Cash Cow

Thursday November 22nd

Played Leo's again, £20 rebuy.

A couple of hands of interest in the tournament.

One involved me raising after 6 people had limped when I was on the big blind with 22 and a 2 hit on the flop giving me a healthy stack.

The last hand before the add on was interesting.

It involve a regular I know called Simon who has played a few bigger tournaments and finished 6th in the GBPT in Leeds.

It was interesting because we had been talking about playing trips on the flop and Simon had mentioned to someone else how he would normally bet trips because to check call gives away that you have the trips.

Anyway, in this hand I had 57 on the button.

The flop came down KK4. It was checked around. On the turn of a 9 Simon, in the big blind, lead out, it was folded to me.

I felt, here is the chance to test Simon, so I flat called with the intention of bluffing on the river.

The river was another blank and I'm expecting a check here but simon bets 1200 - the same value as his turn bet. This set me thinking about what he had. I had 7000 chips in total and Simon had me covered.

I picked up my chips and had a little think and the bottom line is I bottled it!

Simon's cunningly small bet threw me and I folded.

We talked about it in the break and he told me that he had nothing and he had bet small to make it look like he wanted the raise. I told him what I had and we both agreed that it was a great way to learn.

So lesson learned.

I went out shortly after the break with a button raise with J5 when short stacked and it was off to the cash table again.

To be honest, one of the reasons for me stepping up my action soon after the break was that I could see an open seat immediately to the left of our resident loose calling station.

I too my seat and unfortunately he left pretty soon after. However, what looked like a table short on action still worked out really well.

The most notable hands include one where I was very lucky with 24 in late position after I had joined the usual limpfest.

The flop came down 234 rainbow.

I bet after a few checks and was reraised by on of the blinds. Now this is easily done by A5 let alone an over pair so I reraised and he called all in with A5 so I needed a 2 or 4 and fortunately one came on the river.

And now for the most interesting hand.

I raised in to 11 in late position with AK which had 4 callers.

The flop came down Q T 4 and there was a bet of 10 from the small blind which was called by UTG me and the button.

The turn was another 4 which was again bet very small (20) by the small blind and called by the UTG so I thought that there was a chance that an A or K would be good and a J would almost certainly be good and I would see how the betting goes so I called, as did the button.

Now, before we go any further I would like to say that one my strengths is reading people. I have read a lot about tells and also body language and I find that I am quite good at telling whether someone thinks they are ahead or not.

Obviously I don't always get it right and I have made calls in the past when my read was that someone did not want me to call and so I have called and they were ahead, once when the player had top set but there was a flush draw on the board and he didn't want the call even though he was way ahead!

Anyway, back to the hand.
The turn was a J giving me the top straight.

So the big blind bets 50 and is raised by the UTG to 100 so I have a decision to make here. I still have the button to act behind me and the blind has another 100 so the utg can't reraise again. After a couple of minutes thinking I call, the button folds and the big blind reluctantly calls.

The big blind had trip 4s and the utg had K9 for a lower straight.

I got a bit of stick with people questioning why I took so long to call. One thought I was angling for someone to reraise. When I said that I nearly folded no-one would believe me.

My thinking was that the small betting from the blind could have been because he had a set on the flop meaning he could have had a full house in the end. I didn't think that was that likely but the fact that the utg raised really put the possibility of a full house on the board.

I would be interested if anyone else has any opinions on that (if anyone is reading this)

Maybe I'm too concerned with someone having the best hand, I'm not too sure but I think I'm going to have to be a bit looser regarding these situations in future, in this game anyway!

Anyway, it all worked out well and I walked away £580 up, so another good night.