I flopped the nuts!

This one’s not even about me.  Our subject ends up all-in with kings, but loses to a river flush.  (Read the hand history, and then comb through again for my comments.)  Let’s see how he can avoid this happening in the future.

PokerStars Game #2116734181: Tournament #10132514, Hold’em No Limit - Level IV (50/100) - 2005/07/16 - 15:05:33 (ET)
Table ‘10132514 1′ Seat #7 is the button
Seat 2: Phalconx (630 in chips)
Seat 3: bbocholis4 (715 in chips)
Seat 4: cannotblufme (1650 in chips)
Seat 5: wterrill (2340 in chips)
Seat 7: dnord520 (3475 in chips)
Seat 8: rntaz (3775 in chips)
Seat 9: Jerry4545 (915 in chips)
rntaz: posts small blind 50
Jerry4545: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to dnord520 [2h Qh]
Phalconx: folds
bbocholis4: raises 300 to 400

4 BB’s: a perfectly acceptable raise from UTG+1, but he’s put in almost half his chips now, and since he plans on putting them all in anyway, an all-in that takes the blinds isn’t a bad result. 

cannotblufme: folds
wterrill: folds
dnord520: folds

Yeah, I like having a large stack, a suited queen and everything, but I’ve seen a raise, and I’m not participating.

rntaz: calls 350

This call with Q6s is insane.  Is he on it because he’s small blind, and has already committed 50?  I can’t say.

Jerry4545: folds
*** FLOP *** [8d 4s 5d]
rntaz: checks
bbocholis4: bets 300

I can’t think of any reason not to go all-in here.  This is effectively the same bet, unless he forgot how short his stack was before all the betting happened.

rntaz: calls 300

This call looks insane, but it’s not quite so crazy.  The inside straight draw is four outs twice, so that’s a 16% probability to occur on the turn or river.  The running flush draw is maybe a 15-1 shot, but that’s that another whole six of the 25 percent he needs (since the pot is 900 now, and the price is 300) to call it.  And he doesn’t know how much he’s behind at this point: a 4BB raise followed by a (for all purposes) all-in could be AK, AJ, 99… and in those cases, you have to add the remaining queens as outs.  I would probably avoid this call, because it’s so close, and you hate to double up the short stack so early, but I wouldn’t have been in this hand with trash to begin with, since I play tighter than that.

*** TURN *** [8d 4s 5d] [Ts]
rntaz: checks
bbocholis4: checks

Blank.

*** RIVER *** [8d 4s 5d Ts] [5s]
rntaz: bets 300
bbocholis4: calls 15 and is all-in
*** SHOW DOWN ***
rntaz: shows [6s Qs] (a flush, Queen high)
bbocholis4: shows [Kc Kd] (two pair, Kings and Fives)
rntaz collected 1530 from pot
Phalconx said, "yo dude you are a lucky ****"
Phalconx said, "lol"
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1530 | Rake 0
Board [8d 4s 5d Ts 5s]
Seat 2: Phalconx folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 3: bbocholis4 showed [Kc Kd] and lost with two pair, Kings and Fives
Seat 4: cannotblufme folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 5: wterrill folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 7: dnord520 (button) folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 8: rntaz (small blind) showed [6s Qs] and won (1530) with a flush, Queen high
Seat 9: Jerry4545 (big blind) folded before Flop

There are two possibilities: an all-in bet pre-flop could have saved the kings.  You have to consider your stack size when you make your standard 4BB raise with a nice hand like this.  If it’s more than half your stack, the leverage post-flop is going to be minimized (a drawing hand might just find calling more entertaining than not).  But that brings up the other possibility: a 2BB raise, as ugly as it is, leaves a pot-size stack in your hands should you need to raise again post-flop.  And, done from second position, it’s probably going to clear as many people as the 4BB raise would. 

But do you really want to clear people out with kings?  I guess you want ace-x to fold.  Everyone else you pretty much want along for the ride.

Since observer chat doesn’t go into my logs, I can’t relay the tirade by the cracked kings, but it went on for a few hands and was mostly filtered down by PokerStars software to "u ****ing suck".

I’m getting a little goofy from playing so tight lately.

When you play 15-20% of your hands, it can happen that you don’t see anything for two or three orbits.  The thing to do there is to just hang tight.  It ends eventually.

It ended for me with pocket aces.  I raised 3BB from UTG+1 and got two callers.  My heart started racing, because duuuude.  Aces.  The flop was 9-9-7.  Nothing good, but nothing bad.  Check.  Check.  I make a pot sized bet.  Fold.  Fold.  That didn’t go as well as I’d hoped, but at least I didn’t get hurt.

I can’t figure out why I was so excited to see AA, though.  It just came at the end of a long folding streak, and it gave me a weird feeling.

Every Friday I’d like to paste one of my hand histories and talk about what I was thinking.  This one’s been stuck in my head since I played it, because I think I played it well, but I lost a ton of money.  (For me, on my bankroll.  It’s actually the cheapest cash game they offer.)

