Mookie Crash n Burn

Last night I had my earliest exit yet from any BBT4 event,as I was the 5th one out in the Mookie. Although it does feel comfortable knowing that my luck in the Mookie has returned to its normal self, I had a pretty gheyass run if I don't say so myself. The hand that tilted me out of this thing happened just 5 minutes in, when I called from late position and saw a 6-way flop with my pocket 2s***. Obviously, just looking to set mine with this shittiest of pocket pairs, or I'm not gonna play any further.

Well, the flop comes down A82. At first I am psyched, as I just flopped my first set since the first Bush was president, but soon I realized that the flop had also come all-suited in clubs. Not good. Now my set is either already behind in this 6-handed pot, or at least it's threatened by several draws to the flush (I had no clubs in my hand). The action checks around to me, and I bet out around 2/3 of the pot, knowing of course that I'm going to get instacalled by the lone Ace♣ and the lone King♣ and probably some other garbage as well. I get called I think in three places. Oh goody. Then the turn brings an offsuit 9. A player in middle position this time bets out a reasonably small bet, too big to be a blocking bet, but too small to be a bluff. The size of the bet told me this was some kind of a big hand. Better than my set of 2s? Possibly.

Before I can figure how to react to this bet, the player just before me raises, and a minimum raise at that. Now, the flop had three clubs, a guy check-called and then led out smallish on the turn, and you're min-raising here? Shit, that's too obvious to even have been a flopped flush, so right away the bells started ringing that this was a set. I didn't think he had played the flop as if he had made a set, but in the end it didn't matter which card on the board matched the pocket pair this second guy had, because my set of 2s was behind it. Wayyyyyy behind. To think that I seem to flop sets about 1 time for every 25 pocket pairs I take to the flop, and now here I am about to get flush-over-set-over-setted, I was just furious. I think I committed a bit of a poker faux pas by typing into the chat what both of the other players had (set and a flush) before the original flop bettor had decided what to do with the raise, and for that I apologize (not that it mattered in the outcome of the hand).

End result? The original flop bettor called, eventually showing 99 for the turned set, which lost to the flop raiser's flopped flush. I flop a set five minutes in to the Mookie, and I'm already in second place on the flop, slipping to third on the turn. So ghey. The fact that I managed to lose only 500 chips on the hand should have made me happy, but of course it just tilted me like crazy instead. I shot off a few tilty IMs to the guys on the girly who I know always appreciate it the most, and then three hands later I picked up QQ and saw a flop heads-up against a guy who had limped and then called my raise preflop. The flop came K54. With two Queens in my hand, the odds of him having KQs there are low. AK of course was a possibility, but he had just limped originally before the flop, which is not normally consistent with AK, so in the end I decided to take my short stack and ram it down this guy's throat. Of course he instacalled with AK and IGH, just like that.

I heard this morning that Tuscaloosa Johnny won the Mook again in the end on Wednesday night. Shit, that guy is embarrassing us all in the BBT4, just like he did in the BBT3.


***Obviously the details of this hand are completely made up.

Another Mookie Flushed Away, and the All-Suited Flop Concluded

Wow. A crazy thing happened to me on Wednesday night about 30, 35 minutes into the Mookie on full tilt. So I'm sitting on my bed with the laptop on a pillow on my lap (those of you with laptops will know why I choose to have a pillow between the bottom of the laptop and my merely 98.6 degree skin of my legs), and as usual I haven't hand a single playable hand yet, through probably 30 hands. Annoying. But standard. I mean I haven't even sniffed a hand. I might have had QJs one time, and I think 44 at one point in the first couple rounds. But that's as good as it got.

So I'm sitting there, I'm playing the Mookie, and my starting stack of 3000 chips is probably somewhere around 2800 or 2900 or so. I had been up a couple hundy, down a couple hundy, but nothing major in either direction as I recall. Eventually I limp from the cutoff with 96 of diamonds. The flop comes...all three diamonds. Now, you would think this would excite me. But I know better. I say to Hammer Wife "Wow. I flopped a flush. And this is where Hoyazo busts out early from the Mookie." Now, when you flop the flush, in all but the most unusual and runnerrunnery of situations, the only way you can lose is to a guy hitting a higher four-flush on you on the turn or river, so of course that means my big objective here is to get one of the two other players in this pot to either lay it down or get it allin when I am a 2-to-1 favorite. So imagine my happiness when someone in early position bets out, and then another player raises, all ahead of me. Now I basically "know" that one of these guys has some kind of pair or two pair or set hand, and the other guy must have the Ace or King of diamonds along with some other kind of hand or draw. I pause the requisite few seconds to fake-think, and then I push allin. Firsty folds immediately, and riggstad in middle position instacalls. I'm bracing to dodge a fourth diamond on the turn or river, and with just 7 left in the deck I am going to be around 70% to win the pot, which I've already known from the minute the flush flopped for me I was not going to win.

