A Tale Of Two Hands
A couple of weeks back and I went to the Nautica Charity Poker tables in downtown Cleveland for the first time. While I’m not generally one to bitch about the way people play their cards (cause I do some crazy stuff as well), I’m not sure how often I’ll be going back. To say the play was “loose” would be quite the understatement. The buddy that I was there with sat down to play some $1/$2 no limit. I wasn’t playing but he said that every hand opened with a minimum of a $15 to $20 raise. That seems a bit crazy to me, seeing as the max buy in on the table was $200. But I digress.
I played in a $75/$25 knock out tournament. Each player got a $25 chip and each player you knocked out you got that bounty. There was 6 full tables so it was a decent size tourney. There are two hands that stand out in my mind. One that I probably should have busted on and didn’t, and one that I shouldn’t have busted on and did.
About the 3rd or 4th hand of the tourney I’ve got 99 under the gun. Blinds are $25/$50 so I put in a raise to $200 total. I get re-raised by a player two seats to my left and the rest of the table folds. I decide to see a flop rather than shipping the rest of my $5,000 starting stack this early in the tourney. The flop comes:
Not a bad flop for my hand by any stretch. We’re only three hands into the tournament so I really don’t have a read on my opponent. I can’t imagine he’s re-raise with 55 or 33, but he may have with 77. A7 also flashes through my mind as does a higher pair than my 99. I lead out with $300 and get snap called. Hmm. The turn comes a 2 which doesn’t look scary at all as I can’t imagine he’s re raising the UTG player with A4 or 46. I lead out once again this time for $400 and get called once again. I’d actually considered moving in but decided to make a bet instead realizing that there was a chance that he had an over pair. The river brought another 7 which left me with a 7-high board (with me holding 99):
I’ve got an over pair to a board with no flush possibilities and no real straight potential. At this point I’m not really worried about a 7 either as he re-raised me to open and I doubt he’d do that with 77 or with something like 78 or A7. I fired $500 into the pot and got raised to $1,000. At this point I really should have been concerned with an over pair to my 99 but for some reason I thought he was making a move. I call and get shown JJ. I suppose in retrospect I’m glad a 7 came rather than a 4, 6 or an 8 as I probably would have moved in and been done.
So after about 4 hands, I’m down to about half my starting stack and have to play VERY tight for the next couple of hours. I manage to quadruple up when I flop a King high flush against 3 players and I’m back up over $6,200. About an hour later I’m moved to another table and this hand comes up.
The blinds are $200/$400 and I’m in the big blind with 94 off suit (stack at $7,000 at this point). Obviously not a hand that I’d normally play but there are 3 callers so I check fully thinking that I’m not putting another dime into this pot.
Bingo!!! No flush or straight possibilities and unless someone limped with 22, 44 or 99 I’m WAY ahead. I ship my remaining $6,600 into the $1,800 pot (the small blind had folded). I get one caller and when he turns up his hand I’m a little unsure as to what I’m looking at.
I immediately start looking at the board looking for what I’ve missed. Did I misread the board and there’s a flush draw out there? Nope… only 1 club. Did I not see a straight draw out there? Nope… he’d need to make running 35 to make a straight. Oh I know… he must have me covered like 30:1 right? Nope… he’s got a stack of $8,200.
So here’s what we’ve got. He called off over 80% of his stack with no pair, no draw and over 1 over card. I wouldn’t be talking about it here if there wasn’t something to talk about, so naturally he caught runner runner clubs to end my day. As I said before, I’m not one to complain about how people play their cards, but I do have to admit that THAT hand was a bit difficult to swallow. All of that said, I’m happy to say that I protected my hand as best I could and really don’t see any way that I could have played the hand better.
As they say… that’s poker!!!