Poker Brutality

Posted by wynn on Jun 25, 2010 in Bad Beats, Buy-in, Great Reads | 2 comments

Wow! What a rough night last night was. Not a single playable hand for the first three hours.

I pay attention to what is on the board to see if maybe I am playing too tight. But, for the first 100 or so hands, not a single hand would have held up even if the hand ended on the flop.

My first playable hand was a 1000-to-1 disaster. Got away fairly cheap when my 8-8 turned into a set on the flop. I had position, but a player was betting hard into me all the way. My initial read was he had a hand like A-K, so I am smooth calling him when he paired his Ace on the flop.

The turn was a 7 and the river was a 7. It is hard to put someone on quads, but I felt that my boat was no good. Fortunately, the player chose to check the river hoping I would bet it for him and come over the top. I checked behind. My opponent was holding 7-7. Ouch.

The next playable hand came an hour later: suited connectors. A few players limped in and I saw a free flop that brought a straight draw. I call all-in to an overpair – mainly out of frustration – and got lucky with a river straight.

It would take a couple more hours of patience to weather the poker brutality of a cold deck before I started hitting playable hands and catching cards on the flop to triple my buy-in for the session.

Here was a key hand of the night: I have 2-2 in the big blind. The player two off the big blind raises to $17 and gets three callers before it gets back to me. I call.

The flop comes Q-7-2 off. I check.

The raiser bets out $25. I put him on a hand like A-Q or K-Q. I really don’t think he flopped a set. Even though I got stung with a 1000-to-1 longshot earlier, the odds of two players flopping a set is about 99-to-1 against.

I check raise, making it $75.

He plays back at me and shoves.

I insta-call and double up.

Somehow, I avoided a speech. The next couple hours were good. But, fuck, slow starts are brutal.