One Out Of Three

Filed Under: Poker

I've started to play the 20K on Full Tilt a few nights a week and last night was one of them. PartyPoker also gave me a free $40 so I signed up for the 40K as well as the Mondays At The Hoy.

I debated (internally) naming the post "An Excercise In Being Card Dead", but since I had no real examples, or any insight to share in actually playing card dead, I chose not to. Rest assured though I was in fact horribly card dead through both the 20K and the MATH. The 40K was a different story but we'll get to that later. Oh, and I sucked in the MATH going out early.

I think I was nursing a short stack in the 20K from hand number 10 and it lasted for around 90 minutes. I then went on a nice run which put me over the average and I sat there for a while when the following situation arose:

(I thought I was saving screen shots of this but I was hitting the Pause/Break button instead of the PrntScrn button, oops)

We're down to about 128 left and 99 pay. I have 7,900 in chips which is a bit under average. The blinds are 250/500 with a 50 ante. I still have play left in my stack and I'm the small blind. It's important to note that the standard raise for this table has been 3X BB. The table is full but I'll cut out the irrelevant parts here.


Seat 6: Diggzy Brown (6,965)
Seat 8: lifesagrind (7,900)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to lifesagrind [9d 9h]
Folds around
Diggzy Brown raises to 2,500 This screams "give me the blinds". This represents a little over a third of his stack. It's a big chunk but I don't think he's committed, and I don't think he wants a call.

lifesagrind raises to 7,850, and is all in I have an opportunity here to pick up a nice amount of chips and set myself up for a deep run.

Diggzy Brown calls 4,415, and is all in
lifesagrind shows [9d 9h]
Diggzy Brown shows [Ad Th] I would have to say this is a bad call. If he had me well outchipped it would be one thing but he's calling off all of his chips here with an easily dominated hand. He has to believe that his best case is a coin flip and if he folds he has enough chips to steal the blinds again if needed.

*** FLOP *** [Ah 5d 4h] You already knew this was coming
*** TURN *** [Ah 5d 4h] [3d]
*** RIVER *** [Ah 5d 4h 3d] [5h]
lifesagrind shows two pair, Nines and Fives
Diggzy Brown shows two pair, Aces and Fives
Diggzy Brown wins the pot (14,480) with two pair, Aces and Fives

Was my analysis incorrect? Did he have to call there? Would you?

Give me some feedback and let me know what you think.

Now the 40K. Boy these party players are bad. That really sums up the whole thing. Nothing spectacular happened. I had a better than average stack and ran it deep. I finished in 55th out of 2,388 players. Finished in the top 2% and the payout sucked. It did cover my buyins for the night plus a little more but I really wish they would pay fewer places so the payouts were greater. All in all though the tourney was soft so I may start playing this one on a regular basis.