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2008 WSoP Post 2 - One-outters and other nonsense...

Sometimes, you can’t make this shit up.

I’m not going to lead with my bad beat story. I’m instead going to acknowledge the fact that I put two bad beats on two good players early on in my turn at today’s 6-Handed No Limit tournament at the WSOP. With starting stacks of 5000, I took about 3800 off of a player only five hands in when I turned a set of 9’s to bust his A-10 after a 10 hit the flop. He busted out shortly after, steaming from the loss and choosing the wrong time to push all in with K-Q suited (he was up against pocket kings, not mine. Sadly.)

Later, I went runner-runner two-pair and runner-runner lousy straight on one player in back to back hands, who decided that he would no longer play hands that I was betting out, whether or not he thought I had anything.

Then, it happened.

Late in level 4 (100-200 blinds, 25 antes), I was in the small blind. I had about 14,000 chips in front of me, covering everyone else at the table and well above the tournament average of about 6500. There’s a raise from the first position to 950. A fold, then an all-in shove for about 3800. And another all-in shove from the button for just over 13,000. I looked down to find two red Aces.

Jackpot.

I was already counting the chips in play, figuring that if I held up I would have around 32,000 chips, more than enough to have the tournament chip lead. I shoved all-in.

The big blind folded and the initial raiser flipped over his hand – KQ suited in clubs, announcing that he couldn’t possibly be good. He was right.

The first all-in (for 3800) had pocket red Queens. The second (for 13000+) had pocket red Kings. And I had them both drawing dead to the king or queen of spades, or running straight cards since I had their flushes covered. Keep in mind – this is a six-handed tournament! Two pairs on one hand is rare. Three – the top three – is obscene, even moreso considering the other hand in play. And what happened next… well, there isn’t really even a word for it in my vocabulary.

The flop fell 4h-Ks-4c rainbow, and I was suddenly looking at being crippled to about 800 chips. Talk about penthouse to outhouse. His Kings held up, and I was left to shove on the next hand and pray. It went unanswered as I actually flopped top 2 pair only to be behind to a flopped set.

Somehow, I staggered away from the tournament area and found my way to the cash games. After many, many hours of plugging away and trying to gain some traction, the table loosened up and I started picking up hands.

We had an implied straddle bet for seven of the eight players on the table – the eighth didn’t believe in it. My standard straddle raise at this table was from $10 to either $45 or $55, depending how many callers were already involved. I had done this on three consecutive hands, each time with nothing worse than AQ (and showing each hand at showdown).

On the button, I looked at Q-J suited in hearts. There were two straddle callers, so I bumped the pot to $55. And got 5 callers. Hmmmm…

On a flop of 4-J-Q all spades, There was a bet of $125 and a call. I immediately shoved all-in for over $500… and got two callers. 3-5 suited spades, 6-8 suited spades. Impressive.

After limping away from that table, I decided to call it a night. I had originally planned to play in tomorrow’s tournament (Event #32), but I’m not feeling up to it. I’ll probably play in an event on Thursday instead and try to recover some of my losses.

Back tomorrow or Wednesday.

Lata.

Labels: Gambling, Las Vegas, Lucky Bastard, poker, World Series

posted by Big D @ 5:52 AM