Bad beat just hit in my local poker room for $125k. Table next to me. Meanwhile I’m losing to quads and flopped full houses all day.
My session ended with a frustrating all in on the flop with AQ suited to an 8 high board. Pot was about $70 with 3 way action. I was the preflop raiser to $21 on a 1/2 table. I jam the flop for my last $85. Guy calls me. Table runs out heads up and I shake my head and say Ace high. Guy says me too and is about to muck his hand. We flip up and the dealer says he hit the bottom end of the straight with his A3. Runner runner got me like 5 times today. Just awful players hitting crazy draws.
Poker is not dead. Enjoy this hand from $2/5. I have ~$1100 in front of me on button. Villain in hand has $960 to start the hand in the big blind. I look down at 10c9c. MP raises to $20 and it goes 5 ways to the flop. ($100) 8c7c2c. Villain is first to act and he bets $300. It immediately folds to me. I start to think he either flopped a set or two pair and is protecting against a flush draw, or he potentially has the nut ace and is trying to take it down right away. In any event, I call holding a made hand with draw to 2 nutted outs. ($700) Qh. Excellent card for me and as I am thinking that he bets $500 leaving him with $140 left. ???? I think for a bit and just jam on him and he tanks (lol). He eventually calls and the river comes ($1980) 3c. Any guesses what hand he tables?
Haven't been playing as much since this year has had the worst run bad I've ever encountered. Dropped down to 1/2 when I play and have cashed pretty much every session. Nothing big but at least I'm in the plus. Here's a couple hands everyone might like. Both of these were against the same guy. I really didn't see him get out of line and was playing pretty well. Hand 1 $340 effective in late position. 3 limps and I look down at 44. I make it $20, SB calls, and EP calls ($66). Flop comes Kc8d4d. EP checks, I bet $25, SB calls, EP calls ($141). Turn 10d. EP checks, I bet $60, SB calls, EP folds. River 3d. I check because of that run out..what do you do if SB bets small/big? Hand 2 $290 effective in LP. EP raises to $10. I have AsKs..rereaise to $35. Small blind goes all in for $60ish. BB puts in the cold 4 bet to $135. Folds back to me. What do you do? I'll give it the rest of the day for thoughts and update tonight on how it all played out.
1. I have to fold to the 1 card flush there. 2. That's tough for me. Would probably depend on how my session was going and who the BB was. First thought is to fold to the BB's AA or KK but if it was a loose guy I may call.
1. Fold - they always have the flush in 1/2 with 4 of a suit on the board 2. Probably fold unless these guys have been raising a bunch with 99 1010 type of hands. If this is his first 4 bet since you've been there I'd assume at the absolute minimum it's queens and much more likely aces or kings. If you just sat down you can get out of the hand relatively cheap and get info on them for later. Unless it's a drunk who reraises everything the 4 bet guy has aces or kings.
Hand 1: Fold. I always seem to fold to a 4 card flush depending on what I have. I'm such a pussy. Hand 2: Gotta know who my villains are. Loose, tight, stack size, etc? Stack size for small blind? If it's small, he could be anything from a small pair to AK. If it's average or bigger, I'd put him on a premium hand. BB could be doing anything from trying to steal to QQ or better. In most cases, with 3 other players AsKs has to be behind, I think I fold.
A check from you on the river means SB checked. Pot is $260. You have $230. Good time for you to bluff shove. It was also a good time for villain to bluff shove if he had less than, say, a Jack-high flush. Your shove can fold out a ton of middling flushes. You look very strong and will get called down quickly by only the nut and the second nut. And if villain had the nut flush, then his river check loses a lot of value. If villain is as competent as you say, then the top end of his river check is the second nut. edit: The more I consider it, the more I hate that turn card. Removes a lot of combos that just call the turn before folding to your river jam. All that you fold out is KxJd, a very scared second nut, and trashy flushes. Would villain just call turn with something like 56dd? Cold min-4bet (that's not actually a min-bet) in a low stakes game? Rarely ever are you up against worse than QQ. Suited big slick is pretty, but you have only 12% of effective invested. I'd fold and tap the table if BB had AK or worse. If BB does not have QQ, seems like the best you could be hoping for here is chopping SB's money with BB's other AK. Suited cards add only a percentage or two to your pre-flop equity.
Hand 1: I check, he checks. He had AK with the K of diamonds so he hit runner, runner diamond to get me. I’m not sure if he would have folded on the turn if I jam. I think he might have went the entire way with his hand if it gets all in on the flop also. Any bet and I was out on the river. Surprised he didn’t bet the second nuts. Hand 2: A lot went into my thinking. This is the same guy from hand 1. He hasn’t raised big with AA or KK. He also had this look on his face when he saw his cards like he was happy but not in that situation. I put him on 1010, JJ, or QQ. I had blockers to aces and kings so that was narrowed down a little. I decide to jam for $160 more. When he doesn’t snap call I figure we’re at least flipping or have the same hand. After about two minutes he tank calls and says if you have it you have it. Flips over JJ. Flop is AKQ, turn 8, and river 10 to give him the straight. Of course hindsight is 20/20 but if I flat then jam on the flop he’s probably out. Just one of those hands that’s been non stop this year of getting in either flips or with the best and not holding up. One player took all my chips on two hands. I pretty much won every other hand that session besides those two. Had a great table image and just luck wasn’t on my side. I’m sure I could have folded and lived to fight but at least my read was right. Got to look at the positives.
