~~ Bridgie's Poker Rant Pt. 2 09/03/07 ~~

Tonight's game of choice was No Limit Hold'em and ol' BstrdBridgie got to swim with the sharks.

Had a nice go of it early on and was saved on a hand where this dude Simon was playing big stack bully on me until the river when I turned it around on him and went all in. Good thing he folded as I had nothing but an up and down straight draw and a no-points-for-this-either flush draw. Within a few hands I won some massive (at the time) pots and left ol' Simon in my rear view mirror.

Then another dude came along and he liked playing aggressive, too. There came a hand where the flop was A-K-K, and me with A-10 was last to act of 4 players in the hand. It checked around to me, so half fearing a slow playing set of Ks, I checked, too. The next card was a 5 and it goes check-check to the aggressive player. He bets 2,700. I think his aggression would have caused him to bet with a set so I didn't think he had it so I called. The other two folded. River is an 8. This time Mr. Aggressive goes all in, about 20K. If I call and lose, I'm crippled, but my analysis hadn't changed so I gritted my teeth and called. He had pocket 10s and a trip to his mommy's teat so he could cry over his loss.

I had 57K at the break which I know is pretty good because Dizz once told me she hopes to be at 20K by the break. I kept treading water, winning a pot here and there, but playing conservatively and churning through the field. One hand after the break, I got dealt pocket Js. I was about 4th or 5th to act pre-flop and with two people already calling the big blind to, I doubled the big blind to 12K to discourage any other people from limping in. One short stack who was behind me then goes all in raising it to 17K, everyone else folded so I took on his A-Q with my pocket Js. Flop was J-J-A. End of story.

Before I knew it I was approaching my all time best NL hold'em finish (which I would achieve) but the stacks were now massive with some of them in 7 figures. I was barely over 200K and the blinds were eating away at my stack. I would have to make something happen soon or I would be toast. I got a hand of K-Q suited and cringed when someone doubled the big blind to 60K but I still called. The flop was K-6-3 and the dude went all in. I had to call with top pair and Q kicker. There was one other smaller stack who was already all in and the cards were flipped. The raising dude had K-J, so I had him cooked, and the short stack had A-10. But in the first installment of OMFG hands, the turn and river were Q-J, giving me and the other guy 2 pair with mine higher, but the short stack escaped with a runner-runner A high straight. I won about 30K on the hand, but would have been up around 500K if the A-10 guy doesn't pull a Houdini act on me.

There was another hand where I had K-10. The flop was 6-9-10 so I had top pair with K kicker, a pretty nice hand. I'm trying to decide if I should go all in when the first guy to act bets 90K (triple the big blind) and the next guy raises that to 180K. Suddenly my top pair with K kicker didn't look so good so I tossed in that hand. If I had been first to act, that hand probably would have been my last. Sure enough, the first guy had the last two 10s giving him a flopped set and the second guy had 9-6 which he played pre-flop only because he was in the big blind. The river made a board pair and both of them had full houses so a bad beat for the big blind dude.

Soon It was down to 14 players. I still had a fairly small stack relatively speaking of about 223K when this guy who had been at nearly 2 million a few hands earlier had taken some huge hits and was now down to a little over 300K. It's common in situations like that to see a player go on tilt to try to recover his chips with less than desirable cards. The next hand, I get dealt Q-Q. I know this isn't invincible, but my play here is easy, I'm going pre-flop all in. The dude with 300K acts before me and goes all in first! I'm thinking ok, he's on tilt, I'll be glad to scoop up his chips and I called which of course put me all in. One more guy with a huge stack (almost 2 million) calls, too. Since there's no more betting the cards are flipped. The tilt guy has J-6 both hearts, a horrible hand if the flush doesn't make. The big stack dude has Q-8 also both hearts, also a horrible hand if the flush doesn't make and even worse because I have Q-Q making his Q useless. Both players hands are marginal unless hearts come up but they each have two of the outs the other needs. While its possible, if a heart flush makes, it would mean that at least 7 of the 11 viewed cards would have to be hearts and you don't ever want to bet on that happening. Furthermore, the guy with J-6 is massively dominated by my Qs and by the guy with better hearts. The guy with Q-8 is dominated by my Qs (hitting a Q does him no good whatsoever). So he needs to hit a pair of 8s or something crazy to win. Later on I went to cardplayer.com and ran the odds on those three hands against each other. According to the odds calculator, Q-Q is a 78% favorite, J-6 (both hearts) an 11% favorite and Q-8 (both hearts) a 9% favorite with possible ties in some scenarios, i.e. the board goes A-A-A-A-K, its a three way split, etc.

And now for the cards that hit the board. 8s-5d-7s-4s (at this point I was vomiting (not literally) but I actually had a flush draw on the river) and the river was the 2d. So J-fucking-6 wins the hand with an 8 high straight and I'm out in 14th out of 3,790. Were I to win that hand I would have had nearly 700K and an excellent chance to make the final table.

This last hand was of course, the second installment of OMFG hands and concludes this OMFG edition of the DFPB.