Take the money and run.
Yesterday, I finished in 7th at the Harrahs weekly. Another cash which is good. I cost myself money which is bad. My blog post two days ago was prophetic as I needed to hit a miracle set on somebody in a pair vs. overpair matchup and it hit.
At that point, I felt confident the final table was in my future.
I said I wouldn't be greedy this time. Shockingly, greed won that internal battle and I cost myself money.
A chop was offered by the overwhelming chip leader. I saw three short stacks and demurred. I was the only one to pass. The money started moving about the table like it was water and I went absolutely card dead. Anytime I thought about just trying to steal with nothing, and didn't, somebody showed down a monster. Sweet.
The chipleader at one point had to make a 6k call from the BB against a woman who was pretty nitty to knock her out and didn't. The BB had him invested 4k. Yeah, 6k to win 21k. 3 to 1+. At that point, I thought Uh-oh this isn't going well. So, I decided if he wasn't going to play I'd steal his BB. Guy on the button, an old rock wasn't haven't any of it and called my bet. Flop came out ace high and brick city for me. I check, he bets, I fold. Position is underrated.
I thought back to writing I wasn't going to be greedy and thinking this was going to bite me in the ass. Finally, we lost a couple of people, and though I liked my chances vs. most of the table, I was ready to chop. Unfortunately, I was now basically a short stack.
Later I ran into aces preflop and they held. Oh well.
Here's the capper. After turning down the chop, I get a call from my fiancee saying she took her car into the shop and owes a ton of money. Sweet. Left $400+ on the table because I was greedy. Had I known that, I might have taken the guarantee and had less to win this week.
So, I sit down in the cash game with a figure it mind, determined to nit it out. I catch kings on my first hand and double up.
Fast forward 7 hours... and that's the profit I left with. Took some sick beats and made a ton of tough lay-downs that were all right. You add them up and I should have been down multiple, multiple buy-ins. Once again, all the critical swing hands went the other way.
Big hands on the day.
Tournament: I folded two overs and a flush draw when a guy made a move on me thinking I was c-betting with air. He had top pair. Didn't want to flip a coin early in the tournament. Laid down AK suited fairly late in the tournament for half my stack, because I decided to nit my way to final table land. Darrell was my dealer and he knew what I laid down. DaRock gave me Aces once and I checked to an agressive player on the flop, he shipped it and I insta-called. Poker is fun.
Cash game: For a one hour stretch we had a "maniac" turn the table upside down. The action was fast and furious. Course I couldn't catch. Any limped pot was bumped to 20. The table limped around to me on the button I look at AQ suited. I know I have the best hand. Limp. BB (maniac) makes it 20 (shocker) and gets 1 call. I ship it having the BB more than covered but the caller has almost as much as me. BB calls (just as I planned). Caller folds (just as I hoped).
He turns over QJ. Domination. Flop gives him flush and straight draws. Turns the straight. I didn't even see it at first as I was wishing for a spade not to hit.
Later I'm getting a little short and a guy calls me down to the river, with me betting hard every step, I got trip 9s, and when I shove there he calls. I table my 9 crappy kicker with a little bit of fear. He shows Jack high. Wow. No draw, nothing, jack frickin' high. I was the guy that got the Christmas gift for once.
I laid down AK preflop when A10 and KK battled it out. KK held. I lost nothing on that hand.
Later I got a hand. I make it 10. Same guy with the KK fires out to 60. I haven't seen him bluff all day. Guy to my right folds. I stew, the $60 bettor is staring at the table. My alarm bells are going off. Just to be sure I should lay it down I ask, "How much you got behind?" (***This dude courtesy of a hot streak with the maniac was the chip leader by about 2k). For a split second he looked up thrilled, micro expression tell, and then saw that I was joking. I say I'm laying down to 10s. He shows aces. The guy to my right folded 99s. Dealer throws out a flop just to see what happens. It came out 9... 10... A. Set, set, set. Of course, that would be set, set, set, if I actually had 10s, which I didn't, that was my lie of the day but I thought I might be able to get him to show his monster.
Oh yeah, one more weird tourney note. My first table which ended up being the actual final table in the tournament, had 5 players progress to final table. And the guy that went out on the bubble was from my starting table too. 6 out of 11 of us started together. That's hard to do. Real hard. I never seen that in a tournament that big.
Course a couple of guys got moved off it during the day but we played for a while and battled it out all morning with the same faces.
