The Shark Tank

I was doing well enough for a while, but two big hands did me in.  In the first hand, I flopped two pair and wound up making a crying call on the river to see the flush that I knew he had.  That cost me a good-sized chunk of my stack because on the first two streets I was trying to make sure that he didn’t have the odds to chase and I wound up building a very big pot.

I kept my head in the game, even though I was now short-stacked and frustrated with myself.  I was in a poor mood anyhow because I was trying to play on an Amtrak train with the cell phone as a modem.  It was like playing on the slowest dial-up connection ever and many times I was in the time bank before I even saw the action buttons.  I was annoyed.  I wound up pushing all-in with A4s on a 543 board.  I figured the pre-flop raiser might well have high cards and fold and even if he did have an overpair, I probably had 8 outs (plus a backdoor flush draw).   He called me with 99 and was very unhappy when I doubled up on an Ace.  Oh well.

Unfortunately, just about three hands later I went home.  I found TT in middle position and raised an early limper about 4x BB.  The BB called, as did the early limper.  The flop came down JT9 and I had middle set on a scary board.  The action went check-check and I bet about 75% of the pot.  The BB then pushed, the early limper called.  I was pretty unhappy about my situation, but just couldn’t fold my set there.  I was against AJ and KQ.  I didn’t improve and the flopped straight with KQ sent me to the rail.  I had slightly less than 30% equity, but with my pre-flop raise and my flop bet, I was getting such ridiculous odds (5:1) that a call was required there.  I believed that AJ/QJ/JT hands would have been all-in on this particular table, but it is never fun to go home empty-handed.

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