Ace High Call

I would never post this in the BBV forums, so I thought I’d write about this brag here.  As I said before, I’ve played 1/3 down at the casino several times now since Black Friday, and overall I’m happy with my play.  A few nights ago, the following hand came up.  I was playing for several hours at what was your typical loose/passive live table, and I really wasn’t getting much of anything for cards.  I had managed to double my stack though just by gradually chipping away at small pots, nothing big.  The only other formidable player at the table was an aggressive young guy who was also an internet player.  Over the course of 3 hours, I saw him blast off at least 1 buy in, and he was steaming pretty badly and iso-raising weak players at just about every opportunity. 

So in this particular hand, there was 1 limper in EP, and he iso-raised the limper from MP with a larger than usual iso-raise – I believe he made it like $22 or $23.  Everyone folds around to me, and I wake up in the BB with AsKc.  Naturally, I 3bet, but I made the mistake of 3betting him pretty large.  I’m not sure if it is that bad of a mistake, but I remember making it about $78 to go.  (Effective stacks were about $350 and I have him covered)  He tanks for a moment or 2 and then flats me.  Flop comes down: Ts 7s 2d.    With the pot at about $160ish, I bet out $110.  He immediately stacks his chips, calls the $110, and goes all in for $183 more.  As he does this, he makes a comment something to the effect of: “Well, I’m doing this because I know you have Aces or Kings, All-In.”  After he does this, I immediately announce “Nope, I have AK, man”, and then I think for a moment or 2.  Decision time. 

So let’s break this down.  He’s a good, solid, internet player, but he is tilting.  Obviously, when he calls my 3bet, I think his range is pretty wide because he’s playing most pots.  The top of his range here is QQ and JJ, IMO.  I don’t think he does this with a set of tens or sevens, and I definitely don’t think he does it with a smaller pair like 99 or 88.  However, the board has 2 spades, but I have the Ace of Spades.  So I sat there for about 3-4 minutes, and the more I thought about it, the more it made sense that he had a flush draw, perhaps QJs, J9s, or unfortunately 98s.  I just did not think that there was much of a chance that he was doing this with QQ or JJ because it seems more likely that he’d flat me with those hands.  Plus, I was also thinking to myself, even if at worst he does have QQ or JJ, I might even be priced in anyway.  Probably not, but it could be close enough. 

So as I sat there contemplating, me gives me the classic live comment: “I’ll show you if you fold.”  At the time, I honestly didn’t even consider his comments, but in hindsight, I should have.  Anyway, after about 5 minutes or so, I was convinced that he had a flush draw, and I was slightly ahead or slightly behind his range.  So I called…………  As I expected, he immediately says, good call and tables the Js6s!!!  J6s….Really???  Wow, great call!  Thank god the turn and river bricked, and I raked a $700 pot with Ace High!  The table was stunned that I called, and a couple hands later, I folded a TP hand face up on the river to another player’s flush, and I got comments from the guy next to me saying: “How can you fold a pair but call that much with Ace high?”  Hahaha.  All I could do was shrug and say that I was ahead of his range. 

Looking back, it was a great call and all, but there are  lessons to be learned: 1 – Don’t bloat the pot against a full stack.  2 – Take into consideration some of the table talk and comments!  I remember a hand I played at Bellagio back in February where it was a similar situation, but I folded my AK high, and the villain was nice enough to show me an OESD.  In this same hand, the villain told me “I’ll show you if you fold” while I was tanking as well.  I’m not saying that this phrase is a “say all do all” phrase or anything, but I should at least start to consider these things while making decisions.  I never consider this stuff online because I ignore chat boxes. 

Well, that’s all I have for now.  I’ll continue to share interesting hands that I play down at the Rivers – which is surprisingly a great casino and poker room, btw.

Good Times

I got a flat tire this morning on my way to work, so I’m sitting here in Starbucks typing this Blog instead of sitting at work – fun times.  I’m also sitting here reflecting and just thinking about how happy I am that we finally hunted down that scumbag, Bin Laden.  I have kind of a guilty feeling sitting here being extremely happy that this dirtbag is dead, but then again I know I shouldn’t feel bad at all because he was responsible for so much death himself.  However, after browsing different opinions and rants about this on sites like FaceBook and Twitter this morning, I saw a couple interesting opinions that have made me skeptical of what will happen in the coming year. 

One such opinion led me to believe that even though most of America feels great about this death today (myself included!), I’m wondering if the after effect of Bin Laden’s death is just going to cause more problems?  By more problems, I don’t necessarily mean more violence, but I think it gives the impression to the general public that the wars on terror are over and that the troops will be coming home.  This is simply not the case, as any of my military friends will agree.  The wars are going to go on, they may or may not become more violent, and the US will continue to dump billions and billions into these efforts.  I kind of stole this following thought from something I read this morning, but I think it is very true: “Americans get excited about news like this, but we are simply numb to the slow bleed that is to come.”  Again, I am the first one to jump up and down and get excited about this, but I’m aware of the problems facing this country over the past decade.  Let’s just hope that somehow things get better instead of continually becoming slowly worse.  Part of this “slow bleed” is the soldiers that will inevitably get killed this week, next week, next month, and next year.  The “slow bleed” will continue folks – let’s hope we can endure it with minimal damage. 

Well, I rambled a little there, but I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not fully educated on the topic even though I served in these wars.  We’ll see what happens.  Anyway, onto a topic that I know a lttle bit about……

I’m also sitting here in anticipation of receiving an email from Full Tilt – hopefully sometime today – hopefully saying that US players can finally cash out their accounts.  I’ve listened to all the podcasts and radio shows in the poker media over the past 2 weeks, and I am confident that I will get to cash out my money here very shortly.  However, I’ll feel much better once I click that cashout button!  I’ll hopefully blog more in depth about what my thoughts are going forward for online poker, but I will say that I do think it will be regulated and taxed in the US in the near future.  I obviously don’t agree with the government one bit on how it tries to “legislate morality,” but the government made up for it a little bit today with the news on Bin Laden!  haha. 

Hopefully, the government can get its act together and realize that it can actually  make some money off of online poker as tax revenue instead of prohibiting it and trying to tell Americans that they cannot play online.  Guess what boys, I am still playing online right now, you didn’t stop anything!  You actually made it less safe for me to play online because the site that I am playing at now is much less secure than Tilt or Stars!  Anyway, I’m not saying that taxing online poker will fix the national defecit, but an extra $5-$10 billion in revenue sure wouldn’t hurt. 

Oh well, this is like anything else in life, and hopefully I’ll be able to learn from it and make myself a stronger player from it.  I’ve been down to the casino 3 times since Black Friday with successful results, and I’ve learned a great deal from these sessions.  I’m going to focus on some mental aspects of my game in the near future, and I’d also like to get some experience playing PLO live at the casino.  I can tell that PLO is quickly becoming bigger and bigger down there, and I want to get in on this action. 

Well, the car shop just called, and my car is ready to go.  Thank God I’ve been driving around with a spare tire in my trunk.  It’s good to be prepared……