Come to think of it, I’ve never seen this before. I wouldn’t be too surprised if I never saw it again.

The money all went in on the flop, for what it’s worth.

Posted by Beck as Poker at 12:51 AM PST

3 Comments »

Two weeks ago, I played PORSE in a low limit poker home-game. I didn’t really have any prior history in Crazy Pineapple, so I thought I’d ask for opinions on a hand.

A couple of limpers, and I have Ks Kc Jh. I call, and the flop comes Kh Th 9h. I like my hand alright, but which card do I get rid of? With straight and flush possibilities, I’m not too confident about my trip Kings. The straight flush with my Jh is tempting, but does it make sense to ditch a made (although vulnerable) hand to chase it?

In the end, I kept the kings. The action is pretty light, so I stick around. A blank on the turn didn’t help me any, but with the case king of the river, I took down the guy who flopped the straight.

(It explains the light action, since nobody had the flush.)

Posted by Jaxia as Crazy Pineapple, Gambling, Poker, Poker Strategy at 8:25 PM PST

5 Comments »

Unfortunately, it remains true that you can never trust a person who would actually want a job working as an elected government official. While I assume there are a few genuinely civic-minded people motivated to run for office out of a sense of obligation to give back to society after enjoying the benefits of private enterprise, I never give a politician the benefit of the doubt. My default assumption is that they’re all lying chiseling cheats intent on gaining and maintaining power at the expense of all else.

Integrity is usually the first thing to go out the window, which is why I wasn’t particularly surprised to read that Massachusetts’ state governor is attempting to sneak a provision which would outlaw internet gambling for Massachusetts state residents into a bill currently before the state legislature. The bill in question? One licensing construction of three new casinos in the state.

That’s right. While simultaneously seeking to legalize casino gambling, he seeks to outlaw online gambling, with the obvious benefit of driving gamblers into the state’s brick & mortar establishments where the revenue can be easily and conveniently taxed.

In other words, the governor has no problem with gambling, but he wants to make gambling illegal when it takes forms that he can’t personally get his money grubbing hands on. Hypocrisy, thy name is Deval Patrick.

Posted by Beck as Ethics, Gambling, Poker at 3:59 PM PST

5 Comments »

Several months ago, pulling into the self-parking (free–thanks Foxwoods!) one Thursday intent on playing the $100 daily tournament, I couldn’t help but noticing that the license plates of the vehicle in front of me read “HOLD EM”. I made sure to get a good look at the driver before heading inside. Of course, the odds of ever being at the same table with the guy seemed slim.

You know what’s coming next of course.

Having sat down at my table for the tournament–I’d arrived with just a few minutes to spare–I saw nothing but unfamiliar faces. Well, and an empty seat. No problem there–more chips for the table. Then he sat down. The driver of HOLD EM. Talk about your tells.

Incidentally, he wound up being the first player to bust out. His play couldn’t be blamed, though, as he flopped the nut straight, got all his chips in, then lost to a rivered full house.

*****

Yesterday as I walked through the parking lot at the mall where I stopped to do some shopping before heading, yet again, to Foxwoods, I saw that the car next to me had as its license plates reading, “IM ALL N”. I got out a piece of paper and a pen, wrote, “I CALL. I HAVE THE NUTS,” on it, and stuck it under his wiper blades.

I win.

Posted by Beck as Poker at 11:29 AM PST

1 Comment »

I just played this hand a few hours ago at Foxwoods, and I just have to write about it. To an extent, it pertains to the past few posts on over bets, but mostly I just want to write about how awesome I am.

Actually, I made a technical mistake on the hand (acting out of turn), so I’m not, you know, totally awesome, but the mistake wound up helping a little, so I’m not going to sweat it or in any way allow it to diminish from the awesomeness.

In a $2/$5 NLHE game at Foxwoods (where the World Poker Finals are ongoing, filling the room with players and action), I have about $1000 in front of me in the big blind, the small blind has me covered, and everyone else in the hand has around $350-450. UTG folds, and UTG +1 open raises to $20. Two players call, and it folds to the small blind. Here’s where I make my mistake. Having already looked at my cards, I know that I have two black kings in the hole. Before the SB can act, I declare, “Raise.” Right as the words are escaping my lips, from the corner of my eye, I note that he had been going for raising chips. Now, he just calls.

That’s right. He called even after hearing me declare that I was going to re-raise. Still, with the second best possible starting hand in hold ‘em, I need to raise and, at the very least, define my hand and try to find out where I stand. I re-raise to $80. UTG +1 calls. One player folds, then a second one calls. There’s $280 in the pot, and action is now on the SB. He goes all-in.

In the tens of thousands of hands I have played, I have never folded kings pre-flop. I’ve run them into aces plenty of times. But I’ve never surrendered them without at least seeing a flop. But Now I’m facing a call for nearly a thousand bucks against a player who could just be making a move. Obviously, he can’t go all-in there without aces, obviously I know that, so obviously any hand other than aces would have to fold so obviously he’s in a great spot to make a huge bluff, especially if he has at least one ace in his hand (thus statistically making it more likely that I’ve got kings, queens, or some such).

Oh, I forgot to mention, this guy was a professional poker player. He had busted out of the $1000 NLHE tournament earlier in the day, had plans to play about $15000 more in tournaments, and clearly knew his shit. In other words, he was capable of making that play there with any two cards.

I folded. Everyone else folded. The small blind turned up pocket aces.

Bullet Tooth Tony: Beck the Blade? As in Beck the Bullet-Dodger?
Avi: Why do they call him the Bullet-Dodger?
Bullet Tooth Tony: ‘Cause he dodges bullets, Avi.

Posted by Beck as Poker at 11:50 PM PDT

4 Comments »