Getting No Love

Evil: Oh, Benson... Dear Benson, you are so mercifully free of the ravages of intelligence.
Benson: Oh, you say such nice things, Master.
Evil: Yes I know, I'm sorry!

”Time Bandits”

Funny thing I forgot to mention about the other night’s games. In a very passive game, I was up against one of the lesser experienced players and I got caught. I held some crap like 83o, and got a flop of 83x. I bet out and got called. Turn is another rag, I bet out and got called. River is a Queen, I bet out for a third time and get called. They showed Q3o, and were calling all that way with a pair of threes. Oh well, what can you do? I figured I would wait for a bigger hand and capitalise on this.

On one hand where I am the dealer we have 7 (!!!) seeing the flop. With my pocket pair of 8’s, I just called. Flop comes Q88, and I have great position. It gets checked all the way around to me and I make a minimum raise. Everybody folded. Ok, so maybe I should have checked it through to the river, but man you couldn’t believe my luck. We had several raised pots get 4 to the showdown, and here I was not getting any action at all! I learned my lesson, and when you flop the stone cold nuts, let someone else make a hand before you make a move.

Also one more interesting thing, on the way home after the Distraction and I took second and third respectively, she said she felt guilty about taking their money.

I just laughed and laughed. Then I slapped her.

I’m kidding, except for the laughing part.

Had some spare time last night, and couldn’t find an Omaha game on Noble Poker, so I entered into a free roll satellite for the WSOP at Poker pages. The top ten got a $1 entry into another satellite, which was going into a third satellite, then into another and then finally a MTT to win a WSOP seat. 144 or so entered, and since it was a free roll why not? About 10 minutes in I looked at when the next tournament was and realised I couldn’t play in it anyway because we have a friends 21st on that night. Oh well, time to run a little experiment then.

After the usual crazy all-in first hand people were busted, I decided to turn my aggression meter way up. If I got any ace, it meant a 6BB raise. Same with any two cards above a ten, and even some suited connectors.

It was amazing, I had 4x the starting stack and hadn’t seen a showdown. I hadn’t hit a flop either. But unfortuantly dinner was on the table so I wanted to leave. With two all-ins in front of me, I called with Q3c. I hit the third club on the river and was now chip leader. Yeah, well it’s a free roll anyway.

Onwards I went, rarely loosing a pot I played in. At one stage, I had the second place player betting into me on the big blind. I called and we saw a king high flop. He made a decent raise, I called. Turn brought out a diamond draw – he bets again, I called. The river put a pair of kings on the board. He bets, and I pushed. It was a T150,000+ pot and he had less than T20,000 left. He folded, and I just had to show my 83o. I think he was on tilt after that. Stupid free rolls!

So we eventually get down to the final table, which means everyone has won a $1 seat. There is no difference between first and tenth. I have the chip lead and push all-in with K7 or something, who cares? Well, only 3 people called. I won it, and then pushed again next hand with whatever crap I had, and it’s folded to me. Looks like some people really care where they finish in these free rolls. I think I went out in 5th or something, but I won’t be playing in the next one regardless.

It was a good little experiment. It’s bloody annoying when somebody raises every single hand at a table, but it is very tricky when they only raise every 2nd hand when they have something. This happened the other night with Vinny, you couldn’t tell if he was bluffing or not, but you suspected he had a naked ace or two pieces of paint at least. The variance seems to be a little higher but it was all good in the end (except for the one suck out of course). I enjoyed not being the usual rock that I am.