losing with a straight flush

I played a $1.25 45 seat tourney today. I was doing quite well, always managing to stay ahead of the curve (my ‘Q’ was always >1).

Early on in the tourney, I remember calling from the small blind position when the button limped in. I had 55 and the big blind checked.
The flop came 557, I flopped quads!
(I actually tried to practice not showing it, even though this was online poker.)
I checked, and it checked all around.
The turn was a queen.
I checked, and Big Blind bet 150. We both called.
The river was a 2, and I bet 200, which was called by the big blind only. He showed a Queen for two pair.

Not a huge pot for such a huge hand.
I saw two more times someone hitting quads. The first was three nines showing on the board, with A9 in the hole, and the third was also pocket 5s hitting 55x on the flop. (She more than doubled up with her effort).
I wonder the odds of quad 5s on the flop twice in one tourney.

I got knocked out in 13th place with a monster hand.

The hand summary is as follows:
Full Tilt Poker Game #13242215407: $1 + $0.25 Sit & Go (98129591), Table 1 – 200/400 – No Limit Hold’em – 19:42:05 ET – 2009/07/06
Seat 1: 2totry2 (8,137)
Seat 2: Dargismo (3,636)
Seat 3: Ari-Mkd (2,105)
Seat 5: lol007lol (7,644)
Seat 7: SmokeyGun (1,650)
Seat 9: bluebehir (5,586)
bluebehir posts the small blind of 200
2totry2 posts the big blind of 400
The button is in seat #7
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to bluebehir [7d Ts]
Dargismo folds
Ari-Mkd folds
lol007lol folds
SmokeyGun folds
bluebehir calls 200
2totry2 checks
*** FLOP *** [Td 8h Jd]
bluebehir bets 800
2totry2 calls 800
*** TURN *** [Td 8h Jd] [8d]
bluebehir bets 1,200
2totry2 raises to 2,400
bluebehir calls 1,200
*** RIVER *** [Td 8h Jd 8d] [9d]
bluebehir bets 1,986, and is all in
2totry2 calls 1,986
*** SHOW DOWN ***
bluebehir shows [7d Ts] a straight flush, Jack high
2totry2 shows [5d Qd] a straight flush, Queen high
2totry2 wins the pot (11,172) with a straight flush, Queen high
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 11,172 | Rake 0
Board: [Td 8h Jd 8d 9d]
Seat 1: 2totry2 (big blind) showed [5d Qd] and won (11,172) with a straight flush, Queen high
Seat 2: Dargismo didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 3: Ari-Mkd didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 5: lol007lol didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 7: SmokeyGun (button) didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 9: bluebehir (small blind) showed [7d Ts] and lost with a straight flush, Jack high

It’s not every day you can lose with a straight flush. I guess I was never getting away from that hand, although I could have folded it preflop or on the turn, if I wasn’t getting great odds to call (and didnt put him on a flush, which I had not yet done).

I was a bit concerned that nobody even seemed to notice a straight flush got beaten by another straight flush though. That sort of thing should make people sit up and notice. Well, people who play poker, at least.

Crazy poker game

I just played a game of No Limit Texas Hold Em.
The buy in was $1 +$0.25, so it wasn’t high stakes. There were 18 players.

As per normal, I started folding hands early. I do that for two reasons, firstly to dodge the crazy hands people usually play early on, but also to present a tight table image to those who take notice.

But I won a couple hands early, I think my first raise with AQ stole the blinds, my next winning hand I won by betting on the flop.

I quickly found myself in 3rd place of 15, and was content to sit and fold my way to final table. But I kept getting hands.
Not monster hands, like AA through TT or AK suited or anything, but things like… Ks5s on the Big blind, and hitting the nut flush draw on the flop, and the flush on the turn.

Also, once we were getting low handed, I noticed that the player on my left was sitting out, so I capitalised on that. Instead of 6 handed, we were 5 handed, and I adjusted accordingly, raising with hands like A8o second to act, or limping on the button with 75, etc to go heads up with big blind.

