The Week That Was

Well, it was another good week overall. Tuesday at Dave’s was all about the outdraws. Eli seemed to be my nemesis, hitting several river cards in Omaha to take large pots away from me. I had the nut straight or flush on the turn each time and got all the chips in, and he kept boating up his two-pair! I did hit a sweet little monkey-card on the river for quads against Charles (which he blogged already). At least I ended up winning money, but it obviously wasn’t the night that could have been. Omaha is a funny game (funny strange, not funny ha-ha)…

Thursday at Dave’s was an interesting night. We played short-handed (6-7) most of the night, and I found it to be quiet and relaxing - kind of a nice break from the usual craziness of a full table over there. Of course, Dave was still there, so it was far from boring! I had most of my hands hold up, and cashed out for a nice four-figure sum.

Friday $2/5 Omaha at PKR was a nice night indeed. We had two full tables most of the night, and the game didn’t break until about 5:30am. Two hands stick out. In the first, I’m dealt A-A-K-J, with one suited ace. I’m big blind, UTG makes a min-raise, and pretty much everyone calls. Though I almost never raise pre-flop in Omaha, I will sometimes re-raise if I have a great hand and think I can either take the pot down right, or isolate one or two players. I go ahead and raise the pot ($90 or so).

Often in a case like this, the rest of the table will follow the action of the next player to act. Since Tom (a fairly tight player) is to my left, I figure there’s a good chance of him folding, therefore making it easier for everyone else to fold. I think he does fold, but Frank calls, and then someone (though I forget who) re-raises all-in for not a lot more. The action moves to Eli, a true action junkie who will not fold any hand when the pot is big. Sure enough, he calls, and the action is back to me. Though I obviously have the best hand now, I already have more action than I want. Though I’m the big stack at the table, Frank has a pretty big stack of his own. He has $90 or so invested already, but I’m hoping an all-in raise can get him to lay down his hand. I push in, but he calls, Eli calls, and all of us are all-in pre-flop.

Bring on the pain...

The flop is flat-out magic for me; A-Q-10 rainbow! I flop the nut straight, and have a set of aces as backup! Now I just need some runner-runner crap not to happen. Well, we’ve all seen this movie before. A 9c comes on the turn, putting two clubs out there, and something like the 6c comes on the river. I quickly glance at the other hands, and see no clubs – until I get to Frank’s hand, where I see two of the little bastards (3-5, I think) peeking up at me. I can’t be sure, but I’d swear they were smirking. At any rate, Frank scoops a monster pot. Note that if I just call the pre-flop re-raise and move in on the flop, Frank folds and I win the entire pot. C’est la vie…

The next hand was not near as dramatic, but at least it was a hand I won! I’m in late position with A-2-8-9. There was a $10 straddle, and we have eight players see the flop. The flop comes 5-6-7 rainbow. Woo hoo, double-nuts! I think it was Matt M who leads out with a pot-sized bet, and there are three callers before it gets to me. There’s $400 sitting out there, and I haven’t even acted yet! What a decision – slow-play or not? I’d just about give my left nut to know what the turn card is going to be. If I knew a brick like a face card is coming, I’d just call of course. The action has been relatively fast and loose though, and there’s no reason to believe a raise won’t get a couple callers. Besides, it doesn’t take much imagination to envision a runner-runner scenario where I don’t even get part of the pot!

After thinking for a moment, I decide that I want action, but only if they pay for it. I raise another $270, a bit more than half the pot. Action is to Matt, who clearly agonizes for a while before folding. As mentioned in the hand above, the action of the rest of the table is greatly influenced by the first person to act after the raiser. After Matt folds, it gets a little easier for the next player to fold, and so forth. Everyone ends up folding, and I scoop a nice little pot. Could I have scooped a truly monster pot if I had played it differently? Absolutely. Could I have lost a good portion of my stack (like in the hand above)? Absolutely. Though there’s always that feeling of “what could have been,” scooping a pot is never bad.

I had several other nice hands throughout the night, but none I would consider “blogworthy.” I was able to cash out for well over $4K, easing the pain (but only slightly!) of Frank’s outdraw. Am I a greedy bastard? Yes… Yes I am.

The Saturday Hold ‘em tournament at PKR was relatively uneventful. To be honest, Hold ‘em bores me to tears these days. After playing mostly Omaha on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, playing Hold ‘em (especially in a tournament) is like watching flies fuck. Playing good Hold ‘em means folding a very large percentage of your hands, especially at these goofy 11-handed tables we play at during (and for a while after) the rebuy period. If you somehow catch cards, tiptoe through the minefield of suckouts and get lucky enough to win, you might go home with a profit of $800 or so (assuming the top two or three don’t chop). That’s tough to get excited about when there are many pots larger than that in the Omaha cash games. Still, I usually play Saturdays in a feeble attempt to keep my Hold ‘em game from getting too stale, plus it’s an interesting bunch of guys.

I didn’t catch many hands, though I did get lucky early on when I got most of my chips in on the turn with top two-pair (K-10) against Crab’s set of sevens, only to catch a king on the river. Yep, that’s PKR for you. Anywhere else I’m a big dog – there I’m about a 2:1 favorite on the turn! At any rate, I was one of the short stacks pretty much all day, but somehow nursed it along until we got down to three players (with Joe-Bob and Carl). I had around $45K in chips at that point, and each of them probably had close to twice that. Carl was getting tired and wanted to go, and proposed an equal three-way chop. Since it was for Carl, JB agreed. Though I don’t mind playing it out, I’m happy with a chop in that situation, given that I’m the short stack. We each ended up with something like $560, and called it a night. Now let’s see what this week brings!

See ya at the tables…
Rick