A Tough Battle Back To Even For Naught

Tuesday night consisted of a fun trip to Winstar with my brother Bart and cousin Clint. We were initially seated all at different tables, but because of a reckless player at Clint’s game, he moved next to me after about two hours. We played a total of six hours and the big winner for the night was Bart. He walked away with four dollars of profit.

After borrowing $50 from Bart, I was in the hole at one point for $310, but I fought my way back to even at about five hours into the night and was even profiting at one point after that. However, my night would end at a $130 loss after paying Bart back his short-term loan.

A few hands stuck out during the night, but not any like the one that took me from the black to the red for the evening. We will save that for the end, not just to create some suspense but because it was my last hand of interest for the evening.

Things started off slow with me not playing many hands for a half an hour or so. I was simply waiting to see what kind of table I was at and wanted to make my money last as long as possible. Eventually I decided to open up a bit and start playing a few more speculative starting hands. After starting with $180, I went up and down a little bit briefly and then lost with a small straight and two pair. That put me down at about $110, which is when this particular hand took place.

I was in the small blind and after four people and the big blind had their two dollars in the pot, I looked down to see two red kings. I am one of those people who like to disguise good hands while in the blinds because you are just expected to have crap when sitting one or two to the left of the dealer. It is sort of like when a person straddles every time they are given the opportunity; you never give the guy respect for occasionally running into a good hand when blindly raising it to four dollars pre-flop.

With that said, holding kings against five opponents is not something I’m interested in disguising. I wanted to whittle down the competition some. So I put in a raise to $10 total. I got two callers, both having more than me. The pot was at about $35.

The flop was J-7-5 with two clubs. I led out immediately for $25. The next opponent, who had about $400 and had been making pot-sized bets with both good hands and complete bluffs, made it $80 to play. The next player folded and it came back to me. The call was essentially an all in for me and I made it. Sure enough, I ran into a set of fives and had to reach for my last $80 when I didn’t catch up.

A big hole in my game lately is not folding overpairs to the board when they are beat. I used to be able to fold aces in the face of big flop bets from opponents and it would be the correct move a majority of the time. But ever since coming back from my poker hiatus, I just haven’t been able to continue that trend. Instead, I have called off all my money with an overpair in five of the last seven games I’ve logged losses, with those hands being the main reason for the losses.

My next failed hand was actually one that was a winner, but I missed out on an additional $55 in winnings. I held pocket jacks and after a raise pre-flop I hit top set. I led out against my one opponent after he checked to me. I bet half the pot, which was a $12 bet. I was overjoyed when he raised me $30 on top. This raise left my opponent with $55. After being check-raised on a J-6-2 board, I figured he had to have top pair with an ace or a lower set. It was the only hands that made sense after he called a pre-flop raise.

If my assessment was correct, then a re-raise to put him all in wouldn’t be too far-fetched. He likely had a big hand that he wouldn’t fold. Although that thinking is sound, there was absolutely no need to re-raise because in all likelihood he would go all in or bet something close to it on the turn if I called. And nothing on that board was scary enough to worry me about slow-playing my top set to the turn by simply calling. My move to re-raise was just a flat mistake because I got moneybags in my eyes thinking about all the money I would make with my hand.

So when I put the guy all in and he folded after thinking for a long time and showing a jack, I was devastated. All I had considered was getting all the kids money with my great hand and I didn’t think about the best way to do it.

And now to my third and final failure for the night.

This one was not my fault at all. Well, except maybe a questionably loose call pre-flop. It was just one of those hands that would likely play out the way it did no matter what I did after calling pre-flop and all I could do was control how small or large the pot ended up.

I had 3-4 of spades in the big blind. After a call from the table’s chip leader, another player who had me covered raised it to $7. It folded around to me and I decided to play along. The idea was if I hit the flush or straight it was well-disguised. The chip leader also called and it ended up with the three of us seeing a flop. The pot had $20 in it.

The flop was A-10-6 of spades. And boom goes the dynamite. I checked with the full intent to raise the pot when the raiser made his continuation bet. The chip leader also checked and the original raiser bet $15. I raised it to $50 straight, not wanting to be drawn out on if someone is holding a spade. The chip leader folded and the original raiser called after some consideration. There was now $120 in the pot.

The turn was the 10 of hearts. So the board consists of As-10s-6s-10h. I wasn’t that scared of a full house, but should my opponent be holding a 10 then the possibility of beating me with a full house just got greater. I led out with a bet of $75. It is large enough that a call simply to hit a higher flush than me is incorrect, but it is small enough that you might think I was trying to bully the bettor out on the flop and I had to make another big bet on the turn since my bluff earlier hadn’t worked. The guy made a lot of chatter about whether he should call and he finally said, “Okay, I’ll call in case you are bluffing.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that speech, because usually that means you are already dominated.

However, it didn’t matter what he was going to talk about because the river killed my hand. It was the jack of spades, putting four spades on the board and making my 4 of spades practically useless. I checked and thought I heard the other guy immediately check. The dealer told me he was simply asking, “He check?” and not making a declaration. The guy then bet $100. I knew I was beat.

My opponent continued chatting about the hand, making claims that I was being too serious about the hand, to which I said it was a lot of money at stake. While he may not have cared about a $465 pot (which is what it would have been had I called), it was very important to me. I finally folded and showed my trumped flush. He then showed his ace of clubs and king of spades.

So he had a pair on the flop and a flush draw the entire way, which is why I think I could have pushed everything I had on the flop and he would have called with his hand. Who knows though? It may just be another hand that I played poorly.

Poker Entry No. 2 Updated

To continue transferring poker posts from my other blog, here is the second entry where I will be looking at the way I played in the past and deciding whether I would play the same hand a different way or not. So here we go.

