a couple of notes on the live at the bike....from seat 2

[riverboatking]

ok so i was in seat two...and i wanted to offer a couple of brief explanations for a couple of the pots that i played, as they may have looked a little odd to those of you watching.

obviously the biggest pot of the night was the hand where i had QQ vs. 44, and those of you who have played deep stacked no-limit may have been curious as to why i played the hand as i did.

in order to understand the hand you need to have some background on seat 5.
he runs the corporation which banks all the pai gow and blackjack games at the bike, and he is extremely loaded.
he is also one of the most loose aggressive players in the game (he is a regular).
i play with him at least four times a week and he has no problem calling HUGE bets and raises with draws, and he is completely willing to make huge bluffs into very scary boards.
he is a very nice guy however he is a gambler and the money doesn't seem to mean that much for him.

which is why he either wins very big, or loses very big.

if you remember there was a hand earlier where i made a four card straight on a paired board and ended up paying him off on a nice pot when he made a boat.
i said it at the time and i'll repeat it now, if its any other player on the table (besides seat 6 who is also a major LAG) i fold the hand, however when mike makes a hand he gets paid off its that simple.
because he would make that same play on the river with a busted flush draw/two pair/trips.

ok so on the big hand i have QQ with the queen of hearts and the board comes 9 high w/three hearts.

seat 5 bets 100, seat 6 raises to 400 and i make it 1K to go.
realize that i play with these players almost every day so my play is very read dependent. i knew that seat 6 wasn't very strong, because he has slowplayitis, and i also know that seat 5 won't think twice about calling 1K with anything from JJ with jack of hearts to AQ with ace of hearts.
he loves to chase flush draws and he also can't get away from overpairs.
anytime i get AA or KK and he has an overpair to the flop he goes bust...he just can't get away.

now on the turn it bricks off, and he checks.
normally vs a regular player i check behind on the turn, however vs. mike the majority of the time i'm way ahead and if i check not only will i give him a free shot at the draw, but i will ensure that i face a huge bet on the river, as he is a compulsive bluffer.

ok so the other interesting hand that i thought i'd share a quick thought on was the hand where mo (seat 9) had AA and i had AJ.
there was a straddle and mo limped (because it was seat 5 straddling and mo expected him to raise as he will almost 80% of the time). however i decided to isolate mo and seat 5 (mo is the prop player and while he is a very good player, he likes to gamble, will play any two, and is not afraid to make big bluffs/semi-bluffs).

i raised on the button w/ AJ clubs and suprisingly seat 5 folded and i took the flop heads up w/ mo.

the flop came Q109 w/ one club giving me a OESD, overcard to the flop and backdoor flush draw.

mo checked i bet around 200 and mo made it 700 to go.
at this point i have two options i can fold or i can push.
if i call and don't hit on the turn my hand is [censored] and i know mo is pushing and i won't be able to call.
i can certainly fold and move on to the next hand, but i thought that if i pushed i would have a lot of folding equity.

i know mo, i play with him everyday and so i knew he didn't have a set. i also knew that if i pushed he wasn't going to call me w/ a one pair hand, and he might even lay down bottom two.
he gives me respect and while he is willing to gamble (more so preflop then postflop) he is also capable of laying down big hands, and understands the difference between betting and calling.
so i made a read on him and pushed and it worked.

those are the only two hands that i can think of that i thought you guys might want some insight into however, i was drinking quite a bit (which is something i generally never do when playing, however i'd been running so good the past week i decided to just have fun, after all it was friday) so i may be forgetting something.

if any of you have any questions i'd be happy to go into more detail. you can either respond in this thread or PM me.

-RBK

ps. to the guy who said i looked like eric balfour, that is hilarious because i actually went to high school with his sister and no one ever made that comparision.
also he does play at the bike on occassion however he plays either the 100 or 200 capped games.

[Kevmath]

You don't really mention it much but what was the conversation between the two of you on running the river? The mics there didn't really cover that very well and the commentators at the time seemed confused as to why you both have turned up your cards before seemingly any betting was done.

Kevin...

