Tournament Poker, Sunglasses and More Part II
It’s brick city.
Hmm. A joy in Texas Hold em poker is knowing where you are in the hand. I figure his ace to be weak, at best, and wonder if he is on a better flush draw. Not a straight out there. Maybe he has a decent K or was just floating me. A set is possible so too a weird two pair, but I feel genuine weakness. He checks and I fire out another bet.
A check here from me, is reasonable, but then I’m only playing the hand one way and that’s hoping to hit a card. I rationalize a bet here would be warranted by an ace to protect against the flush so why not. I fire and he stews. Then he gets his dander up and asks to see my paltry stack size. I love this tell in poker tournaments once, you know the player it’s either 100% strength or 100% weakness. This guy it was weakness. He puts exactly half of it in.
Oh. Well. I consider just shoving it in and hoping to hit. The bet size wasn’t quite giving me the odds to call, but if I hit, he had to call my shove so I decided to call. If I missed I could check or fold and still have crumbs to play with.
Sure enough, I missed. He checked shaking his head. Hmm, maybe I could get him off a bigger flush draw. Just felt like my remaining stack was to small for fold equity and maybe he had a pair with the draw. So, I tapped behind. He showed a king, the table shook their head like no way that would be good. As they had actually been paying attention to my tight selection of hands.
I shrugged. I pulled up my cards not protecting them to look at my busted flush draw. I didn’t care if the players besides me saw why I couldn’t beat a King. Then I saw what I held. The flush draw I was on, nope, wasn’t there. I just had a meager 53 offsuit. If I had a ton of chips, I’d be happy to share that reckless image, instead I’m sure those guys were almost as I surprised as I was.
I shook my head and cast them to the muck quickly lest anybody as to see my cards as I was dangerously close to outright exposing them. All I could think was WTF? Am I that blind that I can mistake a club for a spade?
Hmm. A joy in Texas Hold em poker is knowing where you are in the hand. I figure his ace to be weak, at best, and wonder if he is on a better flush draw. Not a straight out there. Maybe he has a decent K or was just floating me. A set is possible so too a weird two pair, but I feel genuine weakness. He checks and I fire out another bet.
A check here from me, is reasonable, but then I’m only playing the hand one way and that’s hoping to hit a card. I rationalize a bet here would be warranted by an ace to protect against the flush so why not. I fire and he stews. Then he gets his dander up and asks to see my paltry stack size. I love this tell in poker tournaments once, you know the player it’s either 100% strength or 100% weakness. This guy it was weakness. He puts exactly half of it in.
Oh. Well. I consider just shoving it in and hoping to hit. The bet size wasn’t quite giving me the odds to call, but if I hit, he had to call my shove so I decided to call. If I missed I could check or fold and still have crumbs to play with.
Sure enough, I missed. He checked shaking his head. Hmm, maybe I could get him off a bigger flush draw. Just felt like my remaining stack was to small for fold equity and maybe he had a pair with the draw. So, I tapped behind. He showed a king, the table shook their head like no way that would be good. As they had actually been paying attention to my tight selection of hands.
I shrugged. I pulled up my cards not protecting them to look at my busted flush draw. I didn’t care if the players besides me saw why I couldn’t beat a King. Then I saw what I held. The flush draw I was on, nope, wasn’t there. I just had a meager 53 offsuit. If I had a ton of chips, I’d be happy to share that reckless image, instead I’m sure those guys were almost as I surprised as I was.
I shook my head and cast them to the muck quickly lest anybody as to see my cards as I was dangerously close to outright exposing them. All I could think was WTF? Am I that blind that I can mistake a club for a spade?
Way to just burn through most of my chips. Why not look back a little sooner and discover I’m in deep with nothing. Terrible mistake number one.
I try to not let that effect me but I can’t really help lingering on it. I manage to get some chips again but I was still short. So, struggling to stay alive, I’m looking for spots to get it in and double up or at least steal some blinds.
I see KQ and that’s going to be it. Then before I move I spy the button, the tightest player at the table, indicate he’s going to play the hand by the way he put his cards under the chip-protector. AK, AQ and more pop through my head. May not be the best spot.
I say F it, which is always a losing strategy, and I’ve never said F it and won a hand, but again I say F it, and shove.
Folds to him. He steeples, like a monk at mass. “Oh, fun!” I think. Same thing he did when he had the nuts, earlier in a the night. Bam! He moves all his chips in over the top. The two blinds fold like a guillotine was about to come down on their hands.
I turn over my KQ defeated. He shows AA. That makes sense, I think. “I was afraid of that,” I verbalize in that saving face before elimination patter that I find annoying when other players do it, but couldn’t stop myself from. I resent myself for a moment. So the flop came…
To be continued in the next post…
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