Down

Janine Melnitz: Do you believe in UFOs, astral projections, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trance mediums, the Loch Ness monster and the theory of Atlantis?
Winston Zeddemore: Ah, if there's a steady paycheck in it, I'll believe anything you say.

"Ghostbusters"

Welcome back to Poker On Film, now fully rested after visiting the home land. Well, the home town anyways.

We had a great day at the races, lost every bet except the final one which put us back near even for the day. Exciting race too, with our 7-1 horse getting up with only metres to spare – and then we found out we could have got the horse at 12-1 odds if we went through the TAB instead of the bookie (Aussie's will understand that). Pity, because that cost us a bit but at the end of the day we were just below even, which included over priced drinks and food so you can't complain too much.

We made the effort to head out bush on the Sunday for lunch in the creek, and managed to catch a few yabbies for a decent feed on the day as well and again, you can't ask for more than that.

Poker wise, I was on a fantastic tournament/SNG streak at Pokerstars recently, finishing in the money in 19 out of 21 at one stage, but in the 6 since I think I have finished 3 rd twice only for not much return. Otherwise, not much else is happening online at the minute. The download limit at home has once again gone over, which means it is too risky to play because of constant timing out until the limit gets renewed this weekend.

I have been really off my game lately, and as always you can only blame yourself. I have lost the ability to pull the trigger when I should. It happened by running into the nuts once or twice, which happens to everyone, but for whatever reason I was letting it get to me. I think I was so proud of myself and impressed by the laydowns that it became my primary reaction – I'm beat. And when that is your first thought, you don't win many pots.

I ventured into the city this past weekend for some live SNG action, and got beaten severely four times. The first two times it was Kings and two's beaten by trip 2's, and the next two times I lost when a slight/favourite against Jc9c (with 99 and JT). Just funny how both of them worked out like that. The fourth was a horrible game where I just could not beat this one player, not matter what cards we held. With 4 players to a flop and one all in we had a dry side pot. I had a made hand on the flop so I bet out to just claim my pot, and he called. The turn and river came and we both checked it down and he showed that he filled his gut-shot straight on the turn. Later, when I had flopped 2 pair with a back door flush, I bet out big (on the bubble here), and he agonised over the call, but eventually called my T1500 bet out of his T1950 stack. The turn was an ace, but the Ace of diamonds giving me the first half of my flush draw. He went all in and I had to call, and he showed AJ. He called me with no pair-no draw on the flop for 75% of his stack, and I wouldn't be telling this story if he didn't hit his outs on the river. Running two pair. Really, the only beat I can complain about on the night.

Then the final bust out of the night was with 99 vs JJ and JT. It just goes that way some times I guess. It was unfortunate because I worked my self from 1 chip back to a respectable position of about 5-6 bets, and then got my first pocket pair for the game. Just came at the wrong time, and I was nowhere to be seen.

With the impending long weekend, I am hoping for a bit of return to form in the home game this Thursday night or Friday, or whenever we get to play. I made myself apologise to the host for last time when I was whinging more because I was down, which I think I have a bad tendency to do at times and the archives will attest to. But now I am aware and will be making a better effort to improve my mindset and then hopefully my decisions.

But on a different note, I am really starting to notice there are three kinds of players at the live game SNG's. There are the beginners, the ok guys and the wanna-be pros. And naturally it is the wanna-bes that are the most annoying. I think they are the type of player that is used to online play or has friends that play big money games and therefore think they are elite (or maybe they play in games way out of their league, and think that makes them an expert). It seems everything they do is prefect play, and everyone else is an idiot – I'm sure we've all seen this before. One guy in particular was hilarious when I was watching.

It's a rebuy tournament, so you expect some suspect plays early on. The player in questions, lets call him Mr Pro, would raise the T50 to T250 without looking at his cards, and then bet another T1000 on the flop regardless of callers or cards – all this out of a starting stack of T1500. And he was down a few buy ins before it worked for him and doubled up. But he would not adjust his play and then lost that after he was called down by a player holding middle pair and a straight draw. At the showdown he berated the player, then mucked his cards as middle pair was obviously good enough. The winner waited until he left, and then said how predictable it was.

But what fascinated me was he also questioned a raise from one player to T250 pre-flop (after they looked at their cards). "5 times the big blind hey?" condescendingly. Well, 5x the big bling isn't that unusual after you've looked at your cards, but we move on.

The hand where I got felted went like this – King high flop, small bet gets 3 callers. Turn is a 2 so I bet out 700 of my 1300, and one player raises to have me all in, and it gets folded around to me. I have 600 left, there is over 3000 in there – I figure I'm probably beaten by 2 pair but call anyways and maybe get lucky. He shows 22 for the turned set and has me drawing dead, but no matter and I rebuy. End of hand right? Nope. Mr Pro says "I can't understand why people do that, call when they are obviously beaten" and then tried to say "it was obvious he had pocket twos". Wow, um, it's really easy to say it is obvious when the cards are turned over, but I did not put him on a 2-outer on that flop and thought it was safe to assume the 2 on the turn was a safe card. But I did have a fair idea that I was beaten and still called, but I asked if he thought that criticising that play was any better than going all-in pre-flop without looking at your cards and then turning over 8-5o. "Yeah, but at least I had outs". It was at this time that I realised who I was dealing with and just left it at that. It all ends well though as he was knocked out a few places before me and even though that pays the same, it cost him a few extra buy ins to do it. On the last hand before the first break though he managed to double me up by calling a pre-flop all-in with 4 high. What was funny was it left him with T200, and unable to rebuy and he could only add-on.

So I didn't win any money, I will have to settle for a little moral victory instead.