At least full tilt made it easy on me. Riggstad flips up his cards, and he, of course, has also flopped the flush. The King-high variety. IGH among the first handful of players out. Nice. And that's when the strange thing happened.

At first it was just something I felt lightly touch my hair on top of my head. My first thought was a fly or something must've landed on my head and be walking around on my head or something. Not usual but nothing so unbelievably crazy or anything. But then I felt it again, on the other side of my head. And suddenly right in front of my eyes, a streamer or something flew past. And that's when I heard the trumpets. It was a festive beat, kinda like what they used to run at the end of Let's Make a Deal. And all of a sudden, there is confetti all over the fuckin place. My bedroom is completely beseiged with party gimmicks and party sounds. Just as I start to wonder what the hike this is all for, Wink Martindale comes through my bedroom door and announces that I have just lost for the 2 millionth no-limit holdem hand with a made flush on full tilt poker! Yay for me! Who knew, I thought, who knew. What an exciting time for me.

I've written about it here before, but I cannot win with a fucking flush to save my life, and it's not for lack of aggression, due to slow-playing or for not respecting the presence of a pair on the board. My Poker Tracker stats show it all, where I have still lost over $1500 in total with made two-card flushes, and that's just in cash games. Again, this is situations where I've made a flush with both of my hole cards, and only 1 out of 14 losses with made flushes was to a full house. That means I've lost thirteen effing times just in cash games and just in the past 4 or 5 months or so that I've been running Poker Tracker, where I made a flush using both of my hole cards, but ran into a higher flush from my opponent. I submit to you all that nobody out there can come up with a more recockulously unlucky statistic than that about their own play. And I'm not even touching how many times I bust out of tournaments with these same two-card flush hands, including this week's Mookie. Bahh. Full tilt has been absolutely lambasting me lately. What else is new. Congrats to leftylu for yet another Mookie victory, blahblahblah. Eat it.

Oh yeah, I also got talked into playing the Dookie this week, pot-limit holdem, but then some no-name called my allin on the flop with absolutely nothing but an inside straight. It filled on the river.

Did I say "Eat it" yet? Cripes.

So on to the conclusion of this week's hand analysis. To recap one last time, I checked out of the big blind to see a 5-handed flop with K9 of hearts. The flop came KT6, all spades. I checked and then called a small bet on the flop, thinking my top pair is likely good but not wanting to commit much with a 3-suited flop out there and still two cards to come. Then when an offsuit 7 came on the turn, I bet out nearly the size of the pot, and just one opponent, the original flop bettor, called my nearly pot-sized bet to see a river card. The river came another rag, the 3 of hearts, and I asked what do you do here (my opponent has 460 chips remaining in his stack):



The comments to yesterday's post interestingly tended more towards checking than betting here, and in fact the majority of the commenters appear to think I am likely behind here and certainly should not bet. A few of the comments took the opposite tack, which is the side I came down on, and I will explain why, although again some of the comments I think pretty much hit my analysis head-on.

Of course, there is always the possibility that I am up against a flopped flush. That possibility is always going to be there, and I'm never going to be able to make that possibility go to zero. It's there, it's possible. But in terms of probability, I simply was not worried at this point about my opponent having either a flopped flush or a stronger King than mine. Let's review the action and put ourselves in this guy's head as best as we can:

On the 3-suited flop, he bet out small from late relative position after a few guys has already checked the action to him. This could mean a lot of things, but to me seems most consistent with either some decent pair on the board, or more likely a flush draw. Maybe a little bit of both. The made flush might also bet out small here, if he's a real man, but that's still a fairly remote possibility odds-wise (forgetting my Mookie story from last night, of course). Then on the turn when a raggy card fell, I bet out and bet out solidly. I bet nearly the size of the pot for a very good reason -- only a bet that size will tell me what I need to know about my opponent's hand at this point in the action. If I bet out a third of the pot here, he may again call with second pair top kicker, top pair shit kicker, or any number of flush draws. But by betting nearly the full pot on the turn, as soon as my opponent called, leaving himself just 460 chips into a now 1200-chip pot, I felt I had formulated a very reliable read on the guy. If he's got the made flush here, as at least one of the commenters mentioned, there is aboslutely no point to him not pushing allin here. Of course I'm calling based purely on pot odds, and he can only lose me on the river, not get more chips from me than the allin he could have clearly gotten on the turn. So no way I put him on the made flush here.

