Rogue waves
A rogue preflop raise? I’m sure all of us who have played thousands of OM8 hands have been occasionally surprised or clobbered when an opponent connects on an unusual hand "a flyer" after making a preflop raise. This reminds me of a rogue ocean wave that I experienced while skin diving in a depth of 15 to 20 feet of water off of Dana Point, CA many years ago. The ocean was relatively calm, and along comes a rather big single deep water wave that knocks you for a loop. I was somersaulted a few times, my facemask came off, and I lost a spear gun. These rogue waves do occur, and I am glad I only experienced only one in maybe 100 dives in the ocean. Getting back to OM8….
Assuming I am familiar with the opponent player’s style, I am not usually surprised with the action of maniacs in ring games who raise frequently from any position. But it can be disastrous in a tournament when a stranger opponent make a raise with an unsuspecting pocket hand and connects with the nuts (especially with the bets are relatively large with respect to the player’s stacks for a sit-and-go tournament). Usually tournament players who raise with garbage, and who initially experience a little luck; don’t finish in the money. But a resourceful player who raises in position with a relatively low probability hand; gets lucky; and connects on the flop: “can sometimes really clean up on this situation.” Recently, I was hit by two rogue waves in a PP sit-and-go tournament and never recovered. Both times I had respectable starter hands. The first time I had “A 2 5 9 with the ace suited,” and a certain player raised with “3 5 7 8” and made nut low and a straight (I think I made AA 99 high and a A 2 4 5 6 low). The next time this same certain player raised with “3 4 Q Q” when my big blind hand consisted of “A 3 5 7;” and this time the resourceful player made queens full with no low on board (my hand was dead from the get-go). This was probably a rogue wave hitting me twice, but it makes one wonder when the same player gets lucky when perfect cards for his hand hit the board – especially if the rogue preflop raiser would have exhausted his resources if he didn’t hit these hands. I must explain I had no previous knowledge of this guy’s playing style. My thoughts were or are: “The first time; I should have dropped immediately after not hitting the nuts or near nuts on the flop. I should not try to guess what this opponent has, that is I should have got out as early as possible (to preserve my resources for a better situation) if I don't have the nuts at least one way.” Sometimes it is not easy to make the better decision. Any comments….
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