8-6-05 [poker] - 1

8-6-05 [poker]

Thursday night, I played another home game with the group here. I'm now something like 0 and 7 with this group, so they're quite happy that I keep dumping money in the game. In the last game I was knocked out on two subsequent hands that were very similar hands, but I played them very differently, and I think it's interesting to compare. Both hands were against the big stack of the table, and I'm on a pretty short stack. I really want to double up, because it's all about winning first place.

The first hand I get in cheap from a blind with 78s. I hit bottom pair and the flush draw. This is a big hand, but somehow I have a feeling he hit one of the higher cards and I'm currently behind. It's possible I could just move in on the flop here and win the pot, and if not have a good draw. That's an okay move, but I still have a good amount of chips compared to the pot size, about 10X the pot size at this point, so moving in would be a major overbet. BTW against a higher pair I'm about 57% to win here. I check the flop and he bets the minimum. I'm pretty sure if I raise here he'll call, and I'm behind at the moment, so I just call. The turn misses me, I check and call again, a minimum bet. The river misses me. I check and he minimum bets again. Now, I'm pretty sure I'm beat, but the pot is so big compared to the bet size, I have to call in case he just had overcards the whole way. I call and my read was right, he had a top pair with bad kicker.

The next hand I again get in cheap with K6s against the big stack. I flop a flush draw. I check. If he checks, great, free card, if he bets I plan to move in. Indeed he does bet the minimum and I move in. He thinks a minute and calls with middle pair. I have a flush draw + overcard, I'm about 45% to win, I miss and I'm out of the tournament. The difference here was that because I'd lost the last pot, my stack was small compared to the pot; at the point where I moved in my remaining stack was only about equal to the pot size, so I'm getting good odds from the pot, and if I just call his bet and miss the flush, my stack is too short to have much chance of winning the tourney. It's possible I made a mistake here in that I should have just moved in right away on the flop, it may have made it easier for him to fold.