Oh yeah, here's a bonehead play I made. I bet out from midposition with QJ suited. SB min raises (hello, big pair) and he gets a caller from an EP limper (call station). I like my price and that dude is sitting deep. I call the minraise, hoping to nail the flop or pitch if dry. Comes out Ace high. Dude looks like he got nailed by a baseball bat straight to the jaw. Oh, you got kings do you. He puts out a bet that screams feeler bet. The EP stews and folds.
How would I play this if I had AK. Well, I might just minraise here. I minraise. He makes one of those saving face calls. I used to do it. Don't want to make it look like your bet was zilch and call. Turn is brick, he checks. At this point I should shove. I don't. I check because I want him to think I got him on the line. He checks the river to me and I put him all in. After forever he calls. Tables kings.
Here's what I got wrong in that hand. Let's start from the back end. One of the things that SuperBill does well at the table is after getting a read on his opponent he puts the guy in a corner of pride. He boxes the dude in. In this situation SuperBill would have said, "You are thinking about calling with pocket kings. You can't get away from them?" And two things would have happened. 1. He folds and shows, besting me because he saved himself some money. or 2. He folds without showing pissed I read his hand and doesn't want to call with kings and be a loser and have to show the table he called after I told him his hand. You'd think the third action would happen a lot more than it does and that is he calls makes me show and is ready to fire into the muck if in fact he is a loser. Which is what I do.
My next mistake, going backward through the hand was not shoving on the turn. Giving the guy a chance to check twice to me, in my experience increases the liklihood he'll call on the river. All I've done is increase the possibility in his mind I'm just feeding on his shown weakness or tentativeness. I also didn't put him on the defensive any where in the hand by asking him how many chips he has. As Ray pointed out to me, I could have gleaned how married he'd be to those kings by that simple question.
Now go back even further. I should have shoved on the flop. None of this, how would I play with AK bullshit. I wasn't at the final table at a tournament. I was in a Harrahs cash game. Just apply brute pressure. No min raise. Just open shove the guy when he was feeling his weakness.
What's the first mistake? DON'T TRY AND PUSH PEOPLE OFF OF KK AT HARRAHS! Big deal I knew where he was 80% of the players can't lay that down with a ace on the board, 4 to a straight on the board and 4 to a flush on there too.
Afterward, I say, you couldn't lay those kings down huh? He replies, "I knew when you just called my preflop raise (the min raise I might call with anything in that situation) you had a pair in the hole." Oh, really.
Alright, back to the grind today.
www.gulfcoastpoker.net
At that point, I felt confident the final table was in my future.
I said I wouldn't be greedy this time. Shockingly, greed won that internal battle and I cost myself money.
A chop was offered by the overwhelming chip leader. I saw three short stacks and demurred. I was the only one to pass. The money started moving about the table like it was water and I went absolutely card dead. Anytime I thought about just trying to steal with nothing, and didn't, somebody showed down a monster. Sweet.
The chipleader at one point had to make a 6k call from the BB against a woman who was pretty nitty to knock her out and didn't. The BB had him invested 4k. Yeah, 6k to win 21k. 3 to 1+. At that point, I thought Uh-oh this isn't going well. So, I decided if he wasn't going to play I'd steal his BB. Guy on the button, an old rock wasn't haven't any of it and called my bet. Flop came out ace high and brick city for me. I check, he bets, I fold. Position is underrated.
I thought back to writing I wasn't going to be greedy and thinking this was going to bite me in the ass. Finally, we lost a couple of people, and though I liked my chances vs. most of the table, I was ready to chop. Unfortunately, I was now basically a short stack.
Later I ran into aces preflop and they held. Oh well.
Here's the capper. After turning down the chop, I get a call from my fiancee saying she took her car into the shop and owes a ton of money. Sweet. Left $400+ on the table because I was greedy. Had I known that, I might have taken the guarantee and had less to win this week.
So, I sit down in the cash game with a figure it mind, determined to nit it out. I catch kings on my first hand and double up.
Fast forward 7 hours... and that's the profit I left with. Took some sick beats and made a ton of tough lay-downs that were all right. You add them up and I should have been down multiple, multiple buy-ins. Once again, all the critical swing hands went the other way.
Big hands on the day.
Tournament: I folded two overs and a flush draw when a guy made a move on me thinking I was c-betting with air. He had top pair. Didn't want to flip a coin early in the tournament. Laid down AK suited fairly late in the tournament for half my stack, because I decided to nit my way to final table land. Darrell was my dealer and he knew what I laid down. DaRock gave me Aces once and I checked to an agressive player on the flop, he shipped it and I insta-called. Poker is fun.
