Draws, redraws and not so bad beats

When listening to and reading about the WSOP ME final table action, pretty soon the latent bug exacerbates and I have to find a table.

I kicked around in the deuce PLO rooms for a bit and mostly spun my wheels, picking up small pots on obvious boards. Then I remembered that it's the weekend in Australia and maybe I could find a buddy to hang with for a bit. Gump was playing .10 PLO and decided to sit down. It was clear I had walked into action and chose a seat to the left of a deep-stacked player I knew to be straightforward and tight. Two to his right was another player I knew, this one as a pre-flop raiser but a poor post-flop player. I had them where I wanted them. The player I was least sure of was the action junkie two to my left.

This player had won a hand just as I entered the room. It was a questionable flush all-in preflop. Not even the nut flush draw and a pair of tens. I knew I'd have to sit tight. So, when I had pocket aces with one suited, I was wholly prepared to raise, see a flop and play it by ear after that. Of course the maniac called, as did another player. I flopped a set of aces, potted it and they came along for the ride. A baby flush took it down and I was out $10. The very next hand I again had a similar set-up with Aces, raised it up, and nut case called. Again I flopped a set, got it all-in against two pair and a highly unlikely straight draw. I was back to even and was now playing deep myself.

It wasn't long before I was put to the test with a set of tens. Lost that one but still had $14 behind. And then this:

PokerStars Pot-Limit Omaha, $0.10 BB (9 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

saw flop | saw showdown

MP2 ($10.35)

MP3 ($9.85)

CO ($6.40)

Button ($30.20)

SB ($8.80)

BB ($5.80)

Hero (UTG) ($14.05)

UTG+1 ($10)

MP1 ($6)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 5, A, J, 10

Hero calls $0.10, UTG+1 calls $0.10, MP1 calls $0.10, 2 folds, CO calls $0.10, Button calls $0.10, SB calls $0.05, BB bets $0.30, Hero calls $0.20, UTG+1 calls $0.20, MP1 calls $0.20, CO calls $0.20, Button calls $0.20, SB calls $0.20

Flop: ($2.10) 4, 3, J (7 players)

SB checks, BB bets $0.50, Hero calls $0.50, UTG+1 calls $0.50, MP1 calls $0.50, CO calls $0.50, Button calls $0.50, SB calls $0.50

Turn: ($5.60) A (7 players)

SB bets $5.35, 1 fold, Hero calls $5.35, 2 folds, CO raises to $5.60 (All-In), Button raises to $29.40 (All-In), SB calls $2.65 (All-In), Hero calls $7.90 (All-In)

River: ($45.70) J (4 players, 4 all-in)

Total pot: $45.70 | Rake: $2.25

Main pot: $28 between CO, Button, SB and Hero, won by Hero

Side pot 1: $7.20 between Button, SB and Hero, won by Hero

Side pot 2: $10.50 between Button and Hero, won by Hero

Results:

Button had A, 8, 5, 2 (straight, five high).

SB had 5, 2, 6, 4 (straight, five high).

Hero had 5, A, J, 10 (full house, Jacks over Aces).

CO had 7, Q, 8, 6 (one pair, Jacks).

Outcome: Hero won $43.45

I catch a bit of grief from my buddy, Stan, for playing this type of hand. It's because of the dangler.  Yep, even though it's suited, it's a problem, but I'm not looking at that end of my hand. I'm more interested in the other three Broadway cards and the suited Ace. Even so, this is still not my ideal hand with a dangler. I'd much prefer the Ace and dangler be suited, and the J and 10 suited as well. That way I have both the flush and straight potential a little better covered. Still, this is good enough to see a flop when six people have limped before the BB pot-sweetener. How hard I hit the flop will determine where to go next.

With top pair (so what), a gutshot wheel draw, and more importantly, the nut flush draw, I am of course calling the small C-bet by the BB, and I am confident others will follow.  When the Ace hit on the turn, and with the betting going as it was, I knew at least one, and maybe two players at this largely loose table had the wheel. I lost that draw and knew I was behind there. Yet, my calls were not for the straight. I still had two nut draws that others did not. Of course, by the time the Button jammed, I was getting 4 to 1 on my remaining stack, so I was already committed.

SB (the person who had baby-flushed my set of Aces) said, "omg"
ForrestGump said, "consider yurself sumoed"

So, how far out of line was I? To the hand calculator!

The first thing that I noticed about this hand after-the-fact was how utterly atrocious the other plyers' hand were. No doubt I was behind preflop to the intial raiser (nowhere to be found after the turn -- probably Kings in the hole). Yet, my call opened the door, didn't it? As it turns out, I was ahead of all of them preflop. And with the flop, I had a huge lead in the hand, again, against everyone except the pre-flop raiser.

When I input the Ac into the calculator, I received a bit of a shock. Although I was up against one made wheel and one made with room to improve, I was still a 3 to 1 favorite against the next best hand; and in fact, the wheels were behind the CO with his flush draw and gutshot draw! So, getting 4 to 1 on my money, I was good to go.

Omaha is something else, let me tell you.

