HugePoker

I busted out of the EPT San Remo main event about 20 minutes shy of the end of day 1B. It sucks not to make it to day 2, but in truth by the time I busted out I was so short-stacked that I really wanted to get my chips in and either double up or bust out before the end of the night, rather than coming back for day 2 with a miniscule stack - I would have preferred the former option, and I put myself in a good position to get it, but the latter, sadder option took me in the end.

I got off to a pretty good start in the first two hours, working my 30,000 chip starting stack up to almost 40,000, thanks largely to the generosity of an older Italian gentleman who didn’t seem to have a firm grasp of some basic poker tactics, like “if you don’t have a strong hand, you should usually fold”. Very early on he took a pot from me by check-raising my continuation bet when I didn’t really have anything (and before I had determined how bad he was). I decided he was a good person to play pots with, and that I should never ever bluff him under any circumstances. When he called a raise and I had position on both him and the initial raiser, QJs seemed good enough. The big blind also called and we saw the flop 4-handed. KQT, two suits. Not too shabby, but with three opponents I can’t go crazy with second pair. The raiser checks, Guido bets out 600, I call, BB folds, original raiser calls, so we’ve got a decent pot brewing. The turn is a beautiful Ace, giving me the nut straight but putting a second flush draw on the board. Now raiser and Guido both check, allowing me to dare to hope that neither of them have another Jack. I can’t slowplay anything here with two flush draws out there and either opponent perfectly likely to have one of the flush draws, two pair, or even both. I fire 1200, which should make my hand pretty transparent, and the raiser folds but Guido shakes his head and calls, like “OK, I know I’m beat, but I just can’t lay down top pair here, damn it”. The river is a perfectly brick-like offsuit deuce, and I know I’m not losing the hand, but before I can decide how much I can milk Guido for, he actually fires into me, for 3500. Hunh? Could he *possibly* have slow played a Jack on the turn with two flush draws on the board and another player in the hand? OK so that would be really weird, but he’s bad and might do something really weird (hold that thought for later). It doesn’t really matter though - I can’t lose the hand - the worst thing that can happen is that we’re chopping, in which case it doesn’t matter what I do, so I can completely ignore that possibility. If we’re not chopping and he has a weak hand, then no matter what I do he’ll fold, so I can completely ignore that possibility too. So the only thing to consider is that he has a pretty strong hand but not the Jack, and I need to decide whether to just min-raise him, tempting him to call for the size of the pot or shove out a big raise to make him think I’m trying to bluff him. I opt for the min raise, and he agonizes for a long time and I pray pray pray for him to call, and he ends up showing his cards to his heighbor before folding, which prompts another player to insist that he show his cards to the table (a rule known as “show one, show all”). He does, and he has AQ for two pair … I wonder if I had bet bigger if he might have suspected weakness and called me down, but I kind of doubt it. Anyway, nice pot for me, and more info on this Guido guy.

