Running on Ice The IP Poker Series Part Trey

Where in our tale did I leave you loyal poker blog reader? Oh yes... she called. We were in the middle of one of the hands I played badly. I play hundreds of hand badly when I play online poker but a few less, I like to think when I play live. This was one of the bad ones. Anyway, back to it.

The river was an almost a brick but a back door club draw got there. She opened shove for about the size of the pot. If I folded I’d have a little over 5k left but half my stack was in there. She started just staring at me. It was an odd stare though. Sometimes people angrily stare at you to get them out of their pot and are weak, but this felt different. It wasn’t intimidating at all it was like she was staring to stare.

I played with her in Harrahs, in a similar situation and the stare came on during the cash game. I recall maybe playing a Sit and go with her too but I wasn't sure. In the cash game, in the face of the stare, I eventually called with a decent hand and she had the goods. How was I beat here, I asked myself. She didn’t shove the flush for value. So A10? Still, what if I just backdoored the flush on her. That’s so impetuous. Plus, the shove is so weak. What is she afraid of?

Clearly, there were a lot of things going back and forth in my head. Captain Ron once told me about the three good reasons to fold. If you can think of three good reasons to fold, fold. I think he said Chris Ferguson said that. In this spot, I was about up to three. Her weird stare made me want to pitch. The way the hand played out made me want to pitch, though she wasn’t really protecting herself from draws. Any weaker ace could have improved to two pair on the turn or river.

I looked at my chips and knew I was willing to fire two more bullets in the event so a double rebuy would actually give me more chips than I was sitting on if I folded. That eventually made me do a crying call. Her A10 for two pair was about what I expected.

Here is where my mistake was so bad. I could just fold and wait til the break for the double add on. Sure I had pissed some chips into the pot, but I was only getting two to one, not the four or five to one that mitigated the call with the smaller stack earlier against BJ. Since I had only planned on firing two more bullets better to add them to 5k than to start from zero. Just fold there.
We had an awkward conversation about the hand.

I said "A10 that was what I was afraid of. I knew you didn’t have the backdoor flush." She responded, “That’s what I wanted you to think.” I said, “You wanted me to think you had the flush.” “yeah.” “So…. You wanted me to fold?” I let my frustration at myself leak out into my tone and then just backed away from her now silence. “Nice hand.” I said.

In retrospect, maybe she wanted me to think, she was bluff shoving the backdoor flush so I’d call and her two pair would win. Maybe... I just misunderstood her. Just as I was coming to that very conclusion at the table, that lady later made an odd, odd, odd play. A new guy to the table came into a pot with half her chips. If I were ever to spot chip-dumping it’d be in a hand like this because he showed strength, pre-flop and post flop. He shoved after the flop and she called with Ace high nine kicker. With the board nowhere connected to her. The dude had pocket queens and doubled up through her.

She wasn’t drawing dead but she called off a good portion of her stack with just Ace high no draws, or redraws… just odd. Then I cursed myself even more for giving her chips in that previous spot

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