Sunday, March 16, 2008

The Blind Me Down "Hand of the Week" - Hand 6 by Mike Behr

Hello everyone, it was an exciting hand last week and here are the
results. For a refresher of the entire hand please read the last hand
of the week post. After sitting in "no lobster land" for about a
minute thinking about what to do I flashed on a chapter I read from
Sklansky's book "Theory and Practice". His classifications of players
put me in the range of being weak tight. Meaning I look at a
situation and immediately think of all the hands that have me beat
and almost assume it must be one of those. Maybe a phobia I picked up
playing online poker. Something I've been working hard to overcome.
Anyway, after thinking about it and working it out in my head the
way Sklansky suggests I came to the conclusion that the odds of him
having a better hand then me were worse then me having a better hand
then him. If he was on a draw then he made a mathematical mistake by
moving all in. This game is all about capitalizing on those type of
mistakes whether or not they fall in your favor or not.
Mathematically you will come out ahead in the end. So I made the
call. Theoretically its what I wanted anyhow. All his chips in the
middle. I just went about it in an unorthodox manner. He flips over
Kd Jd and the river came an Ace. I end up with Aces up and he ends up
pulling out his wallet for another hundred dollar bill. Which he
eventually lost and then did it again to lose another. A very nice
pot and a wonderful start to a no limit relationship for me. Can't
wait for the next time.

Now onto this weeks hand of the week. This hand took place about an
hour ago and I'm going to title it "To collude or not to collude." It
takes place at a $5 90 player multi table sit and go. I saw Greg
Durand signed up for this game and decided to hop in hoping we could
make it to the final table together and represent the CPL. But the
odds were against us as we were seated at the same table right away.
We are almost 20 minutes into this game and the blinds are at 20/40.
Greg is sitting in middle position 4 off the button and I am sitting
on the button. I have 3140 in chips and Greg has 2290. The person to
Gregs right calls the 40 and greg immediately raises it to 160
(already I'm skeptical). I look down at As Kh. I think for a few
seconds and decide that I can't fold this on the button even if Greg
is the one raising it up. So I just call. The small blind calls, the
big blind folds and the original limper to his right folds. This puts
the pot at 560. The flop comes Qs 9c Kc. First player checks and Greg
bets out 560. I think about it for 10 seconds and call. The other two
players fold and we are now heads up. This puts the pot at 1680 with
Greg having 1570 left. The turn gives us the Ks. Greg checks. My
question is now. Given the situation of being ahead at the moment. Do
I bet out here or do I "collude" with Greg and check it down. With 2
flush draws and a straight draw on the board I risk losing the hand
by giving him a free card. But if I bet and he calls on either a draw
or a worse hand I risk taking him out of the tourny. Normally I would
have NOOOO problem with that. But this being online and wanting us to
both do well I didn't want to take him out. So. What do you do here?
Remember, he is my father and law and there could be bad memories of
this that float to the surface on birthdays and christmas. Tune in
next week to see what happens, who won, and if I'll ever see another
gift from the Durands or vice versa.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, now this is interesting! I know how this turns out and am very curious to hear some opinions. That fact that I can munipulate our hero with threats of no Christmas & Birthday presents does sway the thought process a bit!

I'll wait for the results to be posted and then tell you my side of the story.

Anonymous said...

My first thought immediately is pocket Q's. With a set of Q's on the flop, but with a possible straight draw, and flush draw, Greg has to throw out the 560 to protect his hand, and obviosly for you Mike with top-top you have to call. When Greg checks after the second King comes on the turn thats when if I was in your position Id be a little cautious, even though you have now a set of kings, Id definitly bet out something but keep it smaller around 200-300....then if Greg calls or raises you, you have to think he has the Q's. Its easy to think this when you have all day to think about it...but if I was in your position after the second King comes up on the turn I may have lost ALOT of chips.

Anonymous said...

It's either check - which at worst is only semi-collusion since he could be ahead (or also have A/K) - or go all in (signalling to him that you have a hand and he should fold if he doesn't have a monster).

Anonymous said...

Here is MY SIDE OF THE STORY.

Spoiler alert, I reveal how this hand played out.

We are only twenty minutes into this game and a few players have been playing very aggressively. Already, they have pushed me off at least two hands I would have won had I stuck around. I’ve already lost about 700 of my 3000 starting chips.

As Mike said, I’m in middle position and the guy to my right limps-in in front of me. Now this is one of the players who have been coming over the top with big bets. I’m looking at AcQc. I decide to take the lead on this hand and put up 4X (160). Mike, two seats to my left calls me as does the small blind.

Now I know Mike has a monster hand because I know he would never try to bluff me in this situation. We had been on the phone together just prior to the start of the tournament and my last comment to him was “don’t be raising my big blinds!”

It’s now three of us in the hand and the flop comes Qs 9c Kc. I have middle pair with an Ace kicker and the nut flush draw. The small blind checks.. I wanted to let Mike know that I was serious about this hand so I bet the pot, 560.

Here is where thing’s get interesting. Mike doesn’t go away! The other player folds and its Mike & me heads-up.

Now, I’m under the gun after the turn which is a Ks. I choose to check my flush draw as I figured Mike has at least two pair (KK & ??) possibly even KK & AA. Mike wisely decides to check it down with me and turns up a set of KKK’s. Had he raised it, I probably would have laid down my flush draw. As it turned out, I wouldn’t have hit it anyway.

It turned out to be a good play by Mike, but he could have laid down his big slick pre-flop when he saw I was making a bid for the hand. Let’s see how he try’s to make up for this when Father’s Day rolls around in a few weeks!