StudioGlyphic

Category: Poker

  • Shuffle up and deal

    My new toy from eBay:

    For you LA types who don’t mind driving to pick up an eBay item, the seller’s located in El Monte.

  • David Ross is your hero too

    If you haven’t been following David Ross’ journey as a professional online poker player (and to be honest, I’m not going to go trolling the bulletin boards when Iggy can do it for me), check out his post for week 49 on the 2+2 Forums:

    I’m not sure how much of my win rate comes from hands like this, but it’s not insignificant. My opponent in this hand has been pretty wild already. I open raise with KhQd in the cutoff. The button cold calls and both blinds fold. Flop is Kc 9s 7c. I bet and he calls again. Turn is the Kd. I bet, he raises, I 3 bet and he caps it. River is 4h. I check, he bets and I call. He has As 2c?????? Is this just a function of watching no-limit tournaments on TV and thinking they can run the big bluff?

    This is the hand that convinced me to go back to my Dr. Pepper. UTG limps, and I limp behind him with 4c 4s. Button and small blind limp as well and the BB checks. The flop is Ts 5s 4h. Checked to me and I bet. Button calls and SB check-raises. BB calls 2 cold, UTG folds and I smooth call, fairly certain there will be a bet and a call on the turn allowing me to get a nice raise on the turn if no spade comes. Button calls behind me. Turn is 8d. Unfortunately both blinds check. I bet and get called by all 3. River is Js. Argh. I’ve put at least one of the blinds on spades. They both check and I check too. Button bets out, SB folds and the BB raises. There is $133 in the pot and I have to put up $20 more. I fold and the button calls. The BB had J4 and the button had J8, the J made both of them 2 pair. There are a few different ways I could have played this, but the bottom line is how often will the river fold be a good one as oppsed to missing out on 13 BB’s?

    And in case you were wondering, yes, he’s playing tables at 10 times my limit. Don’t rub it in.

    This, of course, is where the profit and loss come from:

    I think this is the biggest 5/10 6max pot I’ve ever won. 2 limpers to me on the button. I have Kc 9d and I limp too. Both blinds play as well. Flop is Qh Js Td. UTG bets and the cutoff raises. I 3 bet ( no fooling around withthis flop), and the SB caps it. BB folds but everyone else calls. Turn is 8s. SB bets, UTG raises (a 9 I hope), CO calls 2 cold and I 3 bet. SB calls 2 cold (2 pair I’m guessing), UTG caps it (definitely a 9…I hope. Would he limp with AK?) and we all call again. Don’t pair the board I start chanting. River is the 2d. Checked all the way to me. I’m surprised UTG let it go after capping the turn, but I bet. All 3 call. UTG had K3o. He was pushing his 1 card open ender pretty hard. CO had QJ and was caught in the middle the whole way. SB had 98 for a flopped wroing end of the straight. Pot was $303.

    I’ve been on all sides of that table.

  • Headache

    Around the same time that I met me old boss for lunch, I developed a bad headache that got progressively worse as Thursday afternoon went on. So bad, in fact, that I almost didn’t want to play poker. Still, I had a little bit of time to kill before having to go work on a group project. I fired up Empire and figured I’d try to get a premium hand, make a killing, and leave.

    First hand in, everyone folded to the big blind, so I got my blind back plus interest. Second hand ate the interest and got thrown out. Hands three and four were also tossed. The flop on number four would have given me two pair, kings and sevens. I went upstairs to get some stuff for the group project.

    When I came down, it was my action for hand number five, and I was looking at pocket rockets and a raise from the guy to the left of the big blind. Two people had folded to his raise, and I quickly re-raised, hoping that Empire wouldn’t time me out in that split second it took to hit “raise.” The raise went through and two more people folded. SB, BB, and raiser called. I noted that the previous hand had been won with a set of fours, and hoped my Aces would hold up.

    Flop came up J-3-2 rainbow. So far, so good. You never know with fish, and I wasn’t sure if these were fish. The raiser definitely wasn’t, as near as I could tell. The other two… I don’t know. But all three callers checked to me, so I bet, SB folded, and BB and raiser called.

    Turn came up 5H, which ruled out any runner runner flushes, but made a low straight or fishy two pair a distinct possibility. Still, both my opponents checked to me, so I bet again, and watched the BB call and the raiser fold.

    River came up 9. BB checked, I bet, BB called. I still had my rockets, and BB had… Ace ten suited? He decided to pay an additional dollar on top of his three dollars to play for high card? With his hand, I don’t think I would have seen the flop with two raises before me, BB be damned. After that flop, I definitely would not have called.

    Looking at the brief history on this guy, it seems that he’ll see 4 of every 5 flops. This is why people love Party. Some people will play any two cards and never know when they’re beat.

    Anyway, the rest of the hands for that round were junk (with the exception of a pair of 8s that flopped two overcards), so I bailed with my $6.50 profit and salivated over the 72BB/100 hands stat I had achieved in those 9 minutes. After I got back from my group project meeting, my head still hurt and I was ready for bed. Up $6.50 for the day.

    Wednesday was more typical. 4.37 hours of game time (versus .15) with some nice profits, which weren’t so typical. I won $52.75 combined at 5 of the 9 tables I played, lost $7.50 combined at 3 tables, and broke even on the ninth, giving me a net gain of $45.25 at a rate of 17.01BB/100 hands. At this point I would like to thank Travel Channel and the World Poker Tour for making all of this possible.

  • Lunchtime tournament

    I’d read somewhere that lots of people try to squeeze in a tournament during their lunch hour, so I decided to give it a try. It lasted about 50 minutes or so, and I ended up in second, netting $19.

    Not bad.

  • SNGs

    Played five Sit N Go, single table tournaments today. Afternoons at the limit tables haven’t been my strong suit, so I decided to play the tournaments. Came in 2nd and 3rd in two of the first three, and felt pretty good. Then I lost the rest, sometimes quite early, giving me an overall loss of $5. Did I have $5 worth of entertainment? Sure. Would I rather have the $17 I netted after tourney 3? You bet your ass.

    Time for class. Back to the .5/1 tables tonight.