Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting

I've played and witnessed a few interesting hands at the Vic recently.

Hand #1.

2-5 NLH. I limp UTG with 33 and a few others follow suit. Flop 3 8 7 badugi, £30 in the pot. I lead for £20. Next guy folds and now the villain springs to life with a raise to £50. Everybody folds back to me and I call.

The villain in question is a regular at the Vic who I have played a fair amount with, not a lot, but enough for me to know that he is a super-loose passive calling station. A typical move by him would be to cold-call a raise and a re-raise out of position etc.

As far as I know, he never raises on the come (unless he is going all-in with his last bit of scratch) or makes flairy raises because he thinks he can push you off a hand and so on. In fact, I would argue that this guy (a very nice guy btw who loves his roulette) is the epitome of a loose-passive calling station.

Turn 8. Hmmm, I check. He now gives it the dwell and checks too.

River T (putting a backdoor flush out there). I now bet £75. He fiddles about with his chips for a bit (jeez, I wonder how much he's gonna raise?) and makes it £250. Marvellous. I fold.

Great, the first full house I've made in about 100 years at Holdem and I feel I have to fold it. The thing is, I'm pretty confidant that the villain in question would not raise there with just trip 8s. If he had a straight or a flush he would just call me down. On the flop he is not raising me with just top pair - ok, maybe he was raising with an over-pair, but if so, these too are hands that he would just call on the river with as opposed to raising.

I know you're supposed to assign a range of hands that your foes can have these days, but I have to say that when he raised me on the flop I immediately put the villain on top two (i.e 87 in his hand) and I have to say that further action down the streets only strengthened that belief. Of course, I could be wrong and I was totally outplayed in which case kudos to him and I'm an idiot (we know that already, so that's no big deal).

As it happened there was a pigeon-y kind of player (that's more original that fishy, isn't it?) who was incredulous that I folded such a strong hand and was convinced that the villain had a straight (he might be right, we'll never know). As we discussed it, a young player on my left who seemed pretty solid to me agreed with my analysis of the situation (confirmation bias FTW).

I told Panni about the hand too (he knows the villain in question) and before I even finished the story he said, "87, definitely 87" - without a doubt I respect his opinion so in my mind I really feel I made a good fold there.

Hand #2.

2-5 NLH. A strong, solid TAG player limps UTG, another player limps and I raise to a pony with AhKh in the cutoff. One of the blinds call, the TAG calls as does the other limper after him.

Flop T K 3 badugi, about £100 in the pot. Checked around to me and I bet three farmers' daughters (that's £75 to those of you who can't speak cockney poker jargon - far superior to young american collegiate poker jargon imo). The BB folds and now the TAG check-raises to a bottle (£200 - alright, alright, I'll stop). The other player gets out of the way and now the action is back on me. I neglected to mention the stack sizes - approx £1,300 for the TAG and I had him covered.

Hmmm, what to do? This particular villain is a super-solid player who really knows the game. I've tangled with him before and I know he respects my game (as he knows that I respect his etc). What I haven't mentioned is that in this particular game he was getting beat up pretty bad. Not that he was on tilt or anything, he's too good a player to have serious steam issues, but he was having one of those sessions where he just could not win a hand no matter what he did.

As I pondered my next move it struck me that I was only really worried about a set of 3s or top two (i.e KT in his hand). Also, that check-raise was kind of small, pretty weak-looking when you think about it. Also, my bet just looks a standard c-bet. Fuck it, I've got the best hand here. Raise! £500 to play.

Of course, if I think I have the best hand there is an argument for just calling - I am in position after all - and letting my foe bluff off a few more chips. But I think if I call it could lead to a tough spot further down the line, especially as I'm up against a good player.

Anyway, as I said, I raised and after not too much thought the TAG folded.

Hand #3.

I wasn't in this one, just happened to eyeball it firsthand. 5-10 PLO. There's been a raise and re-raise and somehow four players have all put in £395 before the flop. Incidentally, the stacks were quite shallow in this hand apart from Mike Ellis who had about 3 or 4 grand in front of him.

