MATTMATROS.COM

I just finished up Day One here at the Borg. It went well. I’m probably in the top ten in chips with my 124,775 (we started with 30K). They got about 775 players, maybe 60% of which will come back for Day Two at 11 a.m. Average stack, therefore, is around 50K.

It’s late and I’m tired, but I have to relate to you all just one hand–possibly the most ridiculous hand I’ve ever been involved in.

Blinds are 100-200 with a 25 ante. A loose/bad/crazy player limps UTG+2 for 200. It folds to the hijack, who is also a loose-aggressive type, but not nearly as insane as the limper. The hijack makes it 775. I decide I don’t want to give up my button, and make a loose call with the 5d3c. The small blind calls, and we see the flop four ways with 3550 in the pot. The flop come Ad4s2d. I have the nuts. The small blind checks, and the wild player bets 2,000. The hijack folds. I make it 6,000. The small blind folds, and the loose/wild guy calls quickly. The turn is the queen of diamonds, putting a three-flush on board. Loose/wild leads out for 6,000 into the 15,550 pot. I choose to just call (possibly a mistake). The river is the nine of diamonds, putting the fourth diamond on board. (Remember, I have the five of diamonds.) Loose/wild bets 8,000 into the 27,550 pot. I reluctantly call. He says, and I quote, “you’re good; you have a flush, right?” I roll over my hand. He shakes his head and says, “yeah, I can’t win.” He flips his hand over. It’s the seven of hearts…and the eight of diamonds. He says, “wait, I win?” He then jumps up from the table shouting, “I played the hand blind! I played the hand blind!” I hope so, sir, given that you put 6,000 into the pot on the flop with 87o on a board of A42.

Outside of this hand, I ran exceptionally good today. I flopped five sets and won with all of them. I rivered the nuts late, and got a big raise paid off. Obviously getting those hands made things easier, but it’s clear based on the above play and many others that this tournament was a great investment, regardless of how it turns out. If I run half as good in Day Two as I did in Day One, I’ll be OK. I’ll give it my best shot.

I treaded water for six hours today in the $1,500 No Limit Hold ‘Em event at the Borgata Winter Open, with two exceptions.

Exception One: Blinds of 100-200. A tight-passive player limps UTG. Folded to a loose-aggressive internet player on the button, who makes it 550. The small blind (tight and straightforward older gentleman) calls, and I decide to call in the big blind with two nines. I could’ve three-bet to isolate the button, but there was a decent chance the small blind would’ve come along anyway, and I didn’t like my options if I got four-bet. UTG calls as well. The flop comes 964 with two spades. Checked to the button who bets 