swimming with the fishes

Yesterday at work my friend calls me up and says there's a $20 buy in tournament in Virginia, can you meet me there? Ahhh the single life. I say, "Of course!" I take the metro in the other direction and meet him at around Springfield Mall. We both got a little mixed up on where we were but we finally made it.

As we walked in, they were already finishing up a game. I was trying to make small talk as I waited but was too interested in watching the existing players play. Needed as much information about them on how they play before I sat down.

The blinds were ridiculously low by the time the table got to heads up. Each had over 100,000 in chips and the blinds were at 500/1000. Everyone was getting a bit anxious to get started and so they started to increase the blinds.

Anyway, once that ended, I sat down with my friend and we got started with the second tournament. We all started with $20000 in chips with blinds starting at $100/$200. Pretty deep stacks - 100 BB.

After folding my few starting hands, I woke up with pocket tens in the cut off spot. There were 4 people in the pot already and the blinds were at $100/$200. I made it $800 to go. 3 people folded and this girl Heather called. We were heads up into the flop.

3-3-7 rainbow flop. She bets a $1000. I raise it up to $3000. She calls. The flop comes Q. She checks. I bet $5000. She calls. So I'm thinking what could she have that makes sense? She could have a bigger pocket pair than me OR is drawing with AK or AJ?

River came which was a blank. She checked and I checked. I show my tens and she shows me 3h4h. I lost about half my stack on that hand. I was steaming inside. It was a costly mistake for me to find out how loose she was and then played her trips passively. That won't happen again.

I was still steaming from that hand when I finally woke up with Jacks in middle position. The blinds now were at $200/$400. My stack was about $9600. I made it $1200 to go and it was folded to Heather. Round two.

Flop: Q-8-x (the x means a rag or meaningless card).
I immediately went all in. I knew she'd call with crap and I was willing to bet my remaining $8K on it. She called with A-8 and I doubled up through her. Thank you Heather!

Her reasoning was that I flopped top pair. She thought she could catch an Ace and win because she was running some hot cards. Whatever. She is the perfect person to felt in a tournament if you ever flop trips and she flops top pair. Can't wait until that happens.

Anyway, my friend got knocked out by Miss Heather when he went over the top with his raise with 8s9s. I didn't really like that play because by then I had a good read on our adversary. She likes to play any Ace. So that makes her a slight favorite against two unpaired cards...about 60%/40% or a 3:2 favorite. Even with suited connectors, ppl at the table think very highly of them. Sure, if you can limp in and see a flop. But it's a TOTALLY different thing to play them without seeing any flops and there are pre-flop raises going on.

Anyway I got knocked out 4 handed. My A-5 vs. JT. It turned out Heather also had JT which helped me out when she folded. However, when the flop showed a 7, I got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was afraid of a backdoor straight. And man, did it come. And so there I was, sent to the rail.

Then the railbirds decided to get in on a quick $5 fast blinds tournament while we waited for the next tournament. It was crazy. All-ins all over the place. I began to understand why the pros don't like that play in tournaments. It really negates a lot of play making and skill difference over a weaker player.

Example: The BB went all in blind and I had A8. I figured as a blind hand, it was probable he had an average strength hand for 4-handed play: about J-4 or J-5. So while my A-8 was a 3:2 favorite, it's still too risky of a play for tournament action. Since it's winner take all tournament, and not a cash game, I laid it down.

It's not that I don't think the all-in play is a good one. I think that play is appropriate if you feel your opponents are better than you at a particular game. For me, Omaha Hi-Low Split is a game I have to play sometimes because my friends love to play that. In my opinion, we play that game like a bunch of fishes. Almost everyone stays in to see the flop. There is zero hand selection and there are rarely any pre-flop raises, unless someone has AA or KK in the hand. And even with raises, the mentality is, "well..you have to see the flop" and there are a lot of callers. So with that game, I suck. So I employ the "fold or all-in" preflop. It drives my friends crazy that I do that but I collect the blinds. Until I'm motivated to learn the game and read up on it, plus finding books on Omaha-Hi-Lo split is difficult, I'm going to consider myself a fish.

(I'm sure many of my friends reading this will have something to say in regards to me calling them fishes in Omaha but I'm sticking to my assessment.)

Anyway, back to the main blog. My overall assessment of the competition in VA is they're generally a bunch of calling stations and hyper-aggressive unsophisticated players -- man do I sound conceited or what? I'm starting to sound like Hellmuth without the crying. I mean one guy went all-in at a small pot then showed pocket Aces. I knew exactly what he's trying to do - set up the same play with a bluff next time. Gee, it only took him about 10 minutes to get knocked out - UNSOPHISTICATED. A sophisticated player would show the best hand with an all-in then do it again knowing that people will be expecting a bluff next time.

Next time I head down to VA, I'll be better armed and dangerous. With deep stacks, I'm going to play a very wide range of hands in position. The pots are generally un-raised so I'll have plenty of opportunities. Play my made hands fast and always take free cards and never bluff and never semi-bluff. Value bet, value bet, value bet.

Well, that's it for now.