First Day Back

Once I set up my new account on PokerStars (2_7_Cadillac) I decided to charge up my old on-line account and get back to the action there as well. The first game I decided to play was a $10 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em Multi-Table tournament consisting of 45 players. The usual Pokerstars set up of $1500 chips, usual blind levels and 7 spot payout for a 45 player tourny were all in affect.

I get placed in seat 3 of table 5. The cards are in the digital air and I'm about to play my first poker in what seems like an eternity! My first hand is 7-8 off-suit, as fate would have it, I accidently hit the "call" button to call the $20 blind as opposed to my intention of "folding", what a donkey move! Anyway, we get 6 way action to the flop. The flop comes a ragged rainbow of 3-7-3. This looks like a good textured flop for me, especially after the action goes check, check. I pop it to $60 (1/2 the $120 pot). I chose 1/2 the pot because I was in middle position, had top pair and 5 others in the pot. Normally in this position with fewer callers I'd like to underbet and see what happens, but on this occasion I wanted to take the pot down right here. The action behind me goes Raise, Re-raise, all-in! Wow! I forgot what online poker was like! This hand becomes a simple fold for me but the all-in gets a caller. The all-in raiser had Q-3 off-suit while the all-in caller had K-10 of spades (WTF??). The rest of my hands procede like garbage for the next three levels. I get to play some connectors out of the blinds and I even limped on the button once (which I HATE to do) with 4-5 of spades but I couldn't even pick up a draw to bet!

The first hand I finally took down came during the 3rd level at 25-50 blinds when I'm dealt 9-10 of diamonds in the cut-off seat. Two players limp ahead of me, I limp and the dealer and blinds also limp along for the ride. A perfect flop comes 10-2-4 with 2 diamonds. Yes! Perfect flop for all this limping and my hand HAS to be best! I like the current pot at $300 and want it here so when the action goes check, check I pop it for $200 (2/3) of the pot. I bet so much because I don't want someone to outdraw me with 2 over-cards and I don't want a back-door diamond draw coming along. I want to claim this pot uncontested now! I'm also willing to push here if I'm reraised so I get my money all-in with what I feel is the best hand and a flush draw. As I thought everyone folds and I'm back in business up to $1305 in chips after basically blinding and calling off $500 of my chips to this point.

The first break comes after the 3rd level and here are how things look: we still have 25 players left, Largest stack is $8080, Average stack is $2700 and the small stack is $730. I still have $1305 (good for 20th place) which is less than the average stack but still almost double the small stack so I think I'm in a pretty good position. The blinds are going to be 50-100 after the break and I know I can't wait to make my move if I want to get back in this tournament. If I wait to long to make my move the blinds will deplete my stack to the point my shove will be inconsequential and I won't have any fold-equity out of my all-in move.

My plan is to go into the next level aggressively, I'm going to make a small initial opening raise (about $200) with the first good hand I see as long as the pot isn't yet opened. I'm hoping to get reraised by one of the two smaller stacks at my table pressing a marginal hand and then I can get all my chips in to try and double up! I'm not going to limp any more and I'm going to punish any limper ahead of me if I get the button, I will push on any limpers no matter what cards I have, here is where I need that fold equity! Ok, I've made my plan and the break is over.

I'm UTG and get dealt A-K offsuit! I couldn't be happier, I open-raise to $200 and it folds around to the 8 seat where a small stack of $975 pushes all in, I'm exstatic! I didn't even have to make the all-in reraise. Obviously, at this point my call will be automatic. Unfortunately, as is often the case in poker, things have not gone as I planned. The button player calls the $975 cold. F*$K! Now I need to think about what I thought was going to be an insta-call. I had seen this player call 2 all-in players previously with less than marginal holdings based on the action at the time. The first call was with a Q-J suited and the second call was with A-8 offsuit, both times the all-in caller had won the race from behind. Based on this I figure the worst scenario I am ahead of the all-in raiser and maybe slightly behind the all-in caller because I figure the best scenario is he may have a middle pair to make this play with. Obviously, I could also be dominated by both, but I find this unlikely based on previous play and the short stack. So, getting a little short of 2-1 on my money I call. We turn'em over and I see what I didn't want! The all-in raiser had K-K and the caller had Q-Q. I have a live Ace but I was hoping for being ahead against one player and running a coin-flip against the other. The flop comes 3 diamonds but I can't fill my flush and the Kings hold up. I'm out in 25th spot.

Lets look at the math and see if I was correct to call:

Befor the flop my A-K was 25% , the K-K was 57% and the Q-Q was 18%. I was middle of the pack. Against the Q-Q I'd have been in my coin-flip and against the K-K I'd have had the Ace working but dominated by the K-K if we had been heads up. The 3 diamonds on the flop improved my odds to 41.5% since I held the highest diamond and still had an over card, but no help on the turn or 5th street sent me to the rail.

Expectation wise, my thinking was actually pretty correct. Since I couldn't really put them on a specific range of hands after our short time playing together I figured the best breakdown was I had a 1/3 shot at winning the whole pot, a 1/3 shot at going broke and a 1/3 shot at winning the side pot. In this scenario the math was:

EV= (.33)(3585)+(.33)(-1305)+(.33)(660) which gives the EV= +968 so my positive expectation means my call was profitable over the long run if the cards broke even. However, since this is a tournament and I can't buy back in this EV number is on the high side.

Overall, I don't think I played horrible. My call showed positive EV and I was getting roughly 2-1 on my money when I thought I was ahead or only slightly behind. Obviously, based on the fundamental theorum of poker I made a mistake with my call, but that is theory based discussion for another day!

Hope you found that hand interesting! I sure did!

Cadillac