Good poker made easy

So after the Thursday performance I felt like I really played well. Next up, 14 players. My table had Boston John to my right and John C. to his right, the rest of the table was pretty passive. Gary B., Paul, Danny, and...and....someone.

Boston John is one of those tough, tough players for me, much like Randy. Not because he is a great player...actually, specifically because he isn't. He likes to call it...and treat it as..."drunken monkey poker". He will make insane calls because it "is free poker". Which would be fine...except he is beating the edge. In other words, if I get him in as a 22-1 dog...which I do regularly...he hits about 40% of the time, a ridiculous statistical anomaly that threatens to disrupt my game. However, it also makes it easier to make more sketchy calls because he will raise and/or call with almost any 2 cards. So you need less of a hand because his raises mean less. Gary B., Paul, and Danny are pretty easy to read, though I respect all their games and John C is one of the few people I credit with being straight out better than me at poker.

Overall, I like this table because I can play good poker and it will mean something. I tend to do better against better players because I get my chips in too often against bad players and due to the sheer volume of times I put chips in play, their long-shots hit too often against me and I get in trouble.

Started out winning a couple hands, then losing a couple. About even after the first blind level. Was limping in for whatever reason. Decided to switch it up and play good poker. Picked up pocket 3s from middle position. Raised triple the blinds to 300. Gary called. Flop came 8/q/8, I raised, he folded. I saw what he folded, A/9. I had not realized it before but he does not protect his cards when he looks at them. I had to actively work to not see his cards all night.

Next hand, I bumped it with pocket 4s. One caller. Another flop like the one before, the board paired and had a King. Randy checked, I raised and...he folded? Randy folded? He must have had something like a 2/9 or something. He never folds before the river. So I was up about 4K off those 2 hands.

One hand I lost a few chips on. Limped in with K/9 suited. That is one problem with limping. I start playing trash hands like that. I am essentially playing for the second nut flush since any straight means I bust out to someone playing the big slick. Couple other callers. Flop came King high, I raised, Paul folded, Danny and Randy called. As soon as Danny called I shut it down, putting him on the King and better kicker. We checked it down and sure enough he flipped up Big Slick. So I lost about as little as possible...it is an open question whether he would have raised or not, and an even better question if I would have called. I would argue I was playing somewhat poorly with limping...so I might have.

Meanwhile, Paul started doing some selective raising, John C. raised on occasion...and when they did, it was great because it told me they had good hands. Did some selective calling. Example; picked up the transvestite (A/4) suited. John C. raised. I put him on a big pair, MAYBE Big Slick. I called. If I hit the flop hard, either the Ace or 2 or even a complete flush, I could take a bundle of chips, if not...he only double the blind and I was in the big blind so I was getting 4-1+ on my chips (the plus was if others called...which they did). The flop was ragged with King high, he raised, we all folded. He showed Kings.

Now, I liked that he showed them because it let me know my read had been pretty solid and pretty much let me know how he was playing. But it also let us all know to respect his raises.

So now the table had slightly shifted to where some limping, some raising was happening. Boston John came back from death's door several times to actually have me outchipped. I had about 4200 by the time we got to 3/600...and unbelievably, nobody had busted out.

I picked up Q/K suited. I raised three times the blinds to 1800. Everyone folded to Boston who had limped in. He now went over the top all-in. Here is where reputation matters.

If Paul, Gary B., Danny, or John C. makes that raise I fold. With Boston John...yes, he might have me crushed with something like A/Q...but I doubt it. He is just as likely to have 10/4 suited or some such trash. Actually, more likely. So I went ahead and called. It was playing the person, not the cards because K/Q is a dangerous hand.

If someone like John C. calls, I am going to credit him with having limped with something like an A/Q or A/K where I am playing for 3 outs since I am dominated. I will essentially discount the flush and straight possibilities as those require everything to fall just right. Since I think it likely I am dominated, I will fold. But with a looser player like Boston, I am more likely to have 2 live cards...and 2 big ones. That is the difference between calling and folding. If I fold, I am in trouble with 2500 left.

Well, this time John had a legit hand...A/J. But I spiked the queen on the flop, he never improved, and now I had a nice stack of over 8600 (blinds who did not call our duel).

This let me play a hand I maybe should not have. I called a raise of double the blinds with J/8. The flop came Q/J/10 giving me second pair and a gut shot. I briefly considered raising, but before I could Paul raised. Now, normally here I credit him with the Queen since he was first to act and is a solid player. However, I did have A) chips to play with, B) middle pair, and C) I have been called so many times by 2nd pair that sucked out, I was still a bit on tilt and randomly called, as did one other guy. Turn and river were blanks and were checked down. Paul only had the 10s and my jacks were good. Interesting.

Not long after that, Gary was down to 400 and under the gun. I promised to call him (I was in the Big Blind and had 600 out there) if he went all-in. It got the desired laugh. Couple of limpers, including John C. I raised enough to put John all-in...and John, to my surprise, called. I was a bit bummed. I figured he would know me well enough to not call there. Also, I really wanted to isolate. The more people involved, the more likely I will get my Aces cracked.