Similarly, I feel his just calling (not raising or folding) on the flop made it highly unlikely that he held some kind of a King in his hand. While I suppose a very specific (and thus very unlikely) holding very close to my hand might have just smooth called there with the 3-flush on the board -- something like K8 or K7 perhaps -- put yourself again in his position for a minute. There's 3 spades on the board, and I check-called his smallish bet on the flop. He has got to put me on a flush draw here. Now, with just 460 chips left in his stack after calling my 390-chips turn bet, why on earth would he just smooth call with a hand like, say, KQ for top pair better kicker than me? What if he had a set, or two pairs or something like that? He's going to smooth call me with the 3-card flush draw sitting out there, while leaving himself an almost unthinkable 460 chips left in his stack? He's going to make it that easy for me to draw out on him, even when he has just that few chips left to put into the pot that is now nearly 4 times as big as his paltry pile of chips over there? When I thought quickly about it that way, I just did not think at all that this guy had top pair or better, which I think would either fold (if he's a Man) or raise (if he's a donk), or the flush which I'm sure he would have raised there on the turn. Thus, I felt very strongly that my K9 was ahead, and in fact my biggest concern was maybe him misplaying a hand like KT or KJ by failing to raise me allin on the turn. And that just seemed very unlikely to me overall.

All of this analysis led me to just one obvious option, as inuited by Bayne in his comment -- this was a clear candidate for the reverse hoy:



Anybody want to guess how he responded to this river bet by me? I'll give you some space to formulate your guesses, and then you can scroll down for the final screenshot and see what happened:



























Foldy foldy! Can you believe it? And believe me, for his last 460 chips he was not folding any top pair hand there, not after calling off most of his stack on the turn with that hand. Nope, this was a good old fashioned flush-chasin' donkey, who had nothing else in his hand but probably the Ace♠ and some other junk. So I really enjoyed reading all of the analysis on this hand, and hopefully most of us can at least learn something from the way that the others who commented would have played this hand. Feel free to post your thoughts on the way I played the hand, but FWIW I like the way that I played it, and despite careful reading and consideration of all of the commentary, I would play this hand the exact same way again. I think the all-suited flop ends up being a specific situation that is somewhat unique, but calls for a somewhat unique strategy for taking on a multiway pot when I also manage to flop a hand that I assume to be best right now.

See you tonight at 9pm ET for Riverchasers on full tilt. Password is "riverchasers". Show up tonight if for no other reason than to be at my starting table and you can flop the nuts against my second-nuts in the earlygoing. There's just nothing like that feeling of knowing that there are donkeys literally seated all around you like you will feel tonight if I am near you at the virtual tables. 9pm tonight means probably no gym for me, but I will I'm sure hit up the Wii Tennis for a bit tonight as well as I continue to work my rating up over 1800. That's right you Wii Heads, you read that right. 1800 and change, and counting. I'll dominate you anytime in Wii Tennis or Bowling, whoever you are.

The Mookie, Running Bad, and More Hand Analysis

OK it's a Wednesday in the online poker world, and that can only mean one thing. The Mookie on full tilt. 10pm ET tonight, password as always is "vegas1". And it looks like just to change things up, Mookie has changed things a bit from regular nlh to 6-max nlh tonight. Mwaahaahahaha, one of my favorite games. So I'm looking forward to that for sure, and I plan to try to evoke some plays from my big WSOP cash this past summer in 6-max nlh to make another deep run at my elusive first Mookie title [Edit: My bad. I know Mookie is having a 6th child (yes he is crazy) but I mis-read his blog to say that tonight's Mookie will be 6-handed nlh. In reality that was just a pun from Mookie and the actual Mookie tournament will be remaining a full ring event. My apologies.]. I'm so sick and sad guys....I've won ten grand in a big online tournament. I've won 5k 3 or 4 other times, and a lot of smaller yet significant cashes along the way. I've won major once-a-week online tournaments, I've won 2000+-field nightly events, major satellites like the WSOP Bracelet Races which I have won three of in two years of playing on full tilt. But even after all these triumphs, all these affirmations of my play, all I fucking want to do is win a gush durned Mookie. I'm sick, what can I tell you.

