Shitty Bracelet Race Schedule, and Cash Hand Concluded

OK just a quick post today (by my standards anyways) as I have been sick as a dawg all weekend and am just getting back to my senses a little bit this morning. I did want to rant a bit about the Bracelet Races on full tilt, and then I will get up the results of that cash hand I was posting about on Friday. But first....



Yeah don't forget that the BBT3 rolls on tonight, with the 10th of 55 Tournament of Champions seats available to the winner of tonight's 6-max nlh tournament for Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt. As always, the time is 10pm ET and the password is "hammer", so come out and play with all your fake internet friends tonight as we continue the battle to win the WSOP packages being offered up to us all for free by full tilt. See you there!

So, about the Bracelet Races, wtf is up with the schedules for these things? They totally fawked the United States customers off, hard! Check it out:

Race for Bracelets tournaments running at the following times each day through June 22nd:

~ $24 + $2 tournaments running every Monday, Tuesday and Saturday at 18:30 ET (23:30 GMT)
~ $69 + $6 tournaments running every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday at 18:30 ET (23:30 GMT)
~ $200 + $16 tournaments running every Friday and Sunday at 21:00 ET (02:00 GMT)


What are these jackmonkeys thinking? Only two Bracelet Races a week that are not at 6:30pm ET and 3:30pm PT? That time isn't even great for the Euros, as it is basically an hour or two past prime time in that part of the world as well. So, who exactly is this 6:30pm ET time for 5 of the 7 weekly Bracelet Races good for? The Bermudan full tilt players? The online poker buffs in the Falkland Islands? Why would full tilt do this? The only options that a reasonable American male like myself have are to play the 9pm ET Bracelet Races, which have the shitey $216 buyin and which even still only run two nights a week. So in sum, the West Coast of the U.S. has zero BR's that they can reasonably play in, period. Us East Coasters have to put up more than two hundy to play and even still can only do so two nights a week. WTF full tilt, WTF?!!

OK with that out of the way and with the financial markets in this country continuing to plummet while I sit here writing this, let me return to the cash hand I was profiling on Friday. Basically, I had played KQo for a limp into a 3-way pot from the small blind at a 2-4 6-max nlh table, and the flop came down KK8, giving me top trips with second kicker in a limped pot. Hard to beat that. But then the big blind led out for the size of the pot on this flop, and the other middle position limper then minraised his bet. I opted to smooth call the flop, as did the original bettor in the big blind. Then the turn card brought an offsuit 7, and the big blind proceeded to bet out $56 into a $81 pot, causing the middle position player to fold and bringing the action to me:



I asked how to play this here. Mostly all of you said that I am almost surely ahead, and that if I lose to some kind of a cooler here in an unraised pot preflop then so be it. I sort of agree with that thinking, although I would take me a long time to count all the times I have lost with hands just like this, either to 88, 77 or even just AK or something.

My only difference in how I played the hand from what most of the commenters suggested was that I opted to smooth call the turn again here. I figured this guy could have a pocket pair and think he is ahead, or he could have a low King, and either way if I simply move in right now, a serious Man might actually find the fortitude to fold a hand like K3 or K4 which can easily be behind in this spot given my action if I push the turn. I figured the smooth call made it seem more like maybe I was the one on one of those lesser hands, and therefore made it a bit more likely that I could deplete this guy's stack on the river without losing him to a big turn raise. I don't think either play was bad, and I understand that my way foregoes the chance of getting my opponent to fold here, but frankly as the commenters seemed to think I knew I was emptying my stack in this one by this point so I figured why not take the action that increases my likelihood of stacking the guy. If he is on a lower King or some other playable non-boat hand, I like the smooth call better because it gives that much more of a chance to stackage on the river.

Anyways, so I went with the smooth call on the turn, fully intending of getting it allin on the river, and figuring to have an interesting option of inducing a bet or just emptying out myself as I would lead the river betting. And then the river came down a beautiful Queen of spades, giving me the nut boat. Suddenly I'm hoping that he somehow does have one of those few hands that was actually ahead of me up to this point. At this point I've got the best hand I know, and I figure he is most likely on a weaker King or some pocket pair or something. Given that read of his cards, I did not like the thought of checking here to try to induce a bet, so intead I planned to just bet out myself. How much was easy. There's $193 in the pot, and I have $186 left, holding the nuts. He's acted like he has something strong, and I want to get maximum value. I figure if I bet half the pot or something, he will call. The better question is, how much will he still call if I bet more than half the pot? My answer was, at these dollar amounts, he will probably call with any King, so I opted to take the Sklansky on NLH approach of betting the hand at the river as if my opponent had a truly strong hand, and I just emptied out right there:



He instacalled, and I won the $565 pot with my nut boat:



Anybody wanna guess what this guy was holding there, given the allin turn instacall? I will give you some space to consider the options and then scroll down when you're ready to see it.





































Ok here's the final shot:



Dammmmm. Eff you full tilt. They really tried to hose me by making me actually go from way ahead to way behind for a $565 pot on the turn there, before the river resuck made all right in the world again. Now if I don't hit the Queen on the river, is anybody possibly getting away from this hand at the end?

OK back to watching financial ruin for hundreds of millions of investors worldwide. More good poker stuff as well as my NCAA Tournament thoughts coming later in the week. See you tonight for Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt!