People say I never write about hands that I lose. Maybe that's because it's usually kinda of a letdown when superior play does not win out in the end. I'm mostly just kidding of course. I do get outplayed fairly often, but I like to keep the amounts small. Being pushed out of a small win by someone's auspicious bet always stings, but being drawn into a real train wreck thankfully doesn't happen too often. Since I lost what would have been a big pot to a possible outplay last week, I feel compelled to mention it, besides, I did tell the guy it was going in the blog.
I was significantly up in the Tuesday night game. Someone else wanted to deal so I decided to play a little while and see how things went. Daylan was to my left, and even though he was down some, he still had a fairly large stack as he was starting to make a comeback. He had $157. I had around four hundred. I get J8 diamonds, and being up I was being a little loose. I was in the small blind, and when Daylan raised five and got a couple callers around the table, I threw my five in too. The flop comes QT9. I've flopped a straight. Being first to act, I checked my straight, which is something I second guessed almost immediately because all three cards were clubs. I would have wanted to put in a significant raise to make letting opponents draw out a fourth club worth. When Daylan bet ten behind me I assumed he was making a bluff because of the three clubs on the board, possibly a semi-bluff if he did have a high club. After all, he had raised pre-flop. The others players folded around to me, so I raised twenty-five to get more value if if he was drawing or to force him out if it was a complete bluff. In my mind I was representing a made flush. He paused for just a second, and then went all-in. Obviously he was representing a flush. I started to call, just to see if was bluffing at me, thinking he had about seventy or eighty dollars left. I asked for a count. He had one hundred fifteen dollars left. It was just too much. I was considering call 115 to try to in a little less than 190 and there lots and lots of hands that could beat me. I just didn't think Daylan could bluff for that amount of money knowing that I had a pretty good hand, or at least having been given every reason to think I had a pretty good hand. I asked him if he would show me if I folded. He said that he would. Some might call just for that reason, but I knew my curiosity would be satisfied, and I really expected my fold to be vindicated. I threw away my straight. Daylan flips over two aces, neither of which was a club. Needless to say, I was still going over it in my mind many hands later. I've finally concluded that Daylan thought I was semi-bluff check-raising, which is an odd thing to put a man on, and he wanted to eliminate my draw to beat what he thought was his superior hand. Still, you never know, he might have put me on the better hand and just decided his aces would stand up, even if they had to stand up and go home. If that's the case, it was a brilliant play, and one that cost me.
Altogether last week I won $634, but in Thursday, the last day I played, I dealt with considerable disappointment. I played in the early game and through stealing some early pots and then getting some terrifically bad calls from one particular callign station, I was up exactly $260 for the night. Class let out early, so I was able to make it back for the late session. Almost immediately my cards did not look so good. I began chipping off quickly, even re-buying once, but then finally hit a big hand and got up about one hundred twenty on the session. At that point I'd made over 1100 for the week. Unfortunately it was all down hill from there. I chipped away some more not hitting flops with decent hands, or worse yet, hitting flops with second rate hands. On a couple occasions I made huge calls with big hands after the blind was straddled and multiple players went all-in and I didn;t hit anything. The last hand of the night for me was pocket kings. I called all-in. An ace fell on the flop, and there was a big bet, after which everyone folded. I said, "Well, I guess I need to see a king, if you got an ace." He turned over J9, for which he'd risked fifty dollars before the flop. The flop had contained a 9 and the turn was a 9, so I went away. Oh well, they were suited.
I was significantly up in the Tuesday night game. Someone else wanted to deal so I decided to play a little while and see how things went. Daylan was to my left, and even though he was down some, he still had a fairly large stack as he was starting to make a comeback. He had $157. I had around four hundred. I get J8 diamonds, and being up I was being a little loose. I was in the small blind, and when Daylan raised five and got a couple callers around the table, I threw my five in too. The flop comes QT9. I've flopped a straight. Being first to act, I checked my straight, which is something I second guessed almost immediately because all three cards were clubs. I would have wanted to put in a significant raise to make letting opponents draw out a fourth club worth. When Daylan bet ten behind me I assumed he was making a bluff because of the three clubs on the board, possibly a semi-bluff if he did have a high club. After all, he had raised pre-flop. The others players folded around to me, so I raised twenty-five to get more value if if he was drawing or to force him out if it was a complete bluff. In my mind I was representing a made flush. He paused for just a second, and then went all-in. Obviously he was representing a flush. I started to call, just to see if was bluffing at me, thinking he had about seventy or eighty dollars left. I asked for a count. He had one hundred fifteen dollars left. It was just too much. I was considering call 115 to try to in a little less than 190 and there lots and lots of hands that could beat me. I just didn't think Daylan could bluff for that amount of money knowing that I had a pretty good hand, or at least having been given every reason to think I had a pretty good hand. I asked him if he would show me if I folded. He said that he would. Some might call just for that reason, but I knew my curiosity would be satisfied, and I really expected my fold to be vindicated. I threw away my straight. Daylan flips over two aces, neither of which was a club. Needless to say, I was still going over it in my mind many hands later. I've finally concluded that Daylan thought I was semi-bluff check-raising, which is an odd thing to put a man on, and he wanted to eliminate my draw to beat what he thought was his superior hand. Still, you never know, he might have put me on the better hand and just decided his aces would stand up, even if they had to stand up and go home. If that's the case, it was a brilliant play, and one that cost me.