[bobby rooney]

hey RBK,

Just wondering how big that pot was in the JT vs KK where the LAG in seat 6 got his entire stack in, looks like you made back a lot of your losses on the unfortunate hand with the QQ.

Based on your description of seat 5, I agree that you can't lay down your QQ + flush draw. I wonder if when you made the one-card str8 against Seat 5 if you considered a check on the river? Since he is prone to bluff crazy boards, you make money when you have the best hand by giving him an opportunity to bluff and if you don't have the best hand you probably save money as he will try to bet an amount that you will call. I guess the drawback is if he's the type of player that bets huge amounts when bluffing or with the nuts, he might push you off the best hand if he does something crazy like go all-in. However, he will probably want to get his boat paid off, so you could possibly save some money by checking.

I thought overall you played very well and had some unfortunate cards come out against you.

[Kripke]

Hey RBK, it was great watching you yesterday - be sure to post when you are playing there again. It's like free live NL poker lessons for me /images/graemlins/smile.gif

- Kripke

[B Mando]

In the other thread I correctly predicted you were in seat 2! YES! I feel cool! That guy who started on your left was so bad it was funny...I laughed at least. Was that asian chick on your right hot? I couldnt tell from the internet...It was cool watching though.

[riverboatking]

i don't remember exactly how much the KK vs. J10 hand was, somewhere ~2.5K i think.
it was a up and down night however by the time i finished (we kept playing after the show was over obviously) i had busted seat 6 three more times and ended up +2.5K after being down around 4K earlier, so it was an ok night.

as to when i'll be playing again, the problem is they only do the big game on friday and i don't usually play on friday night.
Mo bribed me to play yesterday because i generally play the deepest out of all the players, so will see what happens in the future.
/images/graemlins/grin.gif

and as to the pots vs. seat 5, that guy has given me so much money in the past and is such a LAG that i have no choice but to pay him off the few times he makes a hand.

[riverboatking]

[ QUOTE ]
You don't really mention it much but what was the conversation between the two of you on running the river? The mics there didn't really cover that very well and the commentators at the time seemed confused as to why you both have turned up your cards before seemingly any betting was done.

[/ QUOTE ]

before the river was dealt i asked seat 5 if he wanted to make a deal, i wanted to run the river twice (since my best bet is to chop, i won't win 2/3 very often, but i'm almost even money if we run it twice) however like the idiot that i am in the past i had explained the concept of how many times to run it to him (because he is a nice guy, i play with him almost every day, and the majority of the time when we both get it all in he is drawing practically dead) and so he would only run it 1 or 3 times.
i almost decided to run it just once, rather then concede 2/3 of the pot, but at the last second decided against it, then hit the queen right on the first time.
so after that i had two chances to hit one heart and get 2/3 of the pot so i loved my position, however i couldn't hit so mike took down a nice pot.

[tek]

Questions:

1) How long have the been webcasting NL cash games?

2) Does the camera make players tighten up?

3) I'm watching tonight (Sat) between 8:30 and 9 pacific time. I notice 9d 10d coming to various players. This type of thing happens where I play (live). I'll get the same cards periodically or the flop will replay or close to it.

Does anyone else have this happen?

[riverboatking]

[ QUOTE ]
How long have the been webcasting NL cash games?

Does the camera make players tighten up?

[/ QUOTE ]

less then a month.
absolutely not.

[Kevmath]

There's an ebb and flow to the game, but there's been lots of really loose play the 3 weeks the games have been broadcast.

Kevin...

[coltrane]

RBK,

can you detail the QQ hand step by step with chip counts, etc. starting with preflop - I'm a little unclear about some of the action.....

[3rdEye]

It looked like that QQ hand pissed you off to no end. I can't blame you. It was like 3 bad beats in the same hand. Painful.