But I kept hitting straights and such, and I knocked a few people out.
Then I stole some pots, and then I hit a few more hands, and so on.
Next thing I knew I had about 9000 in chips, we were playing “five” handed (four handed and my player to the left sitting out) so I was playing and raising and winning almost every hand.

Then when I knocked out two more players, we were put into the final table, I had about 12000 in chips.
Nobody else had more than 2000.
And I folded quite a few hands, but I will wager nobody noticed any of those, because my raises pre flop were always pot sized, and I could do it with any two cards – and often did so.
KJo was an easy raise, and I could bet into aces on the board.
Even when I was paying people, I didn’t notice a dent. But when I won, I cleaned up.

And I was winning a lot.
The final heads up I had nearly 23000, and the next guy had just over 4000.

And then, even though we muscled for several hands, he kept drawing out on me.
Soon he had 7000, and 9000, and then we were nearly even – about 15 to 11.

I kept setting up plays, which he would fall for, and then win by luck.
On one hand, he outplayed me, for me to double him up, leaving me with 7.5K
I hit two pair on the flop, and he hit a four outer on the river to knock me out.

So even though I was a monster stack the entire game, I still managed to come in at second place.
Poker can be a weird game.

I play poker online at full tilt. I mostly play fake poker for play money.
I have around 500,000 play dollars to gamble with, and I buy in to sit n gos for 10,000.
Managing a bank roll means that you can spend up to 5% of your bank roll on a single table. However, full tilt only offers sit n gos for 10,000 or then you can jump up to 100,000 buy in.
It’s a huge leap, and currently it is slow work improving with 10K sit n go tables, with slow prizes. I’d need a million or two before justifying the larger game. And this will take months and months to achieve – if at all!
So when I get 550K I take a gamble and play a 100K game. If I lose, I’m down to 450K and its easy to get back to my 500K benchmark. If I win… I have some room to maneuvre. I came second one time recently when doing this, but lost the next few games to bring me back where I started.

The best I’ve had this bank roll was actually 2 million, about a year or two ago. Foolishly, it seems, I spent 1 million of that trying to convert play money to real money. I missed out both times. The game was a buy in of 500,000 play money, and the reward is the top $40 get a few US dollars. I tried buying in when the numbers seemed low, but there was always last minute spikes of a few hundred players. It seemed to make just enough of a difference.

As my first blog outlines, I once tried my luck with real cash, but US$5 didn’t go far. It left me with 40 cents that I couldn’t find anywhere to spend.

It was my birthday recently. A friend whom I relay poker hands to made a deposit into my account for US$15.
Excitedly, I stepped back into the realm of gambling for cash.
I was a little dismayed at first, as I lost (usually on the bubble) my early games. I was down to about $7 before I started to win!
Getting it back to $15 felt good, but getting it to $30 felt better. I actually played a couple larger $1 games and made the cash, winning one for $17. I played a $2 shoot out and came second there.
The highest my bank roll has seen so far is $35, which almost justifies playing regular $2 games.
So I tried a couple. And lost. Still at around $29 dollars, I tried a couple very large $1 games, with $1600 up for first place. The top 1080 players make their cash back or more.
Yep, got knocked out each time.
I’ve dropped down to the $1 games again, because I’m back down to $21.31.
I’m still ahead based on the original deposit, but I’ve just lost $14 straight.

It’s kinda depressing.

I’m having trouble navigating players who just get lucky more often than I do. These games tend to be “all in” affairs, where if you wanna take a stab you have to be prepared to go all in.
Playing poker like that is much like a lottery. Well, a lottery where only 9 players can enter, and someone wins it all each and every time.
So it’s slightly better odds than a lottery, but the problem is if you lose (as you often will) you’re felted.

I guess I’m not bad at dodging bullets, seeing as I’ve actually done OK, but it will be nice if I can ever get out of these low entry no limit games.

Ace King – All in

I take a lot of bad beats in poker. It used to frustrate me, a lot.
I soon realised that the reason I do so is because I only go all in, or call all in, when I know – or feel – that I am winning, or have a great chance to win the hand.

