Oops! That's Poker

Sometimes you are the shark and sometimes you are the fish.  Last night I was the fish.  The way this No Limit Cash Game usually works out for me is that I play a bunch of hands resulting in small pots going back and forth and I stay about even.  Then there is a big hand and hopefully I am on the winning end of it.  Phil Gordon says, "Don't go broke with just one pair."  Problem is, sometimes it seems impossible to make better than one pair for hours at the table and that hand of AA just looks so very powerful. 

As it happened, I was running a little bad and was not even but down about a hundred fifty when I topped up my stack by purchasing an additional $100 in red $5 chips.  Then I felt I had a better size stack to go to war with.  I felt that it was a really good move because soon I was looking at two red Aces in my hand.  I made it $12 to go and got 2 callers.  An innocent looking flop of J-6-3 brought checks from my opponents, so I bet $30 into this $36 pot.  This is a little bigger than my normal "continuation" bet but I would be happy to take the pot down right there with no more action.   The first player then raised to $60 and the second folded.  I assumed he had hit Top Pair with a hand like K-J or something, so me with Aces would have to raise him back.  A good solid raise that would say, "I can beat Top Pair and you better just fold" would be about three times his raise which means I needed to call the $30 and add $60 on top.  Add this to the $30 I already had out there and I would be putting all but about $25 of my total chip stack out there.  No sense in doing that because if the $120 gets called, the remaining $25 goes in no matter what.  So I went, "All In."  To my surprise, my opponent considered the situation for about 2 seconds and said, I call."

At that point I realized that I might be in trouble, but still had hope that my opponent overplayed pocket Queens or a hand like K-J.  The dealer added two more cards to the board and the situation did not change.  I turned over my pocket aces and my opponent revealed the winning pocket sixes which made a "Set" a.k.a. Three-of-a-kind.  (Note: in Poker parlance a pocket pair matching a card on the board is a "Set" whereas a card in hand matching a pair on the board is known as "Trips".)  I had made the somewhat amateurish mistake of overplaying pocket Aces after the flop.  I could have tried to keep the pot small but I was seduced by the seeming power of the best possible starting hand.

I was pretty disgusted with my poor play and bad luck getting my aces cracked but felt a little better when one of my playing companions noted, "No shame in losin' with aces, man."

I suppose if there is a hand to get busted with, it's aces.  That said, I know I can play them better.  Rather than trying to blow everyone out with a pot size continuation bet I could have led with a more reasonable 1/3 to 1/2 pot size bet, then reassessed when my opponent executed the check-raise.  The problem is that although I know this, just like most other players, when you've been getting ground down and you haven't seen any winners for an hour or two, those Aces look like a saviour.  You know that heads-up you are at least an 80% favorite to win - but that also means that once out of every five times you play it, the aces will lose.  The great Doyle Brunson, in his book Super System or How I Made Over a Million Dollars Playing Poker, said, "Aces are usually good for winning a small pot or losing a big one."

Barry had shown up during the proceedings and we went to dinner.  I needed a break.  We hit the Pub for a roast chicken breast with Bok Choy and a Pub Pale Ale.  Recharged, we entered the 11:00 No Limit Hold'em tournament for $60.  I outlasted about half the field, but Barry chipped up with a series of bluffs and large bets and won a three-way "all in" pot when his aces held up.  This got him into the money but when the chip leader busted out both the third and fourth place finishers, Barry was at a big disadvantage in chips, but happily in second place.  The heads-up session lasted exactly one hand.  Barry raised all of it, got called and got beat.  Second place money, however, was a few hundred dollars, so he was pleased with the outcome.

While Barry was winning money over in the tournament I tried my hand again at the cash game.  They say that if you sit down at a poker game and can't find the sucker at the table, it's you.  That's kind of how I felt.

My final hand of the night was interesting if not disappointing.  I had pocket tens.  I raised to $10 and the young Brit to my immediate left re-raised it to $25.  A burly player who reminded me of John Candy called the $25 and then a guy who played nearly every pot, a tattooed Latino with a military style hair cut, also called.  Back to me.  I pushed the rest of my stack in making it a total of $75 "To go".  The young Brit was considering things and counting out a possible raise while kind of mumbling and thinking out loud, "What to do, what to do."

I said, "Go ahead and raise it, then you and I can go head to head."

He seriously considered it and gesturing to the Latino player, "He'll never fold it and I don't know about him either."  Then he folded.  The others called.

Near perfect situation:  Pocket tens versus two players with A-K and an overlay of money in the pot.  I am getting over 2 to 1 on my money if I win and I am a 65% favorite to win unless the Brit folded an ace - then I would be more like a 75% favorite.  But this also means that while I "got my money in good" I can still lose.  Which I did.  The board ran out three diamonds by the Turn and the fourth diamond on the River made a flush for the fellow with the king of diamonds.  According to the Card Player Magazine Odds Calculator, this will happen about 2% of the time.

 I guess it is just not my day.