Daily Archives: Thursday, 20 January 2011

#10 Downer Street

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I meant to add this to the end of the last post because it’s an excellent lesson in come-uppance or the turn of the worm or something. Certainly it’s an example of why you have to have the ability to stand back from your game and see how your own setbacks fall into the patterns established by players before you.

It had been only a few hours since I’d seen the remarkable self-destruction of the giant stack in the guarantee game and I was in another sub-rung of the EPT Steps competition. I’d had a very lucky triple up early on when three of us drawing four to a straight came up short and my ace kicker paired on the turn. After a few smaller wins I’d doubled up to more than 11K cleaning out three smaller stacks after a [jd] on the river gave me trips. A little up and down around that level and then another pair of jacks got me up to 15,200.

The way the Steps Special tournament is structured, there are only 111,000 chips in play among 111 starting players. At the end, those will be spread out among nine players, averaging about 12,333 each. Some players would have more—maybe a lot more—but as long as you have one chip when the player in 10th place is eliminated, you get the Step A ticket. So this is the spot I should have started folding pretty much everything and let the smaller players slug it out, at least until it looked like I might be a little light for a few rounds of blinds.

Instead, I gambled on a [tc th] and lost 900 above my small blind (300) and ante (50). A little later I went to showdown with [kc ts] and lost 2,600 extra chips. Tossed 1,200 away with [5s 7s] (admittedly, I was in 400 for the small blind on that one). Seriously? I was down more than 8K in eleven hands but the blinds had only touched me twice in that time.

I was down to 7BB but if I’d  looked at the other totals I could probably have still made it through to the winner’s circle. Instead, I went all-in for 4,740 with [5h qh] and lost, going out on the bubble and probably making the stacks under me (there were a couple!) very happy.

Schadenfreude

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Poker is a game (like most others) where you can literally derive pleasure from the plight of others, specifically by taking their chips away from them. It has the capacity to bring about gleefully vicious comments even by people not involved in the current action In part that’s because any large stack that gets broken down or even a small stack that busts out tends to benefit the rest of the players by making a big stack less dangerous or simply moving people up the ladder to money.

Late last night I experienced a rather large dose of schadenfreude myself in a 6-max $2K guarantee tournament. I entered late, in Level V at 30/60 and was somewhat startlingly seated next to a player using the name of a company I’d once run. By my 19th hand that player was gone and replaced. The guy two seats behind me in action—who’d been raising everyone off  with a pot-sized bet practically—was up to 19K, and I was down to 1,000 chips, a third of my starting stack. The other four players at the table were between 1,600 and 2,000 chips.

I picked up [qh js] in the cutoff position as action folded around to me. There wasn’t much time left before I didn’t have any breathing space at all so I put out a 400 chip bet into a pot of only 120. The button called, as did the big stack who was in the small blind. Three players to a flop of [2d jc ks]. The big stack checked and I shoved my remaining 633 chips into the pot. Both the other players folded and I was back up to 1,913.

That seemed to be a turning point for the big stack in everyone’s mind, though. He still had nine time more chips than anyone else at the table but our inevitable demise was now evitable. Everyone played the next hand but me. The flop of [7c 2s th] was checked around to the big stack on the button who remained true to form and bet 320. The UTG player went all-in for 1,520 and got called by the big stack. [tc 8c] for UTG game him top pair and [7h qd] gave the big stack middle pair with an over card. The [td] showed up on the river to make trip tens and the big stack was down for the second hand in a row.

The next hand played out in a similar fashion. Big stack made a big bet pre-flop from the cutoff. There were a couple of callers (big blind and UTG+1, on either side of me). Flop is an innocuous [8d 4d th], big blind bets 880 after a check, UTG+1 calls. On the river UTG+1 goes all-in and gets a call. It’s [as a7] (big stack) against [ac 4s] but the small stack has taken another chunk out of the monster, who’s now down to a little over 15K. Still a lot more than any of the rest of us but blood is in the water.

My turn in the big blind with [td 9h]. The big stack’s holding back a little bit this time, only betting 240 but I call him and get a beautiful straight completion on the flop [kh jd qs]. I coyly check, he bets 1,120, and I’m all-in for 1,673, which gets a call. He’s got [8c qc] and about a 4% chance of winning if he makes a full house or four queens but the [5s] on the turn seals that off. He’s down to 13.4K.

He must have been getting frustrated because in UTG position on the next hand (blinds now at 50/100/10) he launches his whole stack on to the table for an all-in. But he gets a call from the button and when the cards flip the button’s holding [as jc] against the big stack’s [qc 6c]. There’s a bit of tension on the [qs 8s 8c] flop, but an [ad] on the turn gives the win to the small stack. Since the button already doubled up against the big stack once, the pot’s over 6K. In four hands, the giant has been reduced from more than 18K to a bit over 10K.

Rather than reassess, he tries it again. The most recent receiver of the big stack’s largesse and I both limp into the pot. The not-so-big stack blasts everything in as the big blind. The player to my right calls by going all-in and I drop out. Big stack has [as 8d], the caller has [jd ks]. [kc] rolls out on the flop with a [jc] following on the turn and the two pair take it. It leaves the “big” stack with 3,926 chips, which is exactly 230 chips more than I have.

Yet another player halves him on the next hand. Then, with everyone limping in ahead of him, he shoves yet again, though it’s with an anaemic 1,976 chips. Three of us (me and the two players on either side of me) call. I’ve got [6s 6c] but the flop is [jd 4s ad]. Not much for me there. The first player to act bets 1,700, more than I have left. I call all-in, hoping for a six to show. The other caller in the cutoff is all-in as well.

When the other cards flip it’s [qc qs] for the former big stack, [ac 8h] for the new big stack, and [qh jc] for the cutoff. The all-ins are hoping for trip completions, but [2d] [7s] on the turn and river don’t do it and nobody has even a diamond, much less a flush draw.

So, I went out on the same round as the buy who went from 18.5K to out in seven hands, despite having 69% of the chips at the table and a 9:1 lead over an of his opponents. But I suspect I was laughing more.