Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Weird, Wild Night

Wow AGAIN... I saw something last night that I had never seen before. Some guy sat down with $50 at a 9-player $0.25/$0.50 PLO table (deep stack, $100 maximum buy-in) and walked away with a shade more than $700... after only 90 hands! How did he do it? A combination of sheer luck and impatience by the other players. He was also hyper-aggressive... he knew nothing other than the bet/raise pot and fold button... and that fold button was rarely touched.

He played any 4 cards just about and won HUGE pots with them... some examples:

AJ33 (DS) for $269.50
AJ92 (3-suited in clubs) for $242.55
KT63 (DS) for $215 (oddly, I held T633)... his two pair (kings and sixes) beat a pair of aces

I got involved in one hand against him... I raised it up with 6789, suited in hearts. He called from the big blind. Two others called also. The flop came 772... and he fires out with a pot sized bet ($6). After two folds, I make the call. He's representing either 22, 72 or maybe A7 or K7... all have me beat, but that's ok... I have a ton of outs... I'm fairly sure that I'm either going to double up or lose a small chunk of my $160 stack in this hand.

The turn is a 4... and he fires out another pot sized bet ($18). Again, an easy call for me in position. The river was a king and he fired out a pot sized bet yet again for $54. Well, it was an easy fold for me... the luckbox probably held 247K... either that or a donk-played, missed flush draw. But had I hit a 5, 6 or 8... oh, what could have been. I just don't see how he would have folded to a re-raise if I had hit... like I said, it seemed like he didn't know what the fold button was.

Yes, it was a weird, wild night.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Sunday Night Madness

Wow, I hopped onto three $50 PLO tables last night and proceeded to lose about 3.5 buy-ins within a span of 60-80 minutes.

- The aggression by the other players was relentless... felt like a boxer on the ropes waiting and waiting for a way to escape.
- I played nearly every big pot in position.
- I raised with only solid hands.
- Seemed like every continuation bet got raised and I had to lay it down when I hit nothing but air.
- When I flopped the goods, I didn't get any action... which led me to believe that my opponents were not spotting my tentative/passive play... they were simply getting the deck to fall in their favor. Then betting it to the max.

I ended up down only one buy-in for the session... still hard to believe considering how it felt like I was getting pounded into oblivion.

But why only one buy-in? I think these were the keys:
  1. I didn't tilt... there was one hand in particular that led me to believe this. I was up against a player who had been abusing me all night. The board read T47JQ (unpaired, with no flush possibilities), so the nuts was AK. I held K9TT and had full control of the hand on the flop and turn (I bet, he called). I led out with a 1/2 pot-sized bet on the river, hoping for a call... but I got raised by the pot limit! Wtf!?! This guy hit runner runner? I wanted to call so bad, but felt that there's no way this guy's going to raise the pot without AK here. AK is a fairly common holding (have seen many split pots with AK) and too many donks will call with K9. Maybe I got bluffed, but I doubt it... and saved 1/2 of a buy-in there. I'm pretty sure I make a snap call there out of frustration in past sessions.
  2. I waited patiently for the goods. Late in the session, I hit a monster on the river against the aforementioned player. The board read 7782Q. I held QQ85, he held A874. Yeah, I got lucky and his slow play on the flop backfired... but I waited it out before putting the money in good. Gosh, I was running so bad there, I was almost expecting him to turn over 77xx.