The next record comes from October 6, 2004 and is labeled “Poker Entry No. 2." The date of the actual game was from October 2, 2004. There were 13 players at an entry fee of $10. Rebuys were not allowed and I ended up placing 5th, resulting in no money won.

Begin original text:

This game was at Mike Steed's house. I enjoyed playing with them and had a good time. There were a couple of incredibly stupid people, however we will keep names to ourselves (I actually can still recall who these knuckleheads were). I only made two mistakes at this game. One was an incredibly stupid mistake. We will start with the second and more crushing mistake.

Second mistake: Two hands before my exit I had very little money and tried bluffing at someone who was a call station. I'm not really sure what I was thinking. I had limped in to see the flop with A-6 offsuit. I didn't hit anything and we both checked it on the flop. I decided to try and win the pot on the turn and he called my bet. I only had $14 left, with blinds being $4-8. I decided to fold when he bet on the river and I went all in two hands later when I was the big blind (With so few details about the hand it is really impossible to give an updated opinion on the play).

Lesson #1: I shouldn't have bluffed the guy. I knew he would call me.

First mistake: My first mistake was a miscalculated judgment. I had K-J suited and raised $8 when blinds were $1-2. Mike went all in for another $9.50. I didn't want to call and I should have folded it, but I already put $10 in the pot and didn't want to see it go away so easily. In addition, I was the chip leader at our table and could lose another $9 without it being terribly hard hitting (Raising the blind five times was definitely the mistake and had it been less then you could have gotten away from the all-in move more easily).

Lesson #2: I shouldn't have raised so much and I could have gotten away from the hand easier.

Poker Entry No. 1 Updated

Since I haven’t played cards very much lately, I haven’t had a reason to post anything new on this blog. So I decided, since the game of poker can always be improved upon by a player, I would go back to poker posts on my other blog from several years ago and post them here. However, in addition to the historical posts from 2004 and later, I will also include my thoughts about the play of my past self from the current self. The present day commentary will be in parenthesis. I have also fixed grammatical errors and made a few style changes. So let’s begin.

Our first entry comes from October 5, 2004 and is labeled “Poker Entry No. 1” (real original Matt). The date of the actual game was from September 25, 2004. There were 30 players at an entry fee of $30. Rebuys were not allowed and I ended up placing 17th, resulting in no money won.

Begin original text:

I played great in this game (Why don’t you let the experts decide that). I was playing tight, but aggressive. I hadn’t lost a showdown for two hours. After a while, I had a lot of table respect. However, I made one mistake that led to two more mistakes.

First mistake: I had 8-7 suited. I had limped in to see a flop. The flop was 10-6-5. There were two spades on the board. I didn’t have spades. The big blind checked it. I checked. The old man behind me checked (Got a free turn, so I can’t really criticize that; a bet might have won the hand there since nothing higher than a ten was showing, but I can’t criticize the timid play with nothing but a draw at this point). The turn was a queen. Big blind checked. I started to think about my options. I could check and hope to see a free card, however, if I didn’t get the straight I was probably going to lose (You think Captain Obvious?). As I was thinking, the old man behind me wasn’t paying attention and thought it was on him. He said check. The dealer asked if he could proceed. I said I hadn’t decided what to do. I chose to take a stab at taking the pot down right there (I approve). I bet $4,000. This was about four times the amount of the big blind (From deducing what the big blind is and how many players there were, I am guessing the pot had about $3,500 before the $4,000 bet). It also left me with about $15,000. The old man called. I put him on a flush draw. The big blind folded. The last card was a blank. It helped neither of us, if I was correct on his flush draw. I knew he hadn’t made his hand, but I was too scared to bet half of my stack, which is about how much it would take to get the guy out if I was correct (It is going to be pretty hard for someone to call a second bet with nothing once the flush doesn’t come on the river, even if they do have a high card; plus, betting is the only way to win that hand with eight high). I went against my better judgment and didn’t bet. He checked also and flipped over A-8 of spades. He was on the flush draw, just like I thought. This burned me up that I went against my first thought.

Lesson #1: Trust your judgment. Your first thought is usually the right move.

Second mistake: I have J-10 offsuit. I usually limp with this hand, but the blinds were $1,000-2,000 and I only had $15,000 left. I also was steaming a bit from the previous hand. I wanted to play it so bad, but I went against my first thought and threw it away (That was the best play you could have made). A pair of jacks would have taken the pot. I was not as upset about this mistake as I was about the first (I wouldn’t call this a mistake; you made the right decision to fold).

Lesson #2: Don’t let past hands affect your play on a new hand (Again, made the right play; calling or raising would have been unwise with so few chips left).

Third mistake: My final mistake sent me out of the tournament (usually how it works moron). The guy after the big blind went all in pre-flop. I had a feeling he was pretty confident with his hand. I looked at my cards and saw pocket jacks. Usually I am fairly excited when I have pocket jacks. It is a good hand and mostly has to be outdrawn with a queen, king or ace to be beaten. However, for some unknown reason I wasn’t too thrilled about having it (Maybe because your tournament life depended on this hand). I pondered the call, because the guy went all in with more chips than me ­– about $7,000 more. I had a feeling I was beat, yet against my better judgment I called. The guy flipped over kings. I had to outdraw the guy and I didn’t (Can you really consider this a mistake when it was probably the only thing you could do; are you going to just sit around and be blinded out waiting for aces to come).

Lesson #3: If you know your beat, and you don’t have many outs, fold the hand (Not necessarily true).

Three times I knew I should do something and I went against that feeling. That is why I lost the tournament (You really only lost because the first mistake led to circumstances that forced the other plays and shouldn’t be considered mistakes).