Had to drop off some tworags/commerce promotional cards at the Commerce this afternoon and even though I didn't have much time to play I couldn't resist at least a little action so I dropped $400 down at the $5/10 NL (400 max) table, ordered some chicken kabobs - food is free at these limits - and began a quick session. Only had about an hour to play, but what the heck.
I observed for a few hands. Many hands went unraised and almost all reasonable raises in the $15-25 range got called by at least one or two players. This was also one of these weird games where every hand seemed to be won by a nut flush or fullhouse.
After about an orbit I'm dealt A 9 in the SB and complete with 4 limpers in front of me. Flop comes with two diamonds and I make it $30. Two people call. The turn brings the flush and I make it $75 and one guy calls. The board pairs which worries me just a bit, but I decide to make it $100 (kind of a value bet) and might consider folding to a push. He folds.
Played a few other meaningless hands before this one comes up. I'm in the BB and UTG makes it $20 and 5 people call! I look down at Q5 and call. The flop comes 557. Nice. I probably need to check, but most people don't bet the 5, so I decide to lead out with $50. One guy calls. The turn is the nasty 7 for 5577. The SB makes it $100. Hmmm. I'm having a hard time putting him on a hand I can beat. Now if he was super confident that I had a 5, then his bet is brilliant, but how can he be that confident? My lead on the flop could easily be a 7, an overpair or a bluff. In fact, more often than not it isn't a 5. On the other hand, if he had a 7, then why lead? I decided that he might lead, because if I don't have a 7 he assumes I'll check. I ended up folding. It seemed like the right decision here. Any thoughts?
The only other semi-interesting hand was this. I have AKo in EP, and make it $20. The HJ calls (he only has another $60 or so behind), the CO makes it $100. I have about $320 left so I really have only two options, I'm not deep enough to call and fold on the flop. I decide to do the only reasonable thing here (at least to my warped mind) and push. Of course the HJ calls and the CO calls too. The board brings all low cards, but 3 spades. The short-stack had KsJs and the CO had the same AK as me, so I lost about $80 on the hand. Not sure how good a call it was for the other AK guy -- probably pretty close. Let's see:
He is calling $220 into a $520ish pot, so he's getting more than 2-1, but what can he reasonably put me on? I raised, there was a caller and he RR. It sure looks like my range is QQ, KK, AA, AK. It's probably close. Just did an Evaluator scenario and it looks to be about BE. Take a look here.
Nothing more happens and I lose about half of my buy-in. No big hands, no terrible hands, just lots of small bleeding over the 1.5 hour session.
One crazy hand to note just as I'm stacking my chips. A guy goes all-in for $250 and shows me his TT. Another guy calls. The guy called so fast that the TT guy is worried about an overpair, but then the flop comes 678o and the turn is a 9 so Mr. TT seems golden. The river brings another 8. The opponent turns over 99. Can you believe that? Let's do some calculations on the QuickOdds program:
Preflop he's an 82% favorite
On flop he's a 76% favorite
On turn he's still a 73% favorite
I guess it wasn't as bad as it seemed. The straight draw on the flop and trips on the turn kept it closer than it looked at the end.
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