Monday, January 15, 2007

Harrah's New Orleans Day 1.... or Not.

So here I am in New Orleans. For those of you that never been, this is a great city. I've never been here during Mardi Gras and I imagine that this is one of those events that will probably live up to and exceed the hype that surrounds it. But even without that, this place has a culture that's based on food. And one place you have to go when you're here is Mother's. They have poboys and gumbo to die for. I went there for lunch today and I wanted to go back for dinner but it was raining and I was lazy.

So, now that I'm down here in New Orleans and Harrah's casino is literally two blocks away from the hotel, you would think that I'd be there in a heartbeat to play poker... however, here I am sitting in my hotel room playing online. What happened? Well, I was going to play a couple of hours of online poker to accumulate my 200 points for the day for the iron man challenge... until I found a very soft 2-4NL table. And a very soft 2-4 NL table translated into a very nice profit for the session. I think the keys to my success was tight play when it required, avoiding couple of players that seemed pretty solid, and playing my position and opening up my starting requirements for late position. Here are couple of key hands that happened during that time:

FullTiltPoker Game #1608576715: Table Bunch Grass - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 19:04:19 ET - 2007/01/15
Seat 1: Bobby D Man ($153.90)
Seat 2: PlayFoFun ($41.90)
Seat 3: sp12 ($293.50)
Seat 4: RecessRampage ($642.20)
Seat 5: sk1952 ($582.10)
Seat 6: Ypsi Dog ($429)
Seat 7: Trefzilla ($131.80)
Seat 8: nlhplayer ($197.70)
Seat 9: Iridium ($392.50)
sk1952 posts the small blind of $2
Ypsi Dog posts the big blind of $4
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Jh Th]
Trefzilla foldsnlhplayer raises to $14
Iridium calls $14
Bobby D Man folds
PlayFoFun folds
sp12 folds
RecessRampage calls $14
sk1952 calls $12
Ypsi Dog calls $10

At this point, calling was a must. I'm on the button with JT suited. Good drawing hand, great position and with already one caller, my call would also give pot odds for one of the blinds to call. And, if I miss it, it's not a hard hand to get out of.

*** FLOP *** [9h 7h 3s]
sk1952 bets $24
Ypsi Dog folds
nlhplayer calls $24
Iridium calls $24
RecessRampage calls $24

I considered raising here but then I thought to myself, why open up the betting when I just got amazing pot odds. With 9 outs to a flush and 3 outs to a straight (4 8's in the deck but one of them is a heart), that gives me 12 outs. Amazing pot odds. This hand is turning into exactly the way I want it.

*** TURN *** [9h 7h 3s] [2h]
sk1952 bets $28
nlhplayer calls $28
Iridium folds
RecessRampage calls $28

All of a sudden, I got worried. When the heart came out, and with that many callers, sk1952 had to know that there was a good chance for a flush. And yet he continued to bet into the pot. That immediately made me think that he had trips. But then I couldn't figure out what nlhplayer was doing in the hand. And then it occurred to me that it is possible that he could have been drawing for a flush also.... and now I was worried about a possibility of a higher flush... and since the pot was already growing very quickly, I decided to just call and see what happens on the river. And I was profusely praying for the board to not pair.

*** RIVER *** [9h 7h 3s 2h] [Jd]
sk1952 bets $40
nlhplayer has 15 seconds left to act
nlhplayer: i hate aces and kings on this site
nlhplayer folds
RecessRampage calls $40

*** SHOW DOWN ***
sk1952 shows [3d 3h] (three of a kind, Threes)
RecessRampage shows [Jh Th] (a flush, Jack high)
RecessRampage wins the pot ($327) with a flush, Jack high

Not sure why I didn't raise the minimum here. I already knew he had the trips. That comment by nlhplayer was unnecessary but that was what he said. I'm pretty sure I would have gotten a call if I minimum raised him. But, I did feel that the pot was good enough and in case he had like AK of hearts (and the betting sequence does make sense), I didn't want to unnecessarily add to what was already becoming a significant pot.

It helped when early on, I had a monster hand that went like this:

FullTiltPoker Game #1608038303: Table Bunch Grass - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 17:48:30 ET - 2007/01/15
Seat 1: Alphafoil ($378)
Seat 2: steamingdonkey1 ($613.30)
Seat 3: crispywanton ($299.90)
Seat 4: RecessRampage ($362)
Seat 5: okkie ($227.90)
Seat 6: phatness ($177.55)
Seat 7: JemFlopper ($267.10)
Seat 8: nlhplayer ($164)
Seat 9: Iridium ($666.40)
phatness posts the small blind of $2
JemFlopper posts the big blind of $4
The button is in seat #5

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [4s 4h]
nlhplayer folds
Iridium calls $4
Alphafoil folds
steamingdonkey1 folds
crispywanton raises to $18
RecessRampage calls $18
okkie folds
phatness folds
JemFlopper folds
Iridium calls $14
*** FLOP *** [4c 7s 6c]
Iridium checks
crispywanton bets $50
RecessRampage raises to $150
Iridium folds
crispywanton raises to $281.90, and is all in
RecessRampage calls $131.90
crispywanton shows [9s 9d]
RecessRampage shows [4s 4h]
*** TURN ***
[4c 7s 6c] [Qc]

*** RIVER *** [4c 7s 6c Qc] [6d]
crispywanton shows two pair, Nines and Sixes
RecessRampage shows a full house, Fours full of Sixes
RecessRampage wins the pot ($620.80) with a full house, Fours full of Sixes

Pretty simple hand here but I think there's one key step and that was my raise on the flop. I don't like to slowplay a set when there's such a draw possibility. Plus, based on the betting I immediately put crispywanton on a high pocket pair so I thought I could exploit some money out of him. I just wanted Iridium out because he had a deep stack there and the last thing I needed was to contemplate what to do with my set when the flush is completed on the turn (granted, I ended up with a boat but I wouldn't have known that). By raising, I got Iridium or any draws out and made the initial better come over the top. A lot of people tend to slowplay 3 of a kind too often so sometimes, jamming it hard from the beginning could actually be somewhat deceiving. Nonetheless, I obviously got lucky by flopping the set in this situation. It just helped that crispywanton was a donkey. I couldn't believe it when I saw pocket 9s. I thought for sure he had AA, KK or at the very least JJ.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"It just helped that crispywanton was a donkey".... freaking priceless.

Anonymous said...

testing.