Poker: Bad Beats, Scores, Stories, Hand Questions, Etc

Played some 1/3 at Hard Rock Cincinnati this weekend. They had an hourly high hand with rollover that was up to $3k during my third hour of play, I probably got in a few too many pots hoping for a jackpot, but I still ended up doing well overall. (Some guy at the other 1/3 table hit it with quad tens).

Not too many interesting hands really, but got paid decent with 66 when I raised to 10, called a 3-bet to 30, and flopped a set. I went to the xc-xr-b line and got paid on all three streets. Won another good one with aces where I flopped the flush draw, turned flush, then got some thick value on the river from a guy with the Jack flush, which was third nuts.

Most satisfying hand of the day though I had 8-6 suited and called a raise from SB. Normally would have folded this but HH jackpot made me do it. Anyway I flopped a gutter and called another bet (this was def bad). Turn was a face card, and it checked through. River paired one of the low cards, so I felt like it was a good time to bluff. I went pot and it got through.

Overall bought in for 300 and left with 650ish. Not too shabby for a little weekend time killer.

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My poker crew:

We play $.25/$.25 NLHE about 2-3x a month.

IMG-0434

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Older son is home from college. He and I and the younger son have been playing poker on his breaks. Mostly NLHE. We used to play lots of mixed games, such as 7-card Low-Hole Pete, Deuce-to-seven triple draw, and a favorite was “Pass the Trash”.

Pass the Trash, everyone gets dealt 7 cards; you pass 3 to the left and receive 3 from the player on your right. Then you discard 2 to make your best 5-card hand. Place them in front of you, face down. Everyone reveals one card, round of betting. Continue until all cards are shown or everyone folds.

Well, we decided tonight to combine a couple of favorites to come up with “Hold the Trash”, where like Pass the Trash, you get dealt too many cards. 3, in fact. Pass 1 to the left, receive 1 from the player on your right, then discard 1. Then play NLHE as normal. This got a lot more interaction, because there’s additional information beyond just your hole cards and the tabled cards. Sometimes you have 3 good cards, and have to decide which one to give away to screw the next player. You also have to remember what you gave away and how it might be affecting his betting, what you received and how it might be indicating what your other opponent has (or doesn’t), and what you threw away in relation to what’s on the board.

Very fun, highly recommended if you don’t want to take it too seriously.

Better placed in the other thread, wherever it is.

Related to poker since we don’t have a separate thread for professionals and their misdoings:

Went to the casino tonight for a last practice session before Vegas. I was intending to play their $80 daily tournament, but due to low interest (I think there were only 2 other than me who wanted to do that) it didn’t go. So I took the $265 that I had in my wallet and sat down at the 1/2 table.

Stood up 5 hours later with $975. I’ve hardly ever played cash before, but it was a good night. I did get lucky with one pair of 8s versus Queens that ended up hitting an 8 on the river. She shouldn’t have been in the pot, though, as the Kxx board + my open bet + my re-raise her raise should have scared her off, but I’ll take the 2-outer one time.

Won several pots, a couple of showdowns, several times just putting in bigger bets after multi-way limps or small pre-flop raises… Also lost several pots, several showdowns, and ended up bluffing a fair amount too. Felt like I played well, well enough that opponents couldn’t read me.

Had a good time. If this trip ends up +EV, I may try cash games again like once a week to see how it goes.

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Update? Wondering if you ended up going o Vegas and if so how it went!

Yep, I got here Thursday night. Thought about playing some cash to spend a couple of hours Thursday but the wait list at Venetian was like 40 people, and I wanted to try to get some sleep, so I didn’t bother waiting until midnight to sit down.

Yesterday we started a bit after 10 am. While there were 2,000 Golden Passports given out, only about 1,450 people sat down at the tables. (Which we all expected to happen.)

My first table had some people who were playing pretty good and one blowhard, kept blathering about random stuff and complaining that he had to win his seat by winning some smaller tournament online and there were a bunch of randoms who just “signed up on a list somewhere”. But people apparently knew him, various people called him by name a couple of times. “Mike”. It wasn’t until the director started making announcements of ‘notable’ players that he called out Mike Matusow and it was the same blowhard! And apparently last year’s champion (Dan Sepiol) was also at my table. [I had to look him up later, but yeah, he won that seat by winning last year’s 10k WPT championship main event]

Phil Ivey got knocked out within the first 100 eliminations. That was kind of surprising.

Played well, I thought. I took a sizeable pot from Matusow with a Kh6h flush in the BB. KK three times in the first several orbits at that table, and managed to accumulate a chip lead at the table. Knocked out the guy to my left with AK over his AQ.

We move tables and I get sat at Brad Owen’s table! Nice. He’s and several people have short stacks with about 14-15 BB, I’m big stack with about 120 BB. He goes all in against another small stack at something like 16 BB, the other wins and Brad goes down to 2.

He subsequently manages to win 3 all-in flips over the next 2 orbits and run it back up to something reasonable, then can play a little bit more.

I’ve got AA, guy to my right has a short stack, maybe 15 BB. He raises small, and I make it 3x his bet, hoping he’ll go all-in. It’s a good price, but he lays it down. If I’d made it 2x I think he would have done it.

Twice a short stack goes all-in and I cover, and they end up winning the flip. One was A4 for them versus A6 for me, a 4 came on the flop. The other I think I was a little tilted and called lighter than I should, should have just let him have the blinds.

