 10,000 people in the way. Feel bad for them, but we have four hooves and not a single bracelet . . . it's stompin' time.
Your Donkey
On July 5 we will launch into the World Series of Poker championship, along with many thousand other players, from Pros to Wanna-Be Donkeys. I will do my best to discuss as many relevant hands as possible. If you want to add any commentary, you can email to everyone on the blog by using the address: esethk.pokerdonkey@blogger.com .
It's been a good series so far, only cashing twice this year, but playing fewer events than usual and getting to the final table once. Very executing for the Donkey, but didn't get the bracelet, so we'll have to pick it up this time. Just about 10,000 people in the way. Feel bad for them, but we have four hooves and not a single bracelet . . . it's stompin' time.
Your Donkey
Monday, June 16, 2014
NLH - Rounds 3-4
First hand back playing 75-150 seat 6 raises to 350 and we call from the SB with JQ. Flop comes 7QK. We check and he checks. Turn comes 6d putting 3 diamonds (inc king) on board. We bet 400 and he calls. River comes 4d giving us second best flush. We bet 800 and he calls. We show our Qd. He shows Jd and folds.
Next hand seat 5 limps and we limp from the button with 33. Flop comes 46Q. BB bets 350 and we call everyone else folds. Turn comes 9. He checks and we bet 750. He folds.
We bet 300 with A9s from seat 5 and the button raises to 1050. We call. Flop comes 236. We check and he checks. Turn comes A. We bet 900. He calls. River comes J. We bet 1600 and he calls with AK to take the pot.
We raise to 550 from seat 5 with 88 and get calls from the button and the BB. Flop comes 9JK. BB bets 800 and we fold.
Seat 7 bets 375 and the button calls and we call from the BB with JK. Flop comes 6TJ. We bet 850. Seat 7 calls. The turn comes 9. We bet 1700 and he calls. River comes 4. We bet 3400 and he raises to 8000. Hmmmm. We lose to an overpair, a set, JQ or JA, all of which are very possible. We fold and he shows JQ. Wow. Ouch.
Things were going so well. We have 14,300 now, just under the starting stack. That's fine.
Seat 3 raises to 350 and we call from the SB with TQ. BB calls and flop comes 468. Good flop for a bluffing blind. We bet 550. BB folds and seat 3 calls. Turn comes K. We check and he bets 1100. Hmmmm. His flat call post flop means he probably doesn't have a pocket pair so the question is whether he has a king, which is not at all impossible but seems less than 50%. Nothing to back that statement than my occasionally wrong gut. We raise to 2400. He goes into the tank and folds. I suspect he had Ax.
We raise to 350 from seat 7 with AQh - our first premium hand of the day. The button re-raises to 950. Hmmmm. We could re-raise but if he has a premium hand he will raise and we will have to fold. Let's see the flop. We call and the flop comes 8JK. Not what we were looking for. He could have JJ KK or AK. We check and he bets 1050. We just call. Turn is a miracle T giving us a straight. We check and he bets 2200. We can call and slow play but then we have to hope he bets the river. Or we can raise he and if he calls bet into him again on the river. We already did the slow play thing with this guy when we had the full house. We raise to 6200. He calls. That's great. Our only fear is that he has a set and rivers a full house. River comes J pairing the board. If he has a Set or a J with a 8T or K, he has a boat and we're dead. Of course he shouldn't pre-flop raise with any of those jack hands. We check and he pushes all in. Hmmmm. The pot is about 16500 before he bets and it's now about 8,000 to us to win almost 25,000.
Now it's a strange probability question. If there is less than a 75% chance he has a boat we should call. He is betting like he has one. But he is also the aggressive player at the table. That doesn't mean he doesn't have it, just that it's less compelling to look solely at his bet to make a prediction. He would also bet this way with JA or KA, which we beat, or QA, which we tie.
This is a toss up, maybe a little against us if he's not an aggressive player. We call and he shows KJh for the boat. I should have put more weight on a suited KJ as something he might pre-flop raise with.
Okay - that was fast. But tomorrow we are back in Stud8 again. So we wont be blogging tomorrow because it's too difficult to blog about stud.
All the best,
Donkey
Next hand seat 5 limps and we limp from the button with 33. Flop comes 46Q. BB bets 350 and we call everyone else folds. Turn comes 9. He checks and we bet 750. He folds.
We bet 300 with A9s from seat 5 and the button raises to 1050. We call. Flop comes 236. We check and he checks. Turn comes A. We bet 900. He calls. River comes J. We bet 1600 and he calls with AK to take the pot.
We raise to 550 from seat 5 with 88 and get calls from the button and the BB. Flop comes 9JK. BB bets 800 and we fold.
Seat 7 bets 375 and the button calls and we call from the BB with JK. Flop comes 6TJ. We bet 850. Seat 7 calls. The turn comes 9. We bet 1700 and he calls. River comes 4. We bet 3400 and he raises to 8000. Hmmmm. We lose to an overpair, a set, JQ or JA, all of which are very possible. We fold and he shows JQ. Wow. Ouch.
Things were going so well. We have 14,300 now, just under the starting stack. That's fine.
Seat 3 raises to 350 and we call from the SB with TQ. BB calls and flop comes 468. Good flop for a bluffing blind. We bet 550. BB folds and seat 3 calls. Turn comes K. We check and he bets 1100. Hmmmm. His flat call post flop means he probably doesn't have a pocket pair so the question is whether he has a king, which is not at all impossible but seems less than 50%. Nothing to back that statement than my occasionally wrong gut. We raise to 2400. He goes into the tank and folds. I suspect he had Ax.
We raise to 350 from seat 7 with AQh - our first premium hand of the day. The button re-raises to 950. Hmmmm. We could re-raise but if he has a premium hand he will raise and we will have to fold. Let's see the flop. We call and the flop comes 8JK. Not what we were looking for. He could have JJ KK or AK. We check and he bets 1050. We just call. Turn is a miracle T giving us a straight. We check and he bets 2200. We can call and slow play but then we have to hope he bets the river. Or we can raise he and if he calls bet into him again on the river. We already did the slow play thing with this guy when we had the full house. We raise to 6200. He calls. That's great. Our only fear is that he has a set and rivers a full house. River comes J pairing the board. If he has a Set or a J with a 8T or K, he has a boat and we're dead. Of course he shouldn't pre-flop raise with any of those jack hands. We check and he pushes all in. Hmmmm. The pot is about 16500 before he bets and it's now about 8,000 to us to win almost 25,000.
Now it's a strange probability question. If there is less than a 75% chance he has a boat we should call. He is betting like he has one. But he is also the aggressive player at the table. That doesn't mean he doesn't have it, just that it's less compelling to look solely at his bet to make a prediction. He would also bet this way with JA or KA, which we beat, or QA, which we tie.
This is a toss up, maybe a little against us if he's not an aggressive player. We call and he shows KJh for the boat. I should have put more weight on a suited KJ as something he might pre-flop raise with.
Okay - that was fast. But tomorrow we are back in Stud8 again. So we wont be blogging tomorrow because it's too difficult to blog about stud.
All the best,
Donkey
NLH - Rounds 1-2
Back in the saddle!!!! We start with 15,000 in chips. Today's game is 8-handed no limit hold'em.
First hand everyone folds to us on the button and we raise to 250 with Q7 hoping to buy the 50-75 blinds. SB calls and flop comes 46T. He checks. To press or check? We check. Turn comes Q. Perfect. He bets 350, probably with a pair from the flop. We smooth call. River comes 2. Wow. Couldn't have asked for a better river. He bets 525 and we min raise to 1050 hoping he will call. He folds.
In seat 5 we raise to 225 with QT and get called by seat 6 (playing 6 handed at the moment). Flop comes 6QK with 2 spades. Hmmmm, does he have a K? Bet 300 and he calls. Turn comes 8h. Bet 525 and he calls. River comes As. Worst possible card. If he is calling with TJ (open ended straight draw), two spades or an ace he has us beat. Oh, and lets not forget he could have a K! We check. He bets 1050 and we fold.
Odd note - the Chinese dealer just reminder two German players that it's English only at the table when there are cards out. Everyone started laughing because they were speaking English - the accent was so heavy the dealer couldn't understand them.
Seat 4 raises to 225 and we call with A9d. Bb calls and flop comes 69T with one diamond. Bb checks and seat 4 continuation bets 350. We are probably good with our 9 but let's check his pulse. We min raise to 700 and surprisingly the bb calls. Seat 4 folds - no pulse. Turn comes 4d giving us the but flush draw and likely doing nothing for the bb. He checks. We have a lot of big cards - an ace a 9 or any diamond - that's 14 cards. We don't want to have to see the river though. We bet 1600 and he folds.
Seat 3 raises to 200 and everyone folds to us in the BB with 56c. We call and the flop comes 67K with 1 club. We bet 200 as a prod. He raises to 800 as something more like a punch than a prod. We fold.
Now at a full table we raise to 225 from seat 7 with AT. The button and BB call and the flop comes 57J with 2 spades. The BB checks and we bet 350. They both call. Turn comes 2s. BB checks. Bluffing didnt look good before the third spade hit. We check and the button bets 775. We all fold.
From seat 5 we raise to 200 with 66 and get called by the blinds. Flop comes 799 and they check. We bet 400 and they both call. Turn comes 5 giving us a gut shot straight draw with our 2 pair. They check and we bet 600. They both call. River comes 3. They check. Unlikely they will both fold to a bet now and they have to have something better than we to call (ie if we bet now they will fold losers and call with winners, which is bad). We check and the BB takes it down with a T7.
Playing 50-100 now.
Seat 6 raises (a woman who oddly looks much like my cousin) to 275 and the SB calls. We call from the BB with JQ and the flop comes 8QK with 2 clubs. SB checks we check and seat 6 bets 400. SB folds and we cal. Turn comes 4c. We consider the bluff but check. She bets 1050. Easy board to bluff into. We call. River comes Td. Big card but not a club. We check. She checks. We show the Q and she mucks.
We raise from the button with A8s to 275 and get called by the BB. Flop comes 299 with 2 hearts. He checks and we bet 325. He raises to 975. Hmmm. Good bluff most likely but we cant call and then face another bluff on the turn. If we call and (even if we hit our ace) he bets 2200 on the turn, what will we do? Better to fold now.
We raise to 325 from seat 4 with JJ and get raised to 925 by seat 7. Hmmmm. He likely has pocket tens or higher or a big ace. We call hoping to get a J. 3 low cards would be good but in light of his hand options would leave us somewhat unsure of where to go. Flop comes 56K. We check. He bets 1025. We call mostly to see what he does on the turn. The turn comes 9. We check and he bets 2100. Well, there's our answer. We fold.
Next hand we limp with 33 from seat 3 and get raised to 325 by seat 4. We call and the flop comes 239 with 2 hearts. Giddey-up. He has been pretty aggressive so we check. He bets 525 and we call. The turn comes 2. Amazing - now we have a boat and no fear of the straight or flush draws. We check and he bets 850. We call and the river comes Qh. Hopefully he has a flush or a Q. We check and he bets 2650. Wow! Unless he has pocket queens or deuces we have the winner. We raise another 4000 and he starts asking us about our hand. We openly mock him explaining that it's irrelevant because he has no flush no 2 and no queen and no chance to win this his absurdly large river bet. He eventually folds.
Last hand of the round. People are folding and getting up from the table. The small blind races to 300. We are in the big blind with 78. Not a great hand heads up, but there is a good chance that he is bluffing from the small blind hoping that we want to get up and go on break. We raise to 900 and, unfortunately, he calls. The flop comes 38K. Good flop for us. He checks and we bet 900. He calls and the turn comes Jack. Not good. He checks and we bet 1625 hoping to convince him that we hit the king. Unfortunately, he calls. The river comes a 6. That is a pretty meaningless card. He checks. Not sure what he's been calling us with, but we cannot fire a huge river bet in hoping that he will fold now. We check and he shows ace queen. We take it down with our 8s.
Good couple of rounds for us. We were up a couple thousand before the last hand and finish round 2 with just over 20,000 in chips.
First hand everyone folds to us on the button and we raise to 250 with Q7 hoping to buy the 50-75 blinds. SB calls and flop comes 46T. He checks. To press or check? We check. Turn comes Q. Perfect. He bets 350, probably with a pair from the flop. We smooth call. River comes 2. Wow. Couldn't have asked for a better river. He bets 525 and we min raise to 1050 hoping he will call. He folds.
In seat 5 we raise to 225 with QT and get called by seat 6 (playing 6 handed at the moment). Flop comes 6QK with 2 spades. Hmmmm, does he have a K? Bet 300 and he calls. Turn comes 8h. Bet 525 and he calls. River comes As. Worst possible card. If he is calling with TJ (open ended straight draw), two spades or an ace he has us beat. Oh, and lets not forget he could have a K! We check. He bets 1050 and we fold.
Odd note - the Chinese dealer just reminder two German players that it's English only at the table when there are cards out. Everyone started laughing because they were speaking English - the accent was so heavy the dealer couldn't understand them.
Seat 4 raises to 225 and we call with A9d. Bb calls and flop comes 69T with one diamond. Bb checks and seat 4 continuation bets 350. We are probably good with our 9 but let's check his pulse. We min raise to 700 and surprisingly the bb calls. Seat 4 folds - no pulse. Turn comes 4d giving us the but flush draw and likely doing nothing for the bb. He checks. We have a lot of big cards - an ace a 9 or any diamond - that's 14 cards. We don't want to have to see the river though. We bet 1600 and he folds.
Seat 3 raises to 200 and everyone folds to us in the BB with 56c. We call and the flop comes 67K with 1 club. We bet 200 as a prod. He raises to 800 as something more like a punch than a prod. We fold.