Rainy Saturday

It's another rainy day, which is a good excuse to follow F-Train on the PokerNews site while he covers the WSOP ME final table. I'm also listening to the Bluff live broadcast. I'm doing this because in all likihood I won't watch the ESPN broadcast Tuesday. Just not much for TV poker, and to be honest, following along as I write this is a bit tedious. So, I have to find other things to keep myself occupied.

There is a juried exhibition coming up next year at a local gallery. The show is called "Dogs and Cats," and judging from the sample art on the gallery's site, they're looking for work that is all warm and fuzzy. as it so happens, I have some drawings of dogs. I will most likely submit these for consideration.

Love is Love. A gift to DW nine years ago.

Pet Project

Bunny Head

Wet Fish

The photos aren't that great. The light in my studio sucks and I will have to figure something out before I submit the work. But I thought I'd at least share them with you.

And now I have to find something else to do.

Perhaps it was the possum in the middle of my lane, transfixed by my headlights, for as I swerved to miss him I wondered what omen I should choose: the one in my gut or the knee jerk response. I swung back into my lane before the posted 30 mph curve and told myself that tonight’s game at R’s might be a losing proposition.

Flopped straights ended up split pots; nut flush draws were folded to paired boards; open-enders went nowhere when given odds and position; and within three hours I was down to my last eight bucks. KQh was good enough to throw it in. Santa called with his 8c8d. 2d10cKdQdJd. Thank you and goodnight.

DW asked, “But did you have a good time?”

I didn’t kill the possum.

R’s next game is in two weeks, the night before we leave to welcome our first grandchild into the world, so I won’t be going to that one. R will go on vacation for a month after that, so the next game will be the annual New Year’s Day tourney marathon. I will miss the gang. Yes, we do have some laughs.

For instance, the story of one player, who, when a young man and married to his first wife of many, was tied to the bed, covered in crunchy peanut butter. The excitement was too much for the wife and they feared for her heart, He was quickly unleashed to call an ambulance.

Two trucks from the firehouse pulled up and caused quite a sensation. Neighbors gathered, and since the wife’s mother lived just doors away, she did not stop at the sidewalk.

My poker friend had time to put on a robe, the spread still matted into the hair on his chest. And the wife? Breathing into a paper bag was all the treatment needed.

On the ride home I noticed tire ruts in the mud where a vehicle had gone off into the ditch. You know where.

It's about time

I've made some changes/additions to the blogroll.

I was thinking, or at least my mind was doing what it does when a series of events and comments collide.

I read more than poker blogs. Of course.

Everyday I have to scroll through my bookmarks to find the ones that were not on my previous blogroll. Just not efficient. And if you saw my desktop (computer and work surface), you'd know that this is a bit of a problematic personal quirk. Sometimes I do something about it. Stem the tide.

I could give you a brief introduction to the additions, but then I would feel obligated to comment on the ones that were on the earlier list. And you know what? That's just not my style. Another of my quirks, which is probably one of the reasons my readership has diminished.

That and, I suppose, posts like this.

Esoteric Locations

Eventual and Gradual

Explored Galaxy

Looking for Christmas whirlybirds

Close enough.

Driving in a circle...

...which isn't such a bad thing.

We've been hearing a lot of helicopters in the distance the last couple of days. It's time to harvest Christmas trees. I took pictures of the harvest at one farm last year on November 14. I wrote a post about it (and called it the now overused "Field Report"), a special day for me as it was the first day I used my new camera (non-household kitty photos). We had such a gorgeous day Tuesday that after chores were out of the way, I just had to go find the choppers.

I headed North, up into familiar country.  Familiar only to a point, for I passed a graveyard that I had somehow not noticed (or remembered) before. I made a mental note and continued down the road. The grass fields and Christmas trees are often right next to each other at the higher elevations.  It was nice to see the fields once charred, now a lush green. A lot of trees had been tagged for harvest. I scanned the skies for helicopters but saw none. The road I was on, Coon Hollow, empties onto Fern Ridge, which leads back toward the graveyard. That's the circle.

So, yes, more cemetery photos.

This shattered plaque moved me. It was alongside a marker for a boy of eighteen. And I must say I like the composition of the photo, even though I didn't give it a lot of thought beforehand (more often the case than not).

This marker caught my attention right away, as I have never seen one like it elsewhere.  From a distance I guessed it to be much older. And then I saw it's double not twenty feet away. The one in the back is dated 1981. I began to create a little vignette in my head, which I won't share out of reverence for the dead.

There is a rather sizable cemetery in town that I have no real interest to visit. It's just too big and public for my tastes. But you'd think that's where these two folks would be buried, seeing how the town is named after them. Yes, the founder and his wife. (It's either after him or both of them. I hedged my bets by phrasing my way first and then the way written histories have it.) I find the rusted coffee can and bottle a nice touch. They go well with the gopher mounds.

There were quite a few gopher mounds in this cemetery. Gophers are certainly a problem in this area, yet I hadn't seen evidence of them in any other graveyard I have visited.  Again, my mind went off on a tangent: How would one go about getting rid of the gophers? There are traps one can put in their runs, yet that would require digging, and digging in a cemetery seems, well, unseemly, unless to plant something or someone. One can also fill the runs with a mix of propane and oxygen and blast them out... but it is still a little too close to Halloween for me to contemplate waking the dead.

Reverence, bastin, reverence.