Now that I have gone through Tuesday's session in some detail, I guess it's time to talk about Wednesday. I won't do a hand for hand analysis here as I think a general review of the session will serve my purposes just fine and the bottom line is I just don't have the time to go through it all that thoroughly.

Last Wednesday, like I do almost every Wednesday, I went to one of the local clubs to play in a 60$ NL Freezeout Tournament. I had a rough go at the tourney and finally busted out on a hand when the BB left the table and the action folded to the button who was hyper aggressive and had accumulated the chip lead. He raised to 250 with the blinds at 40/80 and I pushed my last 1200 in with AQ off suit. I figured he was stealing so I thought it was a good time to pick up some chips. He called me with KT suited. He said he figured I was trying to re-steal and I could have any two cards which is generally true, except against a LAG chip leader I'm not gonna pull a move with garbage. I know there's a better chance I will be called by him than if I was against a tighter player with fewer chips. Anyway, King hits the flop and I don't catch up. So, I bust out early and hop into the cash game.

As usual this was a 10-handed 1$/2$ NL Holdem game. I had a rough go of it as well. One guy in particular just had my number. On a board of 3-9-4-9-8 rainbow I had J9 and he had pocket 3s. Then on a board of Q-8-2-8-J, I had QJ and he had 8T. I also had to fold a low straight when it became clear I was beat. And with pocket Kings I called a raise from the SB and ended up in a 3 way pot with the original raiser and the BB. The flop came Ace high. I checked. The preflop raiser bet and the caller raised. I folded.

So, after all this, my original 200$ buy-in had eroded down to 85$ and I was a little frustrated. I got impatient and when an EP player made it 7$ to go and got 4 callers, I moved in from the SB with AJ suited. I got called in two spots by AQ and TT. The tens held. People have a hard time folding in this game and I shouldn't make moves like that. On the other hand, I think a pro might figure me for a move in that spot and call me with a less than premium hand too. So, it was a bad play on my part. I need a tight weak table to pull stuff like that. This game is loose-weak and I should know better.

I re-bought and built my stack up slowly. Then I won a hand by turning a straight with 63 off suit. Not a hand I usually play but I was in position against a raiser who tends to give me a lot of respect and is relatively easy to read so I figured I could out play him on the flop. Turns out he hit top pair and paid me off. So, now my stack was sitting at around 600$ and the following hand came up:

UTG+1 raises to 10$. MP1 re-raises to 20$. I look down at KK in the SB and know that the BB is trying to go broke and leave. He has about 60$ in front of him and I figure if I call he might just move in. He looked primed to make the move so I smooth called and sure enough, all his money went in. To my surprise, the original raiser flat called and so did MP1. The action came back to me and I decided to try and shut everyone out of the pot so I could play head's up with the all-in player for all the dead money. I moved in. UTG+1 thought for a long time and called for the little over 300$ that he had left. MP1 thought a bit and called as well for his last 250$. Can you guess what each player had? Watch this!

:As :5s - BB
:Ac :Jc - UTG+1
:Ah :Qd - MP1
:Ks :Kd - Me

I really can't ask for better than that. I am in a 4-way all-in pot with pocket kings and the other 3 guys turn over Ace-rag. Here are the odds:

Holdem Hi: 1086008 enumerated boards
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
As 5s 147813 13.61 927749 85.43 10446 0.96 0.139
Ac Jc 144029 13.26 931533 85.78 10446 0.96 0.136
Qd Ah 103375 9.52 972187 89.52 10446 0.96 0.098
Ks Kd 680345 62.65 402982 37.11 2681 0.25 0.627

So, I'm getting about 3-1 on my money as a 2-1 favourite. Awesome! Of course the flop comes:
:Jd :Jh :Td

I fail to improve and lose a massive pot. Sadly, still stinging from the 2 outer loss on Tuesday, I had another little outburst. There's really no need for those and I need to get them out of my game completely. I calmed myself down pretty quickly though and was able to laugh it all off and continue playing well.

That hand crippled me down to 150$ and here's the kicker, the charmingly goofy player on my immediate right quipped, "Well, at least it wasn't a bad beat". When I asked him what he meant by that, he said, "I mean Ace Jack suited, you gotta call!". I nearly fell off my chair! Thanks to bozos like this, I cashed out 585$ about 2 hours later making 125$ net profit for the night (585 - 60 - 400).

Lessons learned from this session include:

• When you're short-stacked, just top up instead of making a big move against calling stations.


• There's no need to make a scene when you get sucked out on. In a soft game like this, you'll make your money back eventually.


• Most of these players give absolutely no thought to what their opponent might have. They look at their hand and ask themselves if it's worth the price of a call. If the answer is yes, they call... and that's good for business!

Labels: Hand Histories, Humour, Live Poker