Thoughts From the Borgata Fall Poker Open Part III (Conclusion)

OK so props out to Astin and MorningThunder for coming the closest in guess what the two players had in the biggest fold I made on the day at the Borgata a couple of weeks back.

For those who did not yet read my last post, here is the recap on the hand in question, pasted from my prior post:

For starters, the guy to my immediate right (a different guy from the hand above) had just lost an allin pot from his big blind to a guy across the table who had only about 400 chips fewer than he had, leaving the guy next to me with just that many chips at a time when the blinds were I think 400-800 with a 75 ante. Being that he was also the small blind in the hand in question, this guy was thus allin blind with his last chips in the middle to start the hand. Which meant that his $100 elimination bounty was totally up for grabs. Which meant that everyone around the table would be playing like complete and utter maniacs to try to get his bounty, as always seems to happen whenever a cash bounty is on the line in one of these bounty tournaments. And that's the setup for the biggest pot I saw on the day. Oh, and did I mention that, as this hand began, we had the two largest chip stacks left in the tournament both at my table? One, the actual chip leader at the time, was on my immediate left (I spent pretty much the entire last 8 hours of this tournament with the chip leader on my immediate left, through two different tables in fact), and was sitting on approximately 125,000 in chips, at a time when my paltry stack (as it was most of the day) was around 14,000 (which was really fun for me, in case you're wondering). And another guy across the way had about 120,000 in chips in his stack, good for #2 at the time in the tournament, also seated at our table even though we had about 60 runners left in the event.

So, with the setup out of the way, the small blind was allin with the last of his chips, and his bounty chip in the middle in front of him, and I was the big blind in the hand. The UTG player and tournament chipleader with 125,000 chips started off the action by min-raising, in a weakass, half-hearted attempt to take the guy head-on for his bounty, but the weak minraise to just 1600 chips did nothing of the sort and instead led the UTG+1 player to call, then the guy next to him folded, and then the next 4 players also called the 1600-chip raise. I looked down in the big blind to find 97s, a hand which I would have open-raised with myself and which I would have probably called most small raises with even in a heads-up pot (certainly against the chipleader), so I of course called the raise as well for another 800 chips out of my stack with 97s, and we saw a 7-way flop -- with the small blind and his bounty already allin and up for grabs -- by far the most players to any hand I saw in my entire 13-hour run on the day.

And the flop came down...949 rainbow. My heart jumped to my throat. I mean, of course a nut straight or a flush would be even better flops for me, but in general I had nailed this flop -- far and away the best flop hit over made in the entire day, mind you -- and I was in the big blind to boot, in a hand with two ginormously-stacked players who had been very aggressively pushing people around already to get those huge stacks.

I checked, as I had checked almost every flop I had seen throughout the day and I just didn't see the point of betraying any strength in my hand and possibly chasing anyone out with all these chips available on the table. My thought was that someone would surely bet this flop out of the 7 players in the hand (6 with chips behind), and then I would most likely reraise allin almost any bet from any player and take my chances. The chipleader opened the betting to my immediate left, but with a shocking bet of 20,000 chips. This was about a fifth of his entire monster stack, and more than that, it was enough right out of the gate to basically cover the entire stack or nearly the entire stack of every single other player in the hand at the time, except for the #2 stack across the table. That did not please me to have to call an allin instead of having some fold equity into what was a pot with under 10k in chips in it at the time, but at the same time, this guy was an aggro monster and the size of the bet made him seem more weak than strong to me, so my plan was still to call his allin when the action got around to me.

