Damning the River

Decided to take a night off from going out and play some poker instead.  First, ring game was atrocious – probably my worst at .5/1 ever.  Sets of 10s and Aces cracked, missing basically every flop with other hands.

Then, played another SNG.  This time, I played fairly tight early on, not limping with crap, and not really getting much to limp with. Table had a fair bit of raising, so in mid-position it wasn’t profitable to try to limp a lot.  I made a raise with AQo against two players from the SB and took down a small pot early when a Q fell and I bet at the two-suit flop.  Aside from that, didn’t see much Had another AQ once from the blind, missed the flop and ended up splitting the pot when the board double paired.  I also came into a pot from a blind with A5o, and, on a rainbow flop, tried to make a play for it against two other players in an unraised pot.  My raise was re-raised and called, so I just got out of it.

There were enough other people pushing each other around that my hands with all cards under 10 really were not gonna cut it.  Finally, at 50/100, I have about 650 chips, in SB, with pocket 10s.  With one other person already in the pot, I decide to shove em all in, hoping to perhaps just pick it up there and gain some more chips but happy with a caller if I get one – just don’t want to go up against two people with this hand. I get called by the BB who has Q9 and double through. 

At this point, we get down to 6.  From the blind again, I get 33, but with a raise and a call already, I just chuck em away and let them fight it out.  Only hand I get into is from the BB at 100/200. I already have 200 committed, I have to put in 60 more to call an all-in heads-up.  Even with 75s, I figured this was worth it – I don’t have all my hot-or-cold numbers memorized, but I figure that 75s had the necessary odds against any random hand given 460 already in the pot.  Given that the all-in guy had only 160 left at that point (he was in the SB for this hand), I could safely consider his hand completely random.  Wouldn’t you know it, I hit a straight on the flop against his A6o, only to have running 4s come out to give him a full house.

Now down to 1040, I have to start thinking about a steal – I can’t wait for great cards forever and, at 100/200, it’s getting closer to a double through not making a huge amount of difference because the blinds are coming around faster.  In the cut-off, I get Q9o.  The one to my left has a medium stack bigger than mine. SB has a small stack, and BB has a medium stack equivalent to mine.  All had been willing to get ouf of the way of raises.  I figured this was the time to push forward.  I get called by BB who had 88s, and I don’t get anything.  I suppose that’s the best one could hope for – having overcards to the pair.

Through 5 levels, I got two pocket pairs (TT and 33), AQo twice, and KJo twice.  I didn’t even get any other hand with an Ace in it the whole night except for the time described above.  I don’t know if I should have been making more with less, or this is just the nature of the beast – really tough when the levels increase so fast.

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