Flop 9 9 5 (badugi again, I think). Vach, who I think was in the BB now leads out all-in for £685. After longish dwells both the raiser and re-raiser pre-flop fold and now the unbluffable calling station star.....folds too. Unlucky Vach, no action for your 9TJK or your 5s full.

Vach now turns over his hand. KJ87!! Wow, now that's what I call luck. To bluff pure air (apart from the gutterball straight out) with a bet of a bit less than half the pot into three players behind you in a lively PLO game and get away with it means you must be living right.

In case you're wondering about the title of this post - last night I went to Neil's unveiling of his new business/web site blackbeltpoker.com which looks like it could be the nuts. It was a really good presentation and considering that Channing can talk the hind legs off several mules he was really concise and to the point. I wish him the best of luck with it and suggest you check it out (they're going live in early April).

I Love L.A.

Good games at the Vic are a bit like buses - you're waiting and waiting and waiting; just when you've given up along come two or three all at once.

I played in a good £250 PLO game last night and then sat in a blinding £250 NL Holdem game. The Holdem game was great all because of a super spewy bluff station from L.A. When I got in the game this guy had about £8k in front of him which steadily decreased as one by one the different players at the table picked off his bluffs.

To give you an idea of how good the game was I experienced a 3 grand swing from winning to losing back to winning which is unusual for me. I played KK really badly out of position at one point and lost a big pot to this guy, but still managed to come back and end up winning on the night.

This guy said his regular game was the $20/$40 NL at the Commerce. I've never played there, but my experience with this player only confirms all the good things I have read and heard about the Commerce. He's probably a winning player in L.A....

As an aside I noticed Gary the Armenian was collecting the £2.50 chips (these are for the half hour time collection of £7.50). Of course it slowed down the time charge as now the dealer had make change etc and at one point even had to ask another dealer to go to the desk and get us some more £2.50 chips. What reason would somebody have to take these chips and put them in their pocket?

I wanted to call him out on it, but Gary is a bit of a hothead and I didn't feel like getting into an argument. Instead I mentioned it to a couple of other players and a few of us "innocently" asked where all the £2.50 chips had gone when the collection came around.

Also in the game was Neil "Bad Beat" Channing, fresh from his Irish Open victory. It was nice to play with Neil again seeing as recently he has been playing only the monkey game or higher (the big games have been his regular feeding grounds for a quite a while now, not just since his Irish win btw).

I think Neil was a bit disgusted with me when I ironed out the L.A bluffer at about quarter to 3 in the morning and then immediately got up and left. To be fair to myself the L.A player got up as soon as he lost the hand and looked like he wasn't coming back, plus I had been intending to go at about 1.30 originally, but the game was so good I decided to stay another hour (I must stress I wasn't staying on just to "get out of it". I broke that bad habit long ago). Also when you have a 16 month old baby at home whom you have to look after in the morning it makes it tough playing til 5am like the old days.

Kenny Wong was also in the game and it was great to have him back and hear the banter between him and Neil about who was the better tournament player.

Apparently I'm a Slow Roller...

I've noticed there's a new regular at the Vic who seems to primarily play the 100 NLH game (this has a minimum sit down of £100 and a max of £600). He seems a bit eccentric and talks a lot and wears what looks like a cravat, I think I heard someone call him John, so that's what I'll call him.

Anyway I'm playing in this game and I make £11 to go UTG (blinds are 1/3 btw) with AA. Fold, fold and now John moves all-in.....for £600. Sweet, as Fred Carle would say. Everyone folds back to me and I obviously call with the boots.

As soon as I said call and moved my chips over the line (I had John covered btw) he flips up QQ. Now I guess this John is used to tournaments on TV or something, but I only ever turn my cards up in all-in situations like these in tournaments, not in cash games, and many other regular cash game players would do the same.

The flop comes down K J T, but I manage to fade his six outs and as soon as the river has been burned and turned I show my hand and then get told, "Nice slow roll".

Jeez, I know it sucks to lose a pot, and this John doesn't seem like a bad guy, so I guess he said it in the heat of the moment, but who out there thinks I slow rolled him? I would never do such a thing, even to a player I loathed and thought of as a complete and utter drak (there's a few candidates out there, don't you worry about that!).