There was a fold, then another fold, and another, and my plan was really crystallizing in my head. But then a crazy thing happened. The other ginormous stack in the tournament called the 20k bet. He didn't even raise it, mind you, but he just smooth called the bet for 20k, now putting a silly amount of chips into the pot, and then the action folded around to me. As I stared at the obscene action going on in this hand, my plan to get it allin started to crumble right before my eyes. I mean, one guy pushing in a huge bet as an aggro steal play when he had the chips to lose was one thing, but for both of the big stacks to be committing tournament-altering amounts of chips here -- and in particular with the guy across the way only calling and not reraising allin to even try to get the big stack to lay down -- those alarm bells I often write about started going off in my head. Something just did not feel right here. I thought. I analyzed. I agonized. Suddenly, my trips with the 7 kicker were feeling pretty well outkicked. Again, if either one of these guys had alone made a big move at this pot, I'm probably sliding 'em all in there and taking my chances, especially given that I was below average like I was the entire day long in the tournament, and if my 97 is beat, then it's beat. But once the enormity of the pot I was looking at really sunk in, I just sat in disbelief as the fingers on my right hand slid my cards face-down towards the muck in the center of the table. I was behind, I had to be.

The turn card brought an offsuit King, making the board 949K rainbow, and the big stack to my left insta-pushed allin for a gillion chips. And the guy across the way beat him into the pot calling the bet. For his entire 2nd place stack. Against the one and only player in the entire room who had the power to eliminate him. This of course left me all the more sure that I was in fact behind.

I had asked for guesses as to what the two players involved were holding, and the actual answer is that the chipleader to my immediate left flopped the underboat with pocket 4s, and the #2 stack in the tournament across the table from us was sitting on Q9o. MorningThunder technically was closest with his guesses of 44 and K9, but Astin with 44 and A9 was basically right there, too. Although I think both of those guesses highlight my key point with this hand -- I obviously folded 97 because I just did not see how trips with a 7 kicker could be ahead given the two huge bets made and called ahead of me by the two prohibitive chip-leading stacks in the tournament with still some 60 runners remaining. And I did not see much in the comments to my last post to suggest much support for me continuing to play on with the hand that I had given that action, which I think makes sense since (obviously) I folded it, although it was the most painful fold I had made all day for sure.

The point I alluded to above, though, is that I think the big stack across the table made a big mistake in getting all his chips in in this spot, even sitting on Q9 on a 949 flop. I mean, once the chipleader -- and once again, the literal only player left in the tournament that could eliminate him from the event at that point, through more than 75% of the field at the time but still about 45 players away from the money positions -- slid out the 20k bet on the 949 flop, I would have given serious consideration to folding if I were the other big stack. Now, to be honest, that is not to say that I would have been confident that my Q9 was behind -- given the minraise from early position from the chipleader and his incredibly aggressive play since he had become the chipleader -- but rather, as a reflection of the fact that (1) I could be behind, (2) the huge bet requires me to commit a significant portion of the large stack I've built up thus far, and leaves me in terrible position facing potentially larger bets on later streets, and (3) even though I may likely be ahead, my stack is so large at this point that be folding here I can basically maintain my huge chiplead over almost every other player remaining and ensure that I live to fight another day, instead of taking what may even have amounted to only a 20% chance of being behind.

In any event, even if I had chosen to smooth call the chipleader's 20k bet on the 949 flop with my Q9 and the second-largest stack in the tournament at the time, I would almost certainly have folded the Q9 to the insta allin bet from the chipleader on the turn. I mean, what does the #2 stack put the chipleader on, to be making that kind of an allin push against this other huge stack that had the ability to cripple his chipleading stack if he is wrong? Why would the chipleader be pushing that hard, without some huge hand? Basically, in my view, by the #2 stack instacalling the instapush on the turn, the #2 stack is basically saying that he thinks the chipleader is an idiot. There's just no other way of saying it. I mean, to instacall that allin with a Q9 on the 949K board means that he thinks there is little to no chance that the chipleader has 44, KK, A9 or K9, the four possible hands that beat the #2 stack's Q9. But when you really look at the action, the chipleader -- unless he is, in fact, a poker idiot, which I can assure you he was not playing like on this day in any way, shape or form -- almost has to have exactly one of those four hands by the time he pushed allin on the turn. He is already the chipleader in the tournament, with around 150 big blinds in his stack even before this hand begins. Why on earth would be put that entire huge stack at risk against the #2 stack in the tournament, with a hand like AA, or J9 ot T9? I can only assume that the #2 guy put the chipleader on a hand like AA, but even that makes just no sense to me given the way he played the hand. The preflop early position minraise could definitely be AA, but when you see a 7-handed flop with a middling pair like 9s on the board, isn't almost all but certain that at least one other player in there flopped trips? Again, unless the chipleader is an idiot, he's not risking his entire massive stack with just a pocket pair against a mass of 7 players on a paired flop. No way. And is he really going to insta-push there on the turn with just trips and a middling kicker like J9 or T9? Come on, second stack. That was a terrible play, and while again I can accept the possibility of him calling the 20k on the flop and seeing what happened on the turn, the instapush on the turn that required the #2 stack to put in the rest of his chips with trips and a Queen kicker, should have been a very loud and clear signal that he was beat.