Well, Gary turned up the 5/8...of Hearts. John turned up the 9/10...of Hearts. I had both Red Aces so if a lot of Hearts came, I wanted 4, not 3. Gary had a long-shot straight draw or needed 2 pair, John had a better straight draw and a flush draw.

The flop I did not like much at all. It had a 6,7, and rag...and 2 hearts. Gary had an up and down straight draw, John had a flush draw. Turn was a 10. But neither got help on the river and they were both gone. That also sent us to the final table.


I now had 14, 15K, something like that. And I kept winning. If I got into a hand, I won it. There was really only one "big" hand. It came when we got down to 5 players.

I was in early position and picked up 7/9 diamonds. All night I had folded these hands. Now, however, with a clear chip lead...by this point I was well over 18K and probably had over half the chips in play, the others being pretty evenly distributed among the other 4...I decided to limp and see if I could hit it hard. With blinds of 4/800 people were not raising much. Well, everyone calls and as the small blind completes I say, "Looks like a family...first one of the night." Obnoxious Gary says, "Nope, because I am going to raise it."

Fair enough. Actually, I will argue this is a strong play. You have Terry limping under the gun, I limped, so did Bud and Danny. That means, with Gary's blind, there is already 4000 in the pot. That is a worthwhile pot already. A strong raise here will get rid of weak hands and might even win the pot. Picking up 4K at this point is huge. Instead, he made a minumum raise, 800.

I consider this a weak, weak raise. Let's look at what price everyone got:
Terry had originally called 800 to win 1200 (the blinds) if nobody else called.
I had called 800 to win 2000.
Bud called 800 to win 2800.
Danny called 400 to win 3600.

Now, his raise:
Terry needs to call 800 to win 4800. He is getting a whopping 6-1 on his money. Even if he was just being funny with a 2/7 off suit call, he is getting the correct price to call. In a stunning move, he weakly folded. Very weak play. What hand can you call getting 1.5-1 on your chips, but not call 6-1? As an aside, this tells me he does not understand or use pot odds. This is valuable information for the future as far as pricing him in or out of hands for draws, etc. He will go with his hunches instead.
I need to call 800 to win 4800 with a strong drawing hand that, if it hits, has hidden strength and can take down a HUGE pot.
Bud now needs to call 800 to win 5600 and does so.
Danny needs to call 800 to win 6400, an incredible 8 - 1 on his chips. And amazingly, he is the only one for whom the price got worse...but still, even if I have 2/7 against Aces, at 8 - 1 I am at least going to see a flop. So is Danny.

Well, the flop was great and horrific for me. It was great because I flopped a flush, with the backdoor runner-runner straight flush impossible dream draw. It was horrible because if anyone else flopped a flush as well, there were and Ace, King, Queen, and Ten out there that beat me. I flopped the 5th nut flush. If the second nuts loses a lot of chips, how many can you lose with the 5th nut flush? Well, with 7200 already in the pot I wanted it. And since Terry had folded, I was first to act. I did not even hesitate, almost as soon as the third card hit the table I went all-in meaning it was going to cost anyone who called all their chips. I am getting called by the Q, K, or Ace high flushes. Nobody else can even think about it because I have their outs to the straight flush.

They all got out of the way. Gary, as usual, complained about having to make a laydown and insisted it be run out, showing his K diamonds and some other random card. He would not have made his flush and I would have taken him out. He lost a hand he could have won.

If instead of a weak nuisance raise...a raise so small that anyone who limped is priced in by definition, except for the small blind...he had raised, say, 4 times the blinds, lets see if I call. Blinds are 4/800 so that would be 3200. Now I have to call 3200 to win 7200 once Terry lays it down. I also see weakness in those behind me so cannot imagine they would call this raise so there are no implied odds to make the weak call look right. I fold and probably so does everyone else, giving him the pot. However, he is a weak player who does not understand the concepts of pot odds...he actually makes fun of people who use them...and thinks if he raises, people should fold...then complains when they did because he had such a great hand.

Of course, he also had targeted me because I had made a pre-flop raise with A/10 and hit top pair, raised it again and was called. At the showdown, Danny had, as I suspected, a weaker Ace. It had not been a big pot, but Gary thought I was playing weak cards.

Really? 5 handed, A/10 is weak? Okay. Anytime you want to go all-in, you go right ahead. I will call you more than likely if I have A/10 or better. With 8 or 9 players, no. But 5? In a heartbeat.

Got up to about 22K. Got down to heads up with Bud, whom I have not played with, and a HUGE lead..about 30K to 12K. And could not put him away.l At least twice blind raised his last 1000 pre-flop...and he won both hands. Got him all-in 4, 5 times...and either he won or we split every time (twice we split). He never got over about 14K...but I could not put him away. Finally did just by attrition and won.


Overall, it was a solid night. I played slow, solid poker. Only once all night were all my chips at risk (the hand against Boston John) and, while I did get in slightly behind and suck out, it was not a huge deficit. I slowly but steadily made gains when I played hands and lost very few. Once more, play good cards, play them strongly, or fold. Good things happen. Very few spectacular...or even interesting...hands, just a steady climb to accumulate chips.