Now at a full table we raise to 225 from seat 7 with AT. The button and BB call and the flop comes 57J with 2 spades. The BB checks and we bet 350. They both call. Turn comes 2s. BB checks. Bluffing didnt look good before the third spade hit. We check and the button bets 775. We all fold.
From seat 5 we raise to 200 with 66 and get called by the blinds. Flop comes 799 and they check. We bet 400 and they both call. Turn comes 5 giving us a gut shot straight draw with our 2 pair. They check and we bet 600. They both call. River comes 3. They check. Unlikely they will both fold to a bet now and they have to have something better than we to call (ie if we bet now they will fold losers and call with winners, which is bad). We check and the BB takes it down with a T7.
Playing 50-100 now.
Seat 6 raises (a woman who oddly looks much like my cousin) to 275 and the SB calls. We call from the BB with JQ and the flop comes 8QK with 2 clubs. SB checks we check and seat 6 bets 400. SB folds and we cal. Turn comes 4c. We consider the bluff but check. She bets 1050. Easy board to bluff into. We call. River comes Td. Big card but not a club. We check. She checks. We show the Q and she mucks.
We raise from the button with A8s to 275 and get called by the BB. Flop comes 299 with 2 hearts. He checks and we bet 325. He raises to 975. Hmmm. Good bluff most likely but we cant call and then face another bluff on the turn. If we call and (even if we hit our ace) he bets 2200 on the turn, what will we do? Better to fold now.
We raise to 325 from seat 4 with JJ and get raised to 925 by seat 7. Hmmmm. He likely has pocket tens or higher or a big ace. We call hoping to get a J. 3 low cards would be good but in light of his hand options would leave us somewhat unsure of where to go. Flop comes 56K. We check. He bets 1025. We call mostly to see what he does on the turn. The turn comes 9. We check and he bets 2100. Well, there's our answer. We fold.
Next hand we limp with 33 from seat 3 and get raised to 325 by seat 4. We call and the flop comes 239 with 2 hearts. Giddey-up. He has been pretty aggressive so we check. He bets 525 and we call. The turn comes 2. Amazing - now we have a boat and no fear of the straight or flush draws. We check and he bets 850. We call and the river comes Qh. Hopefully he has a flush or a Q. We check and he bets 2650. Wow! Unless he has pocket queens or deuces we have the winner. We raise another 4000 and he starts asking us about our hand. We openly mock him explaining that it's irrelevant because he has no flush no 2 and no queen and no chance to win this his absurdly large river bet. He eventually folds.
Last hand of the round. People are folding and getting up from the table. The small blind races to 300. We are in the big blind with 78. Not a great hand heads up, but there is a good chance that he is bluffing from the small blind hoping that we want to get up and go on break. We raise to 900 and, unfortunately, he calls. The flop comes 38K. Good flop for us. He checks and we bet 900. He calls and the turn comes Jack. Not good. He checks and we bet 1625 hoping to convince him that we hit the king. Unfortunately, he calls. The river comes a 6. That is a pretty meaningless card. He checks. Not sure what he's been calling us with, but we cannot fire a huge river bet in hoping that he will fold now. We check and he shows ace queen. We take it down with our 8s.
Good couple of rounds for us. We were up a couple thousand before the last hand and finish round 2 with just over 20,000 in chips.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Out in 3rd
Correctly read the opponent with a small pair. Had a lot of big cards and a couple chances to hit one of them. Unfortunately i didn't hit and he did. More poker tomorrow. Thanks for playing along.
All the best,
Donkey
All the best,
Donkey
Up and down
4 diamonds best pair and an inside straight draw. Missed it all and in pretty sure he rivered a second pair to take it down. Cant bitch though. Luck has been on our side quite a bit.
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
Terrible
Drawing into a356 with 4 diamonds we hit a 5!
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
3
Way short stacked.
Shove time soon. Last hand we had a bad low draw and two pair with a possible raiser behind us. Turned out to be a great fold.
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
Shove time soon. Last hand we had a bad low draw and two pair with a possible raiser behind us. Turned out to be a great fold.
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
Stud
Just folded 2247 to aces showing. Can't hit a straight with that.
This is coming late. Didn't hit send on time. Go to break with 447
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
This is coming late. Didn't hit send on time. Go to break with 447
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
Stud
That wasn't just a wheel. Donkey brought the whole f'n truck.
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
Stud
That's a hand i will rue for a while. I knew he either made a low, made a set or made aces up and still put 80 in after. Donkey!
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
Ouch
Can't fold too many times on 5 at now but drawing to a low doesn't make sense when the guy who looks high is pounding away and there's a potential raiser behind us.
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
Stud
Too hard to do this by text.
I'm now the small stack on the table and chipping down 5k per hand in antes. Will have to take a swing before too long.
I'm now the small stack on the table and chipping down 5k per hand in antes. Will have to take a swing before too long.
Fwd: [Enter The Donkey] If you're watching
Begin forwarded message:
From: Eric Kurtzman <eric@skywell.com>
Date: June 15, 2014 at 5:29:49 PM PDT
To: "enterthedonkey@googlegroups.com" <enterthedonkey@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [Enter The Donkey] If you're watching
Date: June 15, 2014 at 5:29:49 PM PDT
To: "enterthedonkey@googlegroups.com" <enterthedonkey@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [Enter The Donkey] If you're watching
Sorry. Let me know by email. Not text.
All the best,
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
In texting a play by play. Let me know you're watching and i will add you to the text string.
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
--
Posted By Enter The Donkey to Enter The Donkey at 6/15/2014 05:23:00 PM --
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All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
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If you're watching
In texting a play by play. Let me know you're watching and i will add you to the text string.
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
F&@"ck
For those of you watching we had 3 solid starting hands that turned to total shit.
Stack size fallen but still over 200
Stack size fallen but still over 200
Wsop.com/live
Live feed (5 min delay). Where is my Skywell Gear? In wearing a Gap tshirt
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
Stud8
We ended day two of the stud eight or better tournament with 490,000 chips, more than 100 times that we began with. There are only 12 players remaining, and tomorrow eight will advance to the final table, which will also be played tomorrow.
Donkey is very excited to lift a leg on a final table leg.
For now, it is time to try to forget about poker and sleep. That is going to be difficult.
Your Zen Donkey
Donkey is very excited to lift a leg on a final table leg.
For now, it is time to try to forget about poker and sleep. That is going to be difficult.
Your Zen Donkey
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Stud8
I am not blogging about it, but in case any of you are on the Internet, we are playing the stud 8 or better game and there are 24 players left. Giddey-up!!!
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
NLH
So I decided to focus a little more on cards and less on taking notes. In that light, only two big hands to talk about.
Seat 4 raised to 400 and 5 called. We call from the button with Ace two of diamonds. Flop comes to 22K. Seat 4 bets 900. Seat 5 folds and we just call hoping to get more action. The turn comes Q. Unless he has pocket queens or pocket kings, we are set. He bets 1700 into us. Again, we call looking for more action on the river. The only risky possibilities other than pocket queens or kings would be if he is playing some crazy hand like a 10 Jack, but even that only gives him four outs. And, of course, there is no way that he has that hand. Most likely, he has a king, so if the king rivers, that is our true risk. The river comes and Ace, giving us a full house. Now, we are also worried that he could have pocket aces giving him a bigger full house. He bets 4000 into us. We push all in for a total of 7400 and he calls showing AK. We double up.
We scratch, kick, and stomp our way up to about 28,000 in chips.
Seat 4 raises to 500, the button calls, and we simply call from the small blind with ace queen. The flop comes 5TQ. We slow play it and check. Seat 4 checks and the button bets 800. We call, continuing the slow play, but Seat 4 raises to 2200. The button calls and is now 1400 to us. Seat four most likely thought the button was trying to buy the pot and took our flat call as a sign of weakness. He likely hoped that his raise would win the pot. We have no idea what the button has that would result in a bet on a call. There is a broad range of possibilities, including an open ended straight draw or a Qx.
The turn comes another queen. Giddyup! We check, continuing the slow play, and seat 4 bets 4000 into the pot of about 7000. The button folds and we min-raise to 8000. Seat 4 calls.
The river comes 9. It would be extraordinarily unlikely that seat four would be playing either pocket nines or a Jack King in light of the betting that's far. Possible but unlikely. It is time to take as much money from him as we can.
We have about 17,000 in chips, and the pot is over 22000. We bet 8000 mimicking the turn bet and hopefully drawing him in to call. He goes into the tank and then pushes all in. We have a great hand and are pot committed so we put 9000 more in. He turns over 55. He flopped a set of fives and turned a full house.
Donkey going home. Going to shake this off and come back tomorrow. It has been a rough series.
Seat 4 raised to 400 and 5 called. We call from the button with Ace two of diamonds. Flop comes to 22K. Seat 4 bets 900. Seat 5 folds and we just call hoping to get more action. The turn comes Q. Unless he has pocket queens or pocket kings, we are set. He bets 1700 into us. Again, we call looking for more action on the river. The only risky possibilities other than pocket queens or kings would be if he is playing some crazy hand like a 10 Jack, but even that only gives him four outs. And, of course, there is no way that he has that hand. Most likely, he has a king, so if the king rivers, that is our true risk. The river comes and Ace, giving us a full house. Now, we are also worried that he could have pocket aces giving him a bigger full house. He bets 4000 into us. We push all in for a total of 7400 and he calls showing AK. We double up.
We scratch, kick, and stomp our way up to about 28,000 in chips.
Seat 4 raises to 500, the button calls, and we simply call from the small blind with ace queen. The flop comes 5TQ. We slow play it and check. Seat 4 checks and the button bets 800. We call, continuing the slow play, but Seat 4 raises to 2200. The button calls and is now 1400 to us. Seat four most likely thought the button was trying to buy the pot and took our flat call as a sign of weakness. He likely hoped that his raise would win the pot. We have no idea what the button has that would result in a bet on a call. There is a broad range of possibilities, including an open ended straight draw or a Qx.
The turn comes another queen. Giddyup! We check, continuing the slow play, and seat 4 bets 4000 into the pot of about 7000. The button folds and we min-raise to 8000. Seat 4 calls.
The river comes 9. It would be extraordinarily unlikely that seat four would be playing either pocket nines or a Jack King in light of the betting that's far. Possible but unlikely. It is time to take as much money from him as we can.
We have about 17,000 in chips, and the pot is over 22000. We bet 8000 mimicking the turn bet and hopefully drawing him in to call. He goes into the tank and then pushes all in. We have a great hand and are pot committed so we put 9000 more in. He turns over 55. He flopped a set of fives and turned a full house.
Donkey going home. Going to shake this off and come back tomorrow. It has been a rough series.
NLH - 6 handed
We are back in the saddle. Today we play six handed no limit hold em. Couple of interesting features. First, this is a high buy in tournament, so we will have a smaller field of better players. Second, because there are only six players at each table, the hands that play will be different. For example, an Ace Jack is a decent hand with 10 players, but a much stronger hand with only six as it is much less likely that someone else has an ace with a king or queen or a high pair. Conversely, suited connectors (eg 67h) that can play very well with 10 players, are not as good in this smaller game. There is simply less chance that if you hit your hand, someone else will be there to pay you off.
We start with 15000 in chips.
Seat 4 raises to 200 and we call from the button with 66. Flop comes 458 with 2 spades. Probably didn't hit him. He checks and we check for the free card. Turn comes 9s. We have a spade flush draw but really want the 6 or 7 for a straight or set. He checks and we bet 350 hoping he will fold. He doesn't. River comes Jc. He checks. Unlikely he will fold to a bet now as if he has overcards he may have hit the jack and the only thing the river hurts him with is a high spade flush draw or TT. We check and he shows TT with the Ts. Pure comedy. He probably wouldn't have folded anyway.
We get slowly chipped down to 12,500. Seat 3 raises to 200 and we call from the button with 56h. Flop comes 239 with one spade and 2 diamonds. He checks and we bet 400 to see if he will fold. He plays the double reverse and raises to 1000. It's 600 to us, which only makes sense if we think we can win 7000 if we hit a 4. The pot already has over 1300 and his check raise would indicate he's willing to invest more. So we call and pray for a black 4. Turn comes 4c. Totally sick. Also, Guns n Roses Get in the Ring starts playing. He bets 1500 and we raise to 3500. He calls. River comes Js. He checks. We have the nuts. How much can we get him for? He didn't re raise the turn and the river probably hurt him if anything. We bet 4600 and he snap calls showing 33 for a set. We take it down. We probably could have gotten all his chips if we had pushed all in. Oh well, happy to take a huge pot down.
Seat 3 raises to 225 and gets calls from seat 4 and 5. The button raises to 700 and we call from the BB with 55. 4 players see the flop for 700 each, creating a pot well justifying our call, but the flop comes AK8 and we fold very quickly.
I do t recall the preflop action but we were out of position heads up with AQd and the flop came AK5 rainbow. We checked and he bet 325. We just called. Turn came 9, unlikely to benefit him, so we are probably in the lead. We check and he bets 350. An oddly small amount. We raise to 1150 which he likely views as a check raise bluff. He calls. River comes 6. He likely has a K. We bet 1500. He calls and mucks when we show our cards.
Seat 3 raises to 250 and gets called by 4 and the button. We raise to 1250 from the Bb with TT and seat 3 folds but seat 4 raises to 3500. Another 2250 makes sense if we think we win 18000 if we flop a T. He doesn't have quite that much. Also, we are out of position and won't know what to do if the flop is three rags and he bets it. He is representing QQ or better. We reluctantly fold.
Next hand seat 3 raises to 250 and gets 2 callers. We simply call from the SB with AQ. Flop comes 348 of clubs and we fold to the betting.