Sure, sometimes I call all in with pocket Kings, to be faced with pocket Aces. That’s gonna happen. And that’s not a bad beat.

But *usually*, when I call all in, I’m ahead when I do it. And then the river destroys me.

I don’t really want to give examples of this, although I could because it just happened to me in a hand online, in the most ridiculous of circumstances. (How many people push all in on the turn, on an Up and Down Straight Draw – really!?!?)

Like I said, that really annoys me. But not as much as the number of times I hear people say stupid things about Ace-King in the hole.

“I hate Ace King. They never win.”
“I never play em. Just fold.” <– this coming from a player who just played J7 off suit and called off half his stack to do so.

I think it’s the most misplayed hand in the game, along with Ace-Queen.
I’m not saying I’m an expert at poker – by far I am not.

But people expect them to win, and then get disturbed when they don’t and then declare the hand sucks.

The hand doesn’t suck. It’s how you’ve played it.

No single hand has one single correct way to play it, but there’s one or two optimal plays, and several sub optimal ways.
The fact is, you still have to play the hand. If you can’t play it post flop, don’t overplay it preflop. That’s my opinion.

I want to address a hand I had in an 18 player sit’n'go.

The reason for this, is because a) I won, b) I won – all in, and c) I took the hand to a forum, where the only two people to respond told me the opponent played it bad but I played it far worse.

OK, here goes. The situation is that we’re still in the first blind increment, and we’re down to 14 players.
I’m on table 2, with 7 remaining. Start stack was 1500. In fact, this is maybe the third or fourth hand of the game.

Seat 1: (1,710)
Seat 3: (1,330)
Seat 4: (1,655)
Seat 5: (2,415)
Seat 6: bluebehir (1,460)
Seat 7: (2,305)
Seat 9: (1,365)

Seat 5 posts the small blind of 30
Seat 6 (ME) posts the big blind of 60
The button is in seat #4

I am dealt [Ks Ac]

Seat 7 calls 60
Seat 9 folds
Seat 1 calls 60
Seat 3 folds
Seat 4 raises to 330
Seat 5 folds
Seat 6 calls 270
Seat 7 calls 270
Seat 1 thinks, and folds.

Now normally, I’ll raise with Ace King to eliminate half the opposition. But I didn’t see the need to re-raise. Enough people were already out of the action. The raise in the cutoff didn’t feel like a steal. I didn’t see the point of pot committing myself before I even saw the flop.

However, both comments I got from forum-posters told me this was extremely bad play.
All in, they say. Stacks are too small. Ace-king? Gotta re-raise, but half your stack is bad, so all in.
That sort of thing.

Also, to just call tells the opponent that I have a speculative hand. I might be able to bluff at any pot that he might fold to. If I raise now, it defines my hand. He will know where he stands, relatively.
Further, it increases my expected value, if I win with a third player in the hand.

*** FLOP ***
2c 4d 5s

Not a great flop. I have a rainbow, so no flush can come.
I have the gutshot straight draw, but if he has pocket 6’s, the 3 is my doom.
I have two over cards, which is great news, because if he has an over pair, I can catch him to win.
If he has pocket 2s, pocket 4s, or pocket 5s, I am in bad shape, and he can’t afford to slow play them.
However, his raise in the face of many callers would not indicate he had such a hand. (And he played it badly if he did!)

I check.
Seat 7 checks
Seat 4 bets 460 into the pot of 1080.

In my moment of time that you get online, I miscalculated that to be “nearly 3:1″ – and I had 10 outs, so 20%
I see now, that I had just over 2:1 pot odds, which dictates a fold. I thought that I was getting 25% value, with 20% to win.
I was almost getting the 20% I needed though.

So I agree I played this wrong – technically – because I called, and seat 7 folded.
But I called for the right REASONS – I just miscalculated the odds I was getting.
I was chasing an Ace, King, or Three. I knew my outs. I just didn’t expect my Ace King to win because it was an Ace-King.