OK well there you have it. I had some more to say about my run at the Borgata, but as is usually the case with my deep runs, give it a week or two to sit around and it all just seems less important and less relevant than it did when it first happened. Will I get down to play some more poker again before this year is out, and maybe create some new live tournament stories to regale my readers with here at the blog? It's possible. I just found out today that I still have three vacation days left that I carried over from 2010 and which will expire per my employer's policy if I do not use them by the end of this year. And, while normally I would just throw those three days in in that week between Christmas and New Years and spend some more quality time with the Hammer Family, my group at work has a policy that any time off during that heavy-vacation-volume week must be pre-approved by the powers that be, and suffice it to say that all the lazybones already got in their requests months ago, leaving it impossible for me to get any time off myself during that week at this point in time.

So, will I use one of these three vacation days that I have to take in December to head back down to AC or up to Foxwoods for some more like poker action? Only time will tell.

Hand Analysis Continued, and The Freeroll

Well guys, tonight is really a special night to me poker-wise. A lot has been said and written about the BBT, the three-month blogger poker tournament series that concluded its official schedule on Sunday, July 1. But from the beginning, one the key aspects -- in fact, in my view probably the key aspect behind the success of the BBT this year was the BBT Freeroll tournament at the end of the challenge, which would be an invitiational tournament open only to the top-ranked players and those who participated in a majority of the events. In the end as I have written about in the past, the BBT proved to surpass our expectations in terms of participation, and as a result we ended up with something around $3600 in the BBT coffers by the end of the three months, $1800 of which will be up for grabs in tonight's series-ending BBT Freeroll.

I think I mentioned this once before, but one of the coolest things about tonight's Freeroll is the payout structure that Al had set up. To Al doing this kind of thing is probably easy peasy but as with the rest of us I am continually amazed at this guy's ability to Get Shit Done, even where others -- myself included -- are completely lost. But Al talked to full tilt and got them to agree to a very flat payout structure, enabling us to pay out the top 12 finishers out of the 56 players running tonight. My guess is at least one or two of you donkeys won't show up to play tonight, you'll forget about it, you'll work late, be out of town something like that. So basically, all you got to do tonight to make some free cashish is finish in about the top 22% of the field. Payouts start I think around $50 for the bottom few finishers starting with #12, and they escalate to a number solidly in the $400s for first prize, which is basically at the top the same prize pool as Mondays at the Hoy usually gets, if you want to think about it that way. So tonight, for all you guys who helped make the BBT fun and exciting and special and interesting to hudnreds and hundreds of blog readers and poker players out there, you are getting the equivalent of a free buyin to a 56-person MATH, but one that pays out more spots at the bottom and the same amounts at the top.