We play a few more hands like these, losing 3-700 per hand and find ourselves back to 18000 in chips. Respectable, and playing 50-100.
In Seat 4 we raise to 250 with ATh and get called by the button and the BB. Flop comes 467 with 2 hearts. BB bets 350 and we raise to 1050. Our pre flop action followed here represents an overpair. Hopefully he folds, but it's fine if he doesn't too with our but flush draw and 2 over cards. He calls and the Qd turns. He checks. The Q is a scary card for him. We bet 1350 and he calls. The river comes 2s. Total rag. He checks and we check. He shows 67. He flopped 2 pair. We muck our cards.
Starting to get frustrating that we have only had one piece of good (although really good) luck and one good hand since we sat down. Lots of ugly flops though, so at least we didn't spend too much chasing losers.
Last hand of Rpund 2 we raise in seat 4 to 250 with 9Ts and get calls from seat 5 and the SB. Flop comes 29T with 2 clubs. Giddey-up. SB checks and we bet 800. Very large bet at this point but Seat 5 calls. The turn is Ah. We bet 1350 and he calls again. He could have an A or a set, but as we have a 9T, he would only have a decent shot at a set of 2s. He could also be on a club flush draw. River comes Ac. Not good. If he has an A or a club he beats us. We bet 1400, largely to stop him from making a larger bet if he hit a flush. He goes into the tank and then calls with QQ to take it down with aces and queens.
Thankfully we are in break now. I don't understand the last hand in any way. Preflop he called when he should've raised. Post flop he called when he should've raised. If I were still in the hands after his multiple raises, he should have folded when the turn came in Ace. I really have no idea what just happened, but we end the round with 9000 chips, our smallest stack yet.
Your bewildered Donkey
We start with 15000 in chips.
Seat 4 raises to 200 and we call from the button with 66. Flop comes 458 with 2 spades. Probably didn't hit him. He checks and we check for the free card. Turn comes 9s. We have a spade flush draw but really want the 6 or 7 for a straight or set. He checks and we bet 350 hoping he will fold. He doesn't. River comes Jc. He checks. Unlikely he will fold to a bet now as if he has overcards he may have hit the jack and the only thing the river hurts him with is a high spade flush draw or TT. We check and he shows TT with the Ts. Pure comedy. He probably wouldn't have folded anyway.
We get slowly chipped down to 12,500. Seat 3 raises to 200 and we call from the button with 56h. Flop comes 239 with one spade and 2 diamonds. He checks and we bet 400 to see if he will fold. He plays the double reverse and raises to 1000. It's 600 to us, which only makes sense if we think we can win 7000 if we hit a 4. The pot already has over 1300 and his check raise would indicate he's willing to invest more. So we call and pray for a black 4. Turn comes 4c. Totally sick. Also, Guns n Roses Get in the Ring starts playing. He bets 1500 and we raise to 3500. He calls. River comes Js. He checks. We have the nuts. How much can we get him for? He didn't re raise the turn and the river probably hurt him if anything. We bet 4600 and he snap calls showing 33 for a set. We take it down. We probably could have gotten all his chips if we had pushed all in. Oh well, happy to take a huge pot down.
Seat 3 raises to 225 and gets calls from seat 4 and 5. The button raises to 700 and we call from the BB with 55. 4 players see the flop for 700 each, creating a pot well justifying our call, but the flop comes AK8 and we fold very quickly.
I do t recall the preflop action but we were out of position heads up with AQd and the flop came AK5 rainbow. We checked and he bet 325. We just called. Turn came 9, unlikely to benefit him, so we are probably in the lead. We check and he bets 350. An oddly small amount. We raise to 1150 which he likely views as a check raise bluff. He calls. River comes 6. He likely has a K. We bet 1500. He calls and mucks when we show our cards.
Seat 3 raises to 250 and gets called by 4 and the button. We raise to 1250 from the Bb with TT and seat 3 folds but seat 4 raises to 3500. Another 2250 makes sense if we think we win 18000 if we flop a T. He doesn't have quite that much. Also, we are out of position and won't know what to do if the flop is three rags and he bets it. He is representing QQ or better. We reluctantly fold.
Next hand seat 3 raises to 250 and gets 2 callers. We simply call from the SB with AQ. Flop comes 348 of clubs and we fold to the betting.
We play a few more hands like these, losing 3-700 per hand and find ourselves back to 18000 in chips. Respectable, and playing 50-100.
In Seat 4 we raise to 250 with ATh and get called by the button and the BB. Flop comes 467 with 2 hearts. BB bets 350 and we raise to 1050. Our pre flop action followed here represents an overpair. Hopefully he folds, but it's fine if he doesn't too with our but flush draw and 2 over cards. He calls and the Qd turns. He checks. The Q is a scary card for him. We bet 1350 and he calls. The river comes 2s. Total rag. He checks and we check. He shows 67. He flopped 2 pair. We muck our cards.
Starting to get frustrating that we have only had one piece of good (although really good) luck and one good hand since we sat down. Lots of ugly flops though, so at least we didn't spend too much chasing losers.
Last hand of Rpund 2 we raise in seat 4 to 250 with 9Ts and get calls from seat 5 and the SB. Flop comes 29T with 2 clubs. Giddey-up. SB checks and we bet 800. Very large bet at this point but Seat 5 calls. The turn is Ah. We bet 1350 and he calls again. He could have an A or a set, but as we have a 9T, he would only have a decent shot at a set of 2s. He could also be on a club flush draw. River comes Ac. Not good. If he has an A or a club he beats us. We bet 1400, largely to stop him from making a larger bet if he hit a flush. He goes into the tank and then calls with QQ to take it down with aces and queens.
Thankfully we are in break now. I don't understand the last hand in any way. Preflop he called when he should've raised. Post flop he called when he should've raised. If I were still in the hands after his multiple raises, he should have folded when the turn came in Ace. I really have no idea what just happened, but we end the round with 9000 chips, our smallest stack yet.
Your bewildered Donkey
Monday, June 2, 2014
NLH
Today we are playing no limit hold em, but only six people at the table. I am sitting at Seat 5 on my table and will refer to people at the table by their actual seat, as opposed to where they are vis-à-vis the button.
The action with six hands moves far too fast to write about every hand, but here is a selection from the day of extreme swings in luck.
Playing 25-25 with 4500 in chips.
Button at Seat 1. Everyone folds to us in seat 5 and we raise to 75 with JQ. The BB raises to 225 and we see the flop come 445. He bets flop 275 and we call. The turn comes 9 and he checks. We check and the river comes 8. He checks and we bet 775 into the pot of just over 1000. If he has a naked king, he should fold. He folds and we pick it up. Not sure that was a great bet, but he showed a lot of weakness with the 2 checks.
Seats 3 and 4 fold and we raise to 75 with KK. The BB calls from Seat 2 and the flop comes 378. He checks and we bet 175. He calls and the turn comes T. He checks and we bet 375. He calls and the river comes 8 pairing the board. With KK pairing the board is good if you think your opponent has 2 pair, but he's been calling the whole way and the top board card paired, so it's just too likely he has an 8. He checks and we check, happy to miss a betting opportunity rather than let him raise us off our hand. He shows Q8 to take the pot down. Kind of sick.
QJ v AT AQTJ6
Playing 50-100 we raise to 275 from seat 4 with AJd and get called by Seat 5 and the BB. Flop comes AQJ rainbow. The BB checks and we bet 550 into the approx 900 pot. Seat 5 calls and the BB folds. The turn comes 7 and we bet 1050. Seat 5 raises to 2450. Hmmmmm. Unlikely he has a set as he would not have called the flop bet with 77, and we have one of the Aces and one of the Jacks. He could have QQ or AQ or TK for the straight. There's about 4400 in the pot and we put 1400 more in to see the river. River comes T. Any K is a straight. We check and he checks. He shows AQ to take it down.
We are now short stacked and live for about 20 hands either folding or pushing all in. We actually push about six times with some of the best hands we've ever seen in such a short period. Twice with AK, once with AJs, KQs and TJs. No one calls for a while and we build back up a little.
Seat 3 raises to 200 and we push all in for 1450 with KQ. He class and shows 66. It's a race. Flop comes A56 all hearts. He has a set, but we have the Qh, so we still have about a 33% chance with our flush draw. Turn 9d. River Th gives us the flush. When the chips went in it was a race, so this isn't really a bad beat, but it feels that way. In any case, we are happy to double up.
Seat 6 raises to 275 and gets calls from the button and the SB. We call from the BB with 69h. The flop comes 478 giving us an open ended straight draw. The pot is about 1100 and we push all in. Everyone folds.
We are up to 4125 in chips.
Seat 1 bets 200 and 3 calls. We call from bb with 9T and flop comes 249. We bet 400 and seat 1 calls. Turn comes 5 putting second heart on board. We bet 850 and he folds. We are in a good rhythm of picking up chips.
Seat 2 bets 275 and gets calls from seat 3 and seat 4. We call from the Button with AJh and the BB calls. Normally we would raise with this hand but there are a lot of players and we're in great position so let's go slowly. 5 of us see the 47Q flop. Everyone checks to us. Someone could be slow playing a Q so we check and hope for an A to turn. Turn comes K and again everyone checks to us. Someone could still have a Q we check hoping for a T to give us a straight. River comes J. Seat 2 bets 525. Seats 3 and 4 fold. Could he have a J? If that's all he has, our A kicker will win. We call and the BB folds. He shows 55 and we take it down with our pair of jacks.
Seat 3 bets 200 and we call from button w k9s. SB calls and flop comes 469 w 2 clubs. SB bets 450 and seat 3 pushes all in for 1300. Our K9 is probably good. Top pair with K kicker. He could have clubs? Or something like TT. In any case, if we are going to battle here we only want to fight one hand. For example, if the BB has 78 we don't want to deal with his straight draws on top of what Seat 3 has. We push all in and the BB folds. Seat 3 shows 95c. He needs a club or a 5, so her has 12 outs, which gives us a slight advantage (56%). The turn and river are red and we take the pot down.
Seat 4 is the Button and raises to 200. We Call w 79s from SB and BB raises to 700. Button calls and we call. Kind of wish we had folded to the 200 bet but the pot odds are attractive and if we hit our hand this should be good. 28Q rainbow flop. We did not hit our hand. Check. BB bets 600 and button folds. Bluff or fold. We fold.
There are now 3 big stacks at our table, each with about 9000 in chips - us, seat 3 and seat 6.
Seat 3 raises to 250 and we call from the SB with 35c. Not a great hand but if it hits we may take a big piece of seat 3s big stack. Seat 6 calls from the BB - even better. Flop comes 47T, all clubs. We flopped a flush, and even have a gut shot straight flush draw. The problem is that our flush is low, another club kills us. We bet 550 into the 750 pot, determined to make people pay to fish for a club. The BB raises to 1900 and seat 3 folds. Wow. What could he have? Most likely he has one club but not 2, giving him 8 outs (the 6c is no good for him as it gives us a straight flush) - that would make us a 68% favorite. He could have a set, which is less likely, but would also justify his play, and would make us about a 70% favorite. Not likely he's playing a big pocket pair because he didn't raise preflop. Not likely to be playing a straight draw because the flush is too likely to draw to a straight. The short of it is that unless he is playing a made flush, unless he has 2 clubs in his hand, we are way ahead. We push all in and he calls with TK, the K being a club. So he had top pair and a big club. The pair is barely relevant. We are a 67% favorite. The turn comes 5s, but the river comes 9c giving him the flush. Ouch!
A few hands later Seat 6 raises to 300. The SB folds and we push all in from the BB with out me 325 and QKd. He shows KTo. We are a huge favorite, but he flops a T and ultimately takes it down.
It was a very fast day. We rallied from short stack to table chip leader before taking a bad beat for 95+% of our chips and then another bad beat for our last 325. Oh well.
Going to take a few days off, but will jump back into a HORSE tournament on Sunday. HORSE is too difficult to blog about so you wont hear from me for about a week.
Until then,
Your Donkey
The action with six hands moves far too fast to write about every hand, but here is a selection from the day of extreme swings in luck.
Playing 25-25 with 4500 in chips.
Button at Seat 1. Everyone folds to us in seat 5 and we raise to 75 with JQ. The BB raises to 225 and we see the flop come 445. He bets flop 275 and we call. The turn comes 9 and he checks. We check and the river comes 8. He checks and we bet 775 into the pot of just over 1000. If he has a naked king, he should fold. He folds and we pick it up. Not sure that was a great bet, but he showed a lot of weakness with the 2 checks.
Seats 3 and 4 fold and we raise to 75 with KK. The BB calls from Seat 2 and the flop comes 378. He checks and we bet 175. He calls and the turn comes T. He checks and we bet 375. He calls and the river comes 8 pairing the board. With KK pairing the board is good if you think your opponent has 2 pair, but he's been calling the whole way and the top board card paired, so it's just too likely he has an 8. He checks and we check, happy to miss a betting opportunity rather than let him raise us off our hand. He shows Q8 to take the pot down. Kind of sick.
QJ v AT AQTJ6
Playing 50-100 we raise to 275 from seat 4 with AJd and get called by Seat 5 and the BB. Flop comes AQJ rainbow. The BB checks and we bet 550 into the approx 900 pot. Seat 5 calls and the BB folds. The turn comes 7 and we bet 1050. Seat 5 raises to 2450. Hmmmmm. Unlikely he has a set as he would not have called the flop bet with 77, and we have one of the Aces and one of the Jacks. He could have QQ or AQ or TK for the straight. There's about 4400 in the pot and we put 1400 more in to see the river. River comes T. Any K is a straight. We check and he checks. He shows AQ to take it down.