Maybe Wednesday will be the night? Uh...no. If any of you saw how hard and how dumbly I donked out of the two tournaments I played on Tuesday evening, you would know I am in all-out donkey mode these days. I've finally been broken down after about 4 weeks of running bad, and now I'm playing like an abject donkey. Last night I pushed pocket Jacks on all three streets against a guy who I knew from his call of my preflop raise held an Ace in his hand, so even with the Ace flopping and me knowing all along I was behind, I donked off my entire stack about 90 minutes in to the nightly 28k guaranteed nlh tournament. Similar story nearing the bubble in the 9:45pm ET token frenzy that has been so good to me over time. And I'm already looking forward to spewing out early tonight in the latest Mookie tournament. So come join the fun where for only $10 + $1 you can play with all the major bloggers every week in the weekly Wednesday night Mookie tournament at 10pm ET on full tilt. And hey, maybe you get lucky and be at my starting table for some free-ass chips. Good times.

So back to the hand we've been looking at this week. To recap, I checked from the big blind to see a 5-handed flop with K9s in hearts in the very early rounds of the nightly 28k on full tilt. The flop came KT6, all spades. I checked and then called a 90-chip bet into a 150-chip pot on the flop from a player I suspected of being on a spade draw. One other player to my left made the call on the flop as well. The turn then brought an offsuit 7 and I was leading off from the big blind, and I asked for opinions on what I should do here on the turn.

Once again the commenters left some excellent thoughts on how to best play this hand. Basically the commenters to this part of the question seem to fall into two categories: the check-folders, who still don't want to risk anything to try to win with top pair 9 kicker, and the bet-outters, many of whom might not have called the bet on the flop but at this point seem to advocate betting out here.

I will admit up front, I am squarely in the bet-out camp here. In fact, I think this comment from Columbo pretty much sums up my feelings about the hand 100%:

Columbo's comment, with my thoughts embedded in red font:

"ok, let me admit something right now. I did not comment on part 1 because I play this exactly like Hoyazo does, but did not want to take any guff for it. Smart man. On the all spade flop with Top Pair, I want to check, not because I fear being behind, but rather to keep the pot small. I do this to "set up" my turn play when a non-spade falls. Exactly mofos, exactly. This hand actually broke down so far exactly how I wanted it to since the flop. I check-called a small bet on the flop (I would have folded the flop to any large bets or any raises), hoping no spade hits on the turn so I can take the pot away from the drawing hand when the odds are terrible, or at least make him pay way too much to draw to the river.

Now, when the non-spade falls on the turn, the only bet here is a pot sized bet. I might get called by a big spade, but if I am he is a big dog. No one else should call unless I am in trouble (like against two pair). I agree and disagree on this one. I think in general a standard pot-sized sort of bet is the way to go here. But, especially since we're so early in a fonkfest like the nightly token-buyin $28k guaranteed, I actually think a lot of high spades will call here -- most players with the A♠ or the K♠ in fact I think will call this bet, stupidly, as will most other flush draw+ hands, like flush draws with middle pairs, flush draws with gutshots, etc. This is a good thing for me, so that when I put in a well-sized bet on the turn, either everyone folds and I win, or some chasers call at bad odds, which is also a big win for me as long as no spade falls on the river.

The nice thing about the all spade flop is that you are not expecting to get re-raised on your leading bets. You expect call or fold. So you can control the pot size from around the front.

If you do get a caller of the pot size bet, then you must really think about your river lead. Maybe a blocking bet, maybe give it up, depending on the opponent." Very well said. The tricky part here is putting the turn caller on a hand here, and then acting correctly based on that read, adjusting for whatever the river brings.

So there's my view. When the all-suited flop falls and I have no part of the flush but I do have a probable best hand like top pair, I don't like to commit any more than I absolutely have to on the flop when there's still a 35% chance of any fourth flush card falling on the turn or river left in the hand. So I will usually check my top pair there, knowing I am likely best and that there is a big draw out there, and I will either call a small bet or fold to a big one or to any additional raising action. And then my move on the turn is to check-fold if the flush draw fills since I all but know I'm behind (and that the other guy isn't folding) at that point, but if the flush card does not fall, then I want to bet out sizeably in that spot to either chase out the guy with the flush draw who stuck around on the flop, or make him pay way too much to draw to the flush since there are so many soooted donks out there in online poker land.

So here I am, betting out for a nearly pot-sized bet on the turn:



The player to my left folded quickly (missed draw), but the original middle position raiser guy thought for a bit and then smooth called my 390 chips. This put 1200 chips into the now-huge pot, and the river came down another offsuit low card, another total rag. Now there are 1200 chips in the pot, my opponent has just 460 chips left and I have just 970 chips remaining in my own stack. Action is to me.

