Thursday, July 22, 2004

Do two consecutive wins constitute a winning streak?  Or is the magic number three?

Went back to my formula of taking a lot of early notes, and adjusting my play accordingly, and won another $10 NLHE SnG last night.  I actually went all-in with mediocre hands more than I typically do.  For some reason, I sensed weakness all around me (strange phenomenon when you're online), so flopping middle pair with a seemingly weak flop seemed like a good reason to bet out. 

The player to my left was extremely erratic.  I was BB (100/200) with T5o with this clown shortstacked and limping.  Flop came 753 with two diamonds and I bet enough (700) to put him all-in with my middle pair, figuring that my middle pair had the lead at this point, and I didn't care if he called with a straight draw or high cards and I wanted him to lay down a flush draw.  When he called, I thought he had diamonds, but he showed.... QTo.

I checked the odds just now on the cardplayer.com odds calculator.  If he had two diamonds, it would be roughly a coin flip, depending on how high they were.  If he had K6 (a reasonable hand to call with, high card, gutshot draw), I would be a 3-2 favorite.  With two overcards against my made pair, like in the actual hand, I was actually almost a 5-1 favorite after the flop.  Of course, he pulled a Q on the river to stay alive, but I caught him a few hands later with Woolworth (5 and 10).  I raised from SB and he must have thought I was trying to steal his BB because he went all-in.  Even if I was trying to steal, T5o isn't a strong defending hand, but he came over me.  I had an easy call with wired Cowboys (nice little 8-1 odds for my money) and busted him out in 4th place with a virtual three-way tie for the lead.

It took me seven hands to clear out the next player (77 taking out A6s, 2-1 in my favor), and fourteen more to bully my 2-1 chip advantage into the winner's circle.  I didn't play particularly well in the head-to-head, probably letting the guy hang around too long, something I intend to learn from.  I played solid early (8-10 players), changed to more aggressive for the mid-game (5-7 players), and just played smart at the end, betting out with the lead and getting out of trap hands early.  I should really put that mantra up somewhere.

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