Just two weeks ago I found myself in the poker mecca of the US of A. Granted California’s card barns are gaining with their massive rooms and loose players that fill them, Vegas is home to the low/medium/high stakes that every aspiring poker player wants. Many players here in Minnesota come with a strong limit hold em’ (thanks to the arcane laws of the state) base since big bet games are not allow in a casino setting. On a personal basis the lack of no limit hold em’ doesn’t matter much since I don’t play NLHE cash games very often. But when in Rome…
… or Vegas’ mirror of Rome as in Caesar’s Palace, you should be sitting down at a game. After a hard day and night of catching up with my fellow internet scribes who were in town for our 6th annual World Poker Blogger Tour Winter Classic, it was time to sit down and play the game they we normally are spectators to. The buy-in was $100 among the ~90 writers and friends of bloggers who braved the chilling 35 degree temps of the strip (guess who tried to go golfing in a polo shirt the day before and ended up with an expensive souvenir jacket?). My starting table was all people I knew and they knew me so unfortunately “plays” were going to have to wait till I was a few Captain and Cokes into the tourney.
I drank exactly one.
Facing a mid-position raise from Derek I look down at AsKc on the button, being early in the tourney and very deep stacks (about 150BBs) I elected to call (mistake #1). Flop comes out a pretty Ac Ks 7c. Derek makes a continuation bet of about five BBs and I smooth call (mistake #2). 8s on the turn and Derek pumps it up to 15 BBs to which I raise to 45BBs and he four-bet shoves. If you’re reading this and shaking your head violently towards telling me to fold, I would have loved that advice two weeks ago. Since I had not started my calming stream of alcohol, I spazzed out for two seconds and call already knowing what he’s going to turn over.
Two red aces (cue Rounders beginning game with TeddyKGB displaying his Aces Full to Mike McD).
15 whole minutes lasted after four consecutive years of making it at least to the final two tables. A disappointment since this tournament is more of a social outing than blood and guts bankroll changing money (1st received $2,400). I was more mad about missing the chatter of the table versus busting like a donkey in the early rounds. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise since I rolled up several hundred playing craps and made a little bit at the NLHE cash games thanks to this hand which I’m pretty sure was an easy play but maybe some more grizzled vets could chime in:
The table is $1/$3 NLHE, a full ten players are seated. The max buy-in is $500, but most stacks are around $300-$400 with two shorties sitting in the nine and ten seats. Your hero is in the big blind in the two seat with about $350 from a starting… $350, unable to make any headway after two hours. Play folds around to the six-seat who’s a fedora wearing dude who’s played fairly aggressive post-flop, but weakish pre-flop as he limps in, the seven seat calls, a local in the eight seat raises to $15 as the shorties fold to me holding KdTd and I make the call. The six and seven seat also call to see a monster flop for my connectors, Qd Jd 8s. An open-end Royal Flush draw, I contain my excitement by value-checking (that’s internet sarcasm folks) and the six seat goes right to work with a $30 bet. The seven seat folds as the local in the eight starts cutting out some chips. After about two minutes he puts $100 on top leaving about $170 behind as I figure I only have one move and push.
Now my question: Do you have any argument for calling here and possibly get the six seat involved? Folding never came into play of course but the decision between a call and a shove did.
I shoved as the six seat folded very quickly and just as quick the local called with top set of queens. While I did not get the $500 bonus for hitting a Royal Flush, I did spike an ace on the river for the nut straight to take down the pot which covered up my horrible tourney decision and save a little face as my friends walked by the table for smoke breaks in the sportsbook and admired the growing stack.
And hopefully forgot about the guy who busted out second.