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June 5, 2004
AC Day 3
Well day 3 was a rollercoaster. I sat down at the $1/$2 no limit game and found myself down $600 in about 2 hours. I lost $300 in one hand where I got too stubborn with pocket queens and lost to aces, then had a few small losses. I kept rebuying up to $300 (the max you are allowed) and after a while I won a small pot so I had $350. Then comes a hand where I call $2 on the button with 3 5 suited after a few limpers. The flop came K73 rainbow and it checked to me, so I bet $10. I was looking around the table and I happened to see the kid to my right lift up his cards and reveal that he had Q 10, which is nothing at all. By this time I knew he was a blatant dunce who watched a few WPT shows and thought he was good, but what followed left me in awe for hours. After everyone else fold he raised it to $30. I knew he had nothing and figured he was simply trying to buy the pot, so I reraised to $85 figuring I would just make him fold his hand right there. Now normally I wouldn’t reraise anything but a monster there, but I knew my pair of 3s was the best hand. Much to my surprised the kid immediately said “all in” and slid his entire stack of about $380 into the pot. I started to wonder if I had really seen Q 10 or if he had something else but I was 100% positive I saw the 10, which meant that even if I was wrong I had 5 outs twice. I was also pretty sure of the other card so I slid my chips into the pot after about 3 seconds of thought and was happy to see that I was in fact correct, he had Q 10. The turn and river missed him and my pair of 3s won a $700 pot.
Of course everyone at the table went crazy. The kid asked me how I could call that much with bottom pair and I told him that I saw his hand. The entire table couldn’t stop laughing. The kid accused me of cheating, but since it was his responsibility to cover his own hand I just laughed it off. He was very upset, but he got over it and I would have bet that he would have been much more careful about exposing his hand in the future, but that bet would have been a loser since one hour later I could see some of his hands again.
So the kid rebought and worked his stack back up to almost $700. I had won a couple small pots, plus that big one so I had him covered. Then came the second big hand of the night. He raises it to $15 in early position, and I call with 7 8 off. I was putting him on a big pair, since he played most hands but raised only the big pairs and AK. I was pretty sure he didn’t have AK because he would have raised more to try to avoid a flop. I know that raising more than 7.5 big blinds sounds absurd, but this table was rocking. Many opening bets were $50 or more. Anyway, we saw the flop heads up which came Q 7 8 rainbow, giving me bottom 2. He bets $50, which immediately tells me he doesn’t have QQ because the WPT wannabes slow play all sets. So I raised it to $150, and he immediately reraised to $350. At this point I was almost positive that he had a big pair and was just being belligerent with it, but I decided to just call and make sure the turn wasn’t a queen before putting all of the chips in, since that would make him trips if he has something like AQ (which I didn’t think he had but couldn’t rule out the possibility) or a higher 2 pair if he has any pocket pair above 8.
The turn came a 6, which gave me the added worry of him having 9 10, but as I said I was pretty sure he had a big pair, knew it was beat, and was trying to bully his way out of it because he just didn’t want to fold. When he bet $150 into me on the turn (the pot was over $700) I knew I was correct, and I put him all in. He called and actually surprised me when he rolled over pocket jacks, which wasn’t even top pair. Fortunately none of his 8 outs (Q, J, or 6) hit the river and my stack grew to almost $1500. One guy at the table asked my why I called $15 preflop with 7 8 and I said “because I thought that if I flopped 2 pair or better I could take $600 off him.” It turned out I was wrong because I actually could take over $700.
From there things went the way they normally do for a few hours. I saw a lot of flops with hands like pocket pairs, goofy connectors, suited hands, pretty much anything I could get in cheaply with. Most hands I folded, including numerous top pairs, but a couple actually flopped monsters and I busted people with them, so even though I was in the game for $900 I wound up with $1900 in front of me and was feeling good. I had everyone covered twice over at the table, but there were still a lot of $800 stacks in the hands of players who would have been willing to give it all to me with nothing better than top pair. There were 2 younger players who greatly overrated their own skill calling every time I raised, and I knew that I would bust them both given enough time. So of course that was when the beats set in. In the course of 1 hour one drunken guy (who we were calling SF since that is what his hat said) bad beat me out of almost $900. He did it by making such stellar plays as calling a pot sized $100 bet with a gut shot, runner runnering me a few times, and then the last one, which was perhaps the most absurd beat I have ever taken. In every bad beat he put on me I got him to call an obscene amount with very few outs (many runner runners) and then didn’t lose a single cent after his draw hit. I didn’t mind though, what did it matter if he beat me a few times? I was going to bust him eventually anyway.