Cash game: For a one hour stretch we had a "maniac" turn the table upside down. The action was fast and furious. Course I couldn't catch. Any limped pot was bumped to 20. The table limped around to me on the button I look at AQ suited. I know I have the best hand. Limp. BB (maniac) makes it 20 (shocker) and gets 1 call. I ship it having the BB more than covered but the caller has almost as much as me. BB calls (just as I planned). Caller folds (just as I hoped).
He turns over QJ. Domination. Flop gives him flush and straight draws. Turns the straight. I didn't even see it at first as I was wishing for a spade not to hit.
Later I'm getting a little short and a guy calls me down to the river, with me betting hard every step, I got trip 9s, and when I shove there he calls. I table my 9 crappy kicker with a little bit of fear. He shows Jack high. Wow. No draw, nothing, jack frickin' high. I was the guy that got the Christmas gift for once.
I laid down AK preflop when A10 and KK battled it out. KK held. I lost nothing on that hand.
Later I got a hand. I make it 10. Same guy with the KK fires out to 60. I haven't seen him bluff all day. Guy to my right folds. I stew, the $60 bettor is staring at the table. My alarm bells are going off. Just to be sure I should lay it down I ask, "How much you got behind?" (***This dude courtesy of a hot streak with the maniac was the chip leader by about 2k). For a split second he looked up thrilled, micro expression tell, and then saw that I was joking. I say I'm laying down to 10s. He shows aces. The guy to my right folded 99s. Dealer throws out a flop just to see what happens. It came out 9... 10... A. Set, set, set. Of course, that would be set, set, set, if I actually had 10s, which I didn't, that was my lie of the day but I thought I might be able to get him to show his monster.
Oh yeah, one more weird tourney note. My first table which ended up being the actual final table in the tournament, had 5 players progress to final table. And the guy that went out on the bubble was from my starting table too. 6 out of 11 of us started together. That's hard to do. Real hard. I never seen that in a tournament that big.
Course a couple of guys got moved off it during the day but we played for a while and battled it out all morning with the same faces.
Oh yeah, here's a bonehead play I made. I bet out from midposition with QJ suited. SB min raises (hello, big pair) and he gets a caller from an EP limper (call station). I like my price and that dude is sitting deep. I call the minraise, hoping to nail the flop or pitch if dry. Comes out Ace high. Dude looks like he got nailed by a baseball bat straight to the jaw. Oh, you got kings do you. He puts out a bet that screams feeler bet. The EP stews and folds.
How would I play this if I had AK. Well, I might just minraise here. I minraise. He makes one of those saving face calls. I used to do it. Don't want to make it look like your bet was zilch and call. Turn is brick, he checks. At this point I should shove. I don't. I check because I want him to think I got him on the line. He checks the river to me and I put him all in. After forever he calls. Tables kings.
Here's what I got wrong in that hand. Let's start from the back end. One of the things that SuperBill does well at the table is after getting a read on his opponent he puts the guy in a corner of pride. He boxes the dude in. In this situation SuperBill would have said, "You are thinking about calling with pocket kings. You can't get away from them?" And two things would have happened. 1. He folds and shows, besting me because he saved himself some money. or 2. He folds without showing pissed I read his hand and doesn't want to call with kings and be a loser and have to show the table he called after I told him his hand. You'd think the third action would happen a lot more than it does and that is he calls makes me show and is ready to fire into the muck if in fact he is a loser. Which is what I do.
My next mistake, going backward through the hand was not shoving on the turn. Giving the guy a chance to check twice to me, in my experience increases the liklihood he'll call on the river. All I've done is increase the possibility in his mind I'm just feeding on his shown weakness or tentativeness. I also didn't put him on the defensive any where in the hand by asking him how many chips he has. As Ray pointed out to me, I could have gleaned how married he'd be to those kings by that simple question.
Now go back even further. I should have shoved on the flop. None of this, how would I play with AK bullshit. I wasn't at the final table at a tournament. I was in a Harrahs cash game. Just apply brute pressure. No min raise. Just open shove the guy when he was feeling his weakness.
What's the first mistake? DON'T TRY AND PUSH PEOPLE OFF OF KK AT HARRAHS! Big deal I knew where he was 80% of the players can't lay that down with a ace on the board, 4 to a straight on the board and 4 to a flush on there too.
Afterward, I say, you couldn't lay those kings down huh? He replies, "I knew when you just called my preflop raise (the min raise I might call with anything in that situation) you had a pair in the hole." Oh, really.
Alright, back to the grind today.
www.gulfcoastpoker.net
Comments