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.