In the end, winning the BBT Freeroll and the $400-something first prize will be about more than the money. To me anyways. I would love to win the freeroll because, to a large extent, it contains most of the best poker skill among our group, as measured over a 3-month and 20+-tournament period. I will be expecting the play to be -- cough cough -- a bit -- ahem -- better than in your typical blonkament. Just a little maybe? Please? Ok well we all do what we can. Anyways in a way I do view tonight as a good chance for someone or a group of people to make a statement and walk away with a nice free cash prize to boot. I'm looking forward to tonight's BBT Freeroll, which again is only open to the 56 bloggers and players who were in the BBT Leaderboard top 50 or participated in at least 20 of the BBT tournaments this year. $1800 up for grabs, for free, tonight at 10pm ET on full tilt poker. This is in place of the regular Mookie tournament, a slot Mookie was gracious enough to give up for the evening so the BBT Freeroll could take place at the time when the biggest group of bloggers regularly get together already anyways at full tilt. So it's 10pm ET on full tilt, and no registration or password is required for you -- if you played your way in, then you have already been auto-registered and all you need to do is have your pretty little selves there at the pc at 10pm ET tonight for the slugfest to begin.

Before I get to the continuation from yesterday's hand analysis post, I wanted to say one thing in response to Blinders' recent run of posts in response to my restealing posts from the last week or two. Blinders' basic contention in his follow-up posts is that while restealing may have its (+EV) place late in tournaments, in general restealing in cash games is -EV. He then goes on to provide an incredible amount of detailed mathematics -- which for once I get to be the one to say about someone else's blog that I didn't read all the way through -- and it seems that a lot of people are questioning the conclusion. While I think the detail is probably best left for another discussion, maybe a future blog discussion even, let me just say for the record that I agree 100% with Blinders' assertion. I don't usually resteal in cash games -- I do it for sure, but not nearly as often as I do late in large mtts, because the most attractive thing that makes a resteal so great to pull off is the blinds and antes that go along with restealing another player's preflop steal-raise. By the end of the big tournaments, those blinds and antes are really effing big in relation to the stacks and the tournament average chipstack, and that's the thing that really makes restealing (just plain stealing too, for that matter) so attractive -- so necessary, really -- late in large tournaments. There is just not corresponding situation at the cash tables. So while I do naked resteals with some frequency in my cash game play, it is only where I feel I have a really good read and where I feel the need to show a particular player that he can't just steal-raise me with abandon. Remember, I play 6-max nlh when I play cash, and in that game on-line it is absolutely customary for the button to pot-steal (my term for stealing with a pot-sized raise, which is the standard raise at all the 6-max tables before the flop) if the action folds around to him. But Blinders, I feel ya brotha! The naked resteal in cash games is probably going to be -EV over time for all but the very best players out there, period. Nicely done.

OK, on to yesterday's hand analysis questions. First of all, that was some of the best slate of comments I've seen to a poker post in a long time, so thank you guys for that. There was a lot of disagreement, more than we usually get I think, on some of the basic points of playing this hand on both the flop and the turn, so I will take some time and go through my thoughts here. To refresh everyone's memory, I saw a 4-person flop with 88 after all four players were in for one preflop raise, and the board of 864, all spades (obviously I had no spades, for those of you who have not used playing cards too many times). Top set, but no part of the flush draw and four players in the pot. I ended up checking and calling a $40 bet into what would be a $173 pot to see a 3-way turn card. It came an offsuit King, and again the first player checked to me. I opted to check again, and the player after me led out again, this time for $140 into the $173 pot. The first player folded, leaving me here at this point as we start today's post:



Before we get to what to do now, I want to go back to my play on the flop, which really goes back to my own personal experiences over hundreds of thousands of hands of poker in my life. In general, over time I have had the best success playing against 3-suited boards very slowly on the flop if there is not a realistic expectation of pushing everyone out with a flop bet. And it's funny, because I actually think I came to this realization from playing Omaha. In Omaha, because of the four hole cards for every player, it is rare for someone to ever fold a big Omaha draw on the flop, no matter how big the betting gets. As a result, when I flop a hand like top set in Omaha against a flop with a high straight draw and a flush draw, I tend not to bet on the flop in that spot. The draws aren't going away anyways, and therefore you can get out cheaper if a draw fills on the turn, or more effectively price out the drawers by betting with just one card left once the turn card is already out. This is consistent with several well-known Omaha writers' and authors' strategy for playing these kinds of hands, and it is something I have adapted a bit to my holdem game as well.

