By
steely |
Published
Oct 19 2006, 02:29 AM
I recently took my 7 year-old daughter to get a cavity filled. The dentist told her that the novocaine injection would not hurt – he said it would feel like a “mosquito bite.” Later that day, I asked my daughter if the injections really felt like mosquito bites, and she said “sure – if mosquitoes had long, super painful needles for stingers.”
What, you may ask, does that have to do with poker? The answer is ‘nothing.’ I just think it’s a funny story. While we’re Off Topic (f murderer, BTW), don’t you love it when you’re speeding and a fellow motorist traveling the other direction flicks his lights at you to warn you that there are highway patrol cars ahead? The light-flick tip-off is one of the great acts of American (no offense to non-American P5ers – I just don’t know whether this is done overseas) shared humanity.
Anyway, my emotions have been potash-mined over the past few weeks. The Ports Bill is obviously a huge bummer (no need to spill any more ink on that mess). I’d had a lot of stress in my work and other areas and was looking for a getaway. Since I was coming off a nice hot streak in the MTTs last month, I decided to enter the USPC main event in Atlantic City with one of my friends. Even though most of the top pros were away at an event for a new poker league or something, the field at the USPC was sick. Lots of superb internet players, up and coming pros, and some established stars were there. Every table was loaded. Bax, Sheets, iMsoLucky0, JoeyThe B, Scott Fischman, Gavin Smith, and tons of other name players were everywhere. My starting table wasn’t that bad. Toto Leonidas (who won it in 2003) was three to my right, and the only other player I knew was Jennicide, who was two to my right. Jen flopped a set on my AA, so she is off my Christmas Card List. But it was a fun table, and not that tough compared to what was around me (the next table had Chris Bell and Scott Fischman side by side, for example). The action player at my table was to my immediate right; I am not sure what his online name is, but he is primarily a cash player and his real name was Eric, I believe.
That’s the set-up. My goal was to play my game and not leave anything out on the field, as they say in football. As was the case at WSOP, I did not get many cards, and I did not have a single hand that ‘played itself.’ I played four big hands; I’d like to have two of them back. All four of them are worth going over because there are some interesting things going on in each. Note that the USPC has a very slow structure – 20k starting chips and very gradual blind increases – so there is a ton of play.
Hand #1. Early in Day 1, I get AA under the gun and raise it to 3x. Only Jennicide calls in the big blind. The flop comes KQ4 rainbow and she checks. I bet ¾ of the pot and Jen calls. The turn was an 8 and Jen leads out for about 1500. I raise to 3000 and she reraises to 10k total. I fold and say “44 is good”. She eventually said she had QQ, which I believe. I don’t really have a problem with my play on this hand. When she bet the turn, I put her on a set. If I call, I get to see the river card, which is nice, but I will probably have to pay her off for more than the 1500 I raised on the turn, so I am ok with the sequence.
Hand #2. Late in Day 1, my table gets moved into the Arena, where ESPN is filming. My thinking was that play would be more conservative because people would not want to look bad on TV, so I made a lot of moves. I was winning a lot of small pots and grinding back into contention. I had a big stack to my immediate left who had been fairly tight. With 66 in the small blind, I raised it to 1200 after two players limped for 200. The BB called and the limpers folded. 2800 in the pot. Flop = 6h 9h 10h. I bet 2200, he raised to something like 6000 and I shoved in my remaining 15k or so. Surprisingly, he folded.
Hand #3. Eric (to my immediate right) had just knocked out Toto by fast playing a set of eights against Toto’s top pair, and he had a big stack. Someone limped, Eric limped and I raised to 1200 again with 66 in late position. The blinds and first limper folded and Eric craned his head around to see my chips. My thought was that he was trying to get a sense of his upside/implied odds. I put him on a pair below 9s. He called. Flop was 4 4 8 rainbow. Eric checked, I bet 2000 and he raised to 5500. I went deep into the tank. This was the one player at the table I felt was capable of holding a 4 in this spot, but my read was still that he had something like 55 or 77, in which case there is no way he can call if I shove. Frankly, it’s a pretty clear shove. So…. I folded. Eric told me later he had 55 and I believe him (it may be on ESPN so we will find out). I am really sick about this hand. Relatively unimportant factors like the depth of the stacks and the amount of play left, the fact that I had just won my first decent pot and the fact that he was a loose and creative player, overwhelmed my faith in the read. You just can’t let that happen. This is just an awful laydown.
Hand #4. On Day 2, I went completely card dead and it seemed like every play I made got picked off by Gigabet (to my immediate left) or Syracuse Chris (to my immediate right – I told you this was a tough field!). There was a pro across the table who had been very short but had just doubled up after he shoved from the BB and a limper with 1010 looked him up. He said (and this is important) something like “I was afraid my reputation would have preceded me there…” I interpreted this to mean he was afraid everyone knows he’s a rock and that he would not get action on his AA. On my big blind, I get 23o and there are two limpers. Syracuse calls and I tap. Flop = 3 3 J rainbow. Checks to the AA guy on the button, and he bets like 1/4 of the pot. I call and the other limper calls. Turn is a king, and I lead out for about 2/3 of the pot. Limper folds and AA guy raises me.
This is an easy fold, IMO. We have reason to believe this guy is tight. He made a suspiciously small bet on the flop. I lead out on the turn. Given that I am in the blind, he cannot rule out a 3 for me, and yet he raises, basically pot committing himself (he had me barely covered). I put him on A3s (this is really the only hand I could figure him for). So why did I shove? In retrospect, I was kind of steamy. I hadn’t won a decent pot in hours, and I hadn’t connected with a flop (other than the set of sixes) the entire tourney. I had been pushed off some hands by aggressive players. I was tired of being short and wanted to double up. So I did what bad players do: I rationalized my move and shoved with zero fold equity in a spot where I almost can’t be ahead and have very few outs.
The lesson here is: take your time, distill away all of the emotion, and make the right play every time. Both of the bad hands above are really about heart. It would have taken heart to push the 66 and to fold trip 3s. A lot of times, the right moves are easy and hands play themselves. But like a pitcher in baseball who doesn’t have his good breaking ball, a poker player sometimes has to work with crappy hands and marginal situations, and needs to grit it out. If I had played these two hands with heart and reptile emotion, I would have positioned myself for the inevitable run of good cards. Simple lesson re-learned: never give up and never give in.
So did it hurt getting knocked out on a horrible play? Nah – it was like a mosquito bite. Only with a gigantic needle stinger.
By the way, congratulations to Jordan Morgan on his 2nd place finish and to Alex Jacob (who I met over dinner after Day 2), who took it down. Both of those guys are just amazing players, and both seem like great guys.