Small Victory

I have not been chronicling it here, but I have been on a dry spell. It is a combination of bad cards and poor play. Mostly poor play. Now don't get me wrong. I have seen set over set with me on the losing end twice in the last two weeks. I have not seen that in months. I flop a full house with QQ only to lose to turned bigger full house. The cards and my bad play conspired to drag me deeper into the abyss. The bad stuff happened and my game went to pot.

Tournament poker is my preference. I play cash games live mostly, but tend to stick to MTT and Sit n' gos on line. My game had deteriorated to the point I was just calling and catching. Not betting and taking. I'm a top damn it. Last night I decided I had enough. If I was going to lose, I would lose swinging away.

I have a standing appointment Thursdays to play online with my cousin from Hotlanta. I railed him as he busted out of the 28k and the token race. We decided to play a $3 ko sit n go. Now earlier in the day I was playing one of these and final tabled. I made a read on a player and check raised him with air and got him to fold. Nothing spectacular. I was almost sure he was c betting with missed AK. The key: I made the read. I had not been doing that recently. I had been reading blogs, watching TV, or talking to the wife. I final tabled without getting a pocket pair above TT, seeing AK twice, and AQ once in over two hours. TT was one of only 5 pocket pairs I saw. I did it by focusing on the game and playing the players. I had been playing weak poker and played only my cards. I had the guy who won in all in pf with 77 vs A5s he hit his 3 outer and went on a tear. Love this game.

Now with my cousin playing, it is easy to focus. We rail each other and root each other on. And in this sit n go, I got some cards. I hit my draws. I got out to the lead about half way through and didn't fall below 5th the whole way. Man, I forgot how fun this game is when playing with a huge stack. Raises are not respected, they are feared. I picked up so much free money. I entered the final table 3rd in chips and was in first with 4 left. I had a huge chip advantage thanks to getting QQ and AA consecutively when 5 handed. The QQ hand busted out the shortest stack and the AA left the 2nd place guy with less than one bb. AA vs AK 4 handed = cooler.

Then I started just leaning on the other two and got heads up like 210k to 60k. I wish the story ended better, but I got sucked out on the first all in, lost a kicker battle on the second and couldn't finish it out. Disappointing.

No major suck outs. Only one that was not really a suck out. I had A2o in sb as chip leader. Complete and flop is checked around. Turn gives me the wheel. I bet out and get called.
Flop is a 7 making a higher straight possible. I check, thinking I am ahead (Q was on board, put him on that) and he goes all in. He pushes and I call. He had 22 and was bluffing. I guess it was a suck out, but he never bet it. I hit 4 nut flushes, when priced in, and got paid nicely for them.

No wait, I did suck out on KK. My 99 flopped top set. All the money was in pre-flop. I had 3 to 1 chip advantage over him.

The combination of me concentrating on the game and finally getting some cards made for a good night. I was on the winning side of all in with pp almost every time. QQ > JJ. AA > KK. Was nice to be on the other side.

Hand Question:

In the 28k, 4 level
Villain and cousin both have about doubled up. Plenty of chips


My cousin picked up TT in the BB.

It is folded around to the button who puts in the standard 3.5 x the bb raise. Cousin calls and flop comes K82 rainbow. Cousin checks and the button bets about 2/3 pot. Cousin folds. I told him he should have re-raised there. He told me to let him play his game. He said that guy was conservative. Funny thing is that guy open shoved next hand and limped the following two.

Anyway, is this or is this not a good time to check raise? I got to think TT is ahead of this guys range. And in a $3 ko donkey fest, people tend to check flopped top pair heads up with position. I didn't tell him this, but I thought he should have re-raised pre flop. He had enough chips that the re-raise would not have crippled him.

RCJH

MT