So finally the decision pot came. SF had been raising almost every hand to $10, so when I found KK UTG I limped, which is something I never do. Of course a few people limped and he raised to $10, with one call. I promptly threw in $100, since I knew he would call and we saw the flop which came K 4 5, rainbow. I bet $100, since at this point I knew he was either drawing extremely slim or completely dead, and he called. The turn was a 3, which I didn’t like at all since he could easily have an ace, 6, or 2 and now be drawing live. I bet $200, which in hindsight was a mistake. I should have bet the pot, which at this point was $400, or maybe even set him all in. It would have only cost me $200 or more in the end but it would have been the correct play. However I felt that he might fold an ace here for $400 but not for $200, and just about anything else was drawing dead. The river was of course one of the ugliest cards I have seen, a 6. This wouldn’t be a bad river against any remotely intelligent player, but against this idiot I knew it was the bad beat. I checked and he rolled over pocket deuces for the 6 high straight. What a horrid beat. If an ace or a 2 came on the river I would have won the pot, and if anything else came I might have even got him to call my all in with just a pair of 2s. But I had lost.
At this point I was starting to get a little upset. The whole point of no limit is that when idiots make mistakes you can bust them, but here this idiot managed to bad beat me 5 or 6 times in a row, any one of which would have been the end for him. Now he had over $1500 and I was down to $1100. Fortunately someone tricked me into going all in (for his $300) with trips when he had a full house and I rivered a bigger full house to get me back into range to bust SF. SF (who I had busted once or twice early in the day) actually calmed down for a while, since he was now even, but that of course didn’t last long and soon he was back to his old ways.
For the next few hours I played every single time he came in, for however much he raised. The only time I folded was when someone else reraised him too much. It wasn’t because I wanted to bust him personally, but because I knew that any time I flopped 2 pair or better and didn’t get bad beat I was going to win $1500 off of him. 6 3 offsuit may not be a very good hand for $15, but when you consider that if you flop 2 pair you are quite likely to win $1500 it starts to look a lot better.
Oddly enough after seeing flops against this guy dozens of times with junky hands I finally got another decision pot with him when I was holding pocket jacks. He did his normal raise preflop of $10 and I reraised to $50. He called (of course) and the flop came 8 4 2, all red but no flush. I had 2 red jacks, so I liked the flop and bet $100, which he called with no hesitation. I was somewhat worried he might just have QQ or something (wouldn’t that be my luck) but the turn was the prettiest card of the day, a black jack. He checked and I bet $200, which he promptly called. This time I was almost sure that he was drawing dead to me. The river was a 5, which was somewhat dangerous since I knew he would call $200 with a gut shot, but I decided to just bet him all in for the rest, which was over $300. I think that he thought that I had checked, since I just announced my bet rather than pushing chips in (he had bled so much back to the rest of the table that I had him well covered by this point) and he went to roll his hand over, obviously excited about it. I thought I had been beaten once again, but he flipped over 4 5 for 2 pair (I was correct in thinking on the turn that he was drawing dead) and when the dealer told him that I had bet all in he called immediately, and I rolled over my 3 jacks and raked in the $1300 pot.
SF then decided to leave, so John and I finished out our round and left. At this point there was not much money left on the table other than what we had, and we were tired, so we called it a day. I cashed out $2300 for a $1400 profit.
Tomorrow we are going to sleep in late, play a few hours, then just drive home. So the next report will be from the comfort of my own home. See you in a day.
Posted by themaroon at June 5, 2004 8:48 AM
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