Friday, June 17, 2005

The pot limit laywer's game

A friend of mine at work swings by my desk yesterday, so excited he can barely breathe (He's a very heavyset individual). After several minutes of waiting for him to catch his breathe while he tries to form coherent sentences, he finally gets it out. There's a pot limit .25-.50 game on the other side of town that a friend of a friend of a friend is hosting, and it's apparantly filled with a bunch of wealthy fish. They're all laywers. After mulling and pondering, I finally decide to check the game out. I pick up a completely different friend (For the purposes of this story, we'll call him Richie) and we both head over to this guy's house. Armed with Powerade and cigarettes, we bust through the garage door to find the host (a foreign guy whose name I can't pronounce) and Hal (My overweight friend). Oh well. Guess I'll smoke half my pack waiting for the rest of these jokers to show up. I check my watch. 8:30 PM. I have to get up at 8:00 AM. *sigh*

Finally everyone shows up and we get the game underway. Richie and I buy in for $20 each. I've decided that since at this point I have no idea who most of these people are, I'll be better off playing extremely tight until I see what kind of players they are. Yeah.... about 5 hands in I realize that they're all draw-chasers. Every last one of them. 6 high flush draw on the turn? No problem, I'll call your $4 bet and raise you $12. And to top it off, after they river their flush, they start prattling on about how they played the hand SO perfect and wondered how I could call them down with trips with an ace kicker. I kindly excuse myself, go outside and proceed to smash as many windows as possible in 2 minutes, then like the gentleman I am, go back inside and pretend like nothing happened.

One hand in particular that comes to mind.

.25-.50 PL 8 handed.
I'm dealt ATs on the button. It's folded to MP (foreign guy), who limps along with MP1. I raise it up to $2, small blind folds, big bling (Hal) calls, MP and MP1 both call.

Flop Tc Td 4c. Hal bets $1, MP raises to $3, MP1 folds, I re-raise to $10. Hal immediately calls, foreign guy thinks for a minute, and folds.

Turn Qs. Hal checks, I bet $6, he thinks for a long time and raises to $12. I go into the tank.
Based on the way he's been playing I can put him on a pretty wide range at this point. He's been bluffing at some pots pretty heavily all night. On the other hand, he knows how tight I've been playing, and I don't know if he has the balls to try and bluff when he thinks I'm already made. So. What could he possibly have? Based on how quickly he called the flop raise, I have to assume that he hit the flop in some way. Possibly pocket 4's? I don't think so. T4? I don't think so. An overpair? Unlikely, he would have re-raised me preflop with 9's or better. I'm pretty sure I have him beat at this point, but I decide just to call.

River 7c. Hal checks, I go all in for another $14.50. Hal calls without hesitation (Pot is now around $70) He flips over 6c8c for the rivered flush.

How do you think he played this hand? Feel free to leave comments.

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