Do you bet out here? If so, do I have any reasonable options for bet sizes other than putting my opponent allin (minus one chip of course)? Or am I checking here in case my top pair 9 kicker is behind? If I check, am I going to call the inevitable allin bet from my opponent for his last 460 chips? Or am I check-folding at this point?

Let me know your thoughts, and tomorrow I will have the conclusion of the hand up as well as some more analysis of the comments and the issues facing us in this situation, which actually comes up more often than you think if you play a lot of no-limit holdem. In the meantime, if you haven't already registered for Wednesday night's Mookie tournament, WTF is stopping you? Let's get going already! See you there tonight.

MATH Recap and 3-Suited Flop Hand Continued

Now this is really getting redickulous. Somehow this week, RaisingCayne managed to not only add a 6th final table in 7 appearances this year in the MATH to his resume, but he actually won the thing outright again, his 3rd overall MATH win again in just 7 lifetime events. Wow. Even more amazing to me is that I left the pc once I watched Columbo get eliminated on a short stack in 6th place, thereby ensuring that none of the cashers this week would threaten the three-headed hydra atop the 2007 MATH moneyboard, at a time whem wormmsu, playing in just his second ever MATH, had about 40k in chips and Cayne was down to I think 5 or 6k, and in last of the 6 remaining players. So I didn't see how it all went down, but all I know is when I logged in this morning, Cayne had done it again. I read on Cayne's blog about a huge suckout ITM at the final table in a hand that he effed up against emptyman so it seems there was some more donkery to be had for Cayne after I signed off, but let's be honest. This guy has final tabled the MATH 6 times in 7 tries, he came in 2nd once and he's won it outright three times. Obviously he is doing something right.

In the end, with 24 runners on the night and the top 3 finishers splitting the $576 prize pool, third place and $115.20 goes to IslandBum1 who recorded his first MATH cash since winning one of the early MATH tournaments involved in the Battle of the Blogger Tournaments this past spring. Ending in second place, after the big suckout referred to above, was emptyman who won $172.80 for his efforts, and as I mentioned, this week's big winner once again was RaisingCayne, who won the $288 first prize for his continued domination of the event I once reigned supreme over.

And here is the updated 2007 MATH moneyboard, taking into account this week's Mondays at the Hoy tournament:

1. Bayne_s $1175
2. Columbo $1168
3. Hoyazo $1162
4. RaisingCayne $1110
5. Pirate Wes $792
6. VinNay $775
7. cmitch $774
8. Iggy $745
9. NewinNov $677
10. Lucko21 $665
11. Waffles $650
12. IslandBum1 $642
13. Astin $616
14. Tripjax $561
15. Julius Goat $507
16. bartonf $492
16. mtnrider81 $492
18. PokerBrian322 $490
19. Chad $485
20. scots_chris $474
21. Emptyman $461
22. Fuel55 $458
23. Mike_Maloney $456
24. RecessRampage $434
25. Otis $429
26. Surflexus $402
26. Miami Don $402
28. jeciimd $382
28. Jordan $382
30. Blinders $379
31. lightning36 $371
32. ChapelncHill $353
33. Zeem $330
34. LJ $326
35. OMGitsPokerFool $324
36. oossuuu754 $312
37. leftylu $295
38. Wigginx $288
39. ScottMc $282
40. Fishy McDonk $277
41. Irongirl $252
41. Manik79 $252
43. Wippy1313 $248
44. swimmom95 $245
45. Byron $234
46. wwonka69 $216
47. Omega_man_99 $210
48. katiemother $209
49. Pushmonkey72 $208
50. Buddydank $197
51. Gary Cox 194
52. 23Skidoo $176
53. Santa Clauss $170
54. Iakaris $162
54. Smokkee $162
56. cemfredmd $156
56. NumbBono $156
58. lester000 $147
59. Heffmike $145
60. brdweb $143
61. Mookie $137
61. DDionysus $137
63. Patchmaster $135
64. InstantTragedy $129
65. Ganton516 $114
66. Fluxer $110
67. hoops15mt $95
68. Gracie $94
68. Scurvydog $94
70. wormmsu $91
71. Shag0103 $84
72. crazdgamer $82
73. PhinCity $80
74. maf212 $78
75. Alceste $71
76. dbirider $71
77. Easycure $67
78. Rake Feeder $53

