Welcome Natediggity! What a night to come in on! I hope that you'll post as most folks won't believe the action at this game.... True, it's not high stakes poker, but the dollars do move around the table, don't they!
A couple of very interesting hands happened early.... typical Dave hands.... I have learned, as I think most will concur, that Dave really isn't there to play great poker or to necessarily win. I believe that he has basically two goals for the night:
1) Bad beat as many people as possible while coming from behind.... I think he gets the most joy from me being one of those guys that he wants to send home naked. He also gets great joy from taking Rick's chips although I think who the victim is, is of little importance.
2) Get the monkey.... although he likes quads, he'll bet the house, farm, business, family and future earnings to hit a straight flush and of course, the higher the better!
My first big run-in with him of the night was hold'em $2/$4 No Limit. He has played well early and has me out-chipped by a couple of hundred dollars. I've got about $270 or so. He raises pre-flop $17 and I call with the Qh, 8h. The flop hit me like a ton of bricks..... 10h, 6h, 5h. I check and he pushes all-in. I immediately call and he turns over the Ah, Kd. The turn was the 7d and of course, J-rod gives him the 4th heart, the Jack on the river.
I did get a chance to double-up within about 15 minutes or so..... He raised pre-flop to $14 and I call with Qh, Jh and there are a couple other callers. The flop is Qs, Js, 6h. He bets $45 and I call and everyone else folds. The turn is a 2d. He bets $75 and I push all-in and he calls with the Ac, Qd and the river doesn't provide him an escape..... LOL.
Probably the monster hand for me for the night came about an hour later. I've got $500 or so and we're playing Hold'em $2/$4 No Limit in the big blind. Dave leads out in late position with a $40 raise and I screwed up..... I acted out of position and raised all-in and with Nate still in the hand and before my action, he pushed all-in. I wanted to isolate Dave or really any one person with my raise as I expected that they would have been on a big ace. I didn't want any part of the re-raised action by Nate, Unfortunately, due to the NEW posted rules, my action was binding and I had to call. Fortunately for me, Nate only had about $125 and Dave probably had $450 or so. At any rate, Dave calls which made me feel much better about my pocket sixes. Nate shows pocket Queens and Dave had Ad, 10d. However, since it is Natediggity's first night, he may as well get initiated correctly with a big bad beat. The flop was Kd, 6d, 10h... my set hit, but Dave was on a huge diamond flush draw. He didn't receive any help on the turn and the river and I took down a $1200-$1300 pot.
All-in-all I had a very good night that let me recoop my losses from Tuesday. Back to the felt!
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5 comments:
Thanks for the invite. I had a marvelous time. Hardcore action (and I don't just mean the poker) is enough to soothe any tiltalicious behavior. Plus, I really like the game... 2/4 NL O8 is now my favorite game. Except one stupid A2 low play that I could have gotten away from if I had more chips, it was good to me. HoldEm is what bites my ass. I won all my pots playing O8, including the 4-way all-in preflop action, and a near scooper early that still yielded about $300 on a $100 pre-hand stack. and lost all my chips playing HE. A QQ hand all in preflop against AT and 66 rings a bell. A dumb all-in trying to isolate Dave with Charles still to act comes to mind. And some decent sized preflop calls with pocket pairs that never panned out.
Oh... and I don't care what anyone says... I'm raising my good starting hands in O8 preflop! I mean, the naysayers have a point that everyone will call anyway, but in a 7-way pot the average hand is no better than 1/7 to win (and probably worse considering they may have outs crippled to other players) but I'm raising because my EV to win at least half on strong starting hands is >1/7. Even if it's 25-30% to take 1/2 the pot, that's a long term winner.
Also, to win alot of money at O8, you either want a loose table to punish the bad calls (draws to non-nuts, draws with thin outs, draws to lows, draws to just half the pot)... or a scoop. The hands that I typically raise have both a scoop possibility, they make a full 6 good starting hands, and long term they exploit the mistakes of folks who play hands like QQJ2 to every raise. I don't just raise a naked A2. Ever.
Anyway... it works for me... and would have been profitable last night if I weren't a moron that played bad O8 with A2.
Oh... and I'm pretty sure I had about $250 at the time of the QQ all-in. Not exactly a whopper, but I know it was more than the $125 I had sitting in front of me most of the night.
Nope, it was $125... I remember looking.... that may have been on top of Dave's bet, but I remember looking at it several times.... cause if you remember, I tried to get out of the call. The posted rules forced me to follow-through with my stupid, out of turn, play.....
I am glad you like the game, it's a great group of guys and I always have fun whether I win or lose.
Okay... that I believe... $125 over Dave, which I think was about $40, right? That's a little closer.
To expand on Nate's comment about preflop raises in Omaha 8 - I don't think many of us mind the occasional preflop raise from a decent starting hand. In fact, against a table of solid players, it would be necessary. The problem in this game is that all it does is give a crazy adrenaline junkie like Dave or Michael carte blanche to move all-in over the top for $600 or something goofy like that. When that happens, I'm not calling unless I have one of two or three specific hands (and possibly not even then!), even if I'm 99% sure I'm ahead preflop. The game is basically a crapshoot until the flop. Even As-Ac-2s-3c looks like shit after the flop comes Jd-Jh-10h.
I know that, if the breaks even out, I'll usually end up ahead by the end of the night. Why any good player would work all night to build a nice stack, then risk it all over a coin flip is beyond me. I understand EV, starting hand values, etc. as well as anybody. To me, the question is not whether or not you're a better than 6-1 favorite if you get six callers, the question is are you willing to call a $150 reraise from Dave or that equally crazy Chinaman. If so, be prepared to call the all-in flop bet that's sure to follow. Good luck, I hope the flop hit you!
Some players thrive on gigantic swings, they'll win a $1,000 pot one hand, lose their stack the next hand, and all of a sudden they're buying in again. I prefer to steadily build my stack throughout the session, while taking the occasional risk in the right situation. We'll see if Nate's strategy works over time in this game. The players in this game are loose enough that you'll usually get 4-5 callers on the flop even when it does hit you, so why not wait until then to start getting the big money in? Almost the same potential reward with much less risk. That's the great thing about poker though, there are many different styles, and there's no single right way to play. Whatever works for you!
Rick :-)
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