I overplayed JJ once, going all-in pre, thinking, “I’m the big stack, I’m just going to steal these blinds and if one of those short stacks wants to gamble, I’m covering them by a lot.” Turns out, Brad had AA and ripped it in. I couldn’t crack them, so he basically took all my chips, leaving me with just enough to hang on through three more hands to get into the money.

Ended up busting out soon after the bubble burst, along with a couple hundred others for a $1k payout. Not what I planned for, pays for the trip and some good learning experience.

They also have a consolation drum for everyone who gets in the money (503 players) and busts before the final table (9). There are 100 seats to the $10k main event, so you pull an envelope and open it on camera. While waiting in line for that with all the rest of the first losers, some dude pulls a ticket. Yay! Applause all around. Next guy doesn’t get one. Then the dude after him, right in front of me, pulls one. Yay! Applause all around. Then me, and I actually pull one too! So now I’m playing in the $10k Main Event. TODAY.

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Woah, awesome! Great report and nice cash. Hoping you get all the run good in the main! Can’t wait to hear about it.

Good luck!
Cohete says “Don’t go broke with jacks!”

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Went through my head at the time! Its good advice.

Main event is slooooow. We started with 100k chips, playing 1 hour levels. Even into the 4th level its only 500/1000, so were still an average stack of >100 BB.

Feels like Im playing fine, everyone else sems to be playing better than yesterday, which is expected because of the average field is just going to be a hell of a lot better to be willing to pay the 10k entry.Just before the break I picked up the blinds 3 hands in a row with a min-raise. Earlier I got an massive bluff through with a big bet on a very wet board.

The freeroll from yesterday is down to 10 players, lots of observers too.

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Keep us posted. You got this.

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Playing alright today. Was sitting directly in front of the Mike Sexton trophy at the first table. Very different than yesterday’s freeroll. I’ve been at 3 tables, second one felt like a pro got my number and pushed me around a bit. Just moved to a third table and in 4 hands picked up AK and then KK, almost doubled my stack in those two hands. Dinner break now.

Unless I get stupid, I should have enough chips to qualify for Day 2. Unfortunately that’s not until Tuesday, and I am supposed to be somewhere else Monday through Wednesday. That’s a dilemma we have to deal with in a few hours though.

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Keep up the good work! I want to see a deep run!

LFG BRO !!!

Wish I had better news, but I’m out. It was the last 30 minutes of the last level of day 1, and I busted. I felt like I was playing well early in the day, but upon reflection I see that my style didn’t change as the field decreased and the average skill improved. Bluffs that got through in the first 8 levels or so didn’t make it through in levels 10 and 11, and I didn’t recognize that until too late and the nuclear meltdown of “maybe this marginal decision will be different” into “oh crap” into “Welp, looks like it’s any two cards now!” went pretty fast.

First table was fine, played okay and chipped up a bit. We started with something like 200 BB, so it was a very deep stack. Several clear pros; at least one other guy like me who pulled a ticket out of the consolation drum from the free roll the day before. however, it felt like I could hold my own with the group. I eventually got moved to another table with more clear pros, but nobody I recognized. There was one guy who, after a couple of rounds, clearly figured me out, so I didn’t tangle with him any longer.

Interesting non-hand thought. I had >average chip stack pretty much the whole day, figured I could just float along and make Day 2, and by the time the final level started it was a sure thing. However - I have somewhere else to be Monday through Wednesday, so I wondered what would happen to my chips if I didn’t play them. At dinner break I chatted with Brad Owen in the lounge and he said that if you don’t play the chips, they’ll get blinded out and it’s possible to survive that day, but you really have to have like a 10x starting stack pot to be able to survive that many blinds. And in order to do that you have to play very aggressive, which had been my style so I was okay with that.

One interesting hand, I’ve got QT, flop comes something like KQ5, we end up all-in 3 ways, one very short stack about 45% my size and another about equal to me. The short stack has a K, but the other similar stack to me has Q5 for 2 pair. I was okay with potentially doubling up the short stack (gotta play aggressive!) but didn’t expect a Q5 two pair, so started fearing for my life. Anyway, another K comes on the river for giving me two pair and counterfitting him. We check the chip counts and - they match. EXACTLY. Down to the hundred. So we triple-up the short stack, but I end up about even on the hand. Pretty wild.

Last meaningful hand, I’ve got QdJd, late position, open, BB calls. Flop is 10d-9x-4d, so I’ve got an open-ended straight draw, 2 overs, and a flush draw. Bet, he raises, I go all-in, not expecting him to call. He tanks, and eventually calls. He has A-10, for a top pair, but I’ve got soooo many outs it in’t funny. None of them come, though, and I end up with 3k, less than 1 BB.

Was a great experience. Very happy I did it, as I was a bit conflicted at first thinking about “yeah, I know I’m going to bust out of this, maybe I should spew off early and go play a cash game or a smaller daily tourney today and stay within my lane.” But that was unnecessary. It’s poker! Gotta risk it for the biscuit.

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Great experience

GG, nice run. Glad that cashing in the freeroll basically paid for the whole trip, and yeah the experience can’t be duplicated, very cool you got to be a part of something like that.

Awesome @Bro ! Ending 2024 on a high for sure!