what a blow up last night. first i donkey my way out of the syndicate tournament (lost 2 big pots with big pocket pairs, then lost flush over flush), then i get unbelievably cold decked for an entire session at oceans 11. i had QQ and JJ about 7 times in the session and didn't win one of the hands. i did win a medium size pot with KK, but that was several buy ins in.
it seemed like every time i had one of those premium pairs, i was in the blinds and had 6 people already in the pot. i made the mistake of not re-raising enough out of position. that won't be happening again.
i think three or four times i had QQ or JJ the board came paired. i made bad decisions twice to not call an all in raise in one hand when i'm pretty sure i was ahead (the guy turned out to be an absolute tard-a-thon in a box), and then pay off a relatively passive player when he raised all in on my turn bet after we checked it around on the flop. of course he had A-8 offsuit under the gun, called my preflop re-raise........and then flopped trip 8s, obviously. the donkariffic guy claimed he had K-10 on a 2-7-7-10 board after calling a pot sized bet on the flop with no pair and no draw. i doubted he could be that bad at poker, but after watching and listening to his thought process on some later hands, i do believe he called me with no pair / no draw on the flop, then when i bet the pot again on the turn, he thought his K-10 was good, raised me all in and i laid down JJ.
oh yeah, one other time i had QQ, a guy had KK and turned a set to leave me drawing dead. that was nice.
early on i attempted a bluff on the definition of a calling station. of course, i had never played with the guy and gave him credit enough to be able to lay down 3rd pair with a J kicker. my mistake. damn that AQ. i raised with it in late position, and i raised him on the flop, and bet the turn strong, and then pushed on the river. nice call with J-8, one pair. wow.
the only, and i mean the only, bright spot was flopping a boat with 99 to win a medium pot. the other player was all in preflop with AQ, but at least there was some dead money in the pot.
the highlight of the night was my final encounter with QQ. we were down to 6 handed and there was a raise under from under the gun to $16 and a call by the idiot luckbox in seat 4 (wow - terrible player and hit the shit out of every flop.....he would call almost every preflop raise and kept hitting. it was maddening). i raise to $55 with QQ. the small blind cold calls $55 as do the other 2. 4 to the flop. flop is 4-8-8. pretty good flop for me and i'm almost sure i have the best hand. KK or AA would have likely repopped it preflop. it checks to me, so i push for about $135. the small blind calls the others fold. i still might be good if he has a pair under mine like 10s or Js. then he says : "i have quads." and flips over pocket 8s. the turn is not a queen, so i muck and get the hell out of dodge. it was not my night.
i was reminded of the lesson to not chase a losing session like that. it's hard to not get more and more frustrated and end up playing worse and worse. i tried to bet my hands when i had them, but continued and continued to get outflopped.
looking forward to a bit of time off this week.....i've still had great cumulative results over the past 2 months, so i just need to shake it off.
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3 comments:
Word.
It is indeed maddening when folks are just getting slapped silly in the side of the face with the deck and you watch your solid play crumble under the force of Q-9 offsuit. It tends to eat away at your faith in the game.
I ended up busting out in sixth place last night at the Syndicate event. One out of the money, yee-haw. I played well until the final hand, really. I raised with QJ just to thin the herd and take the pot down pre-flop, but of course the chip leader to my left (Bob) called. The queen-high flop was encouraging, so I bet out a 1/3 pot-sized bet, he insta-called. At this point, one would begin to think that perhaps their queens were no good, but seeing as I had already seen him try to push me out of a pot with a ridiculous holding at the previous table, I figured I can't really put him on anything, and I'm short-stacked, so fuck it. Famous last words.
The turn is some goofy card, I say, "Let's just cut to the chase. I'm all in." He calls instantly, and I know I'm beat. Of course he has the KQ. No jack comes, and I'm out. Yay.
Great venue, good people, and had some good laughs. It was good to get to see how the Syndicate runs things, I'll definitely play in another event in the future.
As for making cash money on the spot, I think the O11 tourneys are the way to go. First place in last night's shindig lays claim to $440 in cash, which isn't going to go far on the spreadsheet under the "Hookers and Blow" column header. It's roughly the same amount of time invested, and making the top 5 guarantees around $800 bucks. The O11 crowd isn't too sophisticated, so surviving the first wave of knuckleheads isn't too rough. The blinds go up such that it does become a shove-fest in the third hour, but conservative, strong play in the first two hours (combined with some luck) should get you enough chips to pick your spots and make that final table.
Keep you head up, Jake. Yesterday just wasn't your day. It happens. Just keep making solid decisions and things should work out in the long run.
- johnny
calling a raise with K-10 is okay i guess, but then calling a pot sized bet on the flop with no pair and no draw is quite another. when i asked him what he thought i would make pot sized bets on the flop and turn with, he looked puzzled and said ".......ummmmm.....i don't know." exactly. hard to play against people like that. i mean the table was full of ripe tomatoes, they just all fell to the ground and splatted before i could pick them off of the tomato tree.
glad to hear your first syndicate experience was a good one. let me know when you're planning to go to another shove fest. huh huh.
I looked at the Syndicate website and saw that Bob did indeed win. His chip stack was just plain unassailable at the point he busted me.
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