Wednesday, February 02, 2005

The Mouth of Madness

YTD: +$11083.55

Apologies to my Constant Readers for the long hiatus...too much play and too much other stuff going on. I thought this hand was a very interesting one as I am either a complete fish or I played it very well. Needless to say my Foe went beserk after this and went into a long diatribe about how useless I am. Not a good tactic with me as (a) I have the money (b) I am funnier at the needle stuff than most (c) I have the money.

Omaha Pot Limit ($2/$4) - 2005/01/24 -
19:09:00 (ET)
Table 'Abnoba' Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: haloofflies ($55.15 in chips)
Seat 3: fixer410 ($494.45 in chips)
Seat 4: TheDummy ($461 in chips)
Seat 7: Foe ($513.15 in chips)
Seat 8: Hero ($362 in chips)
Seat 9: proffen ($1793.95 in chips)
fixer410: posts small blind $2
TheDummy: posts big blind $4
Svenning: sits out
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [5s 7c 4d 8d]
Foe: calls $4
Hero: raises $8 to $12

I certainly don't always raise with this kind of stuff in early position. However I felt my foe was fairly exploitable and I would rather have him "to myself" if that was the case

mamakitty has returned
proffen: folds
haloofflies: folds
fixer410: folds
TheDummy: folds
Foe: calls $8
*** FLOP *** [2d Ad 9s]
Foe: checks
Hero: bets $24

A standard "Yes I really do have them bet"

Foe: raises $76.50 to $100.50

This was a strange one. Why check raise supposed trips with a flush draw? He didn't seem that kind of player at all. And of course my own flush draw makes it less likely he has one. The clearest explanation is that he has trips or two pair himself and that he doesn't believe me. My outs, plus the surprise factor of the middle pin just about make this a call for the turn.

Hero: calls $76.50

*** TURN *** [2d Ad 9s] [Th]
Foe: bets $228

Assuming I'm right on his hand, this card has just shot my outs through the roof. I would have passed a blank on the turn, but if all my outs are good, this is actually a trivial call.

Hero: calls $228
*** RIVER *** [2d Ad 9s Th] [5d]
Foe: bets $25
Hero: calls $21.50 and is all-in
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Foe: shows [9c 9h Ah 5c] (three of a kind, Nines)
Hero: shows [5s 7c 4d 8d] (a flush, Ace high)
Hero collected $727 from pot

Insanity or good play?

8 comments:

Milkybarkid said...

Dave

You have given away your Pokerstars Id at the top of your post!

Personally i would have laid it down to the reraise on the flop. If the diamond comes on the turn and he bets what do you do then?

The call on the turn is easy because if your diamond flush draw is good then you probably have 17 cards to win the hand.

Well done on turning the bad start to the month into a very good one. Have you been mainly sticking to $2/$4 or dabbling in the $5/$10 again?

Ben

Big Dave D said...

Not any more :)

If a diamond came and he bet it, I would cross that bridge when I got to it. My firm read at the time was that he was an ABC player, sensible but not sophisticated. Check raising the flush into a potential allin coup against trips is not a normal play. It just made him that much more likely to have trips. Of course I could be wrong in which case I lose my stack, which I would have been "happy" to do.

I'm not playing the 5-10 at all. The PLO is too wild and I dont have the tank for it. Often it can have a crummy lineup too....the other day it had Darwin, p10ker and CHUFTY all in a row...death row. The PLO8b is just too tight and as it runs so very rarely a bad result in it can badly skew your results.

gl

dd

Anonymous said...

Damn, and I really wanted to know Dave's Pstars name!

That Darwinism guy is another one that drives me nuts... I just can't handle him.

Just an anecdotal word here: I played some 1/2 PLO on UltimateBet last night, and found I was getting paid off with nut hands a lot more frequently than on Stars. Obviously I can't say for sure after one session, but it appeared to me that the players were much worse on Ultimate.

Roswell

Anonymous said...

HeHeHe, from rags to riches.

Gotta agree with your comments on the flop, the pot reraise was a strong "Yes, we have no diamonds over here, please fold now" kinda play.

But to gather all those extra outs on the turn is seriously taking the piss, lol.

Would he have felt so aggreived if you had shown him a set of Aces with no diamonds on show, just kinda dumb, probably.

But seriously Dave, the EV throughout has you going uphill all the way. Looks like you took a swashbuckling approach to the lower limit stuff and got lucky.

I would rather have had his hand than yours and in reality he stopped you getting tricky with him by getting all, or most, of his chips in with the best hand and a winning expectation.

So to answer your question, Insanity.

cheers
Jimbo

Big Dave D said...

Jimbo,

Thanks for the comment. I would concede, on reflection that the call on the flop is a bad call. Im 2 to 1 on a 2.7 to 1 shot. Not good. However I cant agree that it was -ev all the way as the call on the turn was so clear cut as to be trivial. Sure he could have me drowned in terms of having all the outs himself, but if you play PLO with that mindset you might as well play holdem instead. Bad play on flop - but not a disaster - and no -brain play on the turn.

gl

dd

Big Dave D said...

Roswell,

Darwin is maybe the best plo player on Stars. Certainly top 3. Your best play is to avoid him. Sometimes that's the best way.

gl

dd

Anonymous said...

Hey Dave.

I think I am having an "understanding gap", but I will try to explain it as I saw it.

By my reckoning you were never better than 40% to win the hand and the extra outs on the turn just stopped your disadvantage decreasing.

I know what you mean by him revealing his hand on the flop, but I can't see how that gives you an advantage from an odds perspective.

I'm not looking to start an argument about this, I am just interested to know what I have overlooked.

cheers
Jimbo

Big Dave D said...

Jimbo,

Consider your comment not answered :) It does, funnily enough raise a key poker point - how r u thinking about a problem? If you come at it at the wrong angle, as I did with the SitNGos a while back, you can cock up big style. One of the worse examples I ever saw was in a big mulitway pot on the 15-30 on Party. A guy with top two pair had to call a bet on the turn when the flush had turned up. The action before this point had been ferocious and he was easily getting more than 10 to 1. Of course he passed, as he "knew he was beat" and the full duely came. NC. not

gl

dd