Dublin Poker

Another report, I'll make this a short one. Made it down for the 50 DC in the Fitz, hoping for a decent game against a decent standard of players. I spotted a few boardies as I was registering which is always a good sign. I started off at table 4 but was moved to form a new table after a few minutes.

I recognised the player to my left from the Fitz €270, and Will from boards joined the table not long after, so it was looking like the standard would be good enough. Unfortunately, I think the bus for clown college broke down outside because the table then filled up with a crowd of them! Of the eight players at my table, 4 of them had never played in a casino before, and for one of them it was his first time playing live. Lovely...

I knew that all I needed to do was build up a nice chip lead and then slowplay the big hands to get maximum value from these players. After a bit of table banter at the start, it was instantly obvious to myself, Will and the player to my right, that these players would be a rollover. I tried to keep my head clear, and accumulate chips early. However, some of the stuff happening with these beginners threw me completely...

Within the first half hour, the girl at the table, one of the newbies tried to cash in her chips... Then we had this hilarious hand..

Player 1: how much are the pink chips?
Dealer : as I told you earlier, 500
Player 1: emmm...check
Player 2: see check
Player 3: i'll raise 200
Player 4: i'll see your two hundred and raise you 200 more
Player 2: your 200... 200 more... how much are the yellow ones?
Player 3: I'll call you all in...
Dealer: you cant raise only 200...actually Player 4 you just flat called... emm...Player 3... emm... ffs...
Player 1: how much are the pink chips?

The poor dealer was havin a field day trying to explain the basic rules of poker to these people...Unfortunately, I lost a good chunk of my stack from basically giving to much credit to one of these fish. I called a preflop raise with 66, and saw a flop of A43. The pot was about 700 at this stage and the original raiser bet... 50. I could see Will grinning at me at the stupidity of the bet, and as expected, I raised it to 500. He instantly folded, but then fish number two decides to call... Shit, I'm probably behind here. Theres no flush draw, and I dont think she would bet without a pice of the flop. She has about 700 left, and thers about 1800 in the pot. An ace hits the turn and as I'm first to act I check it, thinking if she pushes Im gone. I dont think she's good enough to pull of a bluff without it showing, as she has been unbelievably easy to read up until now. She checks too so I'm confident now she doesn't have the ace. Almost definitely a 3 or a 4.

Unfortunately a 4 lands on the river, and she thinks about it for a while before betting 500 (out of her stack of 700...). A lot of the time I will pay off an ace here to get info on the player, but as I was confident she would show I saw no point in paying her off. I folding showing the sixes saying "nice hand", and as expected she showed her hand.... 3 9! I was about to say very nice, thinking she had totally fooled me, when I realised something. She may have thought her 3 was good... I couldn't really put her on 39 after calling for almost half her stack on the flop... with bottom pair 9 kicker! My own fault for giving her too much credit I suppose.

She was knocked out a while later, mainly due to donating most of her stack to Will who raised all the way to the river (with NOTHING by the look of it) and she folded after blatently missing her draw. I caught up with her at the break and as i had thought, she did in fact think her threes were playable. I then pointed out that because there was already two pairs on the board all she actually had was aces and fours with a nine. So my sixes were good.
"Ah I understand... so it was a split pot? "...D'oh! I've nothing wrong with beginners playing poker, its not too long since my freeroll days... but why do I keep running into them!

I don't know how to play against them...I lost another 600 trying to bluff into one of these and was down to 1200 at the break. My own fault really... never bluff into a beginner! Its such an obvious rule of thumb. Don't try to bluff a bad player, as they will call you down with bottom pair, as in the above hand...

I caught up with Will and DocO at the break, and found out DocO had been knocked out..haha! Ah sure I was on the way out too...

Came back after the break and was ready to push on any playable hand. Picked up 10 10, pushed and took the blinds. Then I picked up AJ in the BB, and called the SB's all-in. He held J9, and of course flopped a 9. Yet another showdown I go into ahead and lose.. ah well! i cant wait for all the positive variance that's on the way!

Down to 200, and I have my jacket at the ready. I doubled up to 400 with Ace high, and then tripled up to 1200 when my 85 flopped two pair. Doubled up to 2500 when I pushed with 77 and was called by the chip leaders A6. No luck and I finally win a showdown! Robbed the blinds and the table was then broken and I was moved to the table where Mark (kinaldo on boards) was dealing.

It wasn't long before he commented that I was easily the best player left right? ... ok, now I realise that my previous post makes me sound like a cocky fucker, but the standard last Sunday was actually that bad... and there was only 20 odd players, so its not really saying much that I felt I was the best player there. It was more because I was annoyed with not cashing in a tournament where the standard was that bad...

I would never make the same claim in the tournament I was at last night. Fair enough, my starting table was pretty terrible, but for the most part the standard was what I would expect from a €50 game. Mark's table was a much better standard than the previous two, and thankfully it looked like most of the donkeys had been knocked out. I sat back for a bit, and didn't play a hand until I pushed with AQ. My raise was respected and I picked up the blinds (600). Up to 3500 now, and still a bit shortstacked but definitely in with a chance. Sat back and observed the play for a while, waiting for another hand to make a play with. For the most part, the standard was a lot better here, and I could see that I could start to build a table image, something that is pointless at a table full of donkeys.

The blinds passed over me, and i soon picked up AQ. I think there was two limpers, and I pushed for around 3000. It was folded around to the last limper, who thought about it for ages and decided that K10 offsuit was good enough to put 3/4 of his stack in the middle...

The pot was about 7000 so all I had to do was avoid a bad beat and I would be right back in with a decent stack. The flop came J9x... turn x... (at this point I asked Mark nicely not to fuck me over on the river. He reads this blog, he knows I am a moany cunt when I get rivered out of a tourney, ESPECIALLY after the week that I've had...). Unfortunately Mark decided to add insult to injury, and flipped over a nasty fecking King on the river. Cheers Mark!

So... another tourney, another bad beat, another blog entry without a win... hello variance... I'll have you now please.