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