Saturday, March 15, 2008

Losing With a Great Hand

Sometimes, you're destined to go broke. That's all I could keep telling myself as I busted out early of Friday's deepstack tourney at the FCPC.

[Edited HH for accuracy]

The situation: I was treading water at roughly 22K in chips (starting stack was 25K) when I picked up red KK, my second premium pair of the evening, at the start of level three (blinds were 150/300). I was in late position, two off the button, and I raised it up to 1200 after a someone limped in. Joanne (who went on to finish third) called on the button and we saw an 8s5c8c flop headsup. I led out with a half-pot bet; she called rather quickly. The turn was a Qs and I bet 4K (I ratcheted up to a full pot-sized bet now that two flush draws were out there, and she insta-called. This raised some alarm bells and I got that sick feeling I had been outflopped by the way she was acting -- I suspected trip eights or maybe even pocket fives for a flopped full house -- but all my worries left me when the river was a beautiful Ks (Simon politely told me that this was a one-outer, thanks a lot for nothing Simon), giving me the overfull. I proceeded to stare blankly at the board for a moment or two and announced allin since I figured an overbet for value was likely to be called by many worse hands.

Let's just say I was gobsmacked when she called with a smile in her voice as she announced "I have four eights" for flopped quads.


Oh well, poker is a cruel game sometimes and there is no way I fail to get all my money in the middle in that situation once I make the nut full house. I beat six or seven strong hands in my opponent's range there and only lose to one possible holding . . .

NB. Last night's play featured no fewer than 3 instances of quads, which is definitely a club record. Somehow this donkey won the tournament; he received AA five times, KK three times, and QQ once and 55 once during five hours of play.

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