The turn came, the Ace of hearts.
I push all in for 670, feeling strongly that I have top pair.
Seat 4 calls 670

bluebehir shows [Ks Ac]
(Seat 4) shows [Th Td]

*** RIVER *** [2c 4d 5s Ah] [2d]
bluebehir (seat 6) shows two pair, Aces and Twos
(seat 4) shows two pair, Tens and Twos
bluebehir wins the pot (3,340) with two pair, Aces and Twos

The comments I got were akin to:
“I think he played the hand bad and you played it worse…”
“No reraise with these stack sizes holding AK? Calling off almost half your chips on the flop… both are such spewy moves.”
“As it is play money… instacall but I get it all in preflop”
“Shove pre-flop.”
“But if you do make a call and villain leads for 460, I’d 90% fold, 10% reraise all-in.”

These are such ridiculous plays. To go all in preflop is a desperation play. It means that I’m ready to make my last stand and I’ve finally got a hand to do it on. Or it means that my hand is so unsurpassable that I’m prepared to bet my entire stake on it.
No hand is that good, preflop.

Anybody who tells me to shove all in on Ace King is telling me that they don’t know how to play the game post flop.
(And sure, I made a calculation error, but I could still have folded on the turn if it came out a 9, and have 690 to push with another hand.)
Anybody who tells me to shove all in has just told me that I should call their bet and never raise them. Because I can out play them later in the hand, and steal or earn the victory.

It’s these people who shove all in who come away a loser saying “I pushed with Ace King but it didn’t hold up” and their mate says “yeah it never does.”

I always win when I am dealt Ace King, because when I’m not winning, I can still fold.

Kittens are hard work

Did I tell you Rachel and I have kittens?
Some short while ago, Rachel brought home two ginger kittens from work. They were orphaned there, and too adorable to let bad things happen to.

One was clearly the runt of the litter, being approximately 30% smaller than the other.
Until we found names for them (very laborious task!) we called them “Big kitty” and “Little Kitty”.

Big Kitty was very cautious of us originally. It seems that something had caused him to be frightened of the human hand reaching for him, he would never let you get close in this fashion. But if you got close, then reached out to him from out of his sight he didn’t mind so much.

Little Kitty, by contrast, didn’t mind at all being reached for, patted, or picked up. In fact he seemed to like it.

Big Kitty’s fur is soft and fluffy, almost long hair, it feels like rabbit fur. If you’ve never felt rabbit fur, picture a soft fluffy kitty whose hair is so fine it actually feels like it sooths your hand as you stroke it.
Little Kitty’s fur is short and course. They both have “cute” written all over them, but it’s hard to imagine someone believing Little Kitty to be more cute than Big Kitty – the fur and the face shape just make it so.

Over the course of two weeks, Big Kitty warmed to Rachel and I. He certainly didn’t like being picked up -not even to sit in the lap – but thoroughly enjoyed pats. As long as he was able to escape if he needed to.

We introduced them to the cat cage, got them some toys, took notes on whether they liked Friskies better than Whiskas. They seemed to train themselves to use kitty litter from day 1. No training was required, and that was a huge sigh of relief.

Originally, while they were unfamiliar with our home, we contained them to our three way bathroom. The washroom held their food tray, and a towel for their bed, with the kitty litter tray in the bath room, and the toilet seat always closed.

Two large planks of wood (picture very broad shelves) were stacked atop each other, and blocked off with some older stereo speakers, to form a waist high blockade to the hallway. It worked well.

As they got used to us, we introduced them to our living room (two computer desks, the stereo, all our CDs, with an open connection to the kitchen). From there they had access to the whole house – we only have doors on the bedrooms – but they seemed to be cautious, and only venture forth if they were following Rachel or myself.
Which meant they were tearing around the lounge only when we wanted to watch a DVD.

I’m not sure if this was the cause of the trouble, but (in days long past) we used to have a visitor cat – it must be one of our neighbours – named Lucky. Lucky was quite young, but enjoyed the attention of Rachel and I, and we used to let it inside after a while. It would explore, and then leave after only a short while. In the end, she’d only come in to look for food and became more trouble than it was worth

But this one day, Lucky came outside our back screen door while the kittens were in the living room.
Big Kitty was locked in a defensive but frightened stance, and Lucky, outside the door, was growling intensely.

