The next Gus Hanson (or "You played that shit?!")

Monster post warning.

You know you're running hot when you walk out of a club booking a 500+ win and feel like it was a weak night. I will do my best to bury that attitude--I should be happy every time I cash out a redbird over my buy-in.

Hand of the night for me last night sent steam jetting out of a player named Eiki's (spelling fixed I hope from yesterday) ears, who as I mentioned drank with me the night before. Quick background, Friday night I played with nearly the same table of players so all had seen my lucky bluff suckout and my crazy boat over boat against Scott described in yesterday's post. Scott and Eiki were back, and again the table was offering no obvious fish. Not the best game by any means, but at least it was an excuse to get creative.

Eiki was already a bit smoldering as I had been playing a wide range of hands very aggressively, including trying to steal a pot from him with the hammer and then showing down middle pair as the best hand after his draws failed to materialize.

The table was playing shorthanded, so I was also straddling pretty much every time as I did the hand in question with about 600 behind me. Eiki likes to raise straddles somewhat religiously, but this time, in middle position with about 450 behind, he only called it around to Scott in the small blind with about 600, who made it 24 to go. BB folded and I looked down to see a monster 47 diamonds. Something clicked and told me this was a hand for defending my straddle. I called.

I was thus somewhat distressed when Eiki came over the top to 100. Scott folded leaving me with an interesting decision. I'm being asked to call $76 for a chance to win $126, or 3 to 5 odds. I can put Eiki on a narrow range of hands I think, AA, KK, QQ or AK, probably suited. Maybe AQ. Against the pairs I'm a little worse than a 4:1 dog and against a big ace I'm a little worse than than a 3:2 dog. Pure odds and math then, it's a pretty clear lay down.

Notwithstanding the above, why would I play this hand anyway?

Stubbornness? Well, it is a trait I need to restrain.

Egomania? This is definitely not it. Okay, well, maybe a bit.

How about good poker reasons? At the risk of steaming Eiki further, I'll at least put forward a case:

Like I said, I think I can narrow down Eiki's range of hands quite well and he's going to be pretty much flying blind against me. Most flops are going to make me flush my hand like the toilet paper it was. If I get a good flop however, with pretty clear knowledge of where my opponents is standing, maybe I can make something happen. Time to try and play some no limit poker.

First move, check in the dark. Many people hate this move and I myself don't use it often. Nevertheless, I'm playing here for mystery, and most good flops for me will be draws. Can I get a free card here? If I take the flop, I'm going to need to make a very large bet to see the turn, because I think a normal check by me after the flop is going to get me a bet I can't call without a monster.

Flop comes 3d 4h Ac (I'm guessing on the suits of the 4 and A, which were irrelevant to the hand).

Not a spectacular flop since it just made most of the range of Eiki's hands better, but I did pair the board and a get a back door flush draw as well as a distant straight draw.

Eiki I think made his one serious blunder on this hand when he checked, giving me that card.

The turn came a 6d. A pretty sweet card giving me 11 nearly rock solid outs:

9 flush outs minus the Ad, which could give Eiki quad aces plus the 3 other fives--of course if he had AK or AQ diamonds, I was in serious trouble.

In addition, I had 6 dirty outs:
The Ad, plus the 2 4s and 3 7s that could boat up Eihi if was holding those rockets.

I'm 7:4 dog (a little better if he has no diamond) against all the hands I think I'm likely to be facing except for AA, against which I'm a 3:1 dog

I bet 100.

First goal of course is to get a fold here, which I very well might get if he doesn't have an ace. But a call is not death since I am very likely to be 7:4 or better and think I stand a reasonable chance of getting the rest of his chips in if I hit.

I say I am very likely to be at 7:4 because if he has AA, he'd be a pretty awful not to push here. (AA slowplaying on the flop on the other hand would have been a viable move since the only draws had been the low straight.)

Thus I think that an extra bonus here about my bet is that he'll pretty much have to tell me if 6 of my outs are dead. If he raises all in here I think I can fold here since I'm being asked to call $250 to win $475 and am either a 7:4 dog (very marginal call) or quite likely given the check on the flop, a 3:1 dog (clear fold). If he raises less than all in, I probably have to call but I'll have to assume I have only the 11 live outs, but I can't really see him doing this.

Eiki called. Later he told me that he saw from the look on my face that I was very unhappy to be called, which was true, but obviously not as unhappy as he thought. An all in reraise would have made me sad.

As it was, I was at least sure that all 17 of my outs were live. River comes a 7. I pushed and a groaning Eiki called, showing big slick.

B&M play update:

No, I really don't think I'm that good but I'm on my biggest run for the last two months in live no limit cash game play (1-2 plus some 2-5 in AC):

TotalWin: $3,734.00
Av$/Hour: $58.57

OK, so I'm a baby no limit player not quite ready to quit my day job, but it beats losing. I think it's correlation rather than causation, but its at least worth noting this is a all post-Playstation for me. For the rest of this year prior to this run, nearly all of it at Playstation, much more modest stats:

TotalWin: $378.00
Av$/Hour: $5.07

For the year online, on the other hand, in all forms of poker I'm down $794.57. I'm considering limiting my online to relaxation games rather than skill increasing, bank roll-building games. By relaxing this I mean big MTTs and various non-hold 'em games.

Last item on this monster post is that apparently calling Bill Phipps a putz on this widely read page didn't going over well with Mr. 520. Before last night's session he demanded a rematch while waiting for the big game at the club to fill (10-20 NL was fun to watch, but I saw my entire bank roll as the smallest stack on the table--line of the night a response to Bill's, "What do you say we make this a 6 max table?" answer, male-player-I-don't-know-with-genormous-stack-in-front-of-him "How about head's up honey?").

Although he was foolish enough to offer the same 60-50 overlay as last night, he did crack out the sunglasses. I kept my ranking when my T9s sucked out on his Q7 (Q same suit as my hand) with a straight on the river. He's told me no more overlays--I'm thinking maybe I should retire at 519.