So for the second straight week, our three cashers have already previously cashed in the MATH this year, leaving our total number of Hoy cashers on the year at 78 different players. Emptyman climbed up to 21st on the list with his second place finish this week, while IslandBum used his third place cash to jump to 11th, and Cayne remains in 4th place while adding another $288 to his MATH haul from just the past couple of months. The win leaves Cayne as the fourth member of the $1100 club in the MATH this year, and just $65 away from Bayne who still leads after the three of us at the top all failed to cash for at least the fourth straight Mondays at the Hoy tournament. The top of the board is fast becoming anyone's to grab hold of, and if Cayne has shown us anything it's that you could start playing the MATH at any time and still have an impact that is felt in just a short period of time. Way to go Cayne, and I can only hope I'm at your starting table next Monday night in the next MATH.

So, back to yesterday's hand analysis question. To recap, I checked my option out of the big blind with K9s and 4 limpers in the pot ahead of me, and the flop came down KT6 all suited, not in my suit. The small blind checked to me, and I asked how you would be apt to play this hand on the flop:



As usual there were a lot of well-thought-out comments. As a general statement, I am definitely in agreement with the majority of the commenters about betting out somewhere near the size of the pot on a flop with lots of potential draws like this flop has. Mostly everyone seems to like either betting out "to see where I'm at", or check-folding. Personally, I'm not a fan of either, in this specific case. In general, again, give me a flop like KQx with 2 diamonds or something, and I would be likely to do exactly what most of the commenters suggested, and bet out to protect my top pair hand. But, in particular on a three-suited flop, there is almost always going to be at least a couple of guys who are going to call me with their shit flush draws on this flop. Always. Because anyone with any spade can think they can win this pot all of a sudden. So in these all-suited flop situations specifically, I tend to check here. I actually have absolutely no reason to assume that my top pair is behind here; most likely, I'm figuring, I actually have the best hand right now. But with any reasonable-sized bet, I have in my mind basically no chance of eliminating any more than two of the other four players still in the pot, and if any spade falls on the turn, then I will be immediately sacrificing the bet I just made on the flop. So, unlike other draw-heavy flops where I generally like to bet out with a hand like top pair, in this situation of a surprise all-suited flop, I often like to check, with the intention of calling anything but an overbet from another player, and with the intention of check-folding the turn if another spade comes, or potentially betting out on the turn if a non-spade card hits the board.

So I checked it here. The next two players checked behind me as well, but then the middle position guy bet out 90 chips into the 150-chip pot, and the small blind folded ahead of me, bringing the action to me:



As I mentioned above, I checked with the hope of someone on a draw or a middle-pair-top-kicker kind of hand, with the intention of trying to see a turn card as cheaply as possible. So I called the bet, more or less indifferent to the other players behind me calling, although with such a weak top-pair hand, folding them is probably a better move for me than having them stick around to try to suck out on me.

In the end, just the player to my immediate left also called the 90-chip bet, at that point into a 330-chip pot, and everyone else folded. Three-handed, we saw a turn card of an offsuit 7. With the small blind out of the hand, action was to me.

Now what do you do here? The turn card is more or less raggy garbage, and there is now 330 chips in the pot. I still have K9 on a K6T7 board with 3 spades all on the flop. Do I bet out now to again protect my top pair hand and find out where I'm at? How much in relation to the 420 chips in the pot would you bet, with 1360 total chips in my stack? Or do I check here? Anybody looking to check-raise in this spot? How about the check-folders out there?

Poker Weekend, Reading Hands and the NFL

Good morning to everyone from what is definitely a beautiful late summer morning in New York City. It's inthe low 60s for the commute in what for the past several months have been the intolerably hot and sweaty tunnels under the city, and I have to say that really does wonders for my mood in the office in the morning. It's nice not to show up at my office in my dorksuit and dorktie already sweaty and uncomfortable. It's been a few months since I haven't felt that way upon my arrival at the office, so hopefully this will be a trend for a bit and maybe we can have a nice fall for a good month or so unlike usual here where things often tend to jump straight from summer into winter, and winter into summer. And all this has me in a nice mood this morning to make the usual Monday morning announcement here at the blog, once again banner courtesy of Duggles this week:



Yep, Monday night at 10pm ET on full tilt is the latest Mondays at the Hoy tournament. As always our little shindig will have a buyin of $26 or a single Tier 1 token, and it can be found under the "Tournaments" - "Private" tab. The password as always is "hammer". Last week we saw a handful of first-timers show up, none of whom made the money as I recall in stark contrast to our usual run of beginners' luck in this weekly Monday night event, but maybe this week will be different if some more of you out there will make tonight your first time playing the Hoy, if not your first time playing with the bloggers as a whole. And plus there's still that juicy logjam atop the 2007 MATH moneyboard between BBT killer Bayne, Columbo and myself, so you never know if this Monday will be the night that one of us breaks the virtual tie and asserts himself in front of all other players who have participated in Mondays at the Hoy so far this year. I am already registered and I plan to make some noise myself, so hopefully you'll be there on full tilt tonight at 10pm ET to see how the action unfolds.

