Another couple of hands

I noticed on Bluescouse's Blog that his latest post mentions a hand he played vs me recently. This was in my database but they are all empty for some reason but I can remember it from memory although it is a pretty boring hand. I have rarely played Bluescouse as far as I know with probably the last time being well over a year ago.

It was towards the end of his session at $5000NL. He had been raising far too much, pretty much any time anyone folded to him. I hadn't been playing long, perhaps thirty minutes when I picked up AA vs him. He raised to $150 and I reraised to either $600 or $650 from the blinds. He called with position. We both had $5000.

The flop came J64 or some similar style flop. I cbet around $1000 and he called. The turn was a total blank and I jammed in for a full pot sized bet of around $3400. He called quite quickly with only 34, a pair of fours with no draw. $9800 pot. He quit soon after.

The other interesting hand to me that I played vs him although not a big pot was the following from near the the start of the session :-

He raised to $150 from middle position and I called from the big blind with 89.

The flop came T4J. I checked and he bet $300 which I called with my open ended straight draw.

The turn was the A. I checked and he also checked.

The river was the 6. This is a great card for me to bluff at because my hand should look exactly like a draw to him or at the very least a two pair type hand which I checked to him on the turn. I bet very close to pot, so at least an $800 bet. Notice how every single draw has hit apart from precisely 89 and 9Q. Even if he doesn't think I have a draw he should be able to take me off any reasonable hands such as JQ, J9, Axs, Tx etc as he shouldn't expect me to bet at all with any of those hands let alone this confidently. If I was him I would have folded in his spot probably close to 100% of the time versus a competent player except in exceptional circumstances. I think this hand is a perfect example of a very bad call on the river versus the possible range of hands that a reasonable player(me) can have here. The range of hands he can beat probably amounts to exactly 89 and 9Q(and more to the point only three combinations of 89 and 9Q, suited clubs, suited spades and suited diamonds) in this spot or a rare large value bet with a weak ace or an even rarer float on the flop. Unfortunately for him it will reinforce such calls in the future, which I guess isn't bad for me in the long run =).

He called with AQ and scooped the $2500 pot. I didn't bluff him for the rest of this session =) It is probably surprising to some people how weak AQ actually is in this spot. To be at least somewhat fair to him, he did let his timer go all the way to zero so some thought must have gone into the call. He must have seen how unlikely it was that he was ahead here or perhaps not since he called. If you look at AQ in isolation on the river and don't think about ranges or actions then I guess it is understandable why you will see a call here often so in that respect my bluff is very likely bad vs him with this suspicion being reinforced by the fact that he did in fact call in this instance.

Some Hands

I feel it is time for a post perhaps? Maybe something poker related? I know, how about some Poker hands!

History before the first hand to put in context for the real hand :-

Some random guy limps UTG four handed and I raise on the button to $80 with 88. We are both deep stacked with him having $4795 and me having around $5000. This is at $2000NL. Everyone else folds and he calls my raise.

The flop comes 244. He checks and I also check(I was busy on other tables and made a mistake here, this is a clear betting spot).
The turn comes the 3. He checks and I bet $160 into the $190. He minimum raises to $320. Weird. I call.
The river is the 2. He instantly pushes all in for $4395 into the $830 pot. I snap folded putting him on any four or perhaps quads. I had also not played any hands with him and was also busy on other tables when this hand took place. Pretty automatic fold though.

He turns over AJ revealing an insane bluff. If he was trying to get my attention he certainly got it. I put some renewed focus onto this table after this hand. Lol.

Soon after I picked up KK in the small blind. The same guy who did the above bluff decides to open limp on the button three handed. I raise to $110 from the small blind and the big blind folds. The button calls my raise.

The flops comes J48. I bet $200 into the $240 pot. He minimum raises me to $400. I then snap minimum raise him to $800. Risky, but he does what I suspect he might do and pushes all in for his entire $5100 stack. I snap call. A scary deep stacked prospect usually but not after the previous hand =)

He turns over QJ.
The turn comes the 4 and the river comes the K.

