Black Deuces – Poker Blog

When you get heads-up at the river in Limit Hold’em there is no cap on the amount of bets that can be made. Now, sometimes you see raise-reraise-rereraise-etc. on the river untill someone’s whole stack is in, only to see both players showdown the nuts and split the pot.

Well, I thought the same think would happen in my last online LHE session, when I was holding the nuts and my opponent kept reraising me. But only, he didn’t have the nuts!

LOL Donkaments!

Like I said in the previous post: it’s a goldmine out there.

For reasons unknown to me, many players look down on Limit Hold’em. I even heard it being referred to as ‘an old man’s game’. They find LHE isn’t as ‘exciting’ as No-Limit or Pot-Limit games, mainly because there isn’t much action and the pots stay relatively small.

True, the amount you can win in one single hand is smaller than in No-Limit (duh!), but Limit Hold’em might be one of the most action packed poker games out there these days. Players stay in hands way too long with a marginal hand, chase draws even when they are drawing dead, fill up and as a result donk a lot of cash away in short periods of time. And the best part: because the pots stay relatively small, they don’t get the feeling they are loosing big, so they KEEP donking chips away.

A good example:

And the best part: ‘lebruske’ was one of the better players at the table! It’s a goldmine out there, go check it out.

While searching some movies for my new “Why I love Daniel Negreanu”-post I came across this awesome interview.

In part one Daniel talks about his teenage years, his first bracelet, his rise as a professional poker player and tells a very funny story about McDonalds and Evelyne Ng.

In part two he talks about his miracle year 2004, his religious beliefs (yep) and the difference between live and online poker (AND a funny impression of an internet kid -lol).

Great interview indeed.

After a little time out from playing online poker, I really felt like playing a 90 man SNG at Full Tilt Poker last night. And guess what? I won the damn thing.

Although struggeling with a short-stack for most of the tournament I managed to make it to the final table. But at that final-table I doubled up twice fairly quickly, and with only 5 players remaining I knocked out 2 of them at once with pocket kings, giving me 60% of all the chips in play. I even got heads up with a 8 to 1 chip advantage, so the match was quickly over.

(Too bad hand history was disabled, otherwise I could have shown you some of the key hands.)

It feels good to finally book a win again!

Flopping quads can be fun, especially when the other player doesn’t have a clue where he’s at in the hand, and decides to pay off his whole stack with a marginal holding.

Few days ago I was playing in a very friendly small-stakes cash game (actually the game is just an excuse to drink and get stoned amongst friends. ) Anyway, during that session a very fun hand came up.

I was playing a VERY agressive game, almost playing any 2 cards, raising and re-raising every pot. We were playing 0,10/0,20c blinds and I was losing about 20$. I picked up KK under the gun and made my standard raise to 1$ (or 5BB’s). I got two callers behind me. Then the miracle flop hit: KK9. I checked and the player next to me made it 2$ into the 3,40$ pot. The other player folds and I casually throw the chips in (just like I’m floating to hit a pair or am drawing to a flush). The pot is now almost 8$ and we both have about 20$ behind. The turn is a perfect blank: 2. I’m thinking how to get his whole stack in by the river and decide to check, hoping he has 9 or bigger pair and he’ll bet out again. And he does, betting 5$ and again I flat call, hoping that the river is a total blank again. The perfect card completes the board: 3.

Now, my opponent’s actions so far suggests he has a 9 or better. I don’t think he would bet out his flushdraw on the flop and he certainly wouldn’t bet out his draw again on the turn. The question is: if I check will he bet with his hand behind me. I was convinced he would, for several reasons: I was playing a very loose game, so the chance his 9 was good was fairly big. He was stuck, so he probably wanted to extract as much value as possible out of this hand. He could easily have an even stronger hand then just 2 pair, he could have for example flopped a full house with 9′s, and a hand that strong he would certainly bet. And in the rare chance he had nothing, I still give him some room to hang himself. So, I checked.

He didn’t even think long to decide his bet amount: 9$ into a 18$ pot, leaving 6$ of his stack behind. I instantly went all-in and that’s when things got funny.

He looked at me and asked: “Do you have a king?” I chuckled, looked at him and said: “Well, maybe I have two?” The others players at the table instantly knew I had flopped quads, but my opponent was still oblivious to what was going on. Still I felt like I needed to say something to push him over the edge. I said: “I would never check trips kings on the river with that board. Would I now?” He agreed with me and called.

When I turned over my hand he said: “Well, I have to admit that I’m not suprised. Nice speech dude.” The table laughed out loud.