In the spot I was in in this hand, flopping top set on a connecting and three-suited flop, I like the flop check, with the intention of seeing a cheap turn card. Obviously there is nothing wrong with betting out here, though I think if you bet you have to put in a big bet -- I'm thinking of around the size of the pot, given the ease with with someone can have a playable draw on this particular flop. A small bet will for sure entice callers, and with so many draws that can beat my set I do not see it as good poker to throw in a pot sweetener in this particular situation. That said, a large (pot-sized) bet makes some good sense to me here, but unless you're willing to fold to an allin push from any kind of a large stack, I think this can commit me to the hand where I have to admit I have lost to the flopped flush or flopped straight on many occasions, sadly.

That's why I like the check better here. With four players in this pot, the odds that at least one of them has a high spade seemed, to me, to be very good since they are likely playing high cards having all called a preflop raise. I also figured that the odds were pretty good that at least one of the four players in this hand had at least an inside straight draw if not an open-ender with a hand like 97s. Any spade, any 2, 5, 7 or Ten and I may be running a very costly set into a made straight or flush. That is 21 cards that I will not be happy facing an allin bet with if they fall on the turn. That's over 40% right there to hit on the turn, and if I get it allin on the flop then I have to see both the turn and the river and face potentially 21 bad cards twice. With the four players in this pot, this situation seems to lend itself more towards the flop check for the same reasons as in the Omaha situation to me. Cmitch commented that this seemed like a contradictory position, but I don't see it that way. To me, with three other players, one of them will have a primary flush draw that they believe will win them a 4-way raised (i.e., eventually big) pot, and the other probably has some form of straight draw along with something else going maybe. I do not believe that even a near-pot-sized bet will chase everyone out of this pot, just like in the Omaha context. So, just like in the Omaha context, since I likely cannot win this pot on the flop even with a bet and since there are a whole lot of turn cards that will make my hand very difficult and uncomfortable (and potentially unprofitable) to play on the turn, for me I have had the most success in this spot by checking and trying to see the turn as cheaply as possible.

In the end, I was perfectly fine with the way this went down. If I had bet out, the player to my left might well have raised (he did bet both the flop and the turn, after all), and then what? Then I'm going to be forced to call allin for an entire stack of bills on the flop with a whole mess of outs to fade. No thanks. I've lost in this kind of situation making a play like that more times than I can count. Yes I might be better than 50-50 to win that allin confrontation, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is the best play available to me. I still prefer the option of waiting until the turn to make my move, when I actually have some good fold equity by making a big bet, because by that time all those 34% draws on the flop will have turned into 18% draws on the river, chances which I can easily price anyone else at the table out of playing for just one more card.

To be clear, and I've written about this many times on the blog, but if there had been just one or two opponents with me when I make top set on this connecting, suited flop, I would be much more likely (though still not sure) to bet out to try to price out the draws. What I'm going for in that spot is taking the pot down immediately. I do not want to slow-play even top set on the connecting, all-suited flop against just one or two opponents when the odds are much better that my opponent does not have enough of a piece of this board to call. But with 3 other players in there for a raise already in this situation, the odds have increased dramatically that at least one of these guys is going to call any reasonable bet I come up with on that flop, in which case I think I'd rather keep most of my money still behind until I see a turn card and can re-evaluate from there.

OK so that was my line on the flop -- the check with the intention of seeing a cheap turn. Now when the turn came an offsuit, non-straightening King, and the action checked around to me, my intention changed entirely. Whereas on the flop I checked with the intention of seeing a cheap card, on the turn I checked with the intent of checkraising. At that point in the hand, many of the commenters felt I should have bet out solidly on the turn, chasing out those draws with what is more likely to be the best hand. While like on the flop I think betting out here is a fine move, I like the check-to-checkraise more, for two main reasons:

