Poker Words - A Poker Blog: WSPL Goes to Vegas Game 3

If only I had been able to convince people to start on an online home game years ago think of how much fun we could have had, and how much more poker we could have enjoyed. And also how much more of our money would be tied up in online gambling purgatory. Just kidding. Poker Stars actually did a decent job of refunding player's money. Not like another one of my former favorite sites.

I'm defiantly getting more comfortable with this format. Some of it just shaking of the rust, and it certainly didn't hurt that I won last game, but I'm at a point now where I don't worry that I'm up against pretty good players and that I could be getting trapped on any given hand. I'm able to loosen up and play more aggressively and I've got decent reads on most my fellow players where I generally know where I am in a hand.

The table is fairly passive again. People are fairly tentative and I think concerned about where they go out since there are points riding on it. I think I'm able to use that to my advantage as I steal a lot of pots early on and I get to see a lot of free pots from the BB, many of which I hit. I'll post the stats later on, but of the 26 hands I played from either blind, I saw 17 flops.

I may have to rethink my stance on online poker being rigged. We saw so many hands where the player behind would spike his 1-4 outer on the river to stay alive that it was ridiculous. I think the stats for going all-in while behind went 20-2 for the guy behind. The two of course were hands that I lost, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The first crazy hand came about a half hour in. Shane and Cookie were the two short stacks at the table and see a flop of AAA. Shane goes all-in with a pair of jacks, and Cookie calls with QK. He hits a K on the river to knock Shane out.

I recorded a number of other bad beat hands, but you get the point. I'll spare you the details. Now that I think about it though I don't think I was involved on either end of a bad beat hand.

I played pretty well for most of the tourney. As I mentioned earlier I was able to steal a lot of pots and take advantage of most people playing very cautiously. I was the chip leader, or close to it for the majority of the time.

My demise came about an hour into the tourney. There were five of us left and I was in the small blind with K4o. Its folded to me and I just call. The flop is KJ8 and I lead out. Noah, in the BB raises. At this point I think I've probably got the best hand. I hit top pair, the chances that he actually has a better king, or two pair are pretty slim. I figure he thinks I'm trying to push him off the pot so I reraise, and surprisingly he calls.

The turn is a rag, and I bet again. He calls. The river doesn't help either. I'm not real confident in my hand anymore, but I have to bet. If I don't, then I have to fold to any bet that he makes, and while I'm concerned I still think I have the best hand. I bet as little as I think I can get away with where he won't be tempted to reraise unless he has definitely has me beat, but also enough that he might fold something like KT. It doesn't matter. He had the call anything box checked because he had pocket aces. He was scared that I had hit a set.

That hand knocked be back to the short stack status, with about as many chips as we started the tourney with.

Shortly thereafter is a similar situation. I have J7 in the small blind and hit a flop of AJ8. BB raises my post flop bet all in and I think to myself that he can't possibly have an ace again. But he does, and I'm out in fifth.

I was watching the game stats throughout, surprised at the number of hands I played, and my success rate with those hands. Too bad it only takes one failed hand to knock you out. Here's the final stats for me, about an hour into the tourney, going out in fifth out of nine.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 78 hands and saw flop:
- 9 out of 13 times while in big blind (69%)
- 8 out of 13 times while in small blind (61%)
- 4 out of 52 times in other positions (7%)
- a total of 21 out of 78 (26%)
Pots won at showdown - 2 of 4 (50%)
Pots won without showdown - 16

And here are the results from last tourney.

Smack
Archie
Rich
Noah
Me
Cookie
Jason
Shane
Aaron

Only the top two win cash and so far we have had 6 different players cash. the overall standings are also close, with the three people who have one a game at the top.