The Cat talks poker concepts.

Yesterday was quite an amusing day of poker. Overall i had a good day registering 3 final tables. I was slightly disappointed to finish 3rd 4th and 4th after a couple of tired plays( particularly one where i couldnt lay down KK) but it was nonetheless a profitable day and i ended up about 700 $ up.

Two poker concepts reared their heads during this time and I would just like to share this with you to show the complexity of poker.

First off the bat, in two of the competitions i played in i knocked people out playing VERY weak hands. This disturbed them very much and they frothed and wriggled about, spitting insults as they departed the tournaments, both of them insulting my poker, neither understanding why I made the plays i made.

OK firstly, i am in a 25 FO, blinds are 10/20 and i have already doubled my starting stack of 1.5K to 3.2K or so thnx to some1 who could not let go of AK.

I am on the button with

7s 2s

and several people limp in. some1 with about an 1500 stack in middle position makes it 100 to go.

I call.

Now 72 is an absolutely rubbish starting hand, so why did i call?

OK here are my considerations.

1) I am on the button so I have positioning over the table.

2) His raise whilst it is 4x the BB is essentially meaningless to me, it is 1/32 of my stack to call, i would often call such a raise with poor cards in position as I can lay this down very easily without any significant damage to my stack but may jsut flop a monster.

3) being such a crap hand, the deception factor is VERY large. If i flop a big un....

say the flop comes 227 77x 22 x 72x or such

no one will see this coming and i have a good chance or getting paid off. This is the essence of implied odds. I am paying 100 to see a flop where i could win a 3K pot.

Anyway i call and there are 2 or 3 other callers from the limpers, making the pot around 400 or so.

Flop is a true cracker for me as it comes

6s 8s 9c.

Yes somehow i hit an open straight draw and flush draw. I am in the driving seat here.
Barring another better flush draw being out there(or made str8, again unlikely) i am ahead of virtually all hands here. Checked to the raiser who bets out 450, an overbet of the pot, signalling to me he has an overpair, possibly a set.

Now maybe I should move allin here with the best of it, but i elect not to for a couple of reasons. No 1 I feel i have no folding equity. I feel like he will definitely call so all i am doing is moving in with the slight best of it and playing the pot heads up, which is not really what i want.

My draw is so strong I want other people coming into the pot to boost my pot odds and by calling it is much more likley i will engage some other action.

Also I know that whatever card comes on the turn I will still have a strong enough draw to call him if he moves 1K allin on the turn. This is how it works. Assuming he is Qd Qh or something.....

On the flop I am winning the race...

http://twodimes.net/h/?z=711079pokenum -h qh qd - 7s 2s -- 6s 8s 9c
Holdem Hi: 990 enumerated boards containing 8s 6s 9c
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Qd Qh 442 44.65 530 53.54 18 1.82 0.456
7s 2s 530 53.54 442 44.65 18 1.82 0.544

It is not a bad move to move allin here as I am winning and may have some folding equity. I didn't tho for the reasons listed above but just called his 450 bet.

There is now 400 + 450 +450 in the pot, a total of 1300.

Let's say no one else calls the bet and the turn is a dud, say the 3d. Here is the new position.

http://twodimes.net/h/?z=711081pokenum -h qh qd - 7s 2s -- 6s 8s 9c 3d
Holdem Hi: 44 enumerated boards containing 8s 6s 9c 3d
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Qd Qh 29 65.91 15 34.09 0 0.00 0.659
7s 2s 15 34.09 29 65.91 0 0.00 0.341

he is limited to betting 1K into the pot, if i call i still have 1750 and i will be paying 1K to win a
1K +1K +1.3K pot, a 3.3K pot. So I can call his allin even if a dud flops on the turn.

SOOO back to the pot. I call. Turn is the 5c, hooray, ive made my str8 with fl redraws.

He moves allin as expected, I call. He turns QQ , no spades (oops did i give that away).
He draws dead on the river and launches a tirade of abuse at me as follows :) (ladies close your eyes)

"How can u play that shit, you won't get any f***g where playing that crap, good luck playing your trash hands you f****g piece of s***t"

LOL i think he loved me really.

"Good luck misplaying your big pairs" I counter jovially which sends him into another asterisk camoflaged outburst.

"F****g disgrace how can I lose? what a f***ing joke. You know nothing about poker u f***g retard noob"

"I know a str8 beats a pair!" - he gave me some more shit and trailed me round a little bit before departing.

This is the key concept he didn'trealise though.

He raised so little preflop that he let me and others in with weaker hands that he was going ot have trouble getting away from if we hit an that is what happened. Barring 100 of his stack he got his money in with the worst of it. Off that flop having raised so little preflop he shouldve been worried that a suited connector or something had hit that dangerous flop. Instead he fired with both barrels even when he may have been drawing dead on the turn.

I've banged on a bit for now, but i will come to part 2 later.