First, the cutoff bet out on this suited, straightening flop, showing strength into a board replete with easy draws. That to me means one of two things, either he has a strong hand (could be made straight or flush, a set, set plus a draw, two pairs, etc. or maybe a primary draw), or he has a vulnerable hand that he wants to find out if it is best. This could be an overpair, or top pair good kicker, something like that, maybe a low two pairs. Given that information I have gleaned from my opponent's bet on the flop, I think I can really refine that information if I can see him bet here on the turn before I make any big commitments. If I bet into this $173 pot, it's going to have to be a big bet, and basically both of us will be pot committed if anyone shows any more interest at all in this pot. But if I check here, this guy will either (1) check -- probably meaning that he missed his draw, or maybe had an overpair to the flop but one that is lower than Kings and now he fears AK, or something like that, or (2) bet -- and from the nature of his bet I should be able to tell whether he is trying to buy a relatively cheap river card or whether he is trying to price out the still many draws with some kind of a strong hand.

And so I checked it here, again intending all along to go for the checkraise if the guy to my left bet. This move carries some risk, don't get me wrong, but with that risk comes the reward of possibly reading from his turn action that he might have flopped the flush or the straight, and what's more, from his flop bet I figured the odds were fairly high that he would in fact bet on that turn card. So why not check and get a little more information in this spot, before I (probably) commit my entire stack on a checkraise now where no opponent could possibly be getting the right odds to chase whatever they are playing for on the river.

When my opponent bet out $140 into the $173 pot, my mind was basically made up. I think Blinders said it best in his comment although a few of the commenters did make this point -- that size bet is not typically one that would be made by a made straight, and almost certainly not by a made flush, given that offsuit turn King♥. A guy with that hand -- that at this point he would basically have to believe is well ahead of any other likely holding given the action so far -- would probably bet out on the turn here, but not that big. Yes a tricky multi-level-thinking player might put us on this read and therefore make the largeish bet, but generally speaking $140 into a $173 pot on the turn is not the best of the flopflush or the flopstraight here. The flush would want to bet less, maybe $80 or $90 into this pot, to try to induce a lesser hand to call or maybe even raise what appears to be a weak bet. The straight might bet more towards the high side there, to apply solid pressure to the flush chasing hand, but remember even $90 into a $173 pot doesn't give near enough odds for a normal primary draw to chase in this spot. So when this guy bet out $140 into the $173 pot, I felt I had gotten all the information I needed, and now with just one card to come I was comfortable ending the hand right here, or eliciting a call from a worse hand:



"I'm all-in baby!" And what I like most about the way I played this hand was that I ended up getting my opponent to commit their entire stack with a hand I figured was almost surely behind mine, and yet I managed to avoid committing a big portion of my stack until after I had seen the turn card and got a good read from my opponent that he did not hold one of the two hands I was most afraid of in this spot. To me this is a far preferable outcome to getting it allin against a guy willing to call off a full buyin on a straightening, 3-flushed flop, where at the time my odds of winning were probably fairly close to 50% or so one way or the other. And yes that was the most pathetic, least thought-out math estimate I have ever used here in the blog. And I'm sticking with it.

Anyways, the guy called my allin checkraise here after thinking for maybe 3 or 4 seconds. You wanna guess what he had? So after all the betting out on the flop on a scary board, then betting out big again on the turn, he called my allin checkraise on that turn card on a board of 468K with three spades. What do you think he had here? Formulate your guesses, and then I will skip down some room and show you the exposed cards.





























Blimmitty Blam!! Set over set baybeee, and no not the pocket Kings that would have crushed me, and obviously no spade over there either. And for once in my fricking life at the cash tables my opponent did not hit his one-outer on the river, sending an $857 pot my way and putting a nice cap on what has been another nice little run from me at the 2-4 6-max tables again lately on full tilt.

I would love to know your thoughts on how I explained my strategy for this hand, should you have any.

And I'll see you lucky 56 people tonight at the BBT Freeroll at 10pm ET on full tilt! Long live Buddydank Radio!!