This weekend was more or less a wash for me on the poker front. First of all, I barely played as I was out with friends from out-of-town both Friday and Saturday evenings, although I did put in maybe 2 or 2.5 hours of play overall between Saturday late night and Sunday evening, the end result of which was basically about a half a buyin loss at the 2-4 6max cash tables overall, and no major tournament cashes worth mentioning here. If anything, my best poker news of the past few days and what enabled me to turn a slight profit overall on the weekend was when I sat down to a late-night session on Saturday, I did not like any of the mtt's that were running, so I ended up jumping into another of those $110 buyin 1-table turbo sng's, the same thing I had messed around in a bit a month or two ago. This would be only the fourth of these I have ever played in, with an early suckout elimination and two victories to show for my first three forays into the world of higher-buyin sngs, and, well, here was the result:



After four of these $110 turbo sngs, which admittedly is nothing resembling a large enough sample to really be able to draw profitable conclusions I know, but I have got to say that the play at this level buyin is absolutely not any better than the play I see in the lower-buyin mtts and other sngs I have played in. In this particular event, a couple of guys busted out early moving allin with basically 2-to-1-against flush draws and failing to hit, and at least two doofuses who busted early on foolish river bluffs that had not been set up properly. Otherwise I was able to get value from my strong hands and use deceptive-looking betting to knock a few guys out by getting them to call my bets with inferior hands. I did get brutally sucked out on once when I had amassed a huge chip lead 3-handed (we were already ITM at this point), but then I nailed a triumphant suckout of my own to make two pairs on the turn to get my stack right back once again be in great chip position against my other two ITM opponents. In the end I busted #3 when he pushed allin from the button with a crappy hand and high blinds and antes and I called him with the JackAce, and then on a 567 flop I purposely played my A7 slow when heads-up, successfully goading my opponent to reraise me allin on that flop with just an 8 in his hand for the oesd. My TPTK held up and I was $495 richer. I really should play in these things more often, given my track record in just a few of them so far. Sitngoes really are the most boring thing a guy can do in online poker though, so I'm trying my best to stay away as much as I can.

OK so today I'm going to start a project here that I suspect will take the next few weeks to get through, and that is focusing on how I lay reads on players when I play online poker. I want to discuss what contributes to my reads on players, how I act early in the hand to try to isolate or confirm those reads in some way, and then what I like to do to react to the reads I do have on these players. The first hand I want to review is one that I played through over the past few weeks in my online poker travels. Here's the setup:

You're playing the nightly 10pm ET 28k guaranteed nlh tournament on full tilt. The buyin is $26, and this is still the very early blinds rounds, with blinds of 15 and 30, and starting stacks of 1500 chips. You are in the big blind with K9s. UTG limps for 30, and the player second to act limps behind. Third to act then limps behind as well, and the action folds around to the small blind who also limps for another 15 chips. I'm sitting on a good sooted hand here, and can probably even get equity value from a small raise if I can keep all five players in this pot, but in the end I like the check here:



I might actually be more apt to bet here if I had held a weaker hand, thinking that I don't mind reopening the betting because if anyone reraises me I will quickly fold, and otherwise I probably have very little chance of winning a multiway pot with a poorer hand. With K9s, however, I actually could win this hand, either with a strong flush, or by pairing either of my hole cards if things break out just right. K9s is not a hand I would call a reraise with, so I risk being blown out of a pot that I would like to see a flop with, when instead I can just check, give away absolutely nothing about the strength of my hand, and take a shot at hitting something on this flop and trying to win what is shaping up to be a nice sized pot in the earlygoing of a large mtt where it's so important to get off to a good start early.

