Returning the Favor and other Slices of Life

Returning the Favor
Returning the Favor
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Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Poker content - sort of

Because any of my play can only ever be described as "sort of" poker. I'm gonna take a break from subscribing to comments on pissed off or apologetic blog posts to recount my tournament play last night.

I went down to a small town south of here to play in a semi-underground tourney. I say semi-underground because the guy does take a small ($5 per person) rake, but it's much more like a big home game than an underground game. I've played it once before, when Special K and I went down in flames, finishing first and second. First and second to leave, that it.

So my whole goal was to make it past 2nd-bustout. Which I barely managed to do when I avoided going broke on a board of K-4-7-x-x and I held K-4 from the big blind. I got raised on the turn, which likely saved me chips, but I was still dumb enough to call his river bet and announce to the table that he had a set of 4s but I was paying him off anyway. I hate when I allow my ego to convince me that's a brilliant move. I don't mind paying off a bet on the river in a cash game when I'm 95% sure I'm behind, if it gets me information I can use later, but in a tournament bleeding away chips like that means that it's far less likely I'll have the opportunity to use that information later.

So I was short-stacked with 405 chips (blinds started at 10/20) with 25/50 blinds when I stole the blinds once, then tripled up with QTo when I was called by AK and 66 and hit a Queen on the flop and a Queen on the river to give me a little breathing room. Not long afterwards, I picked up Jacks in a blind and came over the top of a middle position raiser, who called me with 99. I didn't quite double up there, but I was comfortable in chips again.

I managed to make it to breaking down to 2 tables from a start of 3 at that point, then right after I'd been talking to a guy on break about how much I liked playing suited one-gappers, I pick up 10-8 spades in late position. I see the flop with 3 others, and it comes down Q-J-6 with two spades. I've picked up a flush draw and a gutty draw, and call the flop bet from a guy who's pretty obviously packing top pair, decent kicker. He checks the turn and I take the free card, which is the 9c, giving me my gutshot. I check to him, expecting the value bet on the river, but he checks behind me. Nice value check, me. I rake a big pot and can dodge and weave my way to the final table. We actually lost two players on the same hand before the final table, so it was 8-handed instead of 9-handed. I make a couple of preflop raises with KQ, KJ in late position, but have to dump when the Ace flops.

I find myself pretty short, with an M of around 7-8 when we're 6-handed, and a big stack raises in front of me. I look down at Ac-Ks, and reraise all in. He thinks for a moment before calling.

"Are we racing?" I ask.

"Probably." he replies.

"Ace-King."

"Fuck"

"Oh, then you're dominated."

Sure enough, he tables AQo. I turn to the guy next to me and say "I'm doomed."

Flop is 6-As-Qs and I reach for my jacket. 10s on the turn gives me 15 outs, but the 4c on the river wasn't on the list, so I bust out two off the money, and go home.

I played fairly well with the notable exception of paying off the big river bet early when I knew I was beat, and the only suckout I unleashed was when my Q-10 made trips. So I made one suckout, I lost to one suckout, but overall I felt like I played pretty well.

We now return you to other sites which may be able to better fuel your need for drama-bombs. All my drama has been in the real world lately, I don't have time for invisible internet drama. In another milestone moment for me and Suzy, we bought a nice bed and had it delivered today.

We've been together 13 1/2 years, and this is the first decent bed we've bought new. We bought a new bed from a cheap-ass furniture store a couple years after we got married, and it sucked. Then I bought a bed from a friend who was moving into a smaller place and needed to get rid of her queen-sized bed. It was a good bed, but it already had some years on it when I bought it, so it's sucked for the past couple of years.

Now we got a BED. We went to the Original Mattress Company, which is a locally-owner mattress factory, and bought their top-of-the-line pillowtop king-size mattress. Then went to Chez Tarzhay (you know, that place where I've funded Drizz's 401(k) all fall) and spent a buttload of money on new bedding. So if I'm late for work tomorrow, it's because I don't wanna get out of my new bed.

2 comments:

SirFWALGMan said...

So is your next post going to be how you broke in the bed. Please use small and graphic wording. Thank you.

Unknown said...

The company demands more weight loss so I can retire next year!