I tangle with him again a few hours later on a hand that brings back sickening memories of my bustout hand at the NAPT main event in Las Vegas in February. I have Tens and there is, once again, an early position raise and a call from Guido. No reason for me to reraise - I call in position to see what develops, ready to give up on the hand if overcards flop. But no … BANG! … The “door card” (the first card exposed by the dealer) is a secret-inner-fist-pump inducing Ten of Spades, and the other cards aren’t to shabby either - Seven of Hearts and Deuce of Spades. I have the best possible hand, but there are a couple of possible draws out there, and I’m up against a guy who’s not very skilled in the art of folding his cards, so there’s no reason to get tricky. Both players check and I bet 1600, almost the size of the pot. Non-Guido gets out of my way (a good player who knows that I know that Guido can’t fold, so he knows that I pretty much have to have a big hand here) but Guido does what’s expected of him and calls. He could have a lot of hands here given my read on the guy - flush draw, 88, 99, JJ, AK, AQ, AJ, AT, KQ, or maybe even (please let it be true) trapping with a lower set. I am of course crushing that range, and the only hand he can have with a decent chance to catch me is a flush draw. The turn is an off-suit King, which I think I like - if he happens to have a King I might win a big pot, and the flush didn’t come in - with the second nuts I’m sure I’m golden, and again, I’ve got a fish on the line who just doesn’t know how to fold. I bet 5500, again just about the size of the pot, enough to make it a mistake for him to call with a flush draw, but it’s a mistake he seems likely to make. And if I’m really lucky he’ll have a King in his hand and he’ll checkraise me. But he just calls, and the river is a Nine … of Spades. Damn It! But I’m not sure he has the flush, and when he checks to me again I’m confident he doesn’t have it (hold that thought for later). I mean, COME ON! … after the way the hand played out, he has to know that I think he might be on a flush draw, so if I have a hand like AT or AK or KT on that river it’s unlikely I’m going to bet it, and even if I did it’s dubious to hope I’m going to call a checkraise, so it’s completely idiotic for him to check if he has the flush, right? (hold that thought for later) He *HAS* to try to get some value out of the hand, and he can’t be confident that I’ll bet it for him. So I think I have to have him beat, and I want to milk him for just a little more money, and I decide it’s safe to do that, so I bet 4000, about a third of his remaining stack. He immediately shoves all his chips in and I groan inside. REALLY? Now I’m kicking myself for betting, but it’s 7,000 to call in a nearly 30,000 chip pot, and I just can’t lay down a set to this guy who I‘ve already seen make a ridiculous bluff at me, so I hold my nose and call and he turns over KJs for the flush, and I hand over more than half my stack, resisting the impulse to puke all over the table.

Another nasty river came up later with me holding JTs, calling a raise in position and seeing a flop of J-8-2. I called on the flop, not thrilled with my hand but certainly not folding. I got happier with the Ten on the turn, but when my good opponent bet strongly on the turn I felt like he either had an overpair or a set, and in either case it wouldn’t do me much good to raise - he might actually be able to fold an overpair, and I didn’t want to lose my whole stack to a set. The river Eight was another puker. Now whether he had an overpair or a set I’m beat, and the only decent hand he could have that I can beat is A-J, and when he bet half my stack on the river I just didn’t think he would do that with A-J, and I made a soul-crushing fold. He wouldn’t tell me, so I’ll never know whether the river was a bad beat, or whether I was behind all along, or whether he bluffed me or value-bet me off the best hand, but either way it was super painful.

So that made me pretty short … not quite desperate, but definitely uncomfortable. I went up and down for a while, but never doubled up or gained any real traction, and as the end of the night neared and the blinds went up I was in fact in desperate mode. I paid the blinds and realized that I would need to shove my chips in at some point that orbit, and just before I got to play my button the floor man came over and handed out chip racks, meaning that we were breaking our table. Horrible news, since I had just paid the blinds and was so short on chips. I got moved to a new table miles away, and luckily was in late position so I would get several hands before the blinds chewed into me, but there was a raise every hand in front of me and I never had a playable hand. When it finally happened that everyone before me folded, I was prepared to go all-in with any two cards, but I had to make a show of looking at my cards and trying to make it look like I was excited about them. It turned out that none of my (considerable) acting talent was required, as I was staring down at QQ, the best pair I had seen all day (the only other decent pair was TT, and we know how that turned out). So I push in my chips and actually hoped for someone to call, and when the small blind with a short stack (meaning only double mine) asked for a count and deliberated for a long time I was pretty sure I was in good shape. He finally shoved over the top of my shove, the big blind folded, and the small blind tabled AK. I don’t know what all his thinking was about, but we were off to the races. My misery was ended quickly with a King on the flop, and I made the walk of shame out of the poker room and back to our apartment.

That’s two big-buyin live tournaments in a row in which I’ve flopped top set and lost a massive pot, and two big-buyin tournaments in a row in which I’ve busted out of the event on pocket Queens. At least this time both events didn’t slap me on the same hand … I guess.

Vanessa and Chad both busted on day 1 as well, so it was a weak showing all around in San Remo for Team Rouge (get it?). There is a satellite tonight for the 2000 Euro event tomorrow, so I’ll try to win a seat for that (but probably won’t play the event if I don’t win a seat), and then there are 300 Euro turbo tournaments for the next few nights. So there’s a chance for some small bit of redemption, but the big event is finito.

Now on to the Italian vacation …

-huge