The flop comes K6T, all suited, unfortunately not in our suit, and the small blind checks the action to you in the big blind:



What do you like to do here? Are you betting out with your top pair 9 kicker into five other players on a 3-suited flop? Does the all-suited nature of the flop make you more or less likely to want to bet out to protect your top pair in this spot? Can you risk giving away a free card to anybody holding any spades in their hand? If you bet, how much would you bet into the 150-chip pot, and if you check, do you check with the intention of folding to a reasonable-sized bet of say between 2/3 and the full pot, or do you intend to call or raise a normal-sized bet with your top pair in this spot?

Please leave your thoughts if any in the comments and tomorrow I will move on to the rest of the action with this hand.

Otherwise, before I go I just wanted to hit on a couple of very brief notes from the NFL this weekend. First off, GO E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES!!!! tonight. If we start off the season 0-2 with losses to the hapless Packers and then the even worse Redskins, I am not going to be a happy camper as a lifelong Philadelphia sports fan. Even after the Phillies spent the weekend beating down on the Mets again for their 6th, 7th and 8th consecutive victories head-to-head against our hated New York rivals, an 0-2 start to the Eagles season is not going to be received well by anyone or anything Philadelphia. I picked the Eagles minus 7 points as one of my two picks of the week here on the blog on Friday, and I'm sticking with that today.

And speaking of my picks of the week, my other pick was a 7+-point victory for a team that is considered one of the top teams in the AFC, a team who ended up running up 45 points against the alleged worst team in the NFL on Sunday. So, you figure I had to win that bet, right? Nope! Not only did the Cincinatti Bengals fail to cover the 7 point spread against the lowly Browns in scoring 45 points this weekend on 6 passing touchdowns from Carson Palmer, but they didn't even win the game straight up. Somehow the Bengals, who it seems have literally the worst defense in the NFL, managed to give up 51 points to Derek Anderson in his first NFL start for Romeo Crenell's Browns team. So that was one game that I was kinda right about, but overall still wrong about, and that takes me to 1-1 so far on the season.

Interestingly, though, I wrote on Friday about the three "setup"-looking lines I saw for this past weekend, one of which was the Bengals and a 7-point line that looked strangely low for one of the league's best teams against the league's worst, in a week with 4 or 5 other games with higher lines than that one. And look what happened -- the Bengals didn't even win the game outright, let alone cover that seemingly too-low spread. Surprise surprise. Similarly, I declined to pick the Saints -3.5 points despite that laughably low spread against a Bucanneers team that also seemed to be one of the worst in the NFL. The result? Bucanneers surprise most everyone by blowing out the Saints, in what now has to start us asking questions about just how good the Saints are this season. Despite leading the entire NFL in offense in 2006-07, this year's Saints so far are absolutely blowing on offense. No other way to say that. They blow so far, period. So that was another interesting one that I correctly identified as a trap game that the Vegas linesmakers love to try to dupe people into playing as often as they can every year. In the end, they only one of my three "too good to be true" picks that managed to win their game and actually cover the spread this week was the hated Cowboys, who scored a 17-point victory at Miami and covered the half-a-touchdown line Vegas laid on the game. Even the Cowboys did not look dominant in this game, but in the end it was just too much Marion Barber and too much TO for the Dolphins, who really do look to be one of the very worst teams in football so far through two games this year. Hopefully my Eagles will not be following suit tonight, where I still fully expect them to pounce all over the Redskins at home in The Link in South Philly.

A couple of players have really stood out as well so far through two games in this new NFL season:

Where the hell has LT been? You can throw all the option touchdown passes you want....but 1.9 yards per rush? Whaaaaa?

Similarly, where in the world is Larry Johnson? 28 attempts for 98 total rushing yards and no scores through two games so far in 2007? For a guy who was picked top-three in mostly every fantasy league out there? Blech.

Seattle Seahawks? You suck.

Chad Johnson. Yummy. Two games, two huge performances with multiple touchdown scores.

Plexico Burress. Mmmmm-hmmmm. Also four touchdowns in 2 games so far for the Suckgiants.

And oh yeah -- Randy Moss with Tom Brady throwing to him. Oh shit.

One thing has been constant though -- the NFL continues to rule the hearts and the minds (and the televisions) of Amercan sports fans. For the time being, American football continues to be the sport to watch in this country, and it consistently delivers an interesting, and more than that, a competitive product. In stark contrast to baseball where teams can set up their own television networks, build their own new stadiums and use that money to continually outspend all other teams by sometimes a significant multiple, the NFL consistently puts out a product that everyone loves to watch, to play fantasy games around, and just to root for since any year, just about any team can win.

OK that's enough for today. Let me know your comments on the hand I profiled above, and I'll see you tonight for Mondays at the Hoy!