Thursday, October 14, 2010

Royal Frush, No Crubs

I finally got a decent session in, over the weekend. Felt refreshing to get to play prime time poker, and to come out a wee bit a head. Funnest moment was getting paid on a turned royal flush in PLO8:




Oh, what to do, what to do....

I came in the hand with what I recall was around an average stack, and made a smallish raise preflop (prepared to call a 3-bet if necessary). This flop was actually a bit tough for me, given villian's possibility of a Q or two...but I figured if I checked here, villian could pot, and I'm faced with a tough decision for all my chips. So I elected to bet out about 1/2 the pot as a feeler, and got min-raised. Damn.

But then, the pot wasn't huge...bah, I'll see one more card.

Yahtzee!

The most beautiful jack of hearts ever. For all I knew, I'd just caught the ultimate one-outer. Stone cold nutzo. Pot. Mine. Ship it. But how to get more in it.

I didn't figure villian had a flush, and given the flushy board, I thought villain was more likely to have boated than to have hit broadway or trips, but who knows? All I knew was that villain raised me on the flop. So if I check here, he bets, and I can minraise and maybe start a raising war? Maybe I made the ultimate donk call on the flop and had chased down quad queens? That should get me paid. Okay, check.

Villian checks behind. Ugh. Wasted opportunity.

King of crubs on the river....this could only be a good card, I suppose, because it makes more boats possible. I know I can't check here. But damn, villain could have hands that fold any bet here, so I don't want to overdo it. Can't pot it. Bet about 3k? Sure.

Bet 3k.

Villian calls, and shows this:



Wow, guess I gave villian way too much credit, or he was simply trying to use the minraise bluff to try to show more strength than he had. Or, he's just a fish. Just now, while writing this post, I bothered too look him up on OPR, and he's actually not a terribad Omatard player. In fact, he's certainly been more profitable than I have in the game, so I'm now inclined to believe he was trying the minraise bluff.

Which means, I guess I can take my river bet as an actual good bet that extracted real value. He's not likely enough of a fish to have called a pot bet in that spot. And who knows, given his actual holding, a turn bet may have lost him entirely. So I feel good now. That pot certainly went a long way towards helping me to a final-two-tables finish. Unfortunately, once we got down to about 20 players, I caught nothing but junk and never connected again, going out 15th of 234.

Oddly enough, while I've only cashed in four of 24 PokerStars events in October thus far, my two best finishes have been in the same $22 PLO8 event. Neither resulted in a final table, of course.

More oddly, all four cashes have been in Omaha events. Which also includes my Sunday heartbreaker...Down to 30 players of nearly 400, and I flop trip kings on a KQx board with one low card. All the money goes in. Villian did have a broadway draw an a Q.

Turn Q. Boom, guess who boated.

River Q. Fuck me. Too pissed to take a screenie.

Well, guess that's Omatard. Win on a perceived one-outer that was anything but. And lose to perfect perfect turn/river to lose in the one possible way you think you're safe.

Good luck on the felt, ya'll.

2 comments:

lightning36 said...

Sounds like you played the Royal well. Sheesh -- deciding whether to check, min raise, overbet for value -- it is always tough figuring out what will work best.

Congrats!

Mondogarage said...

Well, for what it's worth, over the course of that tourney, any time I bet between 35-45% of the pot on the river with what I was certain was best hand, I was called.

Of course, no way to know at that point whether overbet for value *would* have worked, but straightforward value betting seemed to work every time.

I've been a bit gun shy on trying to overbet for value, because if there's no call, you've wasted a good hand in a game where variance usually kicks your good hands in the junk.