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On the face of it I had a good session at the International yesterday evening:
NLHE Cash: -£150
PLO MTT: -£110
PLO Cash: +£610
Overall: +£350
But, as always, there's more to it than that.
It takes me about one and a half hours to get to the poker club, so that's quite an investment in time and I had been looking forward to playing, but on the day I just kinda felt a bit half-hearted about the whole affair. I decided that I'd skip the tournament (a £100 PLO double chance) and just play cash. When I got there I sat in a 1-1 NLHE game and played probably the worst hours poker I have done for ages. I just wasn't focussed at all, and was splashing around but with no real plan. As an example I looked at my hole cards and saw QQ, so raised in EP and got 3 callers. The flop was K84 with 2 spades and someone led, so I just called. A blank turn and it went check-check, and then a blank river and the villain leads for £25. I called and he said "nice call, I have ace high" but when I flipped my cards over I found I had QT! Ooops.
I quickly dropped a couple of buy-ins and, when the PLO tournament was about to start, thought to myself that, actually, I'd be better off playing that than staying where I was. So I bought into the tourney, and after around 2 hours was fairly short (6,200 chips with blinds at 200/400) when I got 9933 on the button and there were 3 limpers. Well, that looked like a pretty good steal opportunity so I potted it to 2,600 only for the big blind to repot. Clearly he has a big hand here since I look pot committed, and in fact I decided that I was pot committed (against random AAxx I'm 32% or so) so stuck in the rest against the inevitable AA95 and didn't suck out. Fortunately just as I bust out they announced that the PLO cash game was starting up so I went over and took a seat.
This was a very strange game of PLO indeed. First the stacks: I sat with £300, a couple of other people bought in for £500 and one gentleman called Warya (he of the £14k pot the previous week) bought in for £1,000 (remember this is supposedly a 1-2 game). On the other hand there were a couple of people buying in for just £50. When we got going it soon became apparent that this was going to play quite loose and lively. It was rare to see a flop for less than £20, with Warya raising around 60% pre-flop, and then potting around 75% of flops. Of course since he was always raising and betting it was hard to know where you stood - sometimes he would flip over the mortal nuts, other times he had nothing. One hand got to the river with him potting every street and putting in a £240 bet on the river (a paired, 3 diamond board) only for someone with a 7-high flush to look him up and win the pot (he mucked, but claimed to have flopped 2 pair).
My first big pot was quite interesting in the match up of hands, if somewhat automatic in the betting. Howard had recently joined the table, and is known for his loose and aggressive style, so when I picked up 9TTJss vs his straddle it seemed the ideal opportunity to 3-bet Warya's open. The big blind flat called and Howard peeks at his cards and re-pots me. Well, what to do? I put him in and the big blind again flat calls declaring "I've got my favourite hand". Marvellous. Lets run some numbers as now I'm up against AAxx and what in the BB? Not AAxx otherwise she re-pots me. Not KKxx as that isn't going to be anyone's favourite hand in PLO. Probably some double suited rundown. In fact she turned out to have exactly that - 8765ss.
According to ProPokerTools these three hands line up pretty much evenly:
| Hand |
Pot equity |
Wins |
Ties |
| AA** |
34.14% |
203,454 |
2,779 |
| JhThTd9d |
35.37% |
211,680 |
1,098 |
| 8s7c6d5s |
30.49% |
Well to be precise I'm a clear favourite pre-flop!
The flop was a different story: Q43 all black and sadly I had hearts and diamons and the rundown was spades and clubs.
AA**: 37%
JTT9ss: 12%
8765ss: 51%
A ten on the turn improved my prospects greatly, giving me 47% vs 38% for the rundown, and I locked it up with another 3 on the river. It's amazing how people can misjudge these probabilities. The rest of the table was pretty much unanimous that (a) the AAxx is way ahead pre-flop (b) on the flop I've only got single digit equity (to be fair, that's almost right but the point was the big blind had 55 left behind which she bet on the flop and I was getting better than 8:1 on my call) and (c) that the rundown was still ahead on the turn (she certainly looked to have lots of out having 2 flush draws and the straight draw). Computer simulation tools are a wonderful thing!
Now I was sitting on a 300bb stack, so the chances to pretty much having it all-in pre-flop were remote, and that meant tricky decisions for lots of cash would be coming my way. The style of super-aggro play is quite disconcerting and I'm not sure the best way to counter it. Probably pick a hand and go with it (otherwise you'll get run over) but you have to be prepared to lose it all on one hand. An example: Warya as normal potted it in middle position and I called on the button with a pretty speculative 7644s. The flop came KT4 and he pots it. We're effectively 300bbs deep. What to do here? In a "normal" game I'd probably re-pot and fold to further betting (assuming he'll have an over set or at best a big wrap) but here I just called and called another pot sized bet on a blank turn. The river completed a possible backdoor flush and Warya checked his top two and I won a medium sized pot.
This got me thinking. Firstly, given how this game is playing I'm pretty sure he's calling if I re-pot the flop, and will probably call a psb on the turn, so have I missed value? Secondly, he's now seen me play bottom set passively so will he (a) be less inclinded to bluff into me or (b) think that a flush completing on the river in future will be a great spot to take the pot away from me?
An orbit or so later I called £11 pre-flop with 4689 and saw a flop of T76r. I potted it and got 2 callers. The turn was Qc putting a flush draw out there but I decided to build a really big pot or keep it small, so I checked with the intention of check-raising. Warya now pots it and the other caller re-bets all-in and it's back on me. I can't fold as I have the current nuts. The problem I have is that I don't have any re-draws, so could be freerolling someone for 400bbs if we get it in here. On the other hand I don't want to just flat and have to pass to the inevitable bet on the river as there are so many scare cards which can come (any 6,7,8,9,T,J,Q,K,A or club means I no longer have the nuts!). Well, I think raising is the least-worst option so I re-pot for another £420 and Warya goes into the tank. After about 3 minutes he mutters something like "I can't belive I'm doing this" and passes what he later said was a set of 7s. The river is Ad and I scoop the pot.
At this point two things are going through my mind: Firstly Corwin's latest video where he says the mark of a winning poker player is someone who carries on playing when they are winning; secondly the fact that I'm sitting on a stack of over £1,000 and, to be honest, that's a lot of money! I'm afraid the meeker me took over and I decided it was time to cash in and get the train home. During my last orbit I saw Howard win a couple of big pots from Warya, who kept re-loading to make sure he had everyone at the table covered. I think when I went Howard was on £1,200 and Warya had just over £2k. In total there was probably £6k on the table and it only looked like getting bigger. Surely a "real" poker player would never get up from such a table?
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