[riverboatking]

hey coltrane,
i wish i could w/ 100% certainty but i'm a little unclear myself.
this is to the best of my recollection.
i raised in LP to about 100 and was called by the two most LAG's on the table, seat 5, and 6.
flop came 9 high with three hearts.
i had around 5K, seat 5 had around the same, and seat 6 had around 2.5K.

seat 5 led for 100, seat 6 raised to 400, and i made it 1K to go.
seat 5 called, seat 6 folded.
now like i said normally vs. a bet and a raise i would probably be done with the hand, however vs. those two players no way i'm folding overpair+ flush draw in this spot.

on the turn seat 5 checked and i put him all in.
once he called we decided to run the river three times.
as i said in my OP normally i check behind on the turn however if you read my OP i explain why i didn't.
i also mention that if i had my way we would have run it twice however seat 5 said once or three times.

hope that clears things up for you.

[coltrane]

yeah, after looking at the flop action, I can better understand why you did what you did.....I was under the impression that you flat called seat 6's raise and then seat 5 made it $1k....but with seat 5 just calling your raise on the flop, I can understand your bet on the turn (particularly with his image) as you're most likely ahead in that spot.....only thing one could say is that you might've not re-raised the flop but just called instead.....several reasons for that: if you're against a set you'd love to see a cheaper turn (and save money on the flop and not give seat 6 the option to rereraise), if you're against even just the lone A /images/graemlins/heart.gif you're practically even money so playing a big pot on the flop doesn't give you much equity compared to waiting for the turn, a raise is gonna fold out exactly the type of hands you want to keep in (hands like JhJx or ThTx).....but other than that, I can't fault you for the way you played it - seat 5 happened to have a set that time.....also, for the river (assuming you are comfortably bankrolled for the game) I would've just run it once.....whenever I'm a dog in a pot, I want to run it as few times as possible (namely: once) because the last thing you want to do is decrease variance......

[riverboatking]

i agree with you in most cases in regard to running the river card.
however with the flush draw i figured the best possible scenario would be to run it twice.
if i miss the first one, well [censored] it pays to run it again, and if do happen to hit the first one then i'm freerolling for the whole pot.
but yeah 3x was lame, and if you watch the episode that is actually what i'm the most pissed about, because i could afford the variance, and running it 3x was a dumb move on my part.

however the reason i agreed to do it is because often times when i'm in the oppososite position i offer to run it either 1 or 3x but never twice.
and i am often in that position with the player in seat five.

[turnipmonster]

fwiw I always do either once or three as well.

[coltrane]

yeah, who wants to split a pot?.....it's like a tie in hockey or kissing your own sister.....reason I hate Omaha-8.....

once or thrice... /images/graemlins/cool.gif

[riverboatking]

coltrane and turnip.

when i'm the favorite i always do it either 1x or 3x, however don't you agree that if you're the dog with a flush draw your best bet in terms of EV is to run it twice?

[turnipmonster]

it shouldn't affect your EV either way (1,2 or 3 times). I just don't like twice because it feels like a tie/truce/happy ending, and this is war dammit. give me the thrill of the suckout or the pain of defeat, but for godsakes don't just give me my money back.

[Rick Nebiolo]

[ QUOTE ]
it shouldn't affect your EV either way (1,2 or 3 times). I just don't like twice because it feels like a tie/truce/happy ending, and this is war dammit. give me the thrill of the suckout or the pain of defeat, but for godsakes don't just give me my money back.

[/ QUOTE ]

It doesn't affect your EV in a normal, unrestricted buy-in game (assuming your BR is big enough to reload to the point where you can match the stack of the weakest players). But let's say you are in a restricted buy-in game. Often chips in excess of the maximum allowable rebuy are worth far more than normal chips. For example, you have $1000 and several weak players also have stacks about that deep but none are deeper. You figure to have many opportunities to bring these stacks down as a huge favorite. If you go broke all you can re-buy is $300 (per the restricted buy-in rules).

Now let's say you are all-in on the turn with a set against a flush draw and the pot is about $2000. Here dealing thrice will rarely result in a situation where you lose 2/3 of the pot or more - in other words you more or less insure that you will come out of the hand with a stack that has a huge positive expectation against the big but weak playing stacks that are likely to oppose you in future hands. Go broke on the hand and you give this up.

That said, most restricted buy in games with jackpots won't let you deal thrice or twice (after writing the above, I just remembered this is the case at the Bike).

~ Rick