We are now short stacked and live for about 20 hands either folding or pushing all in. We actually push about six times with some of the best hands we've ever seen in such a short period. Twice with AK, once with AJs, KQs and TJs. No one calls for a while and we build back up a little.
Seat 3 raises to 200 and we push all in for 1450 with KQ. He class and shows 66. It's a race. Flop comes A56 all hearts. He has a set, but we have the Qh, so we still have about a 33% chance with our flush draw. Turn 9d. River Th gives us the flush. When the chips went in it was a race, so this isn't really a bad beat, but it feels that way. In any case, we are happy to double up.
Seat 6 raises to 275 and gets calls from the button and the SB. We call from the BB with 69h. The flop comes 478 giving us an open ended straight draw. The pot is about 1100 and we push all in. Everyone folds.
We are up to 4125 in chips.
Seat 1 bets 200 and 3 calls. We call from bb with 9T and flop comes 249. We bet 400 and seat 1 calls. Turn comes 5 putting second heart on board. We bet 850 and he folds. We are in a good rhythm of picking up chips.
Seat 2 bets 275 and gets calls from seat 3 and seat 4. We call from the Button with AJh and the BB calls. Normally we would raise with this hand but there are a lot of players and we're in great position so let's go slowly. 5 of us see the 47Q flop. Everyone checks to us. Someone could be slow playing a Q so we check and hope for an A to turn. Turn comes K and again everyone checks to us. Someone could still have a Q we check hoping for a T to give us a straight. River comes J. Seat 2 bets 525. Seats 3 and 4 fold. Could he have a J? If that's all he has, our A kicker will win. We call and the BB folds. He shows 55 and we take it down with our pair of jacks.
Seat 3 bets 200 and we call from button w k9s. SB calls and flop comes 469 w 2 clubs. SB bets 450 and seat 3 pushes all in for 1300. Our K9 is probably good. Top pair with K kicker. He could have clubs? Or something like TT. In any case, if we are going to battle here we only want to fight one hand. For example, if the BB has 78 we don't want to deal with his straight draws on top of what Seat 3 has. We push all in and the BB folds. Seat 3 shows 95c. He needs a club or a 5, so her has 12 outs, which gives us a slight advantage (56%). The turn and river are red and we take the pot down.
Seat 4 is the Button and raises to 200. We Call w 79s from SB and BB raises to 700. Button calls and we call. Kind of wish we had folded to the 200 bet but the pot odds are attractive and if we hit our hand this should be good. 28Q rainbow flop. We did not hit our hand. Check. BB bets 600 and button folds. Bluff or fold. We fold.
There are now 3 big stacks at our table, each with about 9000 in chips - us, seat 3 and seat 6.
Seat 3 raises to 250 and we call from the SB with 35c. Not a great hand but if it hits we may take a big piece of seat 3s big stack. Seat 6 calls from the BB - even better. Flop comes 47T, all clubs. We flopped a flush, and even have a gut shot straight flush draw. The problem is that our flush is low, another club kills us. We bet 550 into the 750 pot, determined to make people pay to fish for a club. The BB raises to 1900 and seat 3 folds. Wow. What could he have? Most likely he has one club but not 2, giving him 8 outs (the 6c is no good for him as it gives us a straight flush) - that would make us a 68% favorite. He could have a set, which is less likely, but would also justify his play, and would make us about a 70% favorite. Not likely he's playing a big pocket pair because he didn't raise preflop. Not likely to be playing a straight draw because the flush is too likely to draw to a straight. The short of it is that unless he is playing a made flush, unless he has 2 clubs in his hand, we are way ahead. We push all in and he calls with TK, the K being a club. So he had top pair and a big club. The pair is barely relevant. We are a 67% favorite. The turn comes 5s, but the river comes 9c giving him the flush. Ouch!
A few hands later Seat 6 raises to 300. The SB folds and we push all in from the BB with out me 325 and QKd. He shows KTo. We are a huge favorite, but he flops a T and ultimately takes it down.
It was a very fast day. We rallied from short stack to table chip leader before taking a bad beat for 95+% of our chips and then another bad beat for our last 325. Oh well.
Going to take a few days off, but will jump back into a HORSE tournament on Sunday. HORSE is too difficult to blog about so you wont hear from me for about a week.
Until then,
Your Donkey
Saturday, May 31, 2014
NLH Shootout Part V
Playing 600-1200 with 200 antes Seat 3 raises to 2500. We raise to 8000 from the button with JJ and he pushes all in of another 21000. We call and he shows AA. Oiy! The board does not save us and he takes it down. We now have about 80,000 in chips. Everyone at the tables is now in the 60-80k zone. Game on.
We chip back up to 120k slowly and are now playing 4-handed. Two big hands.
We are on the button with QQ and raise to 4200. The SB calls and we see the flop 47J. Excellent. He bets 6000 and we raise to 14,000. He calls and the turn comes 9. He checks and we bet 15000. He calls. The river comes K. Not what we were looking for but he checks. We just check and he shows JK to take it down.
Seat 3 raises to 4800 and we call from the button with 7Td. Flop comes 689h. Fantastic that we have a straight, but the three hearts are a problem. If he does not have a heart, we will probably not get any more money from him. If he does have a heart, he has about a 35% chance of beating us. He bets 5500. We raise to 24,000. It is a massive raise, but we want to put him in a position to be pot committed if he calls. He pushes all in and we call. He shows Ace King, with the ace of hearts. The turn is the queen of diamonds. The river is the five of hearts. He makes his flush and takes us down. He had about 5000 more in chips than we did, so our day is over.
Bad beat. Arghhhh! Angrily heading toward the payout window. We officially took 33rd.
On the good side, it frees us up for hi-lo Omaha tomorrow. That game is far too complicated to blog about so you wont hear from me for a couple days. Until then,
Your Donkey
We chip back up to 120k slowly and are now playing 4-handed. Two big hands.
We are on the button with QQ and raise to 4200. The SB calls and we see the flop 47J. Excellent. He bets 6000 and we raise to 14,000. He calls and the turn comes 9. He checks and we bet 15000. He calls. The river comes K. Not what we were looking for but he checks. We just check and he shows JK to take it down.
Seat 3 raises to 4800 and we call from the button with 7Td. Flop comes 689h. Fantastic that we have a straight, but the three hearts are a problem. If he does not have a heart, we will probably not get any more money from him. If he does have a heart, he has about a 35% chance of beating us. He bets 5500. We raise to 24,000. It is a massive raise, but we want to put him in a position to be pot committed if he calls. He pushes all in and we call. He shows Ace King, with the ace of hearts. The turn is the queen of diamonds. The river is the five of hearts. He makes his flush and takes us down. He had about 5000 more in chips than we did, so our day is over.
Bad beat. Arghhhh! Angrily heading toward the payout window. We officially took 33rd.
On the good side, it frees us up for hi-lo Omaha tomorrow. That game is far too complicated to blog about so you wont hear from me for a couple days. Until then,
Your Donkey
NLH Shootout Part IV
The action was simply moving too fast to take notes or even make too many mental notes. I can only relay two hands, the first and last hand played before the break.
In the first hand, it looked exactly like a hand played in my last blog. Seat five, the guy who raises with lots of random things, min raised. Two people called after him and when it came to us in the small blind we raised significantly. They all folded. Seat 5 asked me to show the bluff, accusing me of stealing the pots. He actually said there is no way that we could have that many good hands and around. I thought about showing the off suit four seven, but decided just to muck it.
From a 30,000 foot level, we turned into a poker bully stomping with all four hooves on everyone hand after hand. We built our stack to become the chip leader playing five handed. We had about 140,000 chips.
Playing 500–1000 with antes of 100, seat three raised to 3100. We called from seat four with 23 of diamonds. The reasoning for this is the same as it was on my last blog. The button, the guy who had the three four in the last blog to beat our full house with a bigger full house, calls, and the three of us see the flop. The flop comes 456 with the four and six of diamonds. We have flopped a straight, hey got shot straight flush and a flush draw. Phenomenal flop. Seat three checks, we check, the button checks and we see the turn come. It is a seven of hearts. Horrible card for us, because now anyone with an eight beats us. Slow playing did not work well for us here. Seat three checks and we bet 6000. The button pushes all in for 27,600. We call and he shows pocket fours. He has 9 outs. The river comes seven of diamonds giving him a full house. He takes it down.
We have only lost two big hands. We lost them both to the same player, who was all in both times, and faced us with a suited deuce three that flopped or turned a monster. It is somewhat frustrating, but we still have about 110,000 chips, leaving 250,000 for the remaining four players to share.
We are still in good position, but there are a lot of cards left to play, and as the last hand exemplifies, Lucky still a huge, huge factor.
Stomping with all four hooves,
Donkey
In the first hand, it looked exactly like a hand played in my last blog. Seat five, the guy who raises with lots of random things, min raised. Two people called after him and when it came to us in the small blind we raised significantly. They all folded. Seat 5 asked me to show the bluff, accusing me of stealing the pots. He actually said there is no way that we could have that many good hands and around. I thought about showing the off suit four seven, but decided just to muck it.
From a 30,000 foot level, we turned into a poker bully stomping with all four hooves on everyone hand after hand. We built our stack to become the chip leader playing five handed. We had about 140,000 chips.
Playing 500–1000 with antes of 100, seat three raised to 3100. We called from seat four with 23 of diamonds. The reasoning for this is the same as it was on my last blog. The button, the guy who had the three four in the last blog to beat our full house with a bigger full house, calls, and the three of us see the flop. The flop comes 456 with the four and six of diamonds. We have flopped a straight, hey got shot straight flush and a flush draw. Phenomenal flop. Seat three checks, we check, the button checks and we see the turn come. It is a seven of hearts. Horrible card for us, because now anyone with an eight beats us. Slow playing did not work well for us here. Seat three checks and we bet 6000. The button pushes all in for 27,600. We call and he shows pocket fours. He has 9 outs. The river comes seven of diamonds giving him a full house. He takes it down.
We have only lost two big hands. We lost them both to the same player, who was all in both times, and faced us with a suited deuce three that flopped or turned a monster. It is somewhat frustrating, but we still have about 110,000 chips, leaving 250,000 for the remaining four players to share.
We are still in good position, but there are a lot of cards left to play, and as the last hand exemplifies, Lucky still a huge, huge factor.
Stomping with all four hooves,
Donkey
NLH Shootout Part III
All of the fish are gone. There is but one donkey left in the room.
Play ball.
Ten guys crammed around a table playing 200 400 with 50 antes so there's 1100 in the pot before cards are dealt. The first big hand we play is from seat 8. Everyone folds to us and we raise to 850 with TJc and get called by the BB. Flop comes 3QA rainbow (no clubs). Good flop for us because we pre-flop bet so they should believe us if we bet now indicating we hit the A. They check and we bet 1400. They call. Hmmmm, a king would be nice. Turn comes another 3. Could they be playing with a 3? They check and we fire again 2800. They raise to 6500 and we fold. Likely hands for them either AK, AQ or 3x. Okay, it's early.
Seat 7 limps for 400 and everyone folds to the SB who smells weakness and raises to 1200. Pretty likely the SB is stealing so we raise to 3400 with A3. If we get a caller, A3 is likely not great, but if the SB was stealing and just calls to see the flop ad pray, A3 is likely good. At least to start. In any case they both fold.
Seat 5 raises to 900 and we re-raise from the SB with TT to 3600. The flop comes JKA. Wow, probably the worst possible flop. We check and he bets 4000. We fold. Hmmmm. Down to just under 30,000 in chips.
Everyone folds to is in seat 9. We raise to 950 and the BB calls. The BB has played a lot of hands down. He's not one to bluff against. Flop comes 69k with one heart. He checks and we check, again not wanting to bluff. Turn comes A. Giddey up. He bets 1175. Possible he has an A and if he does he has us beat. Let's see how strong he is. We min raise to 2350. This says to him that donkey has a hand and is not worried about a re-raise. He calls, which means if he has an A, it's not a strong A (still stronger than mine). River comes another A which means he is much less likely to have one, but from his perspective so are we. He bets 3100, likely with a K but maybe an A. We min raise again to 6200 hoping he will call with a K. He folds.
I can't describe exactly how it happens, but we win several hands back to back. We bluff a large one and we make two pair on a large, each of which bring 10 to 15,000 chips to us.
Now playing nine handed 300-600 with 75 antes.
Seat five raises to 1200 and we call from the button with 23s. Not a great hand but if it hits it can be huge and hidden and we are in position. The blinds both call and the flop comes a fantastic 234 rainbow (no spade). The SB bets 3000 and the BB calls. Seat 5 folds and we raise with our 2 pair to 10500. The SB pushes all in for another 23000. The BB folds and it comes to us. There is about 53000 in the pot and we have to put 23000 in to fight for it. He could have a set, 2 pair, a straight, an overpair (or an overpair like 55 giving him a straight draw), a 4A or 45. There are so many possibilities because the preflop action allowed almost anything in. We call and he shows 34 for a bigger 2-pair. We need a 2!!! Turn comes 3 giving both of us full houses and ending any chance we have. I have a great photo of this board and our cards if anyone wants it.
Down to 32k. Okay.
Seat 7 raises to 1800 and we are in seat 9 with TT, our best starting hand of the day. We raise to 4800 and he calls. Flop comes 48J. Hmmmm, as long as he doesn't have a J or a set this is great for us. He checks and we bet 4500. He calls. If he had a strong jack, he should have raised. Turn comes 5d putting 2 diamonds on the board. He checks and we bet 10,000. He goes into the tank and then folds claiming to have had 9Td and to have been calculating the odds. If that were true, he had 15 outs, or about a 33% chance on the river. As he only had to put 10000 in to try to win about 30,000 plus whatever he could get us to put in on the river bet if he did make his hand, either he was lying or really bad at math. As we had the Td in our hand, I'm going with lying.
