I almost didn’t play the $500 HORSE FTOPS event last night because I was pretty tired, but generally the quality of play in these things is so bad, and the opportunity to play large-field, mixed-game tournaments so rare, that I didn’t want to pass it up. I had also forgotten that it was Thursday, the only night on which I enjoy watching TV (30 Rock is the best show on TV, and the rest of the NBC line-up is solid enough), and frankly, had I remembered, I would have skipped playing poker. I’m glad that didn’t happen, because even though I didn’t cash in the HORSE, I found some good 10/20 NL games and made like six buy-ins!
But what you’re all interested in is HORSE hands, right? Any you say you prefer raw hand histories to those that have been converted? No? Well I don’t get to post them very often, so that’s what you’re getting! And as far as I know, there is no converter than can handle tournament Stud hands from FTP. Sorry, but I’ll try to clean them up a bit.
FullTiltPoker Game #4190756474: FTOPS Event #11 (30641978), Table 50 – 400/800 Ante 75 – Limit Razz – 0:27:01 ET – 2007/11/16
Seat 1: urbandb888 (8,544)
Seat 2: Nospleen (20,221)
Seat 3: kawookey (12,905)
Seat 4: gretamy12 (7,052)
Seat 5: khalwat (14,152)
Seat 6: ags104 (7,409)
Seat 7: Chamonyx (6,349)
Seat 8: biggdeebee (5,629)
*** 3RD STREET ***
Dealt to urbandb888 [2c 4d] [3h]
Dealt to Nospleen [4c]
Dealt to kawookey [Jc]
Dealt to gretamy12 [Qd]
Dealt to khalwat [7s]
Dealt to ags104 [Ac]
Dealt to Chamonyx [6s]
Dealt to biggdeebee [4h]
gretamy12 brings in for 100
khalwat folds
ags104 completes it to 400
Chamonyx folds
biggdeebee calls 400
urbandb888 raises to 800
Nospleen folds
kawookey folds
gretamy12 folds
ags104 calls 400
biggdeebee calls 400
*** 4TH STREET ***
Dealt to urbandb888 [2c 4d 3h] [Js]
Dealt to ags104 [Ac] [Ks]
Dealt to biggdeebee [4h] [Qh]
urbandb888 bets 400
ags104 calls 400
biggdeebee calls 400
*** 5TH STREET ***
Dealt to urbandb888 [2c 4d 3h Js] [Qs]
Dealt to ags104 [Ac Ks] [5d]
Dealt to biggdeebee [4h Qh] [8h]
biggdeebee bets 800
urbandb888 folds
ags104 folds
biggdeebee wins the pot (4,300)
I don’t 3-bet on 3rd street very often in Razz unless the effective stacks are very small or I have reason to think the opener is raising light. Even A23 isn’t a monster unless it improves on 4th street, and by bloating the pot, you reveal information about your hand and help loose opponents play more correctly when they peel a brick. This is particularly true in shallow tournament situations, where you need to conserve your bets, since you’re roping yourself into a situation that could easily go south.
I made an exception here for two reasons. The main one was that I had reason to think my hand was a bit more live than that of the opener. With two 4’s showing and another in my hand, that’s a wheel card that he probably doesn’t have and probably isn’t going to catch. Also, 99% of the time that I 3-bet here, I’m going to have an Ace in my hand, and smart opponents will therefore think that if I later catch an Ace, it probably paired me. Since in this case I actually had three good wheel cards without an Ace, and one of the cards that would pair (a 4) was pretty unlikely to come, I felt that the information I revealed about my hand would be less exploitable.
4th is an easy bet since I’m almost always ahead and it’s huge if I can get even one of them to fold. It absolutely sucks having to fold 5th, and if the better had caught a less scary card like an 8, I might peel, but with both of them catching well, and one of them possibly drawing very smooth, and my relative position being bad, I don’t think I can continue.
Here was another hand that really hurt me:
FullTiltPoker Game #4190896062: FTOPS Event #11 (30641978), Table 50 – 500/1000 Ante 100 – Limit Stud Hi – 0:42:22 ET – 2007/11/16
Seat 1: urbandb888 (6,769)
Seat 2: Nospleen (14,046)
Seat 3: kawookey (16,030)
Seat 4: gretamy12 (5,877)
Seat 5: khalwat (9,527)
Seat 6: ags104 (8,584)
Seat 7: Chamonyx (6,174)
Seat 8: biggdeebee (15,254)
*** 3RD STREET ***
Dealt to urbandb888 [Jh Kh] [Qc]
Dealt to Nospleen [Ah]
Dealt to kawookey [7s]
Dealt to gretamy12 [Qh]
Dealt to khalwat [Ac]
Dealt to ags104 [Jc]
Dealt to Chamonyx [Ts]
Dealt to biggdeebee [8d]
kawookey brings in for 150
gretamy12 calls 150
khalwat folds
ags104 folds
Chamonyx folds
biggdeebee calls 150
urbandb888 calls 150
Nospleen calls 150
*** 4TH STREET ***
Dealt to urbandb888 [Jh Kh Qc] [Th]
Dealt to Nospleen [Ah] [6d]
Dealt to kawookey [7s] [3c]
Dealt to gretamy12 [Qh] [Td]
Dealt to biggdeebee [8d] [7d]
Nospleen checks
kawookey checks
gretamy12 checks
biggdeebee bets 500
urbandb888 raises to 1,000
Nospleen folds
kawookey folds
gretamy12 folds
biggdeebee calls 500
*** 5TH STREET ***
Dealt to urbandb888 [Jh Kh Qc Th] [4s]
Dealt to biggdeebee [8d 7d] [5s]
urbandb888 bets 1,000
biggdeebee calls 1,000
*** 6TH STREET ***
Dealt to urbandb888 [Jh Kh Qc Th 4s] [4d]
Dealt to biggdeebee [8d 7d 5s] [7h]
biggdeebee checks
urbandb888 checks
*** 7TH STREET ***
Dealt to urbandb888 [Jh Kh Qc Th 4s 4d] [8h]
biggdeebee bets 1,000
urbandb888 folds
Uncalled bet of 1,000 returned to biggdeebee
biggdeebee mucks
biggdeebee wins the pot (5,550)
On 3rd, this is a pretty nice opportunity to play a big drawing hand for cheap in a multiway pot. My decision on 4th is an interesting one, because I can choose either to just call the bet, invite others in, and look to improve to a straight or I can raise and hopefully get the pot heads up with someone who could easily be on a worse draw than mine. I opted for the latter, since I felt it was more important to improve my odds of winning the pot by cleaning up my pair outs. I’m not sure about the bet on 5th- my intention was to set myself up to bluff 6th if it looked like he’d caught another bad card, and there’s still some chance I’m ahead. Plus I give myself the option of taking a free card on 6th, which I think was a pretty easy decision.
Nothing interesting about my bustout, so I’m not going to bother posting it. Tonight is a $200 FLHE 6-max FTOPS, which is a little tempting because I’ve heard the FLHE tournaments are very soft, but we’ve got an important BDL tournament tomorrow and I hate FLHE so I’m just going to take the night off. I probably won’t play tomorrow, either, but I will be playing the FTOPS Main Event on Sunday.