The Dark Side of the Moon

YTD: +$29750.86

Although it looks like a nice improvement in my YTD, actually its been a fairly painful swing...I actually shot up over 6.5k from the last figure, only to crash and burn 4.5k in a couple of hours yesterday, most of them thankfully bad beats.

One of the problems of playing between 500-1000 hands a day is that they start to wash over you, a blur of nuts, draws, suckouts and bad beats. Very rarely do I sit up and find myself in a uniquely challenging or surprising hand. The hand below is a rare exception:


$400 PL Omaha Hi - Thursday, March 17
Table Table 36545 (Real Money)
Seat 8 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 7: sieuwping ( $561 )
Seat 8: Hero ( $1621.9 )
Seat 6: pentium ( $400 )
Seat 4: kaffeuffe ( $219.8 )
Seat 2: ucrags ( $511.3 )
Seat 1: ofiss ( $261.4 )
Seat 10: spybar ( $400 )
Seat 9: zeeman72 ( $405.3 )
Seat 3: pannekoek111 ( $80 )
zeeman72 posts small blind [$2].
spybar posts big blind [$4].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ 7c Jh 8d 9s ]
ofiss calls [$4].
kaffeuffe folds.
pentium folds.
sieuwping could not respond in time.(disconnected)
sieuwping folds.
Hero raises [$12].

This is a loose but mostly ok raise. It will disguise my hand and maybe move out the blinds. Regardless, playing a bigger pot, in position, with this hand is not a bad thing.

zeeman72 calls [$10].
spybar calls [$8].
ofiss calls [$8].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 8s, Jd, 6h ]
zeeman72 checks.
spybar checks.
ofiss checks.
Hero bets [$40].

This is a great flop as my hand is completely disguised. I may get action from MUCH inferior hands, thinking I have AA.

zeeman72 raises [$165.6].
spybar calls [$165.6].
ofiss folds.

This was very bizarre. I must admit that at the time I was completely flummoxed. Make no mistake, if I was headsup against zeeman all the money would have gone in on the flop. But what kind of hands could spybar be calling with? Surely only a monster draw or perhaps bottom trips to basically put in nearly half his stack cold. What should my action be?

Like most players, I can tend to make decisions fairly quickly simply because I have played or analysed similar situations many times before. This was a genuine original and I had to use Party's miserly think time. And I did something strange...I called. Clearly I have a at least 6 nut outs, unless the very improbable worst case is out there. There is also a very real chance that they both have draws and in that case I am in good shape, especially considering the fact I am getting 3 to 1. Let's use position and see how things develop.

Hero calls [$125.6].

** Dealing Turn ** [ Qc ]
zeeman72 checks.
spybar checks.

This is a death card. This must have made someone a straight, but why do they then check? Any decent player would bet the pot with the straight to give the worse possible odds to drawing hands. But this is Party :-) And many, many times I have seen people trap check here even though it is insane. Also, and an important factor, I cannot make trips pass here as there is ample odds to call, unless the Foe makes a terrible mistake.

Hero checks.
** Dealing River ** [ 2c ]
zeeman72 checks.
spybar checks.

??? There is now a surprising case for a bet. Although again if you are called you are probably beat. I chicken out.

Hero checks.
zeeman72 shows [ Ac, 5s, Ad, 7h ] a pair of aces.
spybar doesn't show [ 9h, 7s, 3c, 8c ] a pair of eights.
Hero shows [ 7c, Jh, 8d, 9s ] two pairs, jacks and eights.
Hero wins $541.8 from the main pot with two pairs, jacks and eights.

Insane play by spybar and overplay by zeeman. The deceptive raise had its affect in confusing my opponents; unfortunately it also confused me :-(