Sunday, May 25, 2008

Live poker is so rigged....

I went to BrainMc's yesterday for a fun little game. We had 13 runners for a nice bounty tournament, which I've been looking forward to for quite a while.

It was a deep-stack tourney, so after three hours we had only gone from 13 to 11 players. RIght before we stopped for dinner, I picked up A-J of spades in the BB. After a weak button raise (BB was 160, and the raise was only to 500), the button and I played out the rest of the hand. We both had about 6500 in chips before the hand.

Could you get away from this hand? Here's how it went down.

Preflop: Button raise to 500
SB folds
BB: call 340.

Flop: [Ah] [Ks] [3s]
I check
Button bets 500
I call with top pair and the nut flush draw

Turn: [10s]
BAM! Nut Flush!

I bet 700
Button thinks and calls 700

I probably did not bet enough herem but in terms of keeping them involved, not too bad.

River: [Kd]

I check it.
Button pushes remaining stack which barely covers me - 4800 into a 4000 pot.

Now, I've played with him before, so I know how he generally plays. I sit for at least five minutes running through the hands he could have that would beat me.

A-K? Pocket 10's? Pocket Aces? In all of those, he would have bet the flop differently.

So, I'm thinking he has K-Q and rivered a set, or has a good flush - maybe Q-high. Both of those mean I'm winning the hand.

I finally call. I think I've eliminated every hand that can beat me, so a win will give me a big chip lead. I was right, in a way.

He did not have A-K, 10-10, or A-A.

He had 3-3 - which I didn't put him on given the position and knowing he doesn't normally play a hand like that, even with position.

In retrospect, the turn bet wasn't nearly enough, as he had odds to chase. I needed to bet at least 1500 to make it possible to fold - but then, I won't be getting his stack as I'm hoping to do with the nut flush.

As the title says, live poker is so rigged. I've seen that many times online, but not live very often even among our group.

Could any of you have folded that hand? Laying down the nut flush there was really difficult. I didn't want to bet too much on the turn, because I didn't want to chase him out of the hand, and instead I got killed on the hand.

After we ended the tourney, we started a cash game. I played for about 5 hours, and ended up $30 for that portion. Overall, I was in the red, but not as bad as could be. Still, it is the first loss for my PokerStars shirt, so it doesn't have a perfect record anymore.

Overall, it costs less than a therapy session, and I got to have some beer and pizza too.

3 comments:

kurokitty said...

You can't lay it down but you could have pushed him off of the turn. 700 into a 2,000 pot is a little small. Plus with TPTK and nut flush draw you could easily raise the flop to see all five cards.

BrainMc said...

Man, I completely missed this. Thanks again for coming out and joining us. I look forward to next time.

Unknown said...

Just reading without knowing, I put the guy on either KKs or 33s.

The flop bet was a feeler just to see if, as the BB, you had anything you wanted to play.

I fold to his all in.

The reason I can put him on that hand is because he's willing to go all in, in a deep stack tourney that still has 11 players in it, knowing he doesn't have the nut flush.

He knows he doesn't have it, because you have it (so, he can't have it, and he knows that).