You made the right play in hand two IMO. A ton of people are reraising relatively light in this spot to isolate the $60 all-in. Of course the fact that you lost it sucks, but when you have AK suited for around that number of BBs, you want to get it in preflop instead of just taking a flop. If you're taking a lot of 50+ BB flops with AK, you are going to put yourself in some tough spots when you don't flop anything. If you're playing with all these people fairly often, you also cultivate a good image that you can be jamming with something other than AA and KK.
Hand 1: That turn was just a terrible card for the range you want to be up against. Check was smart. Still think the river jam would have been a quality play against his range if that turn had instead been a low diamond. It would have drastically increased the range you can get to fold with a jam. His folding range collapsed with the 10d, though. Hand 2. The guy's obviously not very good. Just calls a single raise pre with AK in the first hand (while getting no river value with second nut) and then calls an all-in 5-bet with JJ in this one? Heck, based on these two hands alone, I'd surmise that the guy is a drooler. Anyway, that read (when he reacted to his hole cards) was key information here.
After the 3c hit the river I immediately flipped over my flush and the guy stood up and looked at it real closely before flipping over .... Kc 9h ............................ and he lets out this huge sigh of relief saying he thought I had the nuts. Guys at the table were making all sorts of disgusted noises. I was ~90% to win on the turn as my neighbor said he folded the ace of clubs.
Played at Beau Rivage over the weekend while visiting family; like the poker room, just wish they had a coffee machine in there like Horseshoe does in Tunica.
Our TMB poker room has grown nicely; we’re up to 74 members and still easily able to accommodate more. PM me for details on how to join. Free chance to take dblplay1212 money.
Schulman is by far the best commentator. Always good analysis, but the dry wit is what separates him. Esfandiari is up there, too, albeit more from the technical angle.
I've always liked Esfandiari, he's got great poker instincts and the ability to have a conversation with anyone. Being able to bullshit with rich fish is a skill the internet supergenius kids really lack and prevents them from getting into the best games.
Yeah him and Ali are the nuts. I'm still partial to Norman Chad but I feel like watching streams with Ali and Nick actually help you become a better player ...
I was playing a live session this weekend. Some 65+ year old lady at my table talking to me. She was a decent player but basically just follows her lawyer husband around to play everywhere. Anyway she watches a ton of PokerGo and likes to talk about it like most people her age would a soap opera. I enjoyed her retelling stories because she was butchering every pros name so bad. Daniel Negreanu sounded liked something very racist. Also she personally has played with Phil Laak.
As for a quick poker story. Guy in seat 4 C bet every single time. Had a ton of chips and was just super aggressive. I had a read on him. I straddled to $4 and guy raised to $14 with 2 other callers and seat 4 being one of them. At this point, I’m playing any 2 for another $10 which after I make up my mind I look at my cards and have 2 4 off...so I call. 5 to the flop for about $70 in the pot. Flop comes 2 3 7. I check, raiser bets $15 and seat 4 raised to $30. I call and initial raiser folds. $145 in the pot. Turn is blank 8. I check and he had this weird nervous thing I noticed he did and he bets $40. I just had to call again because when he was strong he took pots down with huge bets and he had the chips to do so. No way he was stringing me along. $225 in the pot River is a 9. No flush possibility. No way he hit the gutshot. Maybe a shitty pair but really only 5’s or 6’s since he didn’t fill up. I check and he dicks around with his chips for about 3 minutes and then bets $95. He had about $150 stacked and then down stacked to $95 for his bet. I put him on 2 overs and a bluff. I only started the hand with about $250 and this call puts me about $180 in the hand. After a few minutes I just couldn’t put him on a real hand. I call and just expect if I’m wrong I muck and move on. He tries to muck and I make him show AJ before I flip over 24. He talked about it for at least 15 minutes. I set him on tilt and he lost about $600 in about an hour.
The fact he loses to Arieh is like getting your nuts electrocuted and then cut off as you bleed to death from millions of paper cuts.
at Helmuth bluffing an all in and gets snapped called on a guy with an over card. Edit: Phil had the guy covered, only has 17k left.
I was watching that. It was great. Phil was taking about that for the next 30 mins. If he makes that call against someone he’s a genius. If someone does it to him they’re the worst player ever. I have a lot of respect for him on the game side but can’t stand his personality.
WSOP with the nitrolls of all nitrolls. Will post video when it's up. Laughably absurd. Lloyd Christmas was wrong. Senior citizens, although slow and dangerous behind the wheel, cannot still serve a purpose.
Breakdown of WSOP nitroll hand: Effective stacks about 100bb Some Dude opens with A9o (UTG+2) Young Asian Pro calls with 77 (MP) Old Man Coffee calls with TT (BB) Flop AT7 rainbow OMC checks SD bets YAP calls OMC calls Turn 4 rainbow completed OMC checks SD checks YAP bets OMC calls SD folds River 4 OMC leads YAP tank raises, putting OMC about 20bb short of all-in OMC tanks and tanks and tanks before making crying call
I knew someone would post about this hand. I have to agree with Kerstetter, I don't think OMC was making a show but at the same time I don't know what else OMC could have put YAP on? AA or 44? I just don't see how you can put someone on those hands, heads up. I'm honestly surprised YAP didn't put OMC all in. If YAP does that, OMC folds, no question.
Just saying that I get not going after the last 20BB in a pot worth probably 200BB to still have a chip and a chair no matter what.
Old Man is also an amateur and since it’s close to the bubble he probably didn’t want to go all in barely miss the money. I was watching it last night live.
OMC's river call isn't why the hand is so noteworthy, though. The hand stands out because of its nitrollingness. Even worse that he just called the flop and the turn.