Everyone folds to us and we raise to 1600 on the button with A9. The blinds both call and the flop comes AA8. Giddey-up. They check and we check hoping they hit something on the turn, bluff, etc. turn comes another 8. They check and we bet 2400. The SB calls. The river comes Jh. As long as he doesn't have AJ or 88, we have a winner. He checks and we bet 9000. He goes into the tank and then calls hoping we are bluffing. We are not and we take it down with Aces full of 8s. He had an 8.
Seat 5 raises to 1200. He has done this quite a bit when no one before him bets. On showdowns, his hands have ranged as low as a king eight not suited. Two players call him. Clearly, they have seen the same weakness that I have, and their calls mean that they do not have very strong hands either. We have A9 in the SB again and raise to 5800. They all fold.
We close the round with just over 50,000. Hopefully more good news in 2 hours.
Play ball.
Ten guys crammed around a table playing 200 400 with 50 antes so there's 1100 in the pot before cards are dealt. The first big hand we play is from seat 8. Everyone folds to us and we raise to 850 with TJc and get called by the BB. Flop comes 3QA rainbow (no clubs). Good flop for us because we pre-flop bet so they should believe us if we bet now indicating we hit the A. They check and we bet 1400. They call. Hmmmm, a king would be nice. Turn comes another 3. Could they be playing with a 3? They check and we fire again 2800. They raise to 6500 and we fold. Likely hands for them either AK, AQ or 3x. Okay, it's early.
Seat 7 limps for 400 and everyone folds to the SB who smells weakness and raises to 1200. Pretty likely the SB is stealing so we raise to 3400 with A3. If we get a caller, A3 is likely not great, but if the SB was stealing and just calls to see the flop ad pray, A3 is likely good. At least to start. In any case they both fold.
Seat 5 raises to 900 and we re-raise from the SB with TT to 3600. The flop comes JKA. Wow, probably the worst possible flop. We check and he bets 4000. We fold. Hmmmm. Down to just under 30,000 in chips.
Everyone folds to is in seat 9. We raise to 950 and the BB calls. The BB has played a lot of hands down. He's not one to bluff against. Flop comes 69k with one heart. He checks and we check, again not wanting to bluff. Turn comes A. Giddey up. He bets 1175. Possible he has an A and if he does he has us beat. Let's see how strong he is. We min raise to 2350. This says to him that donkey has a hand and is not worried about a re-raise. He calls, which means if he has an A, it's not a strong A (still stronger than mine). River comes another A which means he is much less likely to have one, but from his perspective so are we. He bets 3100, likely with a K but maybe an A. We min raise again to 6200 hoping he will call with a K. He folds.
I can't describe exactly how it happens, but we win several hands back to back. We bluff a large one and we make two pair on a large, each of which bring 10 to 15,000 chips to us.
Now playing nine handed 300-600 with 75 antes.
Seat five raises to 1200 and we call from the button with 23s. Not a great hand but if it hits it can be huge and hidden and we are in position. The blinds both call and the flop comes a fantastic 234 rainbow (no spade). The SB bets 3000 and the BB calls. Seat 5 folds and we raise with our 2 pair to 10500. The SB pushes all in for another 23000. The BB folds and it comes to us. There is about 53000 in the pot and we have to put 23000 in to fight for it. He could have a set, 2 pair, a straight, an overpair (or an overpair like 55 giving him a straight draw), a 4A or 45. There are so many possibilities because the preflop action allowed almost anything in. We call and he shows 34 for a bigger 2-pair. We need a 2!!! Turn comes 3 giving both of us full houses and ending any chance we have. I have a great photo of this board and our cards if anyone wants it.
Down to 32k. Okay.
Seat 7 raises to 1800 and we are in seat 9 with TT, our best starting hand of the day. We raise to 4800 and he calls. Flop comes 48J. Hmmmm, as long as he doesn't have a J or a set this is great for us. He checks and we bet 4500. He calls. If he had a strong jack, he should have raised. Turn comes 5d putting 2 diamonds on the board. He checks and we bet 10,000. He goes into the tank and then folds claiming to have had 9Td and to have been calculating the odds. If that were true, he had 15 outs, or about a 33% chance on the river. As he only had to put 10000 in to try to win about 30,000 plus whatever he could get us to put in on the river bet if he did make his hand, either he was lying or really bad at math. As we had the Td in our hand, I'm going with lying.
Everyone folds to us and we raise to 1600 on the button with A9. The blinds both call and the flop comes AA8. Giddey-up. They check and we check hoping they hit something on the turn, bluff, etc. turn comes another 8. They check and we bet 2400. The SB calls. The river comes Jh. As long as he doesn't have AJ or 88, we have a winner. He checks and we bet 9000. He goes into the tank and then calls hoping we are bluffing. We are not and we take it down with Aces full of 8s. He had an 8.
Seat 5 raises to 1200. He has done this quite a bit when no one before him bets. On showdowns, his hands have ranged as low as a king eight not suited. Two players call him. Clearly, they have seen the same weakness that I have, and their calls mean that they do not have very strong hands either. We have A9 in the SB again and raise to 5800. They all fold.
We close the round with just over 50,000. Hopefully more good news in 2 hours.
Friday, May 30, 2014
NLH Shhotout Part II
The game was really moving far too fast to remember hands. I can only give a couple here.
Playing 50–100, seat five raised to 225. In the small blind with Jack King, we raise to 600. The big blind pushes all in for 1200 and seat five also pushes all in 1650. We call and show our Jack King. The big blind also has a Jack King. That is not good. Seat five shows Queen King. That is terrible. The flop comes 9TQ, giving the two underdogs a straight. It is a miracle flop. We will be thrilled to split the pot this time. The turn comes 9, pairing the board. The river comes another 9, putting three nines on the board and giving the hand back to the Queen King, which now has a full house. The good news is that one of the players was knocked out, but now the surviving player has a larger stack to confront us. Don't you rears up and flips him a hoof.
Playing three handed, the other two players push all in pre-flop with pocket eights against pocket jacks. The flop is a 48Q, giving a huge advantage to the pocket eights. The turn is another queen and the river a third queen, putting three queens on the table and giving the pocket jacks a bigger full house than the pocket eights has.
I remember the above two hands, because they are two of the stranger hands I've seen in a long, long time. We are now playing heads up.
The order of play in heads-up is a little strange. The button is considered the small blind and acts first pre-flop. However, post flop the button returns to being the last to act.
The blinds are ridiculously small and in light of the fact that he has about 16,000 in chips and we have about 20,000, playing 50-100, this will take a long, long time.
We spend the requisite long, long time hacking back-and-forth at each other taking 100 or 200 chips at a time. I recall only one hand where we made a bet of more than 1000. We had bet something like 200 and he raised to something like 550. He was correct to call our bluff, but we were confident that he had nothing, so he was simply re-bluffing. Not to be outdone, we re-re-bluffed for 1550. He folded.
He is on the button and raises pre-flop to 275. We have KK - giddey up. We re-raise to 600 and he calls. Flop comes 46K with 2 clubs. Giddey-up again!!!! We check and he checks. The turn comes 9d putting 2 diamonds and 2 clubs on the board. Possible big hands include open ended straight draws with a flush draw (eg 57d would give someone 6 straight draws and 9 flush draws, but it's unlikely to have in light of the pre-flop betting) or two pair with a flush draw (eg 69c would give 2 pair and 9 cards for a flush, but again this is an unlikely hand to hold). There really isn't much we realistically fear - we just have to get his chips in the pot. We bet 800 into the 1200 pot and he RAISES to 2500. We go into the tank. We ask the dealer to clean the pot up (ie move our 800 bet into the pot along with 800 of his 2500 so we can see the pot on one hand and his 1700 raise clearly on the other.). He has about 12,500 chips in addition to what he has put in. We have to deny that but not get too greedy. We raise to 6000. He thinks for a few minutes. We are geared up in sunglasses and head phones but making the nervous look every now and then to see if he's moved, and we hear him say, because the headphones are really for show and quietly playing Uncle Cracker, "all in". Glorious word! Long ears perk up and we turn over the kings. Appropriately listening to "i want to be a cowboy". He shows AK. He is drawing dead. I believe the river was a Jh, but it wasn't relevant.
We are "in the money". Giddey-up! We play tomorrow at 1pm.
Your Money Donkey
Playing 50–100, seat five raised to 225. In the small blind with Jack King, we raise to 600. The big blind pushes all in for 1200 and seat five also pushes all in 1650. We call and show our Jack King. The big blind also has a Jack King. That is not good. Seat five shows Queen King. That is terrible. The flop comes 9TQ, giving the two underdogs a straight. It is a miracle flop. We will be thrilled to split the pot this time. The turn comes 9, pairing the board. The river comes another 9, putting three nines on the board and giving the hand back to the Queen King, which now has a full house. The good news is that one of the players was knocked out, but now the surviving player has a larger stack to confront us. Don't you rears up and flips him a hoof.
Playing three handed, the other two players push all in pre-flop with pocket eights against pocket jacks. The flop is a 48Q, giving a huge advantage to the pocket eights. The turn is another queen and the river a third queen, putting three queens on the table and giving the pocket jacks a bigger full house than the pocket eights has.
I remember the above two hands, because they are two of the stranger hands I've seen in a long, long time. We are now playing heads up.
The order of play in heads-up is a little strange. The button is considered the small blind and acts first pre-flop. However, post flop the button returns to being the last to act.
The blinds are ridiculously small and in light of the fact that he has about 16,000 in chips and we have about 20,000, playing 50-100, this will take a long, long time.
We spend the requisite long, long time hacking back-and-forth at each other taking 100 or 200 chips at a time. I recall only one hand where we made a bet of more than 1000. We had bet something like 200 and he raised to something like 550. He was correct to call our bluff, but we were confident that he had nothing, so he was simply re-bluffing. Not to be outdone, we re-re-bluffed for 1550. He folded.
He is on the button and raises pre-flop to 275. We have KK - giddey up. We re-raise to 600 and he calls. Flop comes 46K with 2 clubs. Giddey-up again!!!! We check and he checks. The turn comes 9d putting 2 diamonds and 2 clubs on the board. Possible big hands include open ended straight draws with a flush draw (eg 57d would give someone 6 straight draws and 9 flush draws, but it's unlikely to have in light of the pre-flop betting) or two pair with a flush draw (eg 69c would give 2 pair and 9 cards for a flush, but again this is an unlikely hand to hold). There really isn't much we realistically fear - we just have to get his chips in the pot. We bet 800 into the 1200 pot and he RAISES to 2500. We go into the tank. We ask the dealer to clean the pot up (ie move our 800 bet into the pot along with 800 of his 2500 so we can see the pot on one hand and his 1700 raise clearly on the other.). He has about 12,500 chips in addition to what he has put in. We have to deny that but not get too greedy. We raise to 6000. He thinks for a few minutes. We are geared up in sunglasses and head phones but making the nervous look every now and then to see if he's moved, and we hear him say, because the headphones are really for show and quietly playing Uncle Cracker, "all in". Glorious word! Long ears perk up and we turn over the kings. Appropriately listening to "i want to be a cowboy". He shows AK. He is drawing dead. I believe the river was a Jh, but it wasn't relevant.
We are "in the money". Giddey-up! We play tomorrow at 1pm.
Your Money Donkey
NLH Shootout
Dear Herd:
Today we are playing an interesting no limit hold em tournament. Our table of 10 plays until there's only one of us left. That player will advance to tomorrow. We start with 4500 and chips, playing 25-50. This will be a fast-moving tournament, and I will not be able to give much of a play-by-play.
On a sidenote, this would normally be really good for me, because I will get to learn a lot about my fellow players. We will not be broken up. On a bad note, Phil Ivey just sat down on my right side, shook my hand, and said, "last time we played together was last year's horse tournament." I don't recall that experience going very well for the donkey.
They have now paused the tournament 10 minutes in in order to deal with some registration problems. I will take this moment to describe the first four hands of the tournament. There is no one sitting immediately to our right or our left, also be seven seat at the table has no one sitting there.
First hand, we start in Seat 3, under the gun. We have the 79 of diamonds. We raise to 100. We get one caller from C-5. Moving forward I will refer to seats as C, because that is how my dictation works.
Flop comes two King King with two diamonds. We continuation bet 150 and he folds. We are the table leader.
Second hand seat five raises to 100 and we call from the big blind with 24 hearts. The flop Comes Ace Jack seven. All of them are hearts. Giddyup, we have flopped a flush. We bet 125 and he calls. We are afraid of another heart, because ours are so low that if another heart comes and he has one he will beat us. The turn comes Six of diamonds. We bet 325 and he calls. The river comes nine of clubs, perfect. We bet 1025, hoping he will see it as an attempt to buy the pot. He calls and folds when he sees our hearts.
Hand three we are in the small blind with KQ. Seat five, and please keep in mind that C-5 moves one seat to the right every hand, raises to 100 and we call. The flop comes five Queen King with two hearts. Amazing, we have flopped top two pair. It is our lucky day. We check and he bets 125. We call. The turn comes Jack of clubs. If he has a straight, which is possible, this is very bad for us. From his late seat, he could have bet pre-flop with a 9T or a TA and continue that after the flop to see if we would fold. We check and he bets 350. We call. The river comes six of hearts. Although this puts a possible flush on the board, it is actually good for us. Now, it looks like we might have a flush, because we have been calling down since the flop. Also, we have showed our willingness to call pre-flop bets with a 24 of hearts already. So, if he does have a straight, and we bet into him, he's very unlikely to raise. We bet 850 and he calls. We show our cards and he folds. We've now won the first three hands of the tournament.
