Friday, October 24, 2014

A Twist to Aces vs. Kings

After the post here, I had two more sessions at the Bike, attempting to use the same strategy. I won a little during the first one and lost a little during the second one.  The poker was unexceptional and not worth blogging about. 

The trouble was, I was incredibly card dead.  In fact, during the four sessions, totaling almost 18 hours of play, I was never once dealt pocket Aces, pocket Kings or pocket Jacks.  Not a single time. I had pocket Queens twice during that time—in the same session.  I’m sure that law of averages would dictate that I get a premium pair a lot more than twice in 18 hours of poker.

And in trying to follow the Ed Miller strategy I was learning, I had a fairly tight range of starting hands, so I just didn’t play a lot of hands.  Now that I think of it, however, his strategy was centered around play in early and middle position, I probably could have opened up the range a bit in late position, and I didn’t do that.  So next time I will remember that I can play more hands on the button.

Anyway, during one of the sessions I did learn about a hand that I think is worth mentioning, even tho I didn’t see it.

When I got to the table, at around Noon, there was a kid there with probably more chips than I’d ever seen anyone ever have at a low-stakes ($2/$3) game.  It looked like close to $2,000, give-or-take.  He was a young guy who I didn’t recognize wearing a baseball cap (the proper way), no headphones, earbuds, sunglasses or hoodie.  I observed his play right away, and he was not at all aggressive, he sure wasn’t taking advantage of his monster stack to bully the table. 

The max buy-in is $300, so I asked the guy to my right, who looked an awful lot like long-time blog reader CoolDave88, (see here), if he knew how the guy had gotten all those chips. He said that he had won a $1,200, three-way pot and never looked back.

Then he described the hand.  It was all-in preflop. The kid had pocket Aces.  The other two players both had the dreaded pocket Kings.  And boy, were they ever dreaded that time!  And sadly, the guy telling me the story was one of the poor saps with the cowboys.  Ouch.

A crazy variation to the ol’ Aces vs. Kings hand I’ve mentioned a few times before (see here), huh?  The two guys with the Kings were drawing nearly dead, and of course the kid with the Aces was a very happy camper.  The most amazing part of the story was that, with my luck with the dreaded hand, I wasn’t one of the guys with Kings.  The fact that I hadn’t arrived at the Bike yet might have had something to do with it.

Anyway, I was there less than half an hour when the kid racked up and took his chips with him.  It was a bit over $1,900.  I asked him how long he had been playing.  He said he arrived at the Bike at around 5AM.  Five AM?  My goodness, I can’t imagine any circumstances that would find me at the Bike playing poker at 5AM.  Maybe that’s why I don’t win $1,600 playing poker.

I couldn’t get Aces or Kings dealt to me in 18 hours of poker, but in that one hand, three guys had them!  But I’m pretty happy that I wasn’t one of the guys with the Kings there, at least.

Ouch.

Note:  This is a short post (by my standards) and I couldn't think of any appropriate pic to look for.  So I figured no one would object to this totally off-topic picture of Kate Upton.  Please let me know if I have misjudged my audience.

8 comments:

  1. greatest blog post EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! u r smart as fornication

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    1. Thanks, anger, glad to hear from you again, since you hadn't commented on the last few recent posts, I was afraid you were abandoning me for some site that mad MORE gratuitous pics of cleavage.

      But sir.....remember the words of a famous blogger, I'm actually dumb as fornication!

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    2. i wouldnt leave just busy with fantasy,weed,FWB,freerolls,and taco bell. u know important sheeeeeeeeit

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  2. Drawing dead. Ah, the memories. One of my favorite hands EVAR was this one at South Point, in which I had just my unimproved overpair to the flop, yet had two opponents drawing completely dead, with all three of us all in.

    http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/12/once-in-while-game-just-plays-itself.html

    (The second story in that post.)

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    1. Thanks Grump, that was another fun post of yours. And very rare to have two opponents drawing dead on the flop with you having just an overpair. Can you teach me how to do that?

      I do have a question for you....in that post, and in others, you indicate that you buy in to a 1/2 game for $100 usually. I'm curious as to why. Most good players would buy into a 1/2 game for $200 minimum (100 big blinds). Why do you prefer only 50 big blinds?

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    2. I really thought you had my entire blog archives memorized by now. I am so disappointed to learn that you don't. If you did, you would know of the post in which I described shifting from a habitual $100 buy-in to a usual $300 buy-in, and how and why that change was happening: http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2009/07/buying-in-big.html

      Now that I'm rereading that, I think it might make a good subject for my next PokerNews strategy article--buying in big versus small.

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    3. You have no idea how relevant your comment is.

      A week or two back, I found myself confined to bed due to a recurring of my chronic weak back issues. I got bored with the book I was reading and then I remembered you making a similar comment before.

      So I decided that going through your archives would not only be fun, but it would probably be more +EV than reading any random poker strategy book.

      So, with my trusty Android tablet, I started going thru the Grump archives. I insisted on starting at the very beginning and reading them in order.

      I have found it fascinating in so many ways, highly entertaining and educational. Sadly, reading a Blogger blog in order from the beginning on a tablet is not that user-friendly, but I am working my way thru it.

      But you know, some of your posts were long. Have you ever heard that complaint? I think I found some that make my average post look like tweets. Anyway, I am having fun working my way thru it, and in fact, I am seriously considering doing a post about this journey thru your blog I am taking.

      Since I started at the beginning, I hadn't gotten to the post you linked (or the earlier one you linked in that post), but of course they were great. Thanks for the link.

      Now, if I have given you an idea for a Poker News article, I of course expect my share of the royalties.

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  3. Yeah, I have occasionally been surprised at how long I droned on in some old posts when I've gone back to reread them. But I'm glad you're enjoying the trip down my memory lane!

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