| 15 Sep | Poker Karma - Hand HistoriesPosted by PokerBarney on 12:19PM, 15th Sep 2006Permalink |  Send to a friend |  RSS feed |
I've been playing more cash games. It was a good session today - I'm up 1.25 buy ins ($2.41), after a couple of interesting hands. The majority of the session was grinding, but I'm pleased to have regained Wednesday's losses. Two hands leapt to my attention today, and are well deserving of further attention.
Hand 1 - the unlucky one
Firstly, an unlucky hand (view in the Poker Stars Hand Replayer) against a monkey who clearly has money to burn.
Preflop: no raise. I'm out of position on the BB, with an almost premium hand, against a wide field of limpers. I am happy to let this one go when it misses most of the time. Luckily, I hit, and bet plenty.
The two callers confuse me slightly, so I bet again on the turn. Not as much relative, but still enough to slash their odds. One caller calls.
The min-raise on the river is horrible. At this point, I'm almost sure I'm beaten, but I can't figure out by what. I have a horrible gut feeling he's drawn runner runner, but it could be a well disguised set or even a lucky two pair. Because it's only a min-raise, I call, then punch myself in the face.
Hand 2 - the lucky one!
On to the second hand, in which I got lucky (view hand in the Poker Stars Hand Replayer). This time, I'm the monkey. Or am I?
Pre flop - wahey, let's raise. Two callers.. not so bad. It's funny how many people will limp UTG, then call a decent raise. Perhaps he's got a huge one? Er.. hand. I meant hand.
Flop - Could be worse. Let's raise the bettor to find out where I am, get some more value if I'm winning, and clear out the SB. Hmmmm.. two callers. Now I'm confused.. am I ahead, or am I facing two drawing donkeys as in the first hand?
Turn - check, check? Are these two playing the same game as me? I suppose that card didn't help them then, so if I'm still winning - I bet for more value. Or, if they're drawing, to discourage them (although I suspect that won't happen now if it didn't on the flop).
River - if the turn didn't help, that didn't either. Two more checks. I now strongly believe they were both drawing, probably one flush and one straight. Or, they've got top/middle pair, which case I may still get a call if I'm in front. But wait.. not that min-raise again.
We all call, and I shake my head in disgust. Only to have a look of astonishment wash across my face when the chips slide in my direction! I really should learn the rules of this game one day :)
So who's a donkey? Me?
In the first hand, the villain was hugely behind on all streets, calling my bets with terrible odds (on the river he was 9/1 and called a bet at 4/1). However, he pulled the straight out of his pants and won. I would class that as donktastic fishamentic play - otherwise known as playing like Stevie Wonder.
The second hand looks similar, except I'm the one behind.. only I'm the one betting. If I was calling the bets then I'd feel a bit silly, but I was betting into checkers, believing I was in front. There's a world of difference between calling with bad odds, and betting into weak players for other reasons.
To be fair, they played well (post flop.. not sure about the pre flop calls!), and I got lucky - but only 20% lucky from the flop, while the first hand the villain was 3% on the flop!
So I guess what goes around comes around. We all get lucky sometimes, and karma will sort us all out in the end. Take your bad beats gracefully, and ye will be rewarded with a bagful of beats to smite your villains with.
Until next time...
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Spurl
Mon 18th Sep 2006 13:14
the guy who won in the 1st hand is a donkey! the only tihng i didn't like about your play there was the bet on the turn when you bet 0.1 into a pot of 0.34 giving the next person to call 4.4/1 odds which on pot odds alone is enough to call with a flush draw which is a distinct possibility with that board. i doubt they can even spell pot odds but you should be betting more here, at least half the pot as a minimum.
in the second hand that flop is scary, there's a flush and straight draw out there. again later in the hand you give the next caller at least 4/1 on his bet, if he's on a flush draw here he's calling all day.