Two

I’ve played the last live poker until Vegas in two days.  I did go to the G-Vegas Big Game last night, but didn’t see much in the way of cards.  I toiled for a bit and finished down less than a buy-in.  There was mega-cash flowing at the table, I believe one guy was up over $1k.  Based on what I saw, I’m not too displeased with the way I played, but the results were disappointing.

Here is an interesting hand where I feel I made good reads and that I played it correctly.

I’m in the SB and the blinds are $2/$5.  UTG raises to $15 and gets 2 callers.  Based on the table, I’m confident the BB will most likely call as well, perhaps fold, but certainly not re-raise.  So I call.  Indeed, the BB calls too and we’ve got a $75 pre-flop pot.

I’m holding 5d7d, by the way.  Sorry I forgot to say so.

The flop is 4d, 8d, Qh – giving me the flush draw and gutshot straight draw.  By all accounts, that’s 12 outs or so I think.  I check, the BB checks and the UTG raiser bets $30.  The two previous pre-flop callers also call.

Now my spidey-sense is going off.  I muck.  I have to believe here that at least one other person is on the flush draw and my baby draw will come up short.  The BB also mucks and we’ve got a $165 pot.

The turn is the 6h, which would have given me the nuts.  But it also produced a second flush draw, so getting outdrawn was a distinct possibility.  Were I still in the hand, I’d have had to go all-in.  But the problem was that I don’t think I could have made the flush draws fold.  I was first to act and UTG was most certainly calling me.  At this stage of the evening, UTG had a bigger stack and calling my all-in wouldn’t have been difficult.  Then once he called, he’s making the pot size more attractive for the other two callers who are obviously on draws.

The river was a third diamond and G-Rob won the pot with AdTd and the nut flush.  UTG showed pocket K’s.

In retrospect, I really like the laydown based on the number of players in the pot, my inability to create fold equity and the fact that the number of my actual outs was quite less than I originally anticipated.

I also liked that fact that I only saw 1 flop in Pinizzle.  I am a tight box in that game.