Posted by Johnnymac 6:14 AM
I played in a small 2-table home tournament Saturday night that was almost just like a live SnG: a fairly quick blind structure (22 players were done in 4 1/2 hours) and some good players combined with some not-so-good players.

One thing that was great about this tourney was that most of the players, even the better ones, were quite happy to play lottery-style and see a lot of cheap flops. There were very few pre-flop raises, but lots of action after the flop, especially if there were aces or face cards. This put a lot of implied odds into drawing hands, because hitting any flop with trips or better was usually profitable because anyone else with top or even middle pair on the flop was quite willing to play his hand to the end no matter what. The lack of preflop raising also enabled me to to steal quite a few blinds - especially from early position - because most of the other guys interpretted all pre-flop raises as indicators of strength (ie AQ or better) and no one wanted to call a raise without seeing the flop.

I also took advantage of the prolific limping to win what was perhaps the sweetest hand of the night for me: just before we consolidated into one table I limped into a 6-way pot from UTG with 45d (by this point I had built a small stack and was loosening up a bit). The flop came 923 rainbow - a monster draw for me, especially if I could see the turn for free, which is exactly what happened (apparently no one had a 9 or an overpair). The turn was an Ace - probably just the card at least one of the other players was hoping for, and before I could even start drooling, the guy next to me, who had been seeing a LOT of flops and drinking a LOT of beer all night long, announced he was all-in. I quickly called, and the other players all folded.

He smugly turned over A2 (two pair), I turned over my straight, and the look on his face was priceless when he took a second look at my cards. I wish I could win every hand that way! This was deception at it's finest because he clearly was surprised that I had called preflop with anything other than big cards.

That hand put me into the chip lead for the final table, which allowed me to start abusing other players right away after the break and build up an even bigger stack. I stumbled after a while though, when twice I managed to get players all-in with underdog hands to my big pairs only to get outdrawn and lose big pots. This depleted my stack enough to where when we ended up playing heads-up I was the short stack, which is where I finished for the night - 2nd place.

All in all though, I can't think of very many things that don't involve my wife that would be better ways to spend a Saturday night. It wasn't a lot of money, but poker is always a good time.

2 Comment(s):

Posted by  Dr Fro, at 9:49 AM, January 17, 2005  

2nd place is for losers :-o

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Posted by  Johnnymac, at 10:48 AM, January 17, 2005  

Kiss my ass

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