MATH Recap, and Hand Analysis Question

33 players at the Hoy on Monday night, another big turnout to start the week. And included in the mix were at least two first-timers, RaisingCayne and hoops15mt. I told Cayne early on in the chat, and in fact even before the tournament in a comment here from Monday afternoon, that I thought he had a good shot in his first showing in this tournament, and in the end I got to watch him from the earlygoing and got to see Cayne slowly but surely growing his stack as he edged ever closer to the elusive MATH final table. Me, meanwhile, I ran JJ into TT, which promptly gave way to a (2-outer) Ten-high flop, and the rest was history as they say. Not my best play ever given that I had pocket Jacks -- only slightly more profitable for me over time in nlh tournaments than its bastard cousin the JackAce -- but a hard one to get away from the way it unfolded.

As far as the cashers this week go, as you may have noticed, at Mondays at the Hoy we have experienced a lot of beginners luck, with first-time MATH players taking down the entire tournament on at least four separate occasions during 2007 alone. And this week's tournament did not disappoint on this front either, as hoops15mt ended the day in 4th place, cashing for $95.04 in his first ever Hoy tournament. In third place was Irongirl, earning $142.56 for her efforts as Iron made it to her third consecutive final table. And the beginners luck theme continued with this week's 2nd place finisher, as Cayne busted out with a big stack early, added to it and at various points held a slight chip lead when down to three- and four-handed, but in the end Cayne fell victim to some very bad luck when heads-up (and earlier at that final table) and ended the night in 2nd place, winning $198 in what was also his first ever attempt at Mondays at the Hoy.

And who was the man, the myth among all bloggers, who managed to Bayne time and time again with lucky flops, turns and river cards on his way to victory last night? It was none other than Waffles, fresh back from World of Dorkcraft fixation to slide into his first MATH in weeks and take the whole thing down. Waffles has a nice writeup of his performance this week on his blog, so go check that out. All I will say is that the final hand saw Waffles get allin on the flop with nothing more than an inside straight, and then hitting his 3-outer on the river to take down the weekly title and the $356.40 first prize from his heads-up opponent in Cayne.

And here is the updated 2007 MATH moneyboard including this week's exciting action:

1. Bayne_s $1175
2. Columbo $974
3. Hoyazo $849
4. VinNay $775
5. cmitch $774
6. Iggy $745
7. NewinNov $677
8. Lucko21 $665
9. Waffles $650
10. Astin $616
11. Tripjax $561
12. Julius Goat $507
13. mtnrider81 $492
14. Chad $485
15. scots_chris $474
16. Fuel55 $458
17. RecessRampage $434
18. Otis $429
19. Miami Don $402
20. Jordan $382
21. Blinders $379
22. Pirate Wes $372
23. lightning36 $371
24. PokerBrian322 $365
25. IslandBum1 $357
26. ChapelncHill $353
27. Zeem $330
28. Mike_Maloney $326
29 oossuuu754 $312
30. leftylu $295
31. Emptyman $288
31. Wigginx $288
33. ScottMc $282
34. Fishy McDonk $277
35. Irongirl $252
35. Manik79 $252
37. Wippy1313 $248
38. Byron $234
39. wwonka69 $216
40. Omega_man_99 $210
41. Pushmonkey72 $208
42. RaisingCayne $198
43. Buddydank $197
44. jeciimd $195
45. bartonfa $180
46. 23Skidoo $176
47. Santa Clauss $170
48. Iakaris $162
48. Smokkee $162
50. cemfredmd $156
50. NumbBono $156
52. lester000 $147
53. LJ $146
54. Heffmike $145
55. brdweb $143
56. DDionysus $137
57. Patchmaster $135
58. InstantTragedy $129
59. Ganton516 $114
60. Fluxer $110
61. hoops15mt $95
62. Gracie $94
62. Scurvydog $94
64. Shag0103 $84
65. crazdgamer $82
66. PhinCity $80
67. maf212 $78
68. Alceste $71
69. dbirider $71
70. Easycure $67
71. Rake Feeder $53

So there you have it. 71 players have now cashed at least one time in the weekly Monday night MATH tournament, including again this week's two first-time entries onto the moneyboard in hoops15mt and RaisingCayne. And congratulations to Waffles for not only winning it all for the second time this year, but for climbing into the top 10 on the 2007 moneyboard with the performance as well. I look forward to another fun time next Monday night at Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt.

