The Bat Cave

My last update was a live blog of the Triple Stud tourney at Aria on Saturday… yet another fizzle out.

As I said in that blog, I was sick. I shouldn’t have even been playing poker in public. I was sneezing and sniffling and blowing my nose all day. It was ridiculous. If I wasn’t me, I’d be annoyed with me.

I was planning to play Razz on Sunday but after really struggling through Saturday, I went ahead and took a much needed sick day.

Monday I was feeling much better and I headed to the Rio and decided to play the Daily Deep Stack.

In my first orbit, with blinds at 100/200, someone raised to 600, another player called and I looked down at AA in the cutoff. I’ve learned I’ve been sizing my 3-bets too small – and this is probably too small also – so I made it 2200 to go and I was shocked to see not only the button call 2200 cold, but the small blind also. Wow! Unsurprisingly, both players with 600 in front of them continued also.

So here we go to a five way flop with over 10k in the middle and I’m holding the nuts preflop. If you think I was happy about this situation, you’d be wrong. I was already accepting the fact that I was probably going to bust from the tournament in this hand.

We started with 20k stacks and I had a little over 17k behind. The flop was QT3 with two diamonds and it checked to me. I had the ace of diamonds in my hand.

What to do?

I’ve talked about this hand extensively since it happened so I’ll get to the analysis later. In the moment, I decided to bet a pot-committing 7000, the button jammed, and the original 600 caller jammed also. I could fold and have about a 10k stack – or 50 big blinds – in a soft field.

Unfortunately, I mentally busted myself before the flop and I somehow convinced myself that I could possibly, maybe, in some bizarro world, have the best hand here. I called it off. The button had a set of tens and the caller had 75 of diamonds for a flush draw.

I didn’t hit a set and I didn’t go running flush or straight. I was busted.

So let’s think about the best play here. The board is pretty wet here so making a larger bet made sense to me. What also makes sense to me is hands like QQ, JJ, and TT being right in those 2200 flatting ranges. 33 is not in their range very often, but it could definitely be in the ranges of the first two players in the pot.

I think it makes sense to proceed with caution here. I personally like a check on the flop in retrospect. See what the button does or what happens on the turn. Tormund is a much better NL player than I am and suggested making a small bet on the flop, like 33%, or less even. I like it. I can probably garner all the same info with a 3k bet as the 7k bet I thought I committed myself with.

With half my stack in the middle holding aces, I thought I couldn’t fold, but that’s not true either. As I noted earlier, I still could have folded and had 50 big blinds to play with and not one, but two different players had said they liked this situation better than I did.

Another key factor: I had the ace of diamonds in my hand. No one has the nut flush draw. So what draws are happy to get it in here? KJ of diamonds? J9 of diamonds maybe? Not many.

It’s a clear fold. And not only is it a clear fold, I could have saved somewhere around 7k-4k before folding with my flop sizing.

I could have just said someone flopped a set of tens on me when I had aces in a huge pot and make it sound like I got unlucky but it’s clear I totally botched this hand and important to learn from punts like this.

I decided to fire a second bullet. I was at my new table for a few orbits and I had surmised there was a wannabe lag genius at my table that couldn’t wait to punt his stack. He was in every hand, raising and 3-betting a lot, and basically trying to win every single pot.

So when he made it 1100 at 150/300/25 and I looked down at A9 of spades, I was prepared to play a high variance spot. I made it 2600 to go (probably too small) and I was prepared to jam or call it off if he 4-bet or jammed, but he just called.

Flop was 543 with two clubs and one spade. He checked to me and I checked back. Not a very good board for me to c-bet ace high against a wild lag when I have decent showdown value and good turn cards.

Turn was the king of spades and he leads for 2200. I had about 14.5k total and now I thought the best play was to stuff it in his face. He basically never has AK in his range (this ding dong is always reraising it pre), but I certainly could, plus he just has a shit ton of total garbage here. If I call and whiff I could have some tricky river spots so I like jamming instead. Worst case I have the nut flush draw when called.

He calls. Turns over A8 of clubs and binks the 7 of clubs.

Wow. Just wow. I had the best hand!

I’m out again. It’s been 30 minutes since I parked my car.

Poker is funny. In the first story I had aces cracked by tens and thought I played like shit and punted the tournament. In the second story, I jammed ace high on the turn, got called, busted, and think I played it PERFECT.

I think it’s important to make those kind of distinctions if you want to get better at poker.

After busting for the second time, I decided not to fire bullet #3 and I did something I’ve been wanted to do really badly, but just didn’t think was a great idea: I sat in a $20/$40 mix game and played a bunch of games I’ve never played in my life.

Here’s the list of games in the mix:

• Badeucy
• Badacey
• 5-Card Double Board Omaha
• Badugi
• 2-7 Triple Draw
• Archie
• Drawmaha
• 2-7 Drawmaha
• A-5 Triple Draw
• Super Razz Deucy
• Super Stud 8

Here’s a list of those games I have extensive experience in:

• …

Yup.

It’s been a blast.

That’s what I’ve been doing the last three days. It would be a nightmare to explain all these games and try to blog hands, so I’ll just say it’s been going well. I’m probably running above average but I’m picking up on the basic strategy and intricacies of the games really quickly and I’m able to spot the frequent mistakes the other players make. Plus my instincts are pretty sharp.

Here’s a hand from 2-7 Triple Draw. I defend in a kill pot and keep a 53. I check-call after the first draw with a 98753 and decide to stay pat. He draws one.

Since he drew, I think I need to bet here, but I’m not at all surprised to see him raise. When I check-call and stay pat my hand looks super weak so a good thinking player can raise here even if he didn’t improve, hoping I fold or break my weak made hand.

I took my time and studied him and I wasn’t convinced, so I called and stayed pat. He pats behind.

Hmmm… okay. I check and he bets. Studied him a bit longer, stuck with my read, and made the call.

My hand is good. 💪🏻

Anyways, I’m on my third session of mix and I’m currently stuck a couple hundred but my first two mix sessions went +$462 and +$1603. Combined with my 7 Card Stud session last Friday, that puts me at around +$5000 over my last three cash sessions.

Dangerously close to even for the trip!

Some local player news:

FanBoy and The Atom went super deep in the Monster Stack, with both finishing in the top 250. FanBoy had a bit of a stack going before this catastrophe in a 400k pot late on Day 2 with less than 300 players left:

Also, it seems weird to call Rep Porter a local. He’s a local legend. Like… a legit legend. Rep came super close to his fourth career bracelet, finishing second in the $10k PLO championship for a career high $629k score!

Tormund and The Atom are currently doing the $1k NL Tag Team Event, with Tormund pulling all the weight. They have 20 bigs with about 400 players left.

FanBoy begged me to play with him but I declined. Don’t feel like late regging a NL event. He said I’m dead to him.

The Leak flies back in tonight to play the $1k Ladies Event tomorrow and I’ll be heading to Binions for Day 1A of their $585 HORSE championship. It’s a super, super deep structure that I somehow managed to bust on Day 1A last year. Looking for redemption tomorrow!