time-pot hand

[Tommy Angelo]

$20-40 blinds NLHE at Lucky Chances. The collection is $7 per player per half-hour. We almost always do time pots. If the pot has $200 (or more) of called money in it, then the winner of the pot pays the time for all players who do not have a missed blind button. (Players with a missed blind button pay their own $7.)

On this hand, it was a time pot, and the collection was $63.

Three players limped in for $40 each. I was in the small blind. Stacks of the players in this hand were 2K to 7K and I had 5K. Nobody was gambling with me at the time even a little bit. In two hours, I'd won every pot I bet at or raised without showing a hand. My average bet size was $100. My average raise size was $200. I think the secret to NLHE for me is to completely miss every flop. I don't think I can lose when that happens.

So on this hand, when it was my turn, the pot was $180. It cost me $20 to call, so if I called, that would make it a time pot. In other words, it cost me $83 to call. Or put another way, it cost me $20 to call, but the pot was really $117, not $180. Or, the way I think of it is, it was going to cost me $20 for the opportunity to lose $63. I had AK. That's a flop-hitting hand. And if that wasn't bad enough, I was going to be first all the way no matter what. I went ahead and mucked it.


Tommy