3 Live Hands

[The Ocho]

In each of these hands I hold 68. Each hand is completely different and interesting in it's own right. I feel like there are a couple of good lessons to be learned here. The game is the pretty lively NL game at foxwoods, 1-2 blinds, 100 max.


Hand 1-
On the button, with 68 of spades. I have about 600. UTG (with about 350 behind) opens the pot for 15. Passed around to me. The blinds are telegraphing fold, and I call. My reasoning: UTG is rocky, young and seems pretty inexperienced, and I am confident I can outplay him on the flop. I am always willing to take the worst of it preflop with deep stacks and position. We take the flop heads-up.

Flop : J-7-4 one spade.

He doesn't look too happy, but leads out for 20 and give me a stare. I bump it up to 60 and he insta-folds, guess his AK/AQ didn't connect.



Hand 2- I'm once again OTB with 68 but this time puppy-feet (clubs). After two limpers, I call and BB decides to make it 10 to go. Both limpers call as do I. I have about 600, all other players have about 400. We take the flop four ways.

Flop : Ah-Qc-Tc

BB leads for 20, gets called by both players in between, and I think for 2 seconds and fold. I figure with that texture of flop and two callers I am in deep crap. My hand is garbage, as it is fairly likely another player has better clubs. I'm drawing to a 2nd (or 3rd, or 4th) best hand here. Not a great situation.


Hand 3- This time I'm in MP with 68o (700 behind). The table has gotten often limpy and loosey, as most players are playing very poorly post-flop. Of special interest is the BB who is just god-awful, but has about 1100 in front of him, due to a couple nasty suck-outs. A couple more players limp and we take the flop 6 handed.

Flop : J-7-5 rainbow

SB(~100 behind) leads out for 10. BB passes (damn!). I call and the button(~100 behind) min-raises. SB min-raises him back. I think and call both. Button raises 15, SB raises 15 more. I grit my teeth and call again. Surely this idiocy must end?! Nope, Button hits it for 25 more. SB thinks and folds. (wtf?) I am not going to fold at this point, so I set him in. He calls and flips up mid-set. I turn a 9 and he doesn't re-draw out. I think played this fairly poorly, but at least at each juncture I was faced with calling bets with pretty good odds. Eventually I just got sick of being whip-sawed between these two for min-raises so I just got it over with. Lesson #1: don't min-raise in situations when the pot needs to be moved on. Make a real raise and blow draws like mine out of the pot. Lesson #2: don't get me aggravated, or I'll set you in and suck out.

Any comments, suggestions, advice, slanderous remarks appreciated

The Ocho