Silver medal

Not done much recently because of Christmas and everything but I did get the pleasure of a couple of hours cash poker in Manchester whilst Emma was at the Miley Cyrus concert.

Unfortunately lady luck decided that I wasn't coming home with any profit after a couple of hands of interest.

The first one involved effective stacks of £175 in the £1/£2 game that involved a lot of pre flop limping with multiple players seeing the flop.

I got to see a cheap flop in the big blind with J9 and about 6 checked the Th9d3s flop. When the 9h came I checked and it was folded to the button who bet £12 into the pot of about £16 I raised slightly less than I wanted to because I didn't pick up enough chips in my hand so the raise was to £25 and everyone folded except the big blind who went all in. I studied before calling expecting at worst that he would have something like 89. He turned over Ah2h for the turned flush draw and the dealer turned over the 6h to give him the flush.

I wonder if everyone else thinks along these lines?

I quite liked his bet on the turn with the flush draw but when I raised with 5 others still to act he must I must have either a nine of at worst a flush draw. By raising he is chasing away the flush draw that would get him paid and almost always getting a call from a 9.

The other hand involved what I now think was a bad play by me.

After limping I called a late position raise of £16 with QsTh, 3 of us see the flop.

The flop came KsJs2s to which two of us checked to the raiser who went all in for £50 holding what I thought was likely to be top pair maybe with a spade then the first player announced that he thought the raiser had a big pair and then called the £50. At this point I felt certain that the first player had a poor 2 pair because of what he said and so if I raised now he would "know" that I had him beat and I had the up and down draw with also the second nut flush draw so I went all in for an extra £70. He called with his K2 and the dealer dealt the 2d to give him a full house.

Afterwards K2 man told me that he knew he was behind when I went all in (even though he wasn't)

My thinking at the time was flawed because the play might have been right if there was extra money in the pot that the raiser couldn't have won, giving me a side pot and a free shot at the main pot. The other flaw is whether my raise was big enough for him to fold 2 pair to my reraise. I'm not sure how big the reraise would have to be in that spot to make him fold. I know that I am representing the flush but as he has outs/ I'm liking my play less and less now the more I think about it...

Feel free to criticise me here!

Another hand that comes to mind is where I was UTG and raised to £12 with AA only to be reraised to £35 all in by UTG+1 and then called in late position by a guy who was playing 80%+ hands. I reraised another £40 and he folded having another £100 behind. I lost the race against 99 but thinking now, I possibly should have called pre flop in the hope of getting some more money from the late position player post flop? He did seem to be playing all these hands but then playing carefully post flop with top pair type hands so maybe reraising was right considering the strength he showed pre by calling the rereraise.

Two other things I saw also made me laugh. One was a guy straddling his own big blind!!!! The second was overhearing a local who was thinking about playing the £30 freezeout tournamant saying that there was no value, but if it had been a double chance tournament he might have played for the value! I think he was totally missing the point of what value represents in poker!

The only other thing to mention is that I came second in the APAT online WCOAP stud tournament to win a silver medal and entry into the next live APAT tournament. I haven't played many stud tournaments but I really enjoyed it and I am thinking of playing a few more as even a novice like me could see loads of mistakes being made by players who I know to be competent at holdem.

Anyway, bed for now.