Hand 4 - Seat 3 bets 100 under the gun and everyone folds to us on the button with 47. We fold. Our fist non-win.
Under the gun we raise to 75 with 57c. 2 callers after us and then the small blind raises to 400. Hmmmmm, good pot odds, especially if the two behind us call. We call and the call. The Flop comes 335 rainbow. We have a small pair. More importantly, it didn't hit the SB who is firing 800 more into the pot. We call and the other 2 players fold. Turn comes 8. SB pushes all in for 1900. Hmmm. He either has 2 big cards or a pair bigger than 8. That's a lot of pairs but it's a big pot and the odds favor that he has two big cards. We call. He shows AK and river comes J. We take it down with fives and threes.
Seat 4 raises to 75 and seat 6 re-raises to 225. We are in the BB with KK and raise to 825. Flop 69Q rainbow. Perfect. He has 3800ish. Hmmmm. 1500 bet gets us all in on the turn but gives him an unnecessary look for an ace on that turn. We push. He goes into the tank for a minute and folds. There are only 45000 chips on the table. Would love to have picked up more but happy to grab 1000 here.
In my upcoming treatise I will call this hand the "Check-raising Phil Ivy like you've already got it Hand". Playing 25-50 6-handed. Seat 4 raises to 125. Phil calls from the button and we call with 68 from the SB. BB calls and 4 of us see the 79J rainbow flop. We have an open ended straight draw, which is good 4 players but we are in bad position and cant call a big raise (which would know players out and hurt our odds anyway). We check, as does the BB and seat 4. Phil bets 325. That's going to knock the other players out so our good odds are gone. Let's see if he's trying to purchase. We raise to 825 and he folds.
Seat 4 raises to 125 and phil calls. We call from the BB with K8d and the three of us see the KTT flop with one diamond. We bet 300 and they both call. Turn comes Ah. We check and they both check. River comes 8d. We bet 1050 and seat 4 calls and shows A9. Ouch. Bad turn card. Bad.
Everyone folds to Phil who raises to 125 from the button. The small blind calls and it comes to us. We have AA. Giddey-up. We raise to 375. As we have been playing the role of poker bully for a while, this is not surprise anyone. Phil calls and the small blindfolds. The flop comes 45Q with 2 spades. We bet 400 and he calls. Turn comes 6d. He cant be playing 78 or 23, can he? Maybe, but we bet 750 and he calls. River comes 5c. He probably doesn't have a 5 and that gives us 2 pair which probably isn't necessary. He has about 2900 in chips. We bet 1600. I know that Phil values every chip and will not see tis as leaving him with unnecessary chips if he loses. He calls and mucks his hand when he sees our aces.
Phil gets knocked out a few hands later and heads off to the Razz tournament.
We end round 2 with 5 players at our table and 18250 in chips. The officials are removing from play the two players that never bought in, so the total number of chips on the table is about 36,500. Although we have half of them, this is very far from over.
The game will now be moving very fast. Hopefully i will have more good news in 2 hours.
Today we are playing an interesting no limit hold em tournament. Our table of 10 plays until there's only one of us left. That player will advance to tomorrow. We start with 4500 and chips, playing 25-50. This will be a fast-moving tournament, and I will not be able to give much of a play-by-play.
On a sidenote, this would normally be really good for me, because I will get to learn a lot about my fellow players. We will not be broken up. On a bad note, Phil Ivey just sat down on my right side, shook my hand, and said, "last time we played together was last year's horse tournament." I don't recall that experience going very well for the donkey.
They have now paused the tournament 10 minutes in in order to deal with some registration problems. I will take this moment to describe the first four hands of the tournament. There is no one sitting immediately to our right or our left, also be seven seat at the table has no one sitting there.
First hand, we start in Seat 3, under the gun. We have the 79 of diamonds. We raise to 100. We get one caller from C-5. Moving forward I will refer to seats as C, because that is how my dictation works.
Flop comes two King King with two diamonds. We continuation bet 150 and he folds. We are the table leader.
Second hand seat five raises to 100 and we call from the big blind with 24 hearts. The flop Comes Ace Jack seven. All of them are hearts. Giddyup, we have flopped a flush. We bet 125 and he calls. We are afraid of another heart, because ours are so low that if another heart comes and he has one he will beat us. The turn comes Six of diamonds. We bet 325 and he calls. The river comes nine of clubs, perfect. We bet 1025, hoping he will see it as an attempt to buy the pot. He calls and folds when he sees our hearts.
Hand three we are in the small blind with KQ. Seat five, and please keep in mind that C-5 moves one seat to the right every hand, raises to 100 and we call. The flop comes five Queen King with two hearts. Amazing, we have flopped top two pair. It is our lucky day. We check and he bets 125. We call. The turn comes Jack of clubs. If he has a straight, which is possible, this is very bad for us. From his late seat, he could have bet pre-flop with a 9T or a TA and continue that after the flop to see if we would fold. We check and he bets 350. We call. The river comes six of hearts. Although this puts a possible flush on the board, it is actually good for us. Now, it looks like we might have a flush, because we have been calling down since the flop. Also, we have showed our willingness to call pre-flop bets with a 24 of hearts already. So, if he does have a straight, and we bet into him, he's very unlikely to raise. We bet 850 and he calls. We show our cards and he folds. We've now won the first three hands of the tournament.
Hand 4 - Seat 3 bets 100 under the gun and everyone folds to us on the button with 47. We fold. Our fist non-win.
Under the gun we raise to 75 with 57c. 2 callers after us and then the small blind raises to 400. Hmmmmm, good pot odds, especially if the two behind us call. We call and the call. The Flop comes 335 rainbow. We have a small pair. More importantly, it didn't hit the SB who is firing 800 more into the pot. We call and the other 2 players fold. Turn comes 8. SB pushes all in for 1900. Hmmm. He either has 2 big cards or a pair bigger than 8. That's a lot of pairs but it's a big pot and the odds favor that he has two big cards. We call. He shows AK and river comes J. We take it down with fives and threes.
Seat 4 raises to 75 and seat 6 re-raises to 225. We are in the BB with KK and raise to 825. Flop 69Q rainbow. Perfect. He has 3800ish. Hmmmm. 1500 bet gets us all in on the turn but gives him an unnecessary look for an ace on that turn. We push. He goes into the tank for a minute and folds. There are only 45000 chips on the table. Would love to have picked up more but happy to grab 1000 here.
In my upcoming treatise I will call this hand the "Check-raising Phil Ivy like you've already got it Hand". Playing 25-50 6-handed. Seat 4 raises to 125. Phil calls from the button and we call with 68 from the SB. BB calls and 4 of us see the 79J rainbow flop. We have an open ended straight draw, which is good 4 players but we are in bad position and cant call a big raise (which would know players out and hurt our odds anyway). We check, as does the BB and seat 4. Phil bets 325. That's going to knock the other players out so our good odds are gone. Let's see if he's trying to purchase. We raise to 825 and he folds.
Seat 4 raises to 125 and phil calls. We call from the BB with K8d and the three of us see the KTT flop with one diamond. We bet 300 and they both call. Turn comes Ah. We check and they both check. River comes 8d. We bet 1050 and seat 4 calls and shows A9. Ouch. Bad turn card. Bad.
Everyone folds to Phil who raises to 125 from the button. The small blind calls and it comes to us. We have AA. Giddey-up. We raise to 375. As we have been playing the role of poker bully for a while, this is not surprise anyone. Phil calls and the small blindfolds. The flop comes 45Q with 2 spades. We bet 400 and he calls. Turn comes 6d. He cant be playing 78 or 23, can he? Maybe, but we bet 750 and he calls. River comes 5c. He probably doesn't have a 5 and that gives us 2 pair which probably isn't necessary. He has about 2900 in chips. We bet 1600. I know that Phil values every chip and will not see tis as leaving him with unnecessary chips if he loses. He calls and mucks his hand when he sees our aces.
Phil gets knocked out a few hands later and heads off to the Razz tournament.
We end round 2 with 5 players at our table and 18250 in chips. The officials are removing from play the two players that never bought in, so the total number of chips on the table is about 36,500. Although we have half of them, this is very far from over.
The game will now be moving very fast. Hopefully i will have more good news in 2 hours.
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
PLO
This should have gone out hours ago - sorry.
Two more rounds in. Only a couple big hands to report.
In seat 4 playing 50-100 we raise to 250 with 9JQQ (JQd) and get 4 callers. Pot is 1300 when flop comes rainbow 29Q. Beautiful. We bet 800 and get 2 folds before a pot bet raise of 2900. We have top set, which is huge. Although the bet is scary, the player only has 1100 behind, so this could be as much a bluff as anything or a semi-bluff (like he has a straight draw and an overpair). The final player between us folds and we raise another 1100 to put him all in. That makes the total bet 4800. He shows TJKK. He has a massive straight draw with an overpair. He needs an 8TJ or K for a straight. There are 11 of those, giving him about a 41% chance. The turn comes 8. He hits it right away. Our only hope is to pair the board on the river to make a full house, but an ace comes and he takes the pot. Ouch. We lost over 5000, more than half our stack!
Seat 3 raises to 350. Seat 4 and seat 5 call. In seat 6 with 6788 double suited we re-raise to 1000. This is a great hand to play with a lot of players and a big preflop pot. Unfortunately only seat 3 stayed in and he pushed all in with a total of 2400 in chips. We call and he shows AAT7. Not good. The short of it is his AA holds up and we are now short stacked.
Everyone folds to the sb who raises to 400. We call from the BB with 567K (K7s). Flop comes 25J rainbow. He bets 550. We only have about 2000 but we call to see if we can get a second pair on the turn. Turn comes K. - giddey up. Any 2 pair is good heads up, but having the top pair makes is giggly. He bets 700 and we push all in. He calls with 2TQQ. I don't recall the river but it didn't give him a set or a straight so we double up.
The game is moving fast. Half the field is already out. We play a few pre flop hands and fold and find ourselves back at 3000 chips.
Playing 75-150 Seats 3 and 4 limp so we limp with 679J (79J all diamonds). 3 other players limp and six of is see the flop 48T with 4Td. Great flop for us. Seats 3 and 4 check and we bet 600. The player to our left raises to 1800 and everyone folds. There's a fold option and a push option, we are pot committed if we call. We call and he shows 67TT. He has a set. We need a flush (8 outs) or a straight (11 more outs - any 679J or Q not double counting the diamonds). As long as he doesn't hit a boat, we are a favorite with 19 outs. I don't remember the turn or river, only the disappointment as I stood up to leave.
Tomorrow Donkey. Tomorrow.
Two more rounds in. Only a couple big hands to report.
In seat 4 playing 50-100 we raise to 250 with 9JQQ (JQd) and get 4 callers. Pot is 1300 when flop comes rainbow 29Q. Beautiful. We bet 800 and get 2 folds before a pot bet raise of 2900. We have top set, which is huge. Although the bet is scary, the player only has 1100 behind, so this could be as much a bluff as anything or a semi-bluff (like he has a straight draw and an overpair). The final player between us folds and we raise another 1100 to put him all in. That makes the total bet 4800. He shows TJKK. He has a massive straight draw with an overpair. He needs an 8TJ or K for a straight. There are 11 of those, giving him about a 41% chance. The turn comes 8. He hits it right away. Our only hope is to pair the board on the river to make a full house, but an ace comes and he takes the pot. Ouch. We lost over 5000, more than half our stack!
Seat 3 raises to 350. Seat 4 and seat 5 call. In seat 6 with 6788 double suited we re-raise to 1000. This is a great hand to play with a lot of players and a big preflop pot. Unfortunately only seat 3 stayed in and he pushed all in with a total of 2400 in chips. We call and he shows AAT7. Not good. The short of it is his AA holds up and we are now short stacked.
Everyone folds to the sb who raises to 400. We call from the BB with 567K (K7s). Flop comes 25J rainbow. He bets 550. We only have about 2000 but we call to see if we can get a second pair on the turn. Turn comes K. - giddey up. Any 2 pair is good heads up, but having the top pair makes is giggly. He bets 700 and we push all in. He calls with 2TQQ. I don't recall the river but it didn't give him a set or a straight so we double up.
The game is moving fast. Half the field is already out. We play a few pre flop hands and fold and find ourselves back at 3000 chips.
Playing 75-150 Seats 3 and 4 limp so we limp with 679J (79J all diamonds). 3 other players limp and six of is see the flop 48T with 4Td. Great flop for us. Seats 3 and 4 check and we bet 600. The player to our left raises to 1800 and everyone folds. There's a fold option and a push option, we are pot committed if we call. We call and he shows 67TT. He has a set. We need a flush (8 outs) or a straight (11 more outs - any 679J or Q not double counting the diamonds). As long as he doesn't hit a boat, we are a favorite with 19 outs. I don't remember the turn or river, only the disappointment as I stood up to leave.
Tomorrow Donkey. Tomorrow.
PLO
We are playing a rather strange game called pot limit Omaha. It is my favorite game, but too difficult to explain in the hand by hand basis. If you want the rules, go to Wikipedia.
I will just give you a brief update. We started with 3000 chips. In the first two hours we slowly crept up to about 5000. Unlike yesterday's tournament, today's field is weak. Yesterday, there were a few people in the room paying their own admission. Today every table has only a couple of professionals. At this early time in the tournament, that differences enough to allow us an advantage and to do a little domination.
The only Big hand that we played was from the big blind. Playing 25 50, six people Limped in. So when it got to us, there was 350 in the pot. We raised to 300 and 3 of the people folded. We had eight Jack Jack King, with a suited Jack King. This is not a great hand, but with everyone limping, it is probably at least on par. The value of the raise is that now we are playing against equal hands with other people's dead money in the pot.