Alas I bubbled in the Avatar Race satellite for the second straight time last night. I have had a lot of mtt satellite bubbles recently, and it is really pissing me off. At least I did manage to win my way last night into the $50 super satellite to FTOPS Event #7. That is that juicy $1000 buyin 6-max nlh event on Monday August 13, and the sattellite I am not registered for is at 9:30pm the night before the big event. At only $50 a pop, this is not much of a satellite in that seats to FTOPS #7 will only be awarded to one out of every twenty players in the satellite, and frankly if I had really understood that I was playing a low-dollar rebuy super satellite into a satellite that itself only had a $50 direct buyin I might not have played it at all, but at this point I am happy to be in on at least something related to the upcoming FTOPS tournaments since again I do not expect to be able to play in most of the events this year due to other engagements.

OK before I go today I would like to show you a hand from my cash game play this week that I think illustrates a bit of a rare situation, but one which comes up in some form or another more often than one might think if you play enough no-limit holdem, whether live or on-line. I would love to hear how you guys suggest playing this hand, what you think of the way I played it, and what you think my opponent might have to have played the hand the way that he did. I will be back tomorrow with the answer to show what the other guy was holding and how the hand ended up, but really it is the process and not the result that I am more interested, as is usually the case.

So here's the setup. You're playing 2-4 6-max nlh, and you have 88 in middle position. Action folds to you and you put in a standard pot-raise to $14. The cutoff to your right calls, and then sadly both blinds call as well. There is $53.20 in the pot, and here comes the flop:



Both blinds check to you. You have just flopped top set, but it is on an all-suited board, a suit of which you have none in your hand. The board is also connecting, of which you also have none even though somebody could technically have flopped a straight with the 468 flop. So how do you like to play this here? Are you going to push hard to get all the flush-chasers and straight-chasers out of there? Or do you bet meekly in an attempt to seem like you are on a draw or at least are weaker than you actually are? Anybody like to check here and see what develops, either if the cutoff bets out on this flop or otherwise you can wait and see what the turn card brings before committing a lot more chips?

I opted to go for the check here. I reasoned that with four opponents, the odds of nobody having a decent, playable spade were probably very low since we all called a preflop raise and thus probably have some or mostly high cards. Also with the straight possibilities out there, I figured anyone with any kind of a primary draw is going to stay in for any reasonable-sized bet. Generally with a strong hand on a very draw-heavy board I do try to bet big, in this case with four of us in there I felt it very unlikely that I could push everyone out from all the possible draws, and thus it seemed most prudent for me to check in this spot. The cutoff bet out $50 into the $53.20 pot, the small blind folded but the big blind called, bringing the action back to me, to call $40 into a pot that now contained $133.20:



What do you like to do here? Call, raise or fold?

Following the same logic as above, I went for just the call here, reasoning that I was about to get beat if any spade or any further connecting card came off on the turn (assuming the board did not pair up, giving me the nut boat).

The turn brought an offsuit King, which I reasoned was good for me in that clearly neither the flush draws nor the straight draws could have filled with that card. With still two opponents left, how would you play this now that the turn has not hurt your near-nut hand? How worried are you about someone flopping the flush or the straight, given the action so far?

I decided to check the action again, maybe being a little bit fearful and maybe being a little bit trappy. I'm not really sure how I could put someone specifically on the flopped flush or the flopped straight at this point, so I figured here let's see if one of the other two opponents will bet out on this non-scare card on the turn, so I can raise them unless I get a specific read from when or how much they bet.

The cutoff led out again, this time for $140 into the $173 pot:



and the big blind folded his hand. Now what?

What does this guy have, given his betting so far in this hand?

Answers and my thoughts on Wednesday.