A rush of blood...aka Iakaris said it first...aka shameless sucking up.
No poker yesterday as I recovered from the excitement of railbirding the Big Game, and no visits from amiable demons to report on either (but I have a feeling that we haven't seen the last of Al). So, what better to do than to review the two tournaments from Monday (Sunday for those of you living on the less fortunate side of the date line) in which I reached the final table?
About what you'd expect to find I suppose. I won more than my fair share of coinflips, and made one (but only one -- I'm proud of that) big suckout in each tournament. I seemed to cope better with the ebb and flow of my chips than has been my wont. In both tournaments I was below 10BB on at least three different occasions (and that's where the lucky coinflips came in handy). I was sucked out upon on a fair number of occasions myself, but that's to be expected when you're generally putting your chips in with the best of it.
The most spectacular one of that ilk was a hand where I called with K♥J♥ in position over a min raise from UTG and a call from MP. I flopped the broadway straight (and forgot for the moment about Dawn's rule 45), and UTG went all in for about half of the current pot. The caller called again, and I min raised trying to make it look like I was aiming for a cheap isolation move. The caller called, and on a jack on the turn, the caller, just for a change of pace, checked (though I guess that "check" is really "call" if there's no bet in front of you), I raised to put the caller all in, and the caller called. Now we have:
Board: A♥Q♣T♣J♠
UTG: A♠A♣
Caller: A♦10♥
Yours truly: K♥J♥
I make a small profit if I win the side pot but not the main pot, and a big profit if I win both. How can I lose both? A ten on the river, which duly arrived.
Now we come to the point of this post, an exemplar of the issue that Iakaris addressed in his illness of mind post, which struck a chord with so many of us. Let me repeat the critical words:
We're six handed at the final table and have been for quite some time. Blinds are at 15K/30K and the approximate chip counts reading clockwise from me UTG(500K) are 100K, 200K, 250K, (SB)1,000K, (BB) 250K. I have K♦J♥. The first impulse strikes. I'm impatient about the time it's taking for the next elimination. I know I've never raised UTG at the final table, and rarely in the entire event. I throw down 90K chips (still the standard raise, though often it seems when the blinds get big the standard raise goes down to about 2BB). Folds to the BB who goes all in.
And now, the ego really takes control. I'm getting a shade better than 2:1 odds from the pot. I know I've got a lousy hand for my UTG raise, but I just can't see past the odds and "my" chips that are already in the middle. I call. BB has A♠K♥, neither of us improves, and I'm down to 250K myself. Not very many hands later, we are down to 5 handed. I'm in the BB with 210K, the SB min raises, and with A♣9♥ I go all in. Good read, good play as the SB calls with K♠10♠. But I don't win this 55:45 hand, and precisely because of the chips I spewed earlier, this is enough to knock me out. And just as a side thought, perhaps the SB wouldn't have called my reraise here had he not seen the KJ earlier.
What should I have been thinking? The UTG raise is loose, but not ridiculous. It's a mistake I think, but probably a small one. The big error is the call. Remember, when I made the raise I was trying to capitalise on a tight UTG (and fairly tight generally) table image. So, with what hands is the BB, who is one of the middle stacks going all in? The loosest reasonable range I can think of is pairs from 9 upwards, AJ or better, and KQ. What's my equity against this range? As usual PokerStove to the rescue -- it's 30:70. So that's below the pot odds, and though there's some extra value in the fact that a win will knock a player out the call is still dead wrong -- because I don't believe in this range.
About what you'd expect to find I suppose. I won more than my fair share of coinflips, and made one (but only one -- I'm proud of that) big suckout in each tournament. I seemed to cope better with the ebb and flow of my chips than has been my wont. In both tournaments I was below 10BB on at least three different occasions (and that's where the lucky coinflips came in handy). I was sucked out upon on a fair number of occasions myself, but that's to be expected when you're generally putting your chips in with the best of it.
The most spectacular one of that ilk was a hand where I called with K♥J♥ in position over a min raise from UTG and a call from MP. I flopped the broadway straight (and forgot for the moment about Dawn's rule 45), and UTG went all in for about half of the current pot. The caller called again, and I min raised trying to make it look like I was aiming for a cheap isolation move. The caller called, and on a jack on the turn, the caller, just for a change of pace, checked (though I guess that "check" is really "call" if there's no bet in front of you), I raised to put the caller all in, and the caller called. Now we have:
Board: A♥Q♣T♣J♠
UTG: A♠A♣
Caller: A♦10♥
Yours truly: K♥J♥
I make a small profit if I win the side pot but not the main pot, and a big profit if I win both. How can I lose both? A ten on the river, which duly arrived.
Now we come to the point of this post, an exemplar of the issue that Iakaris addressed in his illness of mind post, which struck a chord with so many of us. Let me repeat the critical words:
In order to make the leap I want to, the most important hurdle before me is not improving my mathematical analysis or reads. It is to look deep within myself for those impulses that are driven by ego and neutralize them.
We're six handed at the final table and have been for quite some time. Blinds are at 15K/30K and the approximate chip counts reading clockwise from me UTG(500K) are 100K, 200K, 250K, (SB)1,000K, (BB) 250K. I have K♦J♥. The first impulse strikes. I'm impatient about the time it's taking for the next elimination. I know I've never raised UTG at the final table, and rarely in the entire event. I throw down 90K chips (still the standard raise, though often it seems when the blinds get big the standard raise goes down to about 2BB). Folds to the BB who goes all in.
And now, the ego really takes control. I'm getting a shade better than 2:1 odds from the pot. I know I've got a lousy hand for my UTG raise, but I just can't see past the odds and "my" chips that are already in the middle. I call. BB has A♠K♥, neither of us improves, and I'm down to 250K myself. Not very many hands later, we are down to 5 handed. I'm in the BB with 210K, the SB min raises, and with A♣9♥ I go all in. Good read, good play as the SB calls with K♠10♠. But I don't win this 55:45 hand, and precisely because of the chips I spewed earlier, this is enough to knock me out. And just as a side thought, perhaps the SB wouldn't have called my reraise here had he not seen the KJ earlier.
What should I have been thinking? The UTG raise is loose, but not ridiculous. It's a mistake I think, but probably a small one. The big error is the call. Remember, when I made the raise I was trying to capitalise on a tight UTG (and fairly tight generally) table image. So, with what hands is the BB, who is one of the middle stacks going all in? The loosest reasonable range I can think of is pairs from 9 upwards, AJ or better, and KQ. What's my equity against this range? As usual PokerStove to the rescue -- it's 30:70. So that's below the pot odds, and though there's some extra value in the fact that a win will knock a player out the call is still dead wrong -- because I don't believe in this range.
Labels: mtt
posted by Michael Albert at 11:01 am
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