The flop was about as beautiful as possible. 55 Jack with 2 diamonds. We flopped a full house. We bet 400 and the woman to our left, who was wearing a 2012 wsop bracelet pushes all in!!! Everyone else folds. Crazy. The only hand she beats us with is pocket fives, but that would give her quads and she would not push all in with quads. Instead, she would try to milk more money from us, and everyone else at the table. The push makes no sense in terms of anything dangerous to us. We happily call. She turns over a five and three diamonds. She's playing the flush draw and the set of fives. Our only concern is that she gets the case five on the turn or the river. The turn comes an Ace and the river a nine of diamonds. Of course her flush is irrelevant. We take her money, and she takes her bracelet home.
We end round 2 with 7775 in chips.
War Donkey
I will just give you a brief update. We started with 3000 chips. In the first two hours we slowly crept up to about 5000. Unlike yesterday's tournament, today's field is weak. Yesterday, there were a few people in the room paying their own admission. Today every table has only a couple of professionals. At this early time in the tournament, that differences enough to allow us an advantage and to do a little domination.
The only Big hand that we played was from the big blind. Playing 25 50, six people Limped in. So when it got to us, there was 350 in the pot. We raised to 300 and 3 of the people folded. We had eight Jack Jack King, with a suited Jack King. This is not a great hand, but with everyone limping, it is probably at least on par. The value of the raise is that now we are playing against equal hands with other people's dead money in the pot.
The flop was about as beautiful as possible. 55 Jack with 2 diamonds. We flopped a full house. We bet 400 and the woman to our left, who was wearing a 2012 wsop bracelet pushes all in!!! Everyone else folds. Crazy. The only hand she beats us with is pocket fives, but that would give her quads and she would not push all in with quads. Instead, she would try to milk more money from us, and everyone else at the table. The push makes no sense in terms of anything dangerous to us. We happily call. She turns over a five and three diamonds. She's playing the flush draw and the set of fives. Our only concern is that she gets the case five on the turn or the river. The turn comes an Ace and the river a nine of diamonds. Of course her flush is irrelevant. We take her money, and she takes her bracelet home.
We end round 2 with 7775 in chips.
War Donkey
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Fwd: Aaaaarrrrrrggggghhhhhh
On my way home, very frustrated with myself. I should have known that he had a monster. What else could he have? He could not have a pocket pair less than a queen with what was on the board. Unless of course he had the sixes. He could have had a King Ace, but that's unlikely as i had 2 of the aces. Or King Jack, but my play was way too aggressive for those chances.
More importantly, I had already recognized it as a conservative table. I never should have hoped for action behind me. I should have raised before the flop and knocked out the random hands like 66.
It is, of course, always easier to play a hand after you have seen the cards. However, this was just poor play pre-flop.
F'n Donkey
More importantly, I had already recognized it as a conservative table. I never should have hoped for action behind me. I should have raised before the flop and knocked out the random hands like 66.
It is, of course, always easier to play a hand after you have seen the cards. However, this was just poor play pre-flop.
F'n Donkey
NLH Mix Match rounds 7-8
We are now six hours into the games. Talk to you feeling strong, despite the young herd at home that can disrupt donkey's resting hours. We are playing 500 1,000 with 100 antes. We have the headphones on and the sunglasses rolling as soon as we see our cards.
Our table is broken in their sense worth or table. This is a much tighter table.
In our fourth hand, we are on the button. Seat seven raises to 2500 and we have pocket aces. We raise two 5100. The blinds both fold and seat seven calls. The flop is a 68K rainbow. Beautiful. He could make a set with that, but it is unlikely that he has two pair. He checks and we bet 4000. He calls and the turn comes a two of hearts, completing the rainbow. I could not build a more beautiful board. We bet 12,000 and he calls. The river comes another eight. Although this gives us a great two pair, I have some fear that he has been calling with an 8. He checks. We should probably bet but if he has an 8 he will raise and take all of our money. We check and he turns over King Jack. We take it down with our races.
A few hands later Seat 3 raises to 2500 and we flat call with pocket aces again from Seat 4. We are hoping for action behind us, but all we see are 2 calls, so four of us see the flop, which is a six Queen King with 2 spades. Seat 3 checks. It's unlikely that the callers behind us have QQ or KK but they could have 66 or QK. Those are unlikely and it's best to take this down now so we bet 7500. The button raises to 17000. He could have a broad range of hands but there are only a couple that scare us. We raise to 47000 and he pushes all in. We call. He has 66. The turn is a K. The river another Q. We are headed home.
Problem was falling in love with the aces after letting people get in to the flop cheap. Very frustrated with myself.
El Donkey Sad.
More tomorrow!
Our table is broken in their sense worth or table. This is a much tighter table.
In our fourth hand, we are on the button. Seat seven raises to 2500 and we have pocket aces. We raise two 5100. The blinds both fold and seat seven calls. The flop is a 68K rainbow. Beautiful. He could make a set with that, but it is unlikely that he has two pair. He checks and we bet 4000. He calls and the turn comes a two of hearts, completing the rainbow. I could not build a more beautiful board. We bet 12,000 and he calls. The river comes another eight. Although this gives us a great two pair, I have some fear that he has been calling with an 8. He checks. We should probably bet but if he has an 8 he will raise and take all of our money. We check and he turns over King Jack. We take it down with our races.
A few hands later Seat 3 raises to 2500 and we flat call with pocket aces again from Seat 4. We are hoping for action behind us, but all we see are 2 calls, so four of us see the flop, which is a six Queen King with 2 spades. Seat 3 checks. It's unlikely that the callers behind us have QQ or KK but they could have 66 or QK. Those are unlikely and it's best to take this down now so we bet 7500. The button raises to 17000. He could have a broad range of hands but there are only a couple that scare us. We raise to 47000 and he pushes all in. We call. He has 66. The turn is a K. The river another Q. We are headed home.
Problem was falling in love with the aces after letting people get in to the flop cheap. Very frustrated with myself.
El Donkey Sad.
More tomorrow!
NLH Mix Mat rounds 5-6
Playing 300 600 with 75 antes.
16 minutes into round 5 we put chips into the pot voluntarily for the first time. Seat 4 raises to 1500 and gets called by seats five and the button. We are in the big blind with an ace and a seven and 600 already in front of us. We call for 900 more. The flop comes ace eight seven with two diamonds. It is definitely possible that someone has a straight or flush draw, but we have a monster two pair right now. We check and the original bettor puts in 5000 and gets called by the button. Now it is up to us. Do we slow play? If we do, we will get more action on the turn, but we risk a flush card, the straight card, or a high card, any of which could be a problem for our hand. If someone is playing an ace, a high card could give them two pair beating hours. Right now we are confident we are in the lead. We are also, unfortunately, out of position. We raise to 15,000 and they fold. Again, I would like to get more, but will take the 15,000.
We are back up to a respectable stack - about 65,000.
We wait another 20 minutes to play again, again from the big blind. This time we call a raise to 3300 with an ace three of spades. The flop comes A39 with 2 hearts. We check and the bet comes in for 5000. I don't recall exactly what happened, but we raised and they folded. We may have overplayed that hand, but I don't like being out of position.
The. There was a series if hands i cant recall entirely. Here's my best recollection.
We played the next hand from the small blind with Ace nine of diamonds. The flop had ace and two trash cards. We checked and called the bet of 4300. The turn came Jack. We checked and the bet came 15,000. Our nine is just not strong enough. We fold. The result of these two hands is that we are at about 70,000.
In a late seat we call 1200 with J9. Three of us see the flop come jj7. Fantastic. BB checks and mid seat bets 3300. We call. The BB raises to 10000. This does not make a lot of sense. If he has a jack, he would not want to chase us out. He may take this action with a pair of sevens in his hand, creating a weak full house. There's no straight or flush draw. The mid seat folds, so he does not have a jack! We call and the turn comes 8. Pretty much a rag but now a T gives us a straight. He bets 15200. Huge bet. At this point we are pretty much pot committed when we call the bet. River comes a rag 6 and he checks. He wont call with anything we beat. Our 9 is incredibly weak because a 67 or 8 beat it. We check. He shows 44 and we take the pot down. Huge.
Seat 5 raises to 1300, seat 6 calls and we flat call with AK in seat 7. Seat 8 raises to 5100, not a strange raise size given the amount in the pot, but seat 5 re-raises to 15200. Hmmmm, we have a premium hand and if we beat one of them we probably beat both, so we put the additional 10000 in. Seat 8 pushes all in for 49000 and gets called by seat 5. We lay our premium hand down showing it to the table, and they turn over QQ and AA. Good lay down. The AA takes it and we get our second "good lay down" conciliatory statement from the table.
Now playing 400 800 with a 100 ante. Seat 7 raises to 1600 and gets called by seat 8. We call from the big blind with A8c and see a 368 with 2 diamonds flop. We bet 3500 and seat 7 calls. The turn is a 2h. Excellent. We bet 11000 and he calls. River comes 7d. Hmmmm. Don't like the diamond. We check and he checks. We show top pair with top kicker and he shows KK to take the pot down. Really didn't see that coming.
We are back at 66000.
We see a couple flops but no turns and get chipped away to about 61000.
Seat 6 raises to 2100 and we call from the button with 8Jd. Flop comes 6TK rainbow. He checks and we prod with 3400. He folds and we happily pick it up.
We close the round with 63000. Well, that is certainly an improvement from where we started round five. Hopefully we will continue on this track and have more to report in a couple of hours.
All the best,
El Burro
16 minutes into round 5 we put chips into the pot voluntarily for the first time. Seat 4 raises to 1500 and gets called by seats five and the button. We are in the big blind with an ace and a seven and 600 already in front of us. We call for 900 more. The flop comes ace eight seven with two diamonds. It is definitely possible that someone has a straight or flush draw, but we have a monster two pair right now. We check and the original bettor puts in 5000 and gets called by the button. Now it is up to us. Do we slow play? If we do, we will get more action on the turn, but we risk a flush card, the straight card, or a high card, any of which could be a problem for our hand. If someone is playing an ace, a high card could give them two pair beating hours. Right now we are confident we are in the lead. We are also, unfortunately, out of position. We raise to 15,000 and they fold. Again, I would like to get more, but will take the 15,000.
We are back up to a respectable stack - about 65,000.
We wait another 20 minutes to play again, again from the big blind. This time we call a raise to 3300 with an ace three of spades. The flop comes A39 with 2 hearts. We check and the bet comes in for 5000. I don't recall exactly what happened, but we raised and they folded. We may have overplayed that hand, but I don't like being out of position.
The. There was a series if hands i cant recall entirely. Here's my best recollection.
We played the next hand from the small blind with Ace nine of diamonds. The flop had ace and two trash cards. We checked and called the bet of 4300. The turn came Jack. We checked and the bet came 15,000. Our nine is just not strong enough. We fold. The result of these two hands is that we are at about 70,000.
In a late seat we call 1200 with J9. Three of us see the flop come jj7. Fantastic. BB checks and mid seat bets 3300. We call. The BB raises to 10000. This does not make a lot of sense. If he has a jack, he would not want to chase us out. He may take this action with a pair of sevens in his hand, creating a weak full house. There's no straight or flush draw. The mid seat folds, so he does not have a jack! We call and the turn comes 8. Pretty much a rag but now a T gives us a straight. He bets 15200. Huge bet. At this point we are pretty much pot committed when we call the bet. River comes a rag 6 and he checks. He wont call with anything we beat. Our 9 is incredibly weak because a 67 or 8 beat it. We check. He shows 44 and we take the pot down. Huge.
Seat 5 raises to 1300, seat 6 calls and we flat call with AK in seat 7. Seat 8 raises to 5100, not a strange raise size given the amount in the pot, but seat 5 re-raises to 15200. Hmmmm, we have a premium hand and if we beat one of them we probably beat both, so we put the additional 10000 in. Seat 8 pushes all in for 49000 and gets called by seat 5. We lay our premium hand down showing it to the table, and they turn over QQ and AA. Good lay down. The AA takes it and we get our second "good lay down" conciliatory statement from the table.
Now playing 400 800 with a 100 ante. Seat 7 raises to 1600 and gets called by seat 8. We call from the big blind with A8c and see a 368 with 2 diamonds flop. We bet 3500 and seat 7 calls. The turn is a 2h. Excellent. We bet 11000 and he calls. River comes 7d. Hmmmm. Don't like the diamond. We check and he checks. We show top pair with top kicker and he shows KK to take the pot down. Really didn't see that coming.
We are back at 66000.
We see a couple flops but no turns and get chipped away to about 61000.
Seat 6 raises to 2100 and we call from the button with 8Jd. Flop comes 6TK rainbow. He checks and we prod with 3400. He folds and we happily pick it up.
We close the round with 63000. Well, that is certainly an improvement from where we started round five. Hopefully we will continue on this track and have more to report in a couple of hours.
All the best,
El Burro
Fwd: NLH mlMix Match rounds 3-4
All the best,
Eric Kurtzman
Sent from my iPhone
Begin forwarded message:
From: Eric Kurtzman <eric@skywell.com>
Date: May 27, 2014 at 8:29:17 PM PDT
Subject: NLH mlMix Match rounds 3-4
Date: May 27, 2014 at 8:29:17 PM PDT
Subject: NLH mlMix Match rounds 3-4
Playing 200 400 with 50 antes.
Played way too many hands last 2 rounds so decide to slow down.
We win one and lose one and the. Get moved from our table to a new table. Doesn't really matter. There's nothing but pros in the room and they all know each other and they know I'm the outsider. Beware the hooves.
Everyone folds to us in seat seven with an ace seven of hearts. We raise 1300 and get called by the small blind. The flop comes 23k. No hearts. He checks can we check. The turn comes king and he bets 500; we raise to 2200. He calls. The river comes the nine of hearts. He checks and we bet 4000. He folds. He may have had a worse nothing than we did.
