Duke
05-16-2003, 01:46 PM
Last night I was playing cards at the Hustler, and a friendly (though a poor player) gentleman makes a comment to an attractive woman to my left. "Watch out for that guy, he's a good player." I look over, am shocked to realize that he's talking about me, and I'm like... "You must have seen me get lucky once or twice!" He responds: "No; anyone can win when they're lucky - I've never seen you get lucky, and I've always seen you win." My response was that I do my best to rely on other people not getting lucky.
Anyhow, fast forward a couple hours to the same game, which is now a 3 handed match between me, a rock solid full-game player, and a super aggressive guy who is actually a decent player in a short game. The man who made the comment is gone. The only thing at stake (as I'm in this game for -100... made over a rack at a different table before sitting here, and only put a rack in play here) is my 7/7 short handed record in the past couple of weeks (before last week I had never played short handed live). I'm not the best hand reader in the world, but I like to think that it's a strength of my game that I'm improving constantly.
Hand #1: AA on the button. I raise, sb folds, BB (aggressive guy) re-raises, I 4-bet, he calls. Flop A45r. he bets, I raise, he re-raises, I re-raise, he calls. Turn is an 8. He bets, I raise, he calls. River 6. He bets, I call. He shows A7o. Maybe he should have gone for the check-raise?
Hand #2: JJ on the button. I raise, sb folds, BB re-raises, I re-raise, he calls. Flop T42r. he bets, I raise, he re-raises, I re-raise, he calls. Turn is a 6. He bets, I raise, he re-raises, I re-raise, he calls. River 9. He checks, I check. He shows 99. Who says I fall into traps?
Hand #3: AKo on the button. I raise, sb folds, BB re-raises, I re-raise, he calls. Flop QT4r. he bets, I raise, he calls. Turn is a Q. He checks, I bet, he calls. River 7. He bets, and I call all-in for $25 of the $30 bet. He shows A7o. Ouch... well, I knew I was ahead on the turn.
This says a lot about short-term luck and variance in short handed play (Each of these hands were arguably played fine by him, within the same 30 minute time frame, if you take away some of his aggression from the raising as a huge dog, and add in the fact that pairs and ace high might be good alone short handed). The guy's not an idiot for thinking that top pair isn't weak 3-handed, or that a pair with one overcard isn't weak 3-handed, or that ace high isn't weak against a guy about to be all-in.
Knowing me as a short handed player, the other guy HAD to think that his hands had a decent shot at being good unimproved, but me knowing him, and what I held, and a pretty good idea of what he held, I knew that I was way in the lead. Since he can't know that, he still played close to right, even though he was such a huge dog.
I won't ask for comments, since I'm pretty happy with getting a lot of money into the pot as a huge favorite, and only putting in $55 when I was behind (short handed play is so player dependent, it's really tough to comment on anyhow). But I just thought that last night was sorta funny, given the fact that exactly what I count on not happening happened on 3 separate occasions within 30 minutes.
Yeah, we've all taken beats, some a lot worse than finding yourself as a 22-1, 14-1, or 11-1 favorite on the turn, only to lose to a miracle card on the river. But DAMN; what I said to that other guy came back to haunt me.
Oh yeah, now I'm 7/8 in short handed games.
~D
Anyhow, fast forward a couple hours to the same game, which is now a 3 handed match between me, a rock solid full-game player, and a super aggressive guy who is actually a decent player in a short game. The man who made the comment is gone. The only thing at stake (as I'm in this game for -100... made over a rack at a different table before sitting here, and only put a rack in play here) is my 7/7 short handed record in the past couple of weeks (before last week I had never played short handed live). I'm not the best hand reader in the world, but I like to think that it's a strength of my game that I'm improving constantly.
Hand #1: AA on the button. I raise, sb folds, BB (aggressive guy) re-raises, I 4-bet, he calls. Flop A45r. he bets, I raise, he re-raises, I re-raise, he calls. Turn is an 8. He bets, I raise, he calls. River 6. He bets, I call. He shows A7o. Maybe he should have gone for the check-raise?
Hand #2: JJ on the button. I raise, sb folds, BB re-raises, I re-raise, he calls. Flop T42r. he bets, I raise, he re-raises, I re-raise, he calls. Turn is a 6. He bets, I raise, he re-raises, I re-raise, he calls. River 9. He checks, I check. He shows 99. Who says I fall into traps?
Hand #3: AKo on the button. I raise, sb folds, BB re-raises, I re-raise, he calls. Flop QT4r. he bets, I raise, he calls. Turn is a Q. He checks, I bet, he calls. River 7. He bets, and I call all-in for $25 of the $30 bet. He shows A7o. Ouch... well, I knew I was ahead on the turn.
This says a lot about short-term luck and variance in short handed play (Each of these hands were arguably played fine by him, within the same 30 minute time frame, if you take away some of his aggression from the raising as a huge dog, and add in the fact that pairs and ace high might be good alone short handed). The guy's not an idiot for thinking that top pair isn't weak 3-handed, or that a pair with one overcard isn't weak 3-handed, or that ace high isn't weak against a guy about to be all-in.
Knowing me as a short handed player, the other guy HAD to think that his hands had a decent shot at being good unimproved, but me knowing him, and what I held, and a pretty good idea of what he held, I knew that I was way in the lead. Since he can't know that, he still played close to right, even though he was such a huge dog.
I won't ask for comments, since I'm pretty happy with getting a lot of money into the pot as a huge favorite, and only putting in $55 when I was behind (short handed play is so player dependent, it's really tough to comment on anyhow). But I just thought that last night was sorta funny, given the fact that exactly what I count on not happening happened on 3 separate occasions within 30 minutes.
Yeah, we've all taken beats, some a lot worse than finding yourself as a 22-1, 14-1, or 11-1 favorite on the turn, only to lose to a miracle card on the river. But DAMN; what I said to that other guy came back to haunt me.
Oh yeah, now I'm 7/8 in short handed games.
~D