First, let me say that I have been really busy doing a bunch of miscellaneous things. I went up to Orlando, back to South Florida… I’ve been all over. I played poker tonight for the first time in a week and got 9th in the 100r and was also deep in the $163 on FTP. With about 20 players left FTP/Stars disconnected me (along with a lot of other players apparently) and when it came back up 25 minutes later, I had 2.5bbs and lost. Hopefully they compensate me and the other players. Some players were still playing, so I’m sure they were just eating up the blinds and antes until we came back. We will see.
Last blog post I posted a hand that took place in the 100r vs ISpewChips.
PokerStars Game #50850218637: Tournament #334010506, $100+$9 USD Hold’em No Limit – Level X (300/600) – 2010/10/09 16:34:01 ET
Table ‘334010506 10′ 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: danskemann (7802 in chips)
Seat 2: Cre8ive (28600 in chips)
Seat 3: babyshark33 (18322 in chips)
Seat 4: TMoney0209 (25597 in chips)
Seat 5: I Spew Chips (32594 in chips)
Seat 6: flpro157 (10181 in chips)
Seat 7: ocrowe (55207 in chips)
Seat 8: Schildy1984 (15432 in chips)
danskemann: posts the ante 50
Cre8ive: posts the ante 50
babyshark33: posts the ante 50
TMoney0209: posts the ante 50
I Spew Chips: posts the ante 50
flpro157: posts the ante 50
ocrowe: posts the ante 50
Schildy1984: posts the ante 50
TMoney0209: posts small blind 300
I Spew Chips: posts big blind 600
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cre8ive [Qd Kd]
flpro157: folds
ocrowe: folds
Schildy1984: folds
danskemann: folds
Cre8ive: raises 600 to 1200
babyshark33: folds
TMoney0209: folds
I Spew Chips: raises 2085 to 3285
Cre8ive: calls 2085
*** FLOP *** [2h 6d Kc]
I Spew Chips: bets 3795
Cre8ive: raises 4070 to 7865
I Spew Chips: raises 21394 to 29259 and is all-in
Cre8ive: calls 17400 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (3994) returned to I Spew Chips
*** TURN *** [2h 6d Kc] [9h]
*** RIVER *** [2h 6d Kc 9h] [6c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
I Spew Chips: shows [3c 8d] (a pair of Sixes)
Cre8ive: shows [Qd Kd] (two pair, Kings and Sixes)
Cre8ive collected 57800 from pot
I posted this hand because I wanted people to actually think about the hand. I wanted to give a legitimate response in the blog, like it was an awful play. It looks ridiculous, but sometimes you are going to have to look stupid in poker. I know ISpewChips is a good player. So what do I do? I look at a hand like this and try to understand why he did what he did.
We both have around 50bb stacks. Those are big stacks at this point in the 100r. I’m sure he thinks my min-raise opening range there is pretty wide on the cutoff, so he decided to 3bet. Now he gets flatted. So my range is changing in his eyes because my flatting range is different than my 4betting range (assumption for the sake of discussion.) Now the flop comes K62 rainbow. He continuation bets, and I raise. What can I have here?
From ISpew’s perspective… AK would likely be in Cre8ive’s 4betting range preflop, so for this to be a value raise to get it in for 50bbs Cre8ive’s range is pretty small. Consisting of 22, 66, AA, maybe some other hands??? Would Cre8 set mine preflop with 22 or 66 here? Would he raise KK on the flop? Is his raise/get it in range AA/sets/bluffs?
Since ISpew felt like my range for raising the flop for value was really small, he decided to move all in on the flop thinking that I could only call him with a small range of hands. He is right in that line of logic. In a 3bet pot, my range is consolidated and hands can be eliminated. This train of thought is the same reason why I raised the flop with KQ. I’m representing a small range of hands that I want to get value with. Would I really raise the flop with 99/TT (assuming I didn’t 4bet those hands) and want to get all the chips in the middle? On the flip side, should I be raising a board of that texture with a hand like 99/TT to get someone to shove worse? This is the evolution of poker.
Although the hand looks really ugly, it is poker at it’s finest. Two minds battling it out. Who can solve the puzzle first? There isn’t always a right and wrong answer in poker. Sometimes you will look stupid, but if you have a reason as to why you looked stupid, it makes it acceptable lol. I have looked stupid plenty of times in my poker career, but I had logic behind my stupidity. In poker… stupidity with no logic is still stupidity; otherwise it is enlightenment.
I could talk more about the hand, but I will leave it at that. I wanted to show everyone that although something might look horrible, it really isn’t. Don’t look at it for what it is, look deeper, learn something.
This Friday I will be doing a DeepStacks Live camp in Miami with November Niner Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi and Matt Graham. It’s at the Calder casino at 1pm on October 22nd. If anyone is interested, they can contact me through my e-mail or sign up through DeepStacks.com by clicking DeepStacks Live in the top left corner. I’ll have another blog post up on Thursday night with an announcement I’ve been waiting to make. Goodnight.