Altogether last week I won $634, but in Thursday, the last day I played, I dealt with considerable disappointment. I played in the early game and through stealing some early pots and then getting some terrifically bad calls from one particular callign station, I was up exactly $260 for the night. Class let out early, so I was able to make it back for the late session. Almost immediately my cards did not look so good. I began chipping off quickly, even re-buying once, but then finally hit a big hand and got up about one hundred twenty on the session. At that point I'd made over 1100 for the week. Unfortunately it was all down hill from there. I chipped away some more not hitting flops with decent hands, or worse yet, hitting flops with second rate hands. On a couple occasions I made huge calls with big hands after the blind was straddled and multiple players went all-in and I didn;t hit anything. The last hand of the night for me was pocket kings. I called all-in. An ace fell on the flop, and there was a big bet, after which everyone folded. I said, "Well, I guess I need to see a king, if you got an ace." He turned over J9, for which he'd risked fifty dollars before the flop. The flop had contained a 9 and the turn was a 9, so I went away. Oh well, they were suited.
posted by Brinton at 10:18 AM
6 Comments:
It's not that you don't talk about hands that you lose, it's that you never admit to making mistakes. If you win a hand then you were brilliant but if someone beats you then they got lucky. That's all.
I think Daylan just had the "Deer in the headlights" syndrome with the A's and was not fully considering the possible flushes, or even the less obvious straight. He thought his "Preflop" nut hand was so good preflop that it couldn't be that bad post-flop. No dis to Daylan. We all fall in love with a beautiful hand every once in a while and don't see how the board is laying till it's too late and we're broke.
Daylan may or may not have made mistakes in the hand. BUt he did win the hand. He also got you to fold to a flop that you must have been begging to see pre-flop.
No one plays without making mistakes.
At least that's my read on it!
-TheGreek
For the record, I knew my hand was beaten. There was no reason for Brinton to bluff me on the flop, and his check-raise proved that he hit his hand. As we all know from our many games, bullets might as well be deuces when in a game with someone willing to gamble. My all-in was to project that either I: A) Raised pre-flop with A-Face suited, and hit the nut flush or B) Was four-flushed on a big pair to his no suit and made it too expensive for him to risk the fourth club.
Also, how many times have you seen me make an all-out "I have nothing" bluff?
I find it a little offensive that you say that I never make mistakes. I admit to mistakes fairly often I think. I'm sure you don't hear me whining too much about people getting lucky, because I'm fully aware that I've gotten phenomenally lucky myself at times. I try not to complain. The reason my own play gets emphasized here is that I only know what I am thinking, and who wants to read about what I was thinking when I made a bonehead mistake? I do seem to recall laying out pretty gruesome hand where I had K7 vs 72 with a 272 flop against Jason D. a while back. That was clearly a mistake. There are many mistakes in my game, I'm certain. They're usually caused my not concentrating completely, or by not being bankrolled properly for the game I'm in.
As for Daylan, you did an excellent job of representing the hand you wanted to, including betting out on the flop with the nut flush, because honestly that's something I'd expect you to do. As for representing the ace by itself, if you had laid your cards up and showed me the ace of clubs and a card of any other suit, I'd have welcomed the chance to gamble that a club would not have come. That's just common sense. The reason I folded is that there were just too many hands that already beat me, and I was convinced you'd have bet all of them in the way you bet that one.
er, admit mistakes
Yeah, the B was a worst-case scenario.
Actually, no. The worst-case scenario is a call. Then I'm dead. The only reason I could make a play like that on that hand is that against certain players I could almost never make that move. It was a rare chance when you had a pat hand that couldn't really improve versus other hands that could notch you.
Of course all of this goes out the window at a certain Thursday night game.
Please do not feel offended. But if you look over your posts you will see a trend. Using the Jason D. hand as an example: You wrote a small 5 or 6 line paragraph with as little detail as possible. You listed the hole cards and the board but pretty much nothing else except the final result of the hand.
I read this blog, on the rare occasion that something new is written, to help better my game. However, most of your hand recreations are either over detailed if winning or under detailed if it was a bad decision.
What you show us is how well you play your winning hands but not how you could have played that losing hand BETTER. Hind sight is 20/20 so use it when discussing these failed hands. We want to know how you think you misplayed them.
Of course you played the winning ones right, you won. But if you only ponder on the winners you will never learn your mistakes from the losers. It can only help your game.
But what do I know...
-TheGreek
Post a Comment
<< Home