I scoop the $9892 pot. I haven't seen anyone play this way deep stacked for a long long time at the higher limit ring games. Nice novelty =)

It seems my other databases are empty for some reason. Sigh. I'll mess with it in the morning and see what is up. If not I'll post some from memory.

Biggest Pot ever on High Stakes Poker (Nearly)

A lot of you have probably seen this already but I thought I would post it in case some of you missed this. My main reason for posting is the discussion that was made over the Sammy Farha vs Jamie Gold hand and whether or not it was a charitable act. This hand is super clear in comparison, what a let off!

The moment when Guy turns over his hand and the camera shot goes to Benyamine's face demonstrates a really honest reaction in poker =)

Chip Reese Dies aged 56

I guess Doyle won the last longer bet...

DTD Opening Night

I went down the opening weekend of the DTD Poker Club in Nottingham this weekend. The club is pretty spectacular and is easily the best poker room I have ever been in. It had a great bar and restaurant area as well as an over the top VIP area with its own private bar and poker table which Simon Nowab showed us around.

The Friday night was the £100 NL Hold'em tournament. It had about 100 runners and I went out around 60th at a guess. I was really shattered as I hadn't even slept the previous night, not a good idea when a tournament on the next night might finish at 4am . I thought I might try and play cash or hang out later that night but I felt like I was going to fall asleep any second. I actually got to sleep at around 2am which was pretty good and necessary =)

I travelled down with Bob Mitchell (Lawyer and Poker player from Scotland) and my flatmate Steve Hamilton. On the previous night we had started talking about chess as Bob is very good at it. He has achieved as high as a 2350 rating which is very strong indeed. I started winding him up a bit and he challenged me to blindfold chess, where he would play without looking at the board once with me saying my moves out loud. I agreed to this and then started winding him up more pretending I was good at chess and how he had zero chance at winning. I knew this wasn't true but at the end of it he looked to have lost a little confidence =). I slept like a baby that night and Bob probably tossed and turned going through games in his head for practice.

Breakfast time came and over it we went back to discussing our impending chess match and I suggested that as well as him playing blindfolded that I should have white too. He absolutely refused this and said he would only agree to do that if he could look at the board three times. I refused that. We started the match and within six moves I had made an error in the opening which was the French Defense I believe. It basically meant that I had to move my queen around whilst his pieces were developing all over. It probably put me 3-4 moves behind in development early on which is of course a big no no. The game lasted a good while longer with me not making any big blunders until he overpowered me later in the game. My best bet was probably to force him into playing a more bizarre opening where he couldn't reference his memory banks so easily and make playing blindfolded truly a test, but that was kind of tricky as he had the initiative from the very beginning. At least we had no money on it =)

The Saturday night was the £500 tournament and had around 80-90 runners. I got much deeper in this tournament finishing around about 25th or so when I was forced to go all in with AQ which was called by both AK and KK =). The upside to this was I won my £100 last longer bet with Bob Mitchell who had beat me at chess earlier that day. Travelling down was more fun for me to finally meet if only briefly some people I knew online or had watched playing before in tournaments or on tv. At my initial table that night was Julian Thew, recent winner of an EPT event and John Kalmar who finished 5th I believe in the main event at WSOP this year. Both seemed like very nice guys. Jon Wong aka DJ3Way was also there as well as a couple of other guys I know from online poker. I also finally met some people like Simon Nowab, Simon Trumper, Rob Yong and Paul "ActionJack" Jackson who are involved in the the actual running of Dusk Till Dawn. I also finally met Kirderf(Fredrik Ostervold) who some of you may know as Slayer(winner of a WCG in Broodwar) from Norway. I've known him for nearly 10 years online and it was good to meet up and hang out with him in real life!

I thought I may actually play some cash down there but I was too tired on the first night and on the Saturday night we finished kind of late again and I preferred to hang out and talk with Kirderf and others. Not to mention the fact that the biggest game seemed to be £2/£5NL which was a little bit too low to tear us away from the bar =)

The actual club was very well run without any apparent hitches that you would expect on an opening weekend. I hope they manage to get some deals with the WPT, EPT or other tours and manage to hold some big televised tournaments there. It is certainly a venue that could cater to such an event. Fingers crossed that the club goes from strength to strength!