Friday, August 10, 2012

Doc's Poker - What's your play?

I had a little more than an hour to kill before my championship softball game (which was subsequently rained out), so I stopped in at Docs, which is near the field for my game.  There were 2 1/2 tables going, and both tables looked good.  Unfortunately my table didn't have the spewiest fish that plays in the room, it did still have a few guys who make the table great.  A few hands follow.

Hand #1 - 3 bet:
I had played one hand so far, where I raised pre in LP with Q5s, and check folded a T96 flop, so my stack was about 190.  EP raised to 7, which typically isn't very strong, and I 3 bet next to act with AQo.  One of the blinds cold called, who I didn't have a read on, and his stack was about 300.  The original raiser called as well.  The flop was 853r.  Blind checks, initial pre-flop raiser counts out chips like he was going to bet, and then checks.  I follow through as that feels weak as hell with a cbet of 45, and the blind quickly calls, initial raiser folds.  Turn is a 3, making board 8533.  I was planning on betting any face card or ace, but this is a pretty bad card.  I don't think I am getting a fold out of a hand like 98, or 99.  He checks, and I check behind.   River is a T, making board 8533T.  He leads out 20 into a pot of 150ish.  I have about 130 behind.  Does anybody like shoving here, or is it spew?  How about barreling the turn? 

Hand #2 - Loose preflop call creates weird spot:
I've lost a few hands at this point, and my stack has slipped to about 185.  A fish limps, and then a super fish who makes all kinds of spewy plays with marginal hands in weird spots opens to 13.  The SB (initial raiser from hand #1 calls), and I make a loose call with As8s, knowing almost 100% of the time that the fish is going to call to close the action.  The fish has 100, raiser has 250, and SB has 210.  Flop is AxKs8x, giving me two pair.  The SB leads out 25, and I elect to just call, in hopes that the initial raiser makes a committing raise, and I can go heads up with him.  The first fish folds, and now super fish raises to 75 after a lot of thought and fidgeting.   His mannerisms at the time screamed of uncertainty, and though that can be hollywooding, my read was genuine uncertainty.  While AK, AA and KK are options, I think a hand like AJ or AQ are far more likely based on his mannerisms.  But now the surprise part comes in.  I was trying to convey an aura of disinterest, but was surprised by the SB, who now shoved for 210.  My initial read is that the SB is aggro.  All-in or fold?

Results later. 

Monday, August 06, 2012

Favorite Poker posts

This is specifically for Frank Panama, who recently commented on my lack of recent blog posts.  Unfortunately, I don't have any new content, and may not for a while, as my wife is due to give birth in a little over 2 weeks.

But, assuming the few readers I have haven't read through all of my archives, here are a few of my favorite poker posts:

#5:  Learning NL 'Holdem
Right at the beginning of my NL journey.  Sometimes you lose sight of the main goal, and that is stacking people.  This post shows that I knew it right away, and it's sometimes important to remind yourself of your goals.

#4:  Greektown 2/5 Game
Holy shit....Greektown had a 2/5 game going?  Wait, they had 2 of them???

#3:  Most Idiotic Hand
How could I not mention having a large raise called on the river by 9 high?

#2:  21K!!!
I wish the recap had more hand detail when I wrote it, but it's still a nice memory of my biggest tourney score.

#1:  Golf trip report of a lifetime
This post is long, includes very little actual poker content.  But it does include a great deal of degeneracy, and a huge winning rush if you fight through it til the end.