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.