(And for those of you not in the know, the ring games are the exact same at Empire and Party.  I don’t mean they are similar: I mean that when you sit at table 12345, there are the same people whether you’re logged in at Empire or Party or any of the other skins.)

Let me set up the hand: I am SB, but one hand ago, I was the BB, and we went head-to-head, with him attacking me with a bunch of little raises which I just called.  He showed 72o and I scooped the pot, while remarking on his inventive play with a crap hand.  So I assume he’s mad at me.

***** Hand History for Game 2248400202 *****
$25 NL Hold’em - Wednesday, June 22, 22:10:24 EDT 2005
Table Table  37379 (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Total number of players : 8
Seat 1: nolimitguy ( $26.13 )
Seat 3: riverrafter4 ( $19.05 )
Seat 5: DumbManiac ( $15.7 )
Seat 7: HDDriver ( $28.75 )
Seat 9: Papa_Z ( $10.3 )
Seat 2: dnord520 ( $27.6 )
Seat 10: buckarue ( $30.75 )
Seat 6: Leon768 ( $24.4 )
dnord520 posts small blind [$0.1].
riverrafter4 posts big blind [$0.25].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to dnord520 [  Jh Jd ]
DumbManiac calls [$0.25].
nolimitguy: nh
jeraf452 has joined the table.
Leon768 folds.
HDDriver folds.
Papa_Z folds.
buckarue folds.
nolimitguy calls [$0.25].
dnord520 calls [$0.15].
riverrafter4 checks.

So okay, so here we go again.  The table decides they’d rather watch The Blinds Scrap, except I actually have a hand.  No need to push it, though… it’s not a pair of aces, and we want to get paid if we flop a set.

** Dealing Flop ** [ Jc, 3d, 8d ]

I nailed it!  Not just the set, but top set.  I’m not worried about AA or KK at this point.  The only bad news: our flop is slightly flushy.  Let’s take care of that with a bet of three times the pot. 

dnord520 bets [$3].
riverrafter4 folds.
DumbManiac folds.
nolimitguy calls [$3].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 2s ]

Draws are mostly gone at this point.  There could still be a nut with a flush draw, so let’s fire the same bet.  (This is extremely aggressive for a Party/Empire table, I think.)

dnord520 bets [$3].
nolimitguy calls [$3].
** Dealing River ** [ 7h ]

At this point I’m almost 100% that I’m dealing with overpairs, and I beat overpairs.  I’m still beating every other set out there.  Even if I’m dealing with AKs, the flushes don’t exist anymore.  This pot is mine, and we might as well get paid by the guy tilting because he’s ticked about getting looked up on last hand’s 72o bluff. 

dnord520 bets [$5].
nolimitguy is all-In.

I check the board.  What’s he doing?  Betting $20 to buy a $20 pot, and… I have the nuts, right?  I check again.  There’s nothing on the board that beats me, so…

dnord520 calls [$14.88].
dnord520 shows [ Jh, Jd ] three of a kind, jacks.
nolimitguy shows [ 9c, Th ] a straight, seven to jack.
nolimitguy wins $50.16 from  the main pot  with a straight, seven to jack.

So, with that done, let’s see where my mistakes were:

1. Before the hand even started: I’d heard that Party / Empire tables were looser and and fishier than PokerStars.  Well, even after watching this table for a while, the VP$IP was less than 30%, and I still decided I could play rock and scoop pots occasionally.  But I really wasn’t comfortable at the .10/.25 level, where $25 buy-ins can vanish just like that.  I was playing a little nervous, which probably led to:
2. Preflop: many experts would say that, if the pot is worth entering, it’s worth raising into.  I had reasons for limping (not real proud of JJ, wanted to be able to bail on a flop with anything larger, had just picked up some chips earlier, wasn’t really thinking, etc.), but in all honesty, he probably would have laid down T9o for a minimal raise.  In the SB, you’re in the earliest position, and almost nothing good is going to happen when you’re the first to act after every card.  You don’t want to play this hand, you want to win it before the flop comes.  But I was thinking "what’s the worst that could happen?"
3. Flop: If I really want to get paid with top set, I should probably not pull out the cannon and bet three times the pot.  Pot-size raises clear the draws in almost every case: I was giving my opponents 4:3 odds, less than they’d need for any straight or flush.  It doesn’t mean they won’t call it (obviously), but it’s not smart long-term for them to do so.
4. Turn: with the pot $7, and my opponent with eight outs, a $3 bet is too small.  He’s getting 10:3 all the sudden, and while it’s still not enough to pay a 4:1 draw, he’s shown he doesn’t card about it.  Besides, I put him on a two-out draw like AA or KK, and just not having the nerve to lay it down.  So I was just sweetening the pot, I guess.
5. River: I honestly didn’t see the straight.  I need to get better at this: I looked twice.  If I had, would I have believed that he’d been holding T9o the whole time?  Probably not.  But I might have checked to him, just to show that I recognized the scare card, and he might not have gone all-in if I wasn’t guns-blazing for the fourth round in a row.

Five playing errors?  A bargain at $5 apiece.