A Win, Finally

Dawn Summers, Alceste and I made an impromptu trip to the Borgata Saturday. After a 4-hour ordeal in the car that included me shaking my fist at some construction workers on the NJ Turnpike extension (who closes one lane of a busy two-lane highway on a Saturday afternoon?), we were each seated at different 1-2 NLHE tables.

Long story short, after about 6.5 hours of play I booked a small $200 win that could easily have been a $500 win, but for one 85-15 bad beat in the last half hour of play that Dawn has taken the liberty of blogging for me (although she got the flop action wrong, as usual). My reads were spot on all night, my aggression was better than last outing if still off, and overall I didn't make too many mistakes.

But let's talk about mistakes, because they usually make for interesting analysis.

In my first half hour at the table, I found AdKd in middle position and opened for $12. I should say that my hands were shaking a bit when I threw the chips out -- my fingers were cold and I had just finished a cup of coffee. This was remarked on, at the time, by the table maniac who would later double me up. In any event, I had only one caller, a Ron Jeremy look-alike (complete with overflowing gut barely concealed beneath a cheezy "Scarface" t-shirt), who had been playing at the table for the previous 25 hours and had about $1100 in front of him in five tall stacks.

The flop came Jh-Kc-Th. Not really a great flop for my hand, especially given that everything I had seen about Ron Jeremy suggested that he only played solid holdings. I bet $25, which he called. The turn was a blank, and I came out firing a second time for $50. He called again. At that point, I was confident that I had the best hand - if he had more than top pair, I would have expected to hear about it with a turn raise. He was definitely on some type of draw.

The river was another ten to pair the board. Not a great card, but probably not catastrophic. I couldn't show weakness with a check, because he could easily make a bet which I would have a hard time calling. I opted instead for a $50 bet. Sure, Ron Jeremy could raise, but at least I'm putting him to a more difficult decision than by merely checking. Ron Jeremy turned to me and said "Do you know that I had a gutshot royal flush draw? You know what that means, right?" He stacked off $50 in redbirds and threw them into the pot. "If you have aces, you have them." I showed him my slick and he showed AhKh.

To recap: Ron Jeremy flopped TPTK along with a 12-card draw to the nuts, and passively called all the way to the river. It was at that point that I knew I had to respect Ron Jeremy's post-flop raises.

I was also reminded of the quote from Abdul which sits at the top of Glyphic's blog: "Your opponent cannot fold if you do not bet or raise." I guess if Ron Jeremy thought I was on aces, and unlikely to fold, I can understand not raising pre-flop or on the flop (maybe), but his whole read seemed to be based on the fact that my hand was shaking slightly as I raised pre-flop. Also, while I can appreciate that the flop may have looked as dangerous to him as it did to me, with TPTK and a 12-card draw to the nuts, I would definitely have played my hand more aggressively -- especially with the luxury of an intimidating stack of $1100. Put me to a decision, and get more information on my hand. Waiting for the nuts is ok only if you know that your opponent is going to pay you off.

I think the lesson was twofold: play big hands more aggressively, and play to your table image. Based on later play, Ron Jeremy did not seem to be willing to make any moves with his stack unless he was sitting on a monster. He was the prototype of a tight-weak player. I saw him make a small ($30) river bluff once, in a small pot, that was called down by a guy with a tin star on his chest the size of the sun. He was completely wasting two of the best weapons in his arsenal -- his stack and his image.

Oh well, that's his problem. I'm just happy I finally broke the streak and booked a win.