Aces Players Club 10pm Turbo (5,000 chips)

The night started off well. I was in seat three (BB) at the first table and was dealt [qx 6x]. I stayed in through the flop, hit two pair, and pushed the other players out on the turn. My second hand was [ad 3d] and I made the wheel on the flop, with several hundred in pre-flop bets in the pot. I checked, UTG2 opened for 400 and I raised to 1,000. He was the only caller. I bet another 1,500 on the turn and won. Ten minutes into the game, I was up 1,500 chips.

I won another 400 holding [ax jx]. The board double-paired itself by the turn as I was heads-up with another player and we were checking it down, then with an [ax] on the river I made a bet of 200 and took the pot. [qh 4h] made me another small pot when I caught the low pair on the flop and somehow made the best hand. “Pair of fours” became the catch-phrase of the night but it marked the turning point in my fortunes.

[kx jx] cost me 350 on one hand, then I dropped another 1,200 with [jh th] and a board that went all diamondy. The winner hit the nut flush on the flop. Still, I had 5,975 at the half-hour.

My real turn-around hand was calling an all-in of 2,800 (about half my stack) with [jd td]. It was a classic race with two over cards (suited, in my case) against a pair, but  when I went over the stats, I noticed something odd.

Not only was the suited jack-ten combination favored over the pair of fives but it was the best suited connector hand overall against the lower pair, with an 8% relative advantage over even [ad kd]. According to the CardPlayer Poker Odds Calculator, something similar holds for [7x 7x] and lower, which is where the JTs combination has a better-than-even chance of winning. It didn’t in my case, however.

I went all-in on my next hand, holding [kx tx] and enough chips to get everyone except the guy to my immediate right to fold. He called and flipped [ax ax] and my initial buy-in was gone.

It was a turbo tournament, and we were already up to 200/400 by my re-buy. Raises were beginning to get even more aggressive. I called 1,600 with [as 6s] and paired the lower card on the dryish flop, but folded to an all-in from three positions to my right. He took the pot, didn’t show, then announced it had been a “pair of fours”.

I shoved the rest of my second stack shortly thereafter holding [3x 3x]. Got called by a player two seats to my left, he hit his ace on the flop and I was gone. Even a pair of fours wouldn’t have helped me.

Fifty minutes. 16th of 16 players. -100%ROI.