Work Home Game and SSH - September 9, 2005
I Played my second monthly work poker tourney last night. Finished 2/10. Three big hands from last night's action.
1) Down to 8 guys. Playing against a total LAP. I raised from late position with KK to isolate him. He called and flop was 984. I bet pot he called. Q on turn. I could sense it helped him and I had him on two big cards from the preflop so I put him on a pair of Q. He bet about a 1/5 of the pot and I reraise him all in (basically doubling his bet). He had JT. Which put me back to about my starting chip count or so.
2) I have Q3 and big stack after I doubled through against LAP. We are down to 4 players. and blinds at 100/200. I raise UTG to 500 with Q3o, looking to pick up blinds. Very tight button has a hand but doesn't want to call because we are on bubble (top 3 paid) and LAP is down to about 650. Button reluctantly calls. SB/LAP moves all in and we both call. (I couldn't raise to isolate since it wasn't a full bet raise). Flop comes 838. I blind check before the cards are dealt, trying to induce a check through. He checks. Turn is 2. At this point, since button checked, I put him on two overs. This is a sizable pot and I think there is a decent chance I have the best hand and am facing 6 outs against SB if I can get button to fold. However, good chance I'm up against 12 outs if I let him play, plus I will have to fold if he throws a bet out and I don't catch anything. I push him all in and he goes into the tank. He finally decides that if I win the hand and he loses he will still get 3rd place money since he started out the hand with more chips than the SB/LAP. He calls and turns over JJ, SB/LAP turns over TT...BUT the river spikes a 3 and the house erupts! Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.
3) I am heads up now with about 6500-7000 chips to my opponents 1500-2000. We both fold a couple hands and I keep waiting for a K or A to push him in so I can buy his blinds (300/600 at this point) and give me pot odds to call on subsequent hands for the tourney. I pick up Q8 and move in. What? How reckless. Bad move by me. I am a better player than this guy and I should be playing more pots post flop rather than making all moves preflop. He calls with K7 and his hand holds up. So I am at 4500 and he has 4000. He buys some blinds on me and he has a slight chip lead on the button when this hand comes.
He raises the minimum to 1200. Actually he tried to raise to 900 which should have been a clear indication that he has a big hand since he really wanted me to play. I look down at AQ and need to move all in. Right? You can't lay this down heads up can you? I thought there was a decent chance that he had Ax and I was dominating him. He calls and flips over KK. No ace for me and I finish 2nd. I still don't think a lay down is correct, but can should I possibly call and then lay it down if I don't hit my AQ? My reasoning for moving all in is that I knew that this guy thought he had a great hand. But what is a good hand to him? My guess, any pair any ace, Kx suited and any two high cards. I decided I couldn't allow him to pick up a free draw.
In other poker related news, I finished reading SSH (Small Stakes Hold Em by Ed Miller). This is a great book and a must read for limit hold em players. I think this book suits players who understand the game but still are not winning or are just making a little bit of money but not crushing the low stakes games. Perhaps you have played for 2 years or even 10 years and you understand the good starting hands. You know Ax is bad, etc. This is a great book to take you to the next level. I still need to do the quizzes in the last chapter and to read the book a couple more times, but I'm anxious to play limit cash games and to build my bank roll. I have a lot of confidence now. I'm a bit worried about the swings and staying patient even though I'm playing .50/1.00 games on Party or something, but I can see myself getting into the 5/10 game in the next year or two and reading this book over and over again during the process.
Until next time...
1) Down to 8 guys. Playing against a total LAP. I raised from late position with KK to isolate him. He called and flop was 984. I bet pot he called. Q on turn. I could sense it helped him and I had him on two big cards from the preflop so I put him on a pair of Q. He bet about a 1/5 of the pot and I reraise him all in (basically doubling his bet). He had JT. Which put me back to about my starting chip count or so.
2) I have Q3 and big stack after I doubled through against LAP. We are down to 4 players. and blinds at 100/200. I raise UTG to 500 with Q3o, looking to pick up blinds. Very tight button has a hand but doesn't want to call because we are on bubble (top 3 paid) and LAP is down to about 650. Button reluctantly calls. SB/LAP moves all in and we both call. (I couldn't raise to isolate since it wasn't a full bet raise). Flop comes 838. I blind check before the cards are dealt, trying to induce a check through. He checks. Turn is 2. At this point, since button checked, I put him on two overs. This is a sizable pot and I think there is a decent chance I have the best hand and am facing 6 outs against SB if I can get button to fold. However, good chance I'm up against 12 outs if I let him play, plus I will have to fold if he throws a bet out and I don't catch anything. I push him all in and he goes into the tank. He finally decides that if I win the hand and he loses he will still get 3rd place money since he started out the hand with more chips than the SB/LAP. He calls and turns over JJ, SB/LAP turns over TT...BUT the river spikes a 3 and the house erupts! Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.
3) I am heads up now with about 6500-7000 chips to my opponents 1500-2000. We both fold a couple hands and I keep waiting for a K or A to push him in so I can buy his blinds (300/600 at this point) and give me pot odds to call on subsequent hands for the tourney. I pick up Q8 and move in. What? How reckless. Bad move by me. I am a better player than this guy and I should be playing more pots post flop rather than making all moves preflop. He calls with K7 and his hand holds up. So I am at 4500 and he has 4000. He buys some blinds on me and he has a slight chip lead on the button when this hand comes.
He raises the minimum to 1200. Actually he tried to raise to 900 which should have been a clear indication that he has a big hand since he really wanted me to play. I look down at AQ and need to move all in. Right? You can't lay this down heads up can you? I thought there was a decent chance that he had Ax and I was dominating him. He calls and flips over KK. No ace for me and I finish 2nd. I still don't think a lay down is correct, but can should I possibly call and then lay it down if I don't hit my AQ? My reasoning for moving all in is that I knew that this guy thought he had a great hand. But what is a good hand to him? My guess, any pair any ace, Kx suited and any two high cards. I decided I couldn't allow him to pick up a free draw.
In other poker related news, I finished reading SSH (Small Stakes Hold Em by Ed Miller). This is a great book and a must read for limit hold em players. I think this book suits players who understand the game but still are not winning or are just making a little bit of money but not crushing the low stakes games. Perhaps you have played for 2 years or even 10 years and you understand the good starting hands. You know Ax is bad, etc. This is a great book to take you to the next level. I still need to do the quizzes in the last chapter and to read the book a couple more times, but I'm anxious to play limit cash games and to build my bank roll. I have a lot of confidence now. I'm a bit worried about the swings and staying patient even though I'm playing .50/1.00 games on Party or something, but I can see myself getting into the 5/10 game in the next year or two and reading this book over and over again during the process.
Until next time...
posted by Steve K at 12:00 PM
1 Comments:
The KK hand, if he has 2/5 of the pot left, no way you lay down an overpair, no worries...
The Q3 hand, button played stupid, scared poker. Your turn bet wasn't terrible, and I think your thought process was ok.
The Q8 hand, whatever, it's all a crap shoot when the blinds are 10% of the chips every hand. You should play q8. You have odds to call if he pushes after a normal sized raise, so all in is fine.
The AQ hand. Call, play cautiously, sans ace. Unless he had been consistently mini-raising, that's got to set alarm bells off for me.
Myself, I'm trying to play just a ginormous number of 1/2 6-max hands since I have about $1000 in reload bonuses on various party skins...
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