I've been playing long enough at places like the Vic to know that I don't ever want to show my hand unless it's at the showdown. If John had outdrawn me I would've thrown my hand in the muck facedown and told him I had deuces or something; isn't this what poker is all about? Playing your cards close to your chest and all that?

When I first went down the Vic I used to show far too many hands, especially nut hands - I guess I wanted to be liked and crap like that. I'm still paying for that mistake now many years later.

On another note I'd just like to congratulate my mate Neil Channing for winning the £1,000 NLH freezeout - not only for the win, but his third big final in a row (Bristol Gala Grand Final and Blackpool GUKPT just recently). Surely his name is all over the GUKPT Grand Final trophy?

Mistakes Part 3

100 Pot Limit Holdem, the Vic. I have £1800 in front of me and I'm in the small blind (technically the small blind as the blinds are £3/£3 in this game). There's a raise and a few callers so I decide to call with 5s 6s.

The flop is 5 6 T with two diamonds. Ok, bottom two, shall I get cute and check to the raiser? Nah, this particular pre-flop raiser is not guaranteed to bet and a free card for all these schnorrers would be disastrous, so I lead out for £60. There's a fold and now Ashley Alterman, who's in front of the raiser, makes it £160. Everyone folds back to me. Shit, what have I run into?

Now I'm quite friendly with Ashley and respect his game. I'm pretty sure this respect is a two-way street (might not be, he could consider me a complete egg which is fair enough too). Anyway, the point is I know Ashley is not fucking around and I guess 99% of the time his raise here means a real hand. That's not to say he isn't capable of raising with the square root of fuck all here by the way. Plus he has about another £700 behind.

Oh boy, for him to have limped early position and then call a raise which then merits a raise on this flop, he must have either a set or straight and flush draw (like say, 7d 8d, which I'm a small dog to). Fuck, my hand doesn't look too good so I fold and decide to wait for a better spot.

Ashley being the mate he is flashes me the boots as he mucks his hand. Shit! I was miles ahead. Wow, he played those aces pretty sneakily, not like him at all. Why didn't he re-raise before the flop when the action had got back to him?

Why? Because he never limped in in the first place. He was the original pre-flop raiser, not the guy I thought it was. D'oh! Well, I deserve to lose for not paying attention. What a costly error. And I got what I was looking for which was action for my big hand, it's just that I thought the action was supposed to come from somewhere else...

The Vic famously used to have a "moody" rule whereby you weren't allowed to talk about your hand. Thankfully they got rid of that rule, but it has to be said that the floodgates are now truly wide open.

I refer to this as later on I had the dubious pleasure of playing in the No Limit game with Will who has taken talking about one's hand to new levels. I have to say I actually found it sort of amusing after a while, especially as he kept making 10-13 BB size raises before the flop only to always find sandbaggers waiting in the wings.

Quite often it was Ken Wong who has not been playing down the Vic too long yet has already accrued a load of good results in all the various daily tournaments. Will would make his standard huge pre-flop raise with plenty of chat about how great his hand was and then the action would get back to Ken who would then casually slide about £200 worth of chips all in. This must have happened about ten times and Ken gradually built his chip stack up to over a carpet just like he would have done in a tournament.

Every time Will would go into a huge dwell up and song and dance about he actually had a real hand and how could Ken do this to him, but every time he would fold.

There's another new player in the Vic who is quite vocal, but unlike Will this guy is pretty obnoxious. Neil Channing told me a good story about this loudmouth as I left.

It's the £250 PL game and Loudmouth is playing snug. He limp-reraises from early position and is heads up with the star in the game. The flop comes down something nice safe for an early limp-reraiser like say 5 3 3.

All of a sudden the waitress appears with Loudmouth's dinner. Now instead of taking a tenner off of his stack to pay for his lobster thermadore or whatever it is they all eat there these days the Loudmouth asks Neil if he can borrow a tenner! Hmmm, is that a tell or what?

As Neil said, it's a real nit's dilemma. Do you just swallow and pay up for your dinner there and then or are you determined to extract full value for your aces? Of course he could have just told the waitress he was in the middle of a pot and that he'd deal with her afterwards, but I guess his hand was so good that he got caught up in the moment.