Special Bug Pages

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Melted Glaciers

Well, my tournament life in the WRGPT "glaciers" poker-by-email tournament has come to a crashing, ignominious end. I've been nursing a small stack for the last couple of months, waiting for an opportunity to chip up. Alas, I've had (a) some big stack bullies running over the table; and (b) zero playable cards or get-it-in opportunities arise for a while. On Wednesday, however, I finally picked up a playable hand in middle/late position. Here's what happened:

Blinds were T600/T1200 with T200 antes. I had T22K, so my M was getting pretty low. I picked up K-T♦ in mid/late position. Most everyone at the table had me well covered. I considered just open shoving, but I went with a 3.5x raise instead. In hindsight, I think this was a mistake; I should have just shoved then and there, and taken down the blinds and antes. C'est la vie.

Anyway, I got cold-called by a big-stack bully to my left, and then also by the two blinds. All three players had me well covered by at least a factor of two. The blinds had both been playing fit-or-fold poker. The one player who was to my left was relatively new to the table, so I didn't have any good reads on him. He had me covered by a factor of six.

Flop hit me pretty strongly and was also fairly dry: 6-8♠-8. While I didn't flop a made hand, I did have two overs and the second nut flush draw. The paired board did give me some pause, but from a combinatorics point of view it was very unlikely one of my opponents held an eight. I was concerned about someone holding a six, but even if that was true I had reasonably good equity.

The two blinds checked and the action was to me. At this point, I went into full REDi mode, including a review of the situation with Mr. Mulit. Here's what I was thinking:

Reads:
The other three players like to see flops. The big blind is playing fit-or-fold, the other two are playing big stack bullies. Can’t really put any of them on big pairs, as they probably are the types to repop pre. I’m therefore thinking small or middle pairs, overcards, or maybe some SCs.

Estimate:
Hand Equity: per ‘stove, I’m a 37:21:21:21 favorite against all three if I assign them each the above range.
Fold Equity: FE is reasonable against the two guys who have ~2-3x my stack size, very little against the big stack on my left, who has me covered 6x.
Commitment: My M is five if I fold here; getting desperate.

Decide:
 I’m not 100% pot committed, but with my M this low, I have to make a play soon. If I double up here, I’m back in the game. If I decide to check/fold, I’m still semi-alive, but my M is so low that I need to play another hand soon. I've got lots of outs, therefore I think my best line here is semi-bluff.

Implement:
With an M this low, the only viable way to semi-bluff is to Jam (and pray).

So I shove... and get insta-called by the knucklehead to my left, who turns over 5♠-6. Seriously. Both blinds fold.

Turn is J♦. River is 8♣.

I hit my flush, but the villain wins with the ugly rivered full house.

The good news is that REDi  led me to the right decision. The bad news is that the cards didn't cooperate...

Oh well, I'll just hurry up and sign up for the next Glaciers tourney..... in October. Sigh.

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In other poker news, if you haven't already watched Daniel Negreanu's latest vlog, I encourage you to do so. Specifically, the fun starts around 5:56 into the video, when Daniel goes off (again) on the pond scum otherwise known as Howard "the Professor" Lederer, Ray Bitar, and Chris "Jesus" Ferguson. Watch the youtube video by clicking HERE.

All-in for now...
-Bug

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