Monday, April 16, 2007

Bad variance kicks in

There's a trail of blood along I-395 northbound to I-90 east towards Boston (See map below) . It's the result of the leakage coming from the massive raping I took river after river after river after river today.

I final experienced the ugly side of variance. It's been long awaited. The two most shocking hands, within 30 minutes of each other, in which I had incredible equity after the first four cards are as follows:

My hand - ATKJ
Flop - KQJ
I flopped the nut high and had a draw to a fullhouse. I bet, then there's a raise, then a guy cold calls. The turn is a 7 and there are no flushes possible. I bet, call, call. The river is a fucking piece of shit Q. My straight is no good, the guy that originally raised showed a 10,9 for a king-high straight, and the other moron shows KQ for a fullhouse.

My hand - 34Q10
Flop - A2K
A perfect flop for a hand with a 3,4 in it. The turn was a beautiful J, giving me the nut high with a nut low draw. Being a rainbow board, I was pretty much golden. But the river had something else in store for me, another J. Some shithead takes down the pot with AJ, fullhouse. Two minutes needed to lift my jaw off the table.

I had various other suckouts throughout the day while being card dead during a very juicy table. After 8 hours I was down $200. Regardless, I was having a great time. The guys on the table had me laughing my ass off the entire time.

Ready to go home, I raise preflop with QQ45 to get my final $15 or so in the pot. Eight callers, so I'm basically praying for a Q. By some miracle of the poker god, the flop comes 559. Not bad, but certainly not good. A queen would be perfect, but I'd need to fill up with a 4 in order to win this hand. The turn brings a K. There's a bet and then a raise, meaning I'm through. Not quite. A five comes on the river. The raiser wins the side pot with KKK55 and I take down the main pot with quads. I survived the all-in and wasn't feeling completely bent of shape.

I'm now on my 9th straight hour and almost ready to go. It's just hard to leave when you're playing against nine other clueless people, but aren't getting dealt cards. Then, my luck changed a bit with these few hands:

A267. The flop came 347. The turn was a 5 and the river an A. With five people in to the river, there was definitely some sharing of the pot. It turned out there were two people sharing for low and three for high. Luckily I had a piece of each, giving me an unheard of 7/12 of the pot.

A379. I flopped really nice. Improved to the nut low on the turn and got a straight on the river. I bet out, got raised, and I re-raised because there was no way I'd be splitting both high and low. Sure enough, I scooped a nice pot.

A234. I raised on the button and a had a family of callers. I nearly busted a load when the flop came 232. There was a bet and a call in front of me, so I just called. The turn brought me the nut low and the river was painless. I took down 3/4 of the pot.

After getting crushed all day, I'm all of a sudden up $20, and ten hours is enough.

It's good to see that there was a lot of action on a Monday. I hope it stays that way during the summer.