Monday, May 08, 2006

I've got hand

In my last post, I wrote about a hand where I flopped top pair and the nut flush draw with Ah7h on a board of Ac8h3h.

I love my hand, but there were a few problems. Most of them added up to one thing: I thought there was a good chance I was behind in the hand, and the pot was small enough that I could get away from it if I wanted to.

What's interesting about this hand is that most of the time, I want nothing more than to get all in on a flop like this. With any pair and a flush draw, I have as many as 14 outs -- nine for the flush draw, three for two pair and two for three of a kind. My equity in this hand is anywhere between 30 percent and close to 100 percent.

Still, I thought I was beat and didn't have the odds to call an all-in bet on the flop in a small pot. But I need to be very sure I'm beat to fold, and while I trust my reads, it would be a huge mistake to lay this hand down if I were wrong. If I had to do this hand over again, I think I would make the same decision. I was drawing to the nuts, and all my outs were likely to be clean. In addition, it was possible I had some hidden outs if the board paired.

I called.

The villain turned over As3c for flopped two pair. I was actually a favorite -- a 50 percent to 49 percent EV edge, according to twodimes.net!

The turn brought a King of hearts, and my nut flush held up. I usually don't like getting yelled at, but somehow I don't tire of being called a fish. It's a high compliment and a misconception I don't mind fostering among my opponents.

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I played in the $200K guarantee tournament on Full Tilt today after winning a $8.80 satellite to get there. The field was about 990 $216 seats, with first place paying out $45,000.

I picked up some chips early by flopping the nut straight of 75s against KK.

Then, I limped with pocket Kings under the gun, it got called in several positions, and the big blind raised. I re-raised to about 1,200 chips (starting stacks were 3,000 and the blinds were 50/100), and he called. The flop brought an Ace, and I abandoned ship on the flop when my opponent, a passive player, came out firing.

Shortly afterward, a short stack raised all in and I called with AK. He had QQ, I caught a King on the flop, but he hit his third Q on the river.

A little later, I caught top pair Jacks with QJ, but then I folded to an all-in bet from a late position player.

It didn't take long for me to arrive in push territory, when I ran Q9 into AA. Oh well. I went out around 450th or so.

Full Tilt must have flipped the doom switch on me instead of the luckbox switch. I wish they would tell me before they do these things.

1 comment:

d said...

"Vindication baby!!!" :)