PEACHFRONT SPEAKS

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they never saw it coming 2010-01-21 - 10:35 a.m. Thanks to Travelzoo, we got an offer we couldn't refuse -- $20 a night for a fancy remodeled room at "Harrah's Grand Biloxi" and so we decided to play during the week instead of waiting for the weekend. With the tournament going on, there's no shortage of tables anyway. In fact, some of the staff seemed distinctly harassed and overloaded with work this time of century. I played 6 hours of 1/2 NL and came close to tripling my buy-in, despite the hoots and jeers of my opponents, who assure me that I'm the worst player ever. Hey, right back at you, guys. It's the kind of game where there's six or seven players to a flop, and several of the players are barely on the breathing side of clueless. However, there was one guy that I visibly annoyed, who began to try to play back at me and even moved around so that he'd be in the big blind whenever I was on the button, maybe not the choice I would have made when playing against me, but whatever. He caught me in a multi-street bluff and thought he was the nuts for awhile, but eventually he got into a situation where he turned up with KK in the big blind and he way over-played it. I'd caught AA on the button, and the board was awful for aces but it wasn't any better for kings. I raised him all-in on the turn, and he had to fold, muttering all the way. That sets the stage for my last big hand of the evening, where I'm on the button with 53 ♣. I didn't make good notes at the time I played the hands, but I hope I've reconstructed them reasonably well. Five or six people limp, and I have way too much hand to fold my button, so I limp. Small blind completes, and this dude does his semi-regular deal of raising to $17 in the big blind. Why $17? I dunno. Why not? I'm still on the button, so I can hang around and see if it's worth getting involved. Call, call, call, well for Pete's sake. I don't like my hand any more, but I'm certainly getting the odds to see if I hit a flop I like. Small blind calls. Six players. I'm too excited to multiply 6 by 17 in my head at the moment so I round it off to $100 in the pot. By the way, I started the hand with about $385. The main villain has less than $300 but some of the other players have considerably more. The flop is Q ♥ 4 ♥ 2 ♣ I have an open-ended straight draw that no one will see coming, with several opponents who have me covered or close to covered. I also have a backdoor flush draw, but at the moment I don't put much value on that. Hmmm. $100 in the pot? I'd like a cheap look at the turn. And here's where I do something so idiotic that I wonder why I did it, considering that I'm up against the one villain who is already focusing waaaaayyyyy too much on my action. When it's checked to me, I go ahead and bet out $20 instead of taking the free card. Why? I guess because I don't want to give my opponent an incentive to bluff me out of the pot on the turn? Or I want to see who "smooth calls" because it would tell me who's more likely to have the heart flush draw? Small blind calls. Maybe the heart flush draw is here, who knows. Now the villain is looking at this $140 pot, and he decides to make it $60. He could have as little as AQ for TPTK or an overpair -- remember, so far, he's done nothing different than he did with the KK overpair. I can blow him off that hand just like I did before. He could have a flush draw. Ditto. Or, of course, he could have a set of Qs, 8s, or 2s, in which case I'm not only very far behind but have no chance of blowing him off the hand on the turn. The pot is now $200. I've put in $37 of my $385. It's decision time. Fortunately, one of the other ladies spent about an hour agonizing before she folds -- she later says that she had top two -- so I have time to think without getting stared down. I decide that I'm going to call the flop and get all-in on a favorable (non-heart, no pair on board) turn. I don't want to re-raise and discourage the small blind from putting in more money. However, he also folds. It's heads up. Turn is K ♣ -- a card I hadn't considered. It gives me a great bluffing opportunity against his AQ. It gives me a club flush re-draw. Also, because we're heads-up now, I'm not worried any more about anyone hanging around with the draw to the heart flush. My 5 high is surely behind at the moment, but I've got 8 outs to a straight (all the sixes and all the aces), and 7 more unique outs to the club flush. When he bets out $100 on the turn -- the exact same move he made previously with his KK overpair -- yes, it's possible he has something he can't fold, and for sure I am currently beat, but I go ahead and shove all-in. Now here's a funny thing. You know how some people are already counting the money, and they just assume they won, so they say "all in" without bothering to put the money in the pot? Well, that's what he did. Poor, poor baby. He brought the wrath of the gambling gods down on his head, if you ask me. Because...of course...the river card is a beautiful 6 ♠ I'm not into torturing the guy, but he's already flipping over his set of ducks before I get a chance. "I have a set of deuces," he crows. "I'm sorry, honey, I have a straight." He stares baffled. Even the dealer is staring kind of baffled. I push my cards over close to the flop, and now it's coldly clear to all that, yeppers, I flopped an open-ender on that board. Who saw that coming? Nobody, to judge from the resulting consternation. But there's no denying it. The dude has been stacked. The dealer counts out his money, and yes, I have him covered, I get it all. After everyone assured me what a terrible play I'd made, I realized it would be disrespectful for a shitty player such as myself to presume I could sit deep-stacked with these steely-eyed professionals, so I racked up my chips and hit the road. Tee hee. I sure don't recommend the play if you have any sane reason to believe your opponent only plays a set that way, but oh well. Considering the money in the pot when he bets out on the turn, I'm getting odds to just call and then get the rest all-in on a good river. He'd surely pay off the straight draw, which is the one that actually came in, and he might even considering paying off the club flush draw, since it wasn't apparent on the flop. So either way...that's one hand where I was destined to win big. It's probably also pretty good evidence that I'm not yet ready for prime time, but fortunately the same is true of most of my 1/2 opposition. back - next All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2002-2017 by Elaine Radford