Hella Hold'em

How I lost gave away my $50:

Well, an hour at the 50NL tables on Full Tilt tonight cost me a buy-in. I haven't yet analyzed my hand (for as much as you can with FTP's crappy hand histories... I REALLY wish they'd provide real ones). Let's analyze it together, shall we?

First, what I know about the key opponents:
wisner guy is on his first rebuy, after showing down and losing junk hand after junk hand. Not sure if he's a bad player, or just doesn't know what he's doing. He's friendly about it, though. I have the following showdown hands for Matimbo: T2s MP, JQo, AA PFR, QQ PFR, J5s LP, AQs EP PFR. (MP = middle position, LP = late, PFR = preflop raise). Nothing too out of the ordinary - I figure he likes the suited cards and otherwise is playing pretty straight-up poker.

Here's the play - yes, the one single play where I lost my buy-in.

Dealer: Hand #90246059
Dealer: Hillmen712 posts the small blind of $0.25
Dealer: phlyersphan posts the big blind of $0.50
Dealer: You have been dealt [7s 5c]
Dealer: wisnerminnick calls $0.50
Dealer: --judge ito-- folds
Dealer: v vega folds
Dealer: MoEoM folds
Dealer: Raydain folds
Dealer: Matimbo calls $0.50
Dealer: hoselboy folds
Dealer: Hillmen712 calls $0.25
Dealer: phlyersphan checks
Dealer: The flop is [5s Kc 7c]
Dealer: Hillmen712 bets $0.50
Dealer: phlyersphan calls $0.50
Dealer: wisnerminnick calls $0.50
Dealer: Matimbo calls $0.50
Dealer: The turn is [9d]
Dealer: Hillmen712 bets $0.50
Dealer: phlyersphan raises to $2
Dealer: wisnerminnick raises to $3.50
Dealer: Matimbo raises to $12.50
Dealer: Hillmen712 folds
Dealer: v vega is feeling confused
Dealer: phlyersphan has 15 seconds left to act
Dealer: phlyersphan raises to $21.50
Dealer: wisnerminnick calls $18
Dealer: Matimbo raises to $75.85, and is all in
Dealer: phlyersphan calls $28.15, and is all in
Dealer: wisnerminnick calls $9.90, and is all in
Dealer: Matimbo shows [6h 8d]
Dealer: phlyersphan shows [7s 5c]
Dealer: wisnerminnick shows [Kd Ks]
Dealer: Uncalled bet of $26.20 returned to Matimbo
Dealer: The river is [8s]
Dealer: Matimbo shows a straight, Nine high
Dealer: phlyersphan shows two pair, Sevens and Fives
Dealer: Matimbo wins the side pot ($36.50) with a straight,
Nine high
Dealer: wisnerminnick shows three of a kind, Kings
Dealer: Matimbo wins the main pot ($95.70) with a straight,
Nine high

I considered annotating the above history, but decided to let you, the reader, read it through prior to reading my comments. Please give me your comments. I could probably use a verbal lashing over this one.

Here's what I was thinking.

Big blind, my hand sucks - let's see a free flop, woohooo!

Flop gives me two pair. Wow. Big blind special. Woohooo! I called the minimum bet from my opponent. Broke my own rule number 1 - it used to be, rarely slowplay. Now, it's NEVER SLOWPLAY WITHOUT A BOAT. That's my new slowplay requirement. Must flop a boat or higher in order to slowplay.

Turn brings the 9d. This time I raise my opponent's minimum bet to $2. Wisner raises to $3.50, but he was raising left and right with absolutely nothing (no pairs, no draws, not even cards over ten in his hand), so I'm not concerned. Matimbo - well, there's two clubs onboard and he likes those soooooooted cards, so I'm putting him on a flush draw. Most of his suited cards have had a face card in them, aside from the Doyle Brunson, which may have been played simply because "if Doyle can win with it, so can I." When he raises to $12.50, I figure he's trying to scare people out and pick up the nice little pot that was developing. The thought crossed my mind that he might have the 8-6 for a straight (that being my friend Ed's favorite hand, so I know there are people who play it), but he didn't seem to me like the "ANY two suited" kind - just the "ace or face suited" kind. So after considering the 8-6 as a possibility, I dismissed it and re-raised his scare bet. By now just under half of my stack is in this pot.

Turns out it wasn't really a scare bet, as he re-raised me all-in. At this point, I pretty much stopped all logical forms of thought, and figured, well - half my stack is in there, I'm pretty heavily invested, and I think there's still a chance I've got the best hand. I called off my stack.

Turns out Matimbo was playing 8-6 OFFSUIT. He explained his starting hand choice as, "I was on a rush - figured why not?" or something along those lines. Wow. Here I had him pegged as a decent player. Is that what they mean when they say that good players need to "mix it up" sometimes? I sure missed that bus. Any two cards.

I figure, I made a couple huge mistakes on this hand.

1. Not re-raising the flop. Granted, as Matimbo was open-ended on the flop, he'd have probably called anyway, but my hand was not invulnerable and MUCH needed the protection attempt of a re-raise there.

2. I don't think my re-raising on the turn was a mistake, but I ** definitely ** should have paid attention to the information that it bought me. The come-back all-in re-raise was screaming, "HEY SHEL, YOU ARE BEAT!" I should have laid the hand down and considered that ten dollar re-raise as the cost of information.

3. If I'm going to get my stack all-in, I'd better be the one pushing it - not calling it off. WTF was I thinking? You need a much stronger hand to CALL an all-in than to push all-in yourself, and I know that.

4. When looking at the flop texture, I clearly saw the obvious flush draw, and even saw the sneaky little straight draw. What I completely ignored was the fact that I could have been completely destroyed by even smaller hands, like those sneaky little sets. Hello?? Anybody home?? Even wisner guy had me crushed. Poor guy, losing with his set of Kings. Tough beat, man.

I was talking with SirF a few days ago, and he said something that I dismissed as being overly conservative at the time. Looks like I should learn more by listening to those who have played more NL ring games than I, instead of insisting on learning by making my own (expensive) mistakes. He was saying something along the lines of, top pair/top kicker isn't a strong NL hand when facing mad raises - and that even two pair isn't strong. I thought to myself, yeah, I can see TPTK being easily beat, but two pair? I think that's pretty strong!

What I failed to consider was the context of the conversation. In the context of a limit game, sure - take your two pair to the river. It's going to cost a set amount of money to do so, in most cases, and if you lose, you're down a few big bets. No limit, on the other hand, has no cost certainty. Those two pair can cost you your stack.

They cost me mine. I should have never doubted you, SirF! You'd have saved me fifty bucks, if only I'd have listened.

Anyway... at the time, right after this hand, I wasn't feeling bitter. I was baffled at the play of 8-6 offsuit, and thought "wow - silly me had him pegged as a decent player," but I thought that I'd taken a calculated risk and lost. I knew I might have been beat, but believe I also might have had the winning hand, and with so much in the pot, I chose to gamboool and find out.

Now that I've looked over the hand, I realize that in my "calculations," I missed a whole lot of information that I should have used to lay the hand down. I think I'm more mad now than I was when my fifty bucks slid away! I really thought that I was choosing to gamble and got unlucky. In reality, I was ignoring very obvious signs and gave away a buy-in for no good reason.

Bad, bad, bad, bad play on my part. Anything I missed?

Good hand, Matimbo. Ya got me. It won't happen again, though. (And if you keep on playing those 8-6o's, I'm going to take back all of my money - I promise!)