Nasty, brutish, and short

Thomas Hobbes apparently foresaw my day at the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza. Less than two hours in, I was waylayed by two hands in rapid succession.

First, I had 4-5 offsuit in the big blind. Blinds were 75/150 (Level 2), and I had a stack of about 13,000 (starting stack was 12,000), small blind had quite a bit less. Everybody folded, and he limped. Flop was 4-5-6 with two clubs. SB checked. I bet 250 with my bottom two pair. He raised all in, total of 7050, a completely ridiculous overbet. He did it instantly and forcefully. The unmistakable message was, "Go away, give me the pot." I thought this was completely defensive, trying to shut out any straight draws and flush draws with a weak made hand. If he had a really strong hand--flopped set or straight--I think he would try to extract more value than this, try to make me pay too much for a draw. I just didn't believe that he had my two pair beat. So after thinking a bit, I called. I was right: he had 8-8. He had to hit an 8 for a set, a 7 for a straight, a 6 for a higher two pair, or some weird runner-runner combination. Turn was the 9 of spades, eliminating the backdoor clubs threat. But the river was a 7, making his gutshot straight. Ick. That knocked me down to 5900 chips.

Just a few hands later, with blinds up to 100/200, I had As-Kd offsuit in early position. I raised to 600 after one limper. Young woman on the button called. Blinds and limper folded. Flop was Kh-Jc-4h. I bet 1200 into the 1700 pot. She raised to 4000. I had 4100 left. This was a difficult spot. Having watched her play for about 90 minutes, I didn't think she was bad enough to have called my early-position raise with any down cards that would have flopped her two pair. The possible exception was a suited K-J, but one king in my hand and one on the board made that much less likely. With K-K or J-J she almost surely would have reraised pre-flop. 4-4 was obviously a possibility, but I thought that most of her range consisted of (1) things like Jh-10h for a pair and a flush draw, or Qh-10h for combined straight and flush draws; and (2) another A-K. I was OK with taking my hand against those.

But she had what was for me the worst part of her range: the 4-4 for a flopped set. I would need to catch two running cards to make a straight or full house to win, and that didn't happen. I was one of the first players out.

Like I said, nasty, brutish, and short. Poker is like that some days. OK, a lot of days.

Before we got to the nasty and brutish, however, there were a couple of highlights. I continued my experiment with finding spots in which to raise rather than just call. Two were noteworthy, I think.

With blinds at 50/100, it folded to me in the cutoff with Ah-Jh. I opened for 275. The big blind reraised to 700. My usual reaction is to either fold or call. This time, though, I decided that there was a good chance that he was just reading me for a blind steal with any two cards, because that's certainly what it looked like. I decided to test his resolve, and four-bet him to 2100. It took him only about three seconds to throw his cards away. I guess I was right.

The second example happened when I had 10c-10d, blinds still at 75/150. The guy on my right open-raised to 500. I called, as did the player on my left, who had just recently joined the tournament as a late registration. Flop was 7-6-2 with two diamonds. Original raiser bet 1200. My usual play here would be to just call, waiting to see what the third player will do, as well as finding out whether the guy leading will bet again on the turn, to help me sort out if he has a bigger pocket pair versus unpaired big cards. But in accordance with my desire to try an extra ounce of aggression, I decided instead to raise, making it 3000. If either one came back over the top, I could safely conclude that he had a higher pair or a set. A flat-call from the player on my left would be plenty alarming, too. But they both folded. Pot to me.

So even though this tournament didn't turn out to be the test of my endurance as I had hoped and planned (they play until 2:00 a.m. after starting at noon), I both played reasonably well and got a couple more instances of being rewarded for selective stepping up the aggression beyond my usual zone of comfort and safety--before getting hit with a combination of a bad beat and a cold deck. So I got that going for me, which is nice.