Sorry, but just had to get this out of my chest before I exploded. Just got eliminated from the $3,000 Guaranteed Tourney over at Poker.com 10 minutes ago. It was the early rounds and I only play 2 hands and get busted. Wanna know what they are ? AK and AA
Yep
Get AK in late position with lots of limpers. Raise 5 x BB. Two callers. Flop is all rags with 2 spades. The two callers check. I bet 3/4 pot. One guy folds, the other guy just calls. I put him on a flush draw. Turn is a low card. Guy still checks, I bet maybe 2/3 pot. He thinks about it for a while which reinforces the draw, then still calls. The river comes out and its a 6 spade. Villain checks, I check. He shows 10 9 spades making the flush on the river.
WTF. He didn't even make any pair, just donkey calling his flush draw up to the river. Ok, I dodged a bullet on that one with the good read. Was happy even though I lost about a third of my chips.
Three hands later. I get the monster hand AA. Middle position with 1 limper in front. Raised 4xBB. Everybody folds, the limper calls. Flop is all low cards, suited spades. (What's with the spades ?) Villain bets about 1/3 pot. I raised him 2x his bet. Villain thinks about it for a while and calls.
So now the made flush or the low set is eliminated because if he had it, he would have already pushed all in after my raise as both of us were getting low on chips. So I knew I was ahead with my AA. Also had the A of spades which gave me the nut flush draw. Turn is another low card not a spade. He bets minimum, I just call.
River is a Queen of diamonds. Villain pushes all in. Shit. Pot committed with AAs. Had to call. Well, I don't know if you guessed it coz I certainly didn't put him with that hand. He had QQ and made his set on the river eliminating me in the process. Damn !!
Don't know if I could have played the hand differently. I put him on 2 high cards with a spade flush draw since he didn't raise preflop with his queens.
In hindsight, the alternate ways I could have played it is if I had pushed all in on the flop or on the turn, but I am pretty sure he would have called with his Queens since it was an all low card flop and he had me covered.
Man ! If you guys have any suggestions on how I could have played those two hands differently. Please feel free to comment. Was I too attached to my AAs ?
Just a passing thought. Sometimes I think we give credit to our opponents too much esp. in these higher buy-in tourneys. We put them on logical hands and bets but the donkeys are just as prevalent in these tourneys as the $ 1 or $ 2 ones.
Anyways just as an update, I played about 7 MTTs this April including 5 this Holy week. And the results have been pretty encouraging. I had a high ITM in 2 of the tourneys giving me a good net profit. So am quite satisfied even with the above.
Planning to play more tourneys as time permits. Good Luck to every one !!
2 comments:
with AK, I really don't like cbetting when there's two people in the pot, better if you did hit something.
with AA, don't be too results oriented, you got beat it happens villlain was willing to put it all in on the flop anyway, you played it well PF, flop maybe pump it up a bit more so that you can shove the turn, you don't want villain to draw out on you right?
We can't win them all right? hehe :)
good luck on the felt.
i don't normally like to cbet with AK that did not improve, but since i raised PF and they both checked the flop. I had to give it a go. But you're right as I think I could have saved that 2nd bet.
heheh, i don't expect to win them all as I've had my fair share of aces cracked. It was just the timing that got me. you play patiently and wait for the monsters and you get 2 of them almost successively but still get burned.
thanks a lot for the insights! =)
nova
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