Lucky stood down, but proudly walked over to our garden and squirted before leaving.

Soon after this, Big Kitty squirted (or peed) inside a green shopping bag in our storage room. (Normally supposed to be a dining room – don’t ask.)
From that day on, they stopped using the kitty litter, and chose to pee or pooh inside bags. Plastic bags, shopping bags, storage bags, you name it.
We of course did what we could to prevent this behaviour, but they merely adjusted. One day while I was in the shower, Big Kitty poohed on the doona. YUK!
I cleaned it up, we washed the doona, the sheets, the doona cover, and rolled the mattress over. I even got rid of a pillow that smelled slightly of urine.

Two days later, Big Kitty poohed in the bean bag.
Now, the bean bag served a purpose. I mean, sure, you sit in it. But some time through all of this, we had a scratching problem.
The kittens had learned to climb through the use of the old speakers holding up their gate – and Big Kitty was able to get back in, if ever we let him out. Very clever kitty! It obviously felt good to him, because eventually he requested to claw upon my cloth covered speakers in the living room. I tried to refuse the request, but wasn’t always able to respond quickly. So I removed the covers (with some trepidation, the speakers themselves are now exposed!) and purchased a cat scratching post.
When I say scratching post, I mean… castle.
I wanted to solve two problems at once. One – scratching on anything made of cloth – curtains, speakers, and the lounge.
The second problem was the fact that they used the lounge as an adventure ground. Chasing each other over, under, around, upon, and through the lounge’s space of existance, with claws constantly exposed.
One of their favourite tricks was to lie on their backs, and pull themselves along the carpet by clawing the bottom edges of the lounge. And they did so racing each other. If not that, then they were climbing up the back of the lounge.

So the climbing post – castle – was to be their adventure ground. I didn’t want to buy one and then six months later need another one, so I bought the biggest one I could find.

There’s a base plate covered in carpet. Upon that is a cat house – a large box with a circular entry. They briefly explored there, but don’t really go in. I tried putting their bed towel in, they still ignore it. Ah well. Then on that another base, and in diametrically opposite corners are the columns. In the other corners are spring loaded play toys.
On the columns, another base, with the columns continuing, with a fourth base upon them.
Hanging from the underside of that is a carpeted tube.
Finally, on the top a single column in one corner, with a small platform atop.

It’s a four tier cat castle. They explored it slowly, the smell of the carpet required getting used to. And the new heights also.
But soon they were chasing each other up it. But only one of them worked out how to get back down.
Little kitty was able to jump (barely!!) from the second level, which is about waste high, but he loved third level, neck high, and couldn’t climb back down to second level.
He would cry and cry and cry that he couldn’t get back down. I tried to teach him to climb down to level 2, and he did it once or twice, but not by choice.
Never by choice.

So… I got out the bean bag, and put it against the castle. Then, when he was crying, I picked him up, and from slightly lower than third tier, I dropped him into the bag.

He sank deep into the bag, so deep I couldn’t see him. Had he hit the ground? He was stock still.
Then, after about 9 or ten seconds, he leaped out of the cat shaped hole, and ran off to the food bowl.

Later on, he was back up there, crying to come down again. I tried to coax him to jump… but he wouldn’t. So I pushed him off. You could see and feel the fright in his half second journey of “plummet”.
But he lived, and ran off to his food bowl.

I think I had to “encourage” him once or twice more, before he worked out that he wasn’t hurting when he landed in the bean bag.
The first few times he jumped of his own will were such comical, magical moments. He would perch at the edge of the tier, adjust his position eight or ten times, until he gathered his confidence, and almost surprisingly, lower himself and leap – a cute little falling furball. Rachel kept looking away and the last second and missing the “moment” so it was a bit of a game even for us.
Soon, it was just common occurance. Every day occasion, nothing to report upon.

He became quite good at it, in fact. He would jump specifically onto the EDGE of the bean bag, so it would roll with his impact and he could just walk off to get his food or water.