We have AJ h in seat 3 and raise to 1100 and get 3 callers. Flop comes 38T w 2 hearts. Sweet. We bet 2200. Bb raises to 8000. Unless he has a set, we are in the lead. Even if he has a 10, any ace, Jack or heart, of which there are a total of 15, is a winner for us. We are assuming based on the previous play that he does not have pocket jacks queens kings or aces. We raise to 16,000 and he calls. Although we are in the lead, we do not have a made hand, this is still a good turn of events. Plus we are in position. Turn Comes Kc. Now a q is good too. He checks. If he doesn't have a K, we now have 18 winning cards in the deck. Push could win but he could be trapping w a set. Plus we only have the river left to his a winning card. We check and river comes 6d. Terrible. He bets and we fold. Big loss.
We slowly lose down to 35,000 in chips. A very aggressive player on the button raises to 1300 and we call from the small blind with pocket sevens. The big blind raises to 5200 and the button calls. It's 3900 to is. This only makes sense if we believe that we will make about 30,000 if we flop a 7. There's already over 10,000 in there, so we call. The flop comes six, seven, Jack. Fantastic that we got a seven. However, they are all diamonds. If another D comes on the turn or the river, we are dead. Also, none of the diamonds will pair the board, so they will not give us a full house. Perhaps even more unfortunately, we are in the small blind and must play before they do. So, we cannot wait to see what they do. If we check, and they check, they will get a free look to see if they get another time. With a pot of over 15,000, any real bet from us is the equivalent of an all in. So we bet 25,000. They both fold. I would love to have made more money on that pot but I am happy to pick up the 10,000.
We play a few more hands, but nothing big and we end the rounds with 47,000 chips. Not great, but we are still alive with almost 2/3 of what we started with.
On a sidenote, my current table has two people with bracelets and one who was the player of the year a few years back even though he did not want to bracelet. Not sure how that works.
More in a couple hours. And by more, I'm suggesting more chips.
El Donkey
Played way too many hands last 2 rounds so decide to slow down.
We win one and lose one and the. Get moved from our table to a new table. Doesn't really matter. There's nothing but pros in the room and they all know each other and they know I'm the outsider. Beware the hooves.
Everyone folds to us in seat seven with an ace seven of hearts. We raise 1300 and get called by the small blind. The flop comes 23k. No hearts. He checks can we check. The turn comes king and he bets 500; we raise to 2200. He calls. The river comes the nine of hearts. He checks and we bet 4000. He folds. He may have had a worse nothing than we did.
We have AJ h in seat 3 and raise to 1100 and get 3 callers. Flop comes 38T w 2 hearts. Sweet. We bet 2200. Bb raises to 8000. Unless he has a set, we are in the lead. Even if he has a 10, any ace, Jack or heart, of which there are a total of 15, is a winner for us. We are assuming based on the previous play that he does not have pocket jacks queens kings or aces. We raise to 16,000 and he calls. Although we are in the lead, we do not have a made hand, this is still a good turn of events. Plus we are in position. Turn Comes Kc. Now a q is good too. He checks. If he doesn't have a K, we now have 18 winning cards in the deck. Push could win but he could be trapping w a set. Plus we only have the river left to his a winning card. We check and river comes 6d. Terrible. He bets and we fold. Big loss.
We slowly lose down to 35,000 in chips. A very aggressive player on the button raises to 1300 and we call from the small blind with pocket sevens. The big blind raises to 5200 and the button calls. It's 3900 to is. This only makes sense if we believe that we will make about 30,000 if we flop a 7. There's already over 10,000 in there, so we call. The flop comes six, seven, Jack. Fantastic that we got a seven. However, they are all diamonds. If another D comes on the turn or the river, we are dead. Also, none of the diamonds will pair the board, so they will not give us a full house. Perhaps even more unfortunately, we are in the small blind and must play before they do. So, we cannot wait to see what they do. If we check, and they check, they will get a free look to see if they get another time. With a pot of over 15,000, any real bet from us is the equivalent of an all in. So we bet 25,000. They both fold. I would love to have made more money on that pot but I am happy to pick up the 10,000.
We play a few more hands, but nothing big and we end the rounds with 47,000 chips. Not great, but we are still alive with almost 2/3 of what we started with.
On a sidenote, my current table has two people with bracelets and one who was the player of the year a few years back even though he did not want to bracelet. Not sure how that works.
More in a couple hours. And by more, I'm suggesting more chips.
El Donkey
NLH Mix Match
And so entereth the Donkey.
Walking through the strangely well lit dark halls of the Rio, heart palpitating, hooves beating in an awkward cadence, let the games begin.
We start this season with an odd no limit hold 'em tournament. It is a mix match, meaning that we playing nine handed in day one, then six handed in the two, four handed into three and heads up in the final day.
We start with 75,000 in chips playing 150 300.
We are in S4 with 78c and raise to 800 with 3 callers. 26k flops with w one spade. We. Have nothing so we check. Two players behind us check and the last bettor bets 1200 to steal the pot. Now our nothing looks better so we Check raise to 2400. He calls. 5s turns and we bet 4200 hoping he will fold. We now have an open ended straight draw but the odds of hitting that on the river are less than 20%. He calls. 9s rivers giving us a straight. There's a flush on the board now but highly unlikely he has it. We bet 9200. He calls and our a straight wins the first big pot.
We are in the Bb w 6j. 4 bets 800 and the button calls. We call. Flop 68k w 2s. We check and s4 bets 1700. We call to see the turn. It's a 9 - no good. We Check. He bets 4200. Fold.
In S6 a5c we raise to 800 and bb calls. 89j flops and we bet 800 and he calls. J turns and we bet 1600 and he calls. T rivers. He has not accepted our bluff w ace high and now he bets 5000 and we fold. 89tj on field. Unlikely our ace has any chance.
S3 bets 800 and we call from the Sb w TQ and flop 7qq. Everyone checks and turn 6. We Bet 1150 on our set and both call - excellent. River 4 and we bet 4000. S3 calls w JQ - his j kicker beats our T and he takes it Down.
Seat 4 raises. We Call 800 in s6 w8jd. 7 calls and button raises to 3600. 4 calls. Pot odds are huge. We call and so does 7. Flop comes 46q. All hearts. Check around to 7 who bets 5800 and all fold.
We Raise to 800 w TJd in 4. 5 calls and 6 raises to 3400. He smells weakness. We raise to 8400 and everyone folds. Nice.
S3 min raise to 6 and 8 players inc us in bb call. We have 46 but for 300 lets see the flop. Flop 78j. All check to 6 who bets 3700. May be a purchase. All fold to us and we raise to 7500 to find out. He calls. Turn miracle 5 for a straight and bet 8000. He pushes all in. Strange. Huge over bet. He must be afraid i have a set which means he has a straight or he's making a huge bluff to win 30k. 69 or 9t beat us. In light of the cheap entry he could have either. We fold. He says he had the nuts. Believable, but huge loss. All we got was a complement for a good fold.
3 bets 800 and we call from 5 w aa. 7 calls and rainbow flops 27k. 3 checks and we bet 1200. 7 raises to 4300. He Wouldn't pound a set that way and cant have 2 pair with that board. No straight or flush draw. We are in the lead but turn could hit him. We raise to 9300 and he folds.
In s5 we have KK. S3 bets 800 4 raises to 2200. We want to know if he has aa and we want to push out the straggling aces (eg AJ). We raise to 4400 and s4 calls. Flop 2ta. Terrible. He checks. We check. He could be slow playing an A. Turn comes k. Godfrey-up. He checks and we bet 5000. He calls and river comes j. A q gives him a straight. He checks and we check to avoid a re-raise that would force us to fold. He shows TJ for 2 pair and we take it with the set of Ks.
We close the round with 71,500 and chips. Not bad considering huge destruction we took on a big hand. We start up again in 15 minutes.
Hopefully will be two hours before you hear from me again. Until then, Your Donkey.
Walking through the strangely well lit dark halls of the Rio, heart palpitating, hooves beating in an awkward cadence, let the games begin.
We start this season with an odd no limit hold 'em tournament. It is a mix match, meaning that we playing nine handed in day one, then six handed in the two, four handed into three and heads up in the final day.
We start with 75,000 in chips playing 150 300.
We are in S4 with 78c and raise to 800 with 3 callers. 26k flops with w one spade. We. Have nothing so we check. Two players behind us check and the last bettor bets 1200 to steal the pot. Now our nothing looks better so we Check raise to 2400. He calls. 5s turns and we bet 4200 hoping he will fold. We now have an open ended straight draw but the odds of hitting that on the river are less than 20%. He calls. 9s rivers giving us a straight. There's a flush on the board now but highly unlikely he has it. We bet 9200. He calls and our a straight wins the first big pot.
We are in the Bb w 6j. 4 bets 800 and the button calls. We call. Flop 68k w 2s. We check and s4 bets 1700. We call to see the turn. It's a 9 - no good. We Check. He bets 4200. Fold.
In S6 a5c we raise to 800 and bb calls. 89j flops and we bet 800 and he calls. J turns and we bet 1600 and he calls. T rivers. He has not accepted our bluff w ace high and now he bets 5000 and we fold. 89tj on field. Unlikely our ace has any chance.
S3 bets 800 and we call from the Sb w TQ and flop 7qq. Everyone checks and turn 6. We Bet 1150 on our set and both call - excellent. River 4 and we bet 4000. S3 calls w JQ - his j kicker beats our T and he takes it Down.
Seat 4 raises. We Call 800 in s6 w8jd. 7 calls and button raises to 3600. 4 calls. Pot odds are huge. We call and so does 7. Flop comes 46q. All hearts. Check around to 7 who bets 5800 and all fold.
We Raise to 800 w TJd in 4. 5 calls and 6 raises to 3400. He smells weakness. We raise to 8400 and everyone folds. Nice.
S3 min raise to 6 and 8 players inc us in bb call. We have 46 but for 300 lets see the flop. Flop 78j. All check to 6 who bets 3700. May be a purchase. All fold to us and we raise to 7500 to find out. He calls. Turn miracle 5 for a straight and bet 8000. He pushes all in. Strange. Huge over bet. He must be afraid i have a set which means he has a straight or he's making a huge bluff to win 30k. 69 or 9t beat us. In light of the cheap entry he could have either. We fold. He says he had the nuts. Believable, but huge loss. All we got was a complement for a good fold.
3 bets 800 and we call from 5 w aa. 7 calls and rainbow flops 27k. 3 checks and we bet 1200. 7 raises to 4300. He Wouldn't pound a set that way and cant have 2 pair with that board. No straight or flush draw. We are in the lead but turn could hit him. We raise to 9300 and he folds.
In s5 we have KK. S3 bets 800 4 raises to 2200. We want to know if he has aa and we want to push out the straggling aces (eg AJ). We raise to 4400 and s4 calls. Flop 2ta. Terrible. He checks. We check. He could be slow playing an A. Turn comes k. Godfrey-up. He checks and we bet 5000. He calls and river comes j. A q gives him a straight. He checks and we check to avoid a re-raise that would force us to fold. He shows TJ for 2 pair and we take it with the set of Ks.
We close the round with 71,500 and chips. Not bad considering huge destruction we took on a big hand. We start up again in 15 minutes.
Hopefully will be two hours before you hear from me again. Until then, Your Donkey.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
WSOP '14 Is Upon Us
Dear Herd,
The long-awaited season is upon us and it's time to wake up the blog site. If you're getting this, you're all set. If you're not getting this, then you should find some way to learn that you should have gotten this and then go to enterthedonkey.blogspot.com to make sure you don't miss the next update.
Donkey is in the zen space of preparation. It would take too long to list all 130 songs on the iTunes play list this year, but here's a list of the artists for those interested:
- Adam Lambert
- Adele
- Asia
- Audiogroove
- Az Yet
- Bell Biv DeVoe
- Billy Joel
- Black Eyed Peas
- Blue October
- Britney Spears
- Bruno Mars
- Buck Cherry
- Carly Rae Jespen
- Cassie
- Christina Aguilera
- Craig David
- Daughtry
- David Bowie
- David Guetta
- Diddy
- Donna Summer
- Eminem
- Flo Rida
- Florida Georgia Line
- Frankie Valle
- Glen Madieiros
- Gotye
- Guns N' Roses
- Gym Class héros
- Hinder
- Hugh Grant
- India.Arie
- Iyaz
- Jason Derulo
- Jason Weaver
- Jay Sean
- Joe
- John Legend
- Justin Timberlake
- Kanye West
- Katy Perry
- Ke$ha
- Kenny Rodgers
- Kevin Rudolf
- Kid Rock
- Kris Allen
- Lady Gaga
- Lodestar
- Maroon 5
- Matchbox 20
- Matt Nathanson
- Michael Jackson
- Miley Cirus
- My Chemical Romance
- 'N-Sync
- Ne-yo
- Neil Diamond
- One Republic
- Pink
- Passenger
- Puddle of Mud
- The Pussycat Dolls
- Rehab
- Rihanna
- Robin Thicke
- Ruffus Wainwright
- Runner Runner
- Samuel E. Wright
- Scouting For Girls
- The Script
- Sebastian Bach
- Shaggy
- Shontelle
- Spose
- Staind
- T-/Pain
- Three Days Grace
- Timbaland
- Toby Keith
- Train
- Ugly Kid Joe
- Uncle Kracker
- Usher
- Van Halen
- 3 Doors Down
- 50 Cent
- 702
It's a pretty broad stretch from Disney songs and Hugh Grant all the way to Guns N' Roses and 50 Cent. Should keep us awake. We will launch in either May 27 or May 28. Until then,
All the best,
Your Donkey
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