So I figured I’d give a $4.40 180-person SNG tourney at Pokerstars a try for the first time. In case you haven’t figured out from the title of the post, it didn’t go too well. Actually, it was going along VERY nicely until the hand below. Then it all came to crashing halt. I’ll point out the key parts below…
PokerStars Game #4549063440: Tournament #22663247, Hold’em No Limit – Level III (25/50) – 2006/04/07 – 10:33:57 (ET) Table ‘22663247 4’ 9-max
Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: Robbie Robb (3955 in chips)
Seat 2: Jackman (1280 in chips)
Seat 3: Gammon39 (4225 in chips)
Seat 4: SAL JAM (1220 in chips)
Seat 5: lucky 1991 (1810 in chips)
Seat 6: Kaloster (4545 in chips)
Seat 7: jimpepper (5100 in chips)
Seat 8: potman2 (1080 in chips)
Seat 9: Mikle (1870 in chips)
lucky 1991: posts small blind 25
Kaloster: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Robbie Robb [Ah Ac]
The absolute best starting hand in Hold ‘Em. The dream cards.
jimpepper: raises 200 to 250
potman2: folds
Mikle: raises 250 to 500
Robbie Robb: raises 3455 to 3955 and is all-in
I loved this. jimpepper makes a sizeable raise and then mikle follows it up with a reraise. I shoved all my chips in at this point for a couple reasons: 1) I had the BEST hand. There are none better. Worst case scenario one of the other two has AA as well. 2) I was hoping to chase one of them out of the pot. While AA is 88% to win heads-up, that number drops rather quickly when faced with more than one opponent.
Jackman: folds
Gammon39: folds
SAL JAM: folds
lucky 1991: folds
Kaloster: folds
jimpepper: calls 3705
Mikle: calls 1370 and is all-in
Okay, so they both call. I’m still in good shape. Because of the way Pokerstars does their hand histories, you’d have to scroll down to find out what cards they hold. To save you the trouble, I’ll print them here. jimpepper turns over KK and Mikle turns over QQ. As soon as I saw those, I figured I was dead. What are the odds that I’m going to duck both a king AND a queen in five cards? Read on…you’ll see…
*** FLOP *** [Kc Qd 9d]
See what I mean??? At this point the ONLY card that will help me is one of the last two aces.
*** TURN *** [Kc Qd 9d] [Jc]
This jack actually helps me a little bit. Now, in addition to the two aces, any ten will complete the straight and I rake in the pot. Six outs. Fingers are crossed.
*** RIVER *** [Kc Qd 9d Jc] [Ks]
Figures. That gives jimpepper quad kings and mikle the boat, queens full of kings. If you’re keeping track, both those hands beat me two pair, aces and kings. FUCK!
*** SHOW DOWN ***
jimpepper: shows [Kh Kd] (four of a kind, Kings) Robbie Robb: shows [Ah Ac] (two pair, Aces and Kings)
jimpepper said, “wow”
Kaloster said, “poker stars”
jimpepper collected 4170 from side pot
Mikle: shows [Qc Qh] (a full house, Queens full of Kings)
Robbie Robb said, “nice hand”
jimpepper collected 5685 from main pot
So that ended my first run at a $4.40. It wasn’t bad play, just horrible luck in that instance. I like the way I played that game and even this hand – I got my money in when I had the best hand. That’s all you can do sometimes.