But Big Kitty changed all this. One pooh, and I’m no longer happy. I couldn’t wipe it all off, of course, and I have no idea how to get the beans out to wash the damn thing.
Plus how do I teach him that “the kitty litter is for pooh” when I didn’t teach him that in the first place?
I “rubbed his nose in it”, like you do a dog. I didn’t actually make contact with his nose and the pooh, but he resisted so strongly, we both knew he didn’t want his nose rubbed in it. I had also done this when he poohed on the bed.
(Ooh wait. No, it was little kitty on the bed! I recall correctly now!)
When I cleaned the bed, I put the pooh INTO the litter tray, with little kitty watching, and little kitty buried it. I think that worked.
But Big Kitties effort was a mess, he clearly wasn’t 100% well.
Half a roll of paper towelling later, I still didn’t know what to do.

I “rubbed” his nose in it, probably three or four times, to get the message through that I wasn’t happy with him, and he sulked. He tried seeking comfort later when I was at my desk. He jumped onto my chair. I put him back down. He jumped up and rubbed against me. I put him back down. He jumped up, and then quickly double jumped onto my desk, and tried to give me kissies.
How can I resist that bloody cat! He’s so damn cute. I compromised. I could be cranky at him, and he could stay on the desk.

Anyway, there’s a new problem.
Little Kitty – we have names for them now, by the way.
Big Kitty is extremely agile. Our favourite game is with a soft ball – I throw it against the wall, and it bounces on the ground, and he jumps up and catches or swats it. If he misses, I get another throw. If he hits, he chases it til it stops, and then he leaves it there, and I have to go get it or the game ends.
Anyway, we call Big Kitty “Ginger Ninja”.
Little Kitty is called “Thundercat”. He purrs a lot. He meows a lot. And he is at least twice as loud as the ninja in both. More, with meows. Well, it’s now half way between the squeak it once was and a proper demanding meow. He has several words too. Ninja has a limited vocabulary. Makes it easier to understand Ninja, sadly. I never *really* know what Thundercat wants – except “food” or “outside”. I think I get those two.

Anyway, now Thundercat – who lives and sleeps on third tier, or even fourth tier from occasion, now that he can wrestle Ninja a little better – can’t jump into the beanbag.
It isn’t there.

He cries. Actually, I know that call. I don’t know what he’s saying exactly but I know it’s something like “I can’t get down and I really want to get down.”
I am trying to teach him to do the acrobatic climb-down that ninja does, but he won’t. He’s a little clumsier at it, and he knows it. It involves a downward facing twist flip, hooking the front claws onto the column or side of tunnel.

And I have seen – in desperation – Thundercat just JUMP. He reaches down as far as he can, holding on intensely with back feet, until he thinks he can reach (with a small leap) the edge of the second tier. Then he rebounds to jump the rest of the way. But he hates it.

I have even used food to lure him. And he *really* wants the food. It makes him anxious. I put it on second tier, tap near it and repeat “down” and “Thundercat down” and he seems to know what I want, and wants to get it, but refuses to make the trip.

So why is this a problem?
Because he is clever and innovative.
We have put the cat castle in the centre of the living area. It’s more than a metre away from any wall. But we stash the ironing board against one of those walls, and the ironing board ajoins the benchtop (which forms the kitchen’s edge.)

So he makes the most daring of leaps a metre across, and from half a metre higher, to land precariously on a 15 cm unstable landing platform, with obstacles (iron, etc) upon it. Then he realises that he has opened the gateway to a new exploration adventure. The kitchen bench.

This is exactly the one thing I don’t want him to do. So I catch him, tell him loudly “NO!” and dump him unceremoniously upon the floor. Then two minutes later (I’m not angry at him) I call him over to my desk to give me kissie. But he hasn’t learned yet.

Today was the first day he did it, and I ended up having to catch him from the ironing board (NO!!) and put him back on third tier, to repeat the process maybe seven or eight times.

I can see an uphill battle approaching, and I still have to sort out my bean bag.
Right now they’re sleeping on my desktop. How can I stay mad at them?