Monthly Archives: January 2011

Flushed Out

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Second shot at the Irish Open quarter final tournament tonight. 22 hands in and I pick up AhQd in the big blind (at 15/30). I’ve got a couple thousand chips, there are only eight people left in the tournament. Three players limp in, the small blind folds, and I raise to 165. All three limpers call the raise.

The flop shows qh3hJh, pairing my queen and giving me a nut flush draw. I bet 300 into the pot of 675. The first limper folds, the second calls, and the third goes all-in for 1,685. I call and the third player pushes his stack forward to make the total 1,840. I’ve only got 180 chips left, with just 25 behind if I make the call, but I’ve got the nut flush draw, right?

Of course, that draw would be a lot easier to make if my opponents’ hands hadn’t turned up as Th8h and 6h7h. With more than half the hearts on the table already, the chances of one showing up on the turn or river were somewhat diminished.

Maybe next time.

The Lure of the Irish

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Darrel in Dublin

It’s been almost exactly a decade since the first (and last) time I was in Ireland. Barbara and I were there for the wedding of some friends in Waterford and we spent a couple of days in Dublin before extending our excursions to Scotland and the Netherlands.

Ireland was the spark for me playing online. Before I ran across Tomer Berda and got serious about playing poker, I’d spotted ads for Cake Poker’s 2010 Irish Open satellites and tried my hand at a few, thinking it would be kind of cool to play poker in Dublin. I guess a year’s gone by because they’re running again. I haven’t been playing on Cake much (please get a Mac client) but I do have to say they’ve got the best Web site graphics of any of the poker sites. Last year I got down to heads-up in two of the five matches I played, coming up in second place (with no prize) each time. Hopefully I’ve improved since then.

My first attempt at one of the Quarter Final matches did not go well, however. A bet to force out players preflop with my AsQs (on hand 13!) ended up with two pair on the board by the turn, which made a full house for one of the other two players who stayed behind.

Keep Poker Weird

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Not a lot of luck at the virtual tables yesterday (two turbo 6-max and one regular tournament on PokerStars, plus a Rush re-buy tournament and Midnight Madness on Full Tilt). Every decent hand I had seemed to get drawn out on (Make your second pair with a three on the river against my single-paired AhJh? Check!)

I did participate in one of the strangest hands I’ve ever seen during the Rush game. Six players went to the flop with 80 chips each in the pot. I was in the hijack position with Kc6c; not the strongest hand but worth a big blind.

Nobody raised on the flop, turn, or river, and the board showed
AdTdTs8h8s at the end of the last round of bets. This was the lay of the land:

  • (small blind) 6h6d
  • (big blind) QsKd
  • (under the gun) KsQd
  • (under the gun + 1) folded preflop
  • (under the gun + 2) 5h5d
  • (under the gun + 3) folded preflop
  • (hijack me) Kc6c
  • (cutoff) folded preflop
  • (button) Js9s

Among six hands, no pair to anything on the board. No pocket pair better than the eights on the board. A six-way chop with everyone getting back their 80 chip investment.

Hand 130: Where Tournaments Go to Die

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Logarithmic chart comparison of two tournamentsJust idly comparing chip counts of a couple of tournaments. The blue line is from a July Full Tilt $5 re-buy game with a $2K prize pool where I took second place (after a heads-up chop deal) and the red line is from the $2 PokerStars tournament I cashed in yesterday.

Thought it was just interesting how the two trajectories were more or less congruent until about the 130th hand. In July, I caught a Jh on the river on hand 130 to turn my JdTs into two pair and beat an all-in AdAc. Last night it was my aces on hand 131 that were beat by a set of queens. Aces, hand 130 (ten times thirteen!). I’ll just be keeping my eye out for a pattern.

Midnight Madness didn’t go any better tonight. Out in 1,275th place. The guy following me (VPIP of 50%) had been going all-in with close to the starting chip level far more regularly than was warranted. There were four players in at 200 chips to the flop. 4d6d7d came out and it was checked around to Mr. All-In who proceeded to do it yet again. The two players ahead of me folded. I had the all-in covered and AcQc in my hand. As I suspected, when his cards flopped, he was holding nothing better than Jc9c and I had him beat until the 9s showed up in the river. I managed to squeak back up to 1,100 before I was eliminated. He ended up going out before I did even with the double up. Playing the tournament did release a $10 bonus, though, so it was almost a freeroll.

Just Walk Away

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Lord Humungus

The Ayotollah of Rock-n-Rolla

I’m playing a $3K guarantee tournament on PokerStars which was going pretty well early on. I was in the chip lead for about a half hour, got knocked to about half my max, then managed to climb back up over it (by which time that figure was nowhere near the lead). Mad Max 2 aka The Road Warrior was on the TV. I picked up AdAs in the cutoff position with more then 22K in chips (the most at the table by 6K) with the blinds at 200/400 and raised the single caller—the second-largest stack—to 1,500. He called.

Onscreen, the Humungus was just starting into his speech to the encampment in the desert, exhorting them to “Just walk away.” There are times when you get distracted from the game by having something on in the background but this is a time when I really should have been looking for enlightenment from the movies. The flop was QdQc7d and my opponent went all-in for more than 14K after I raised 750. That should be a clue that he’s representing a queen in his hand, right? But I called it and got brought down to 6K when he showed QhJc and no aces showed up on the turn or river.

I managed to get back up to 15K shortly thereafter, lost most of that, and climbed back to 7.5K before going out 140th out of about 1,900. In the money but not much of it.

The other useful poker advice from that movie is Wez’s: “Go! Go! Go!”

Double Negative Unflush

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Only half an hour into tonight’s Midnight Madness and I haven’t had anything in thirty hands. A big stack at the table has more than three times the starting stack and is throwing his weight around with a VPIP of over 70%. In the small blind I pick up KdAh and raise to 200 with two limps ahead of me. The big blind drops out but both of the limpers match the bet. The flop comes out 5h7h6h and I check. The big stack drops a bet of 420 and I figure it’s time to put up or shut up with my nut flush draw, pushing in my remaining 985 chips. The third guy folds but the big stack stays in, flipping over 4c3d for a flopped straight from a hand in the 15th percentile. I still had about a 35% chance but the turn and the river didn’t bring me another heart.

Special KK

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Ten hands into a Full Tilt $10K Guarantee turbo tournament and I pick up QhQs on the small blind (40/80). UTG with nearly three times my chips raises to 200 and is called by UTG+2 who has a little less than I do. I push all-in and the big stack drops out. UTG+2 has KhKc. The cards come out 8d7s7cTs2c and the kings take me down to 95 chips.

As9d on the button, I’m all-in before the flop with the big blind putting in the extra 15 chips to call. The flop misses us both, he’s got an 8 instead of a 9 to go with his ace, and I’m up to 230.

QsTc isn’t the best hand in this situation, but my chips go all in again. With three folds ahead of me, perhaps I should have been thinking that the hands on the other side were all potential greats, but the small bling raises, forcing out any other players. A Jh on  the flop and As on the turn give me a gut-shot straight draw. Or it would if the guy I was up against didn’t have two of the kings I need on the table in front of him.