Two Bodog SNGs

Just finished two Bodog single-table SNGs, $10 each. The first was Omaha/8. I thought that might be fun. First hand I flopped top full house and clicked the "bet" button every time it was my turn. On the second hand, when somebody put in a pre-flop raise three times the size of the big blind, it dawned on me that something was amiss. I looked more closely at the game header and for the first time noticed that it was pot-limit, not fixed-limit. D'oh! I likely could have made a lot more on the first hand. Well, actually, I probably wouldn't have signed up for it to begin with, since I don't have a good sense of PLO8 strategy.

Here's how I went out: I have A-8-5-2 double-suited, raise, get one caller from small blind. Flop is 7-6-3 rainbow, giving me nut low and open-ended straight draw. This I like. He bets minimum, I pot, he shoves, I call. He has Q-5-4-2, single-suited (a strange hand with which to have called from the worst position pre-flop, to say the least). That gives him the flopped straight. No problem, thinks I. If I catch my draw, I've got a higher straight, and, in any event, I have the nut low for half the pot locked up.

Not so fast, Grumpy boy! Turn is an ace, counterfeiting my low. That is, I have 7-6-3-2-A, but he now has 6-4-3-2-A. River is another 6 so I missed my high draw, too. Buh-bye. Thanks for playing.

What a stupid game.

But the other SNG I entered at the same time was good ol' no-limit hold'em. I winz it. The only mildly interesting thing was the end game. When finally heads-up, I had about 11,000 to his 4,000. He started going all-in on every single hand, and I had a seemingly endless string of 3-2, 7-4, 9-5, J-2, etc. I just folded to him every time, after I tried a raise once and he shoved yet again. But finally, after what seemed like eternity, when he was up to a little over 6000 chips and I was down to below 9000, the heavens opened, angelic choirs sang, the poker gods did have mercy, and I saw A-A before my eyes. It was his button and he open-shoved, as always. I called. He had A-2 offsuit. He did not improve.

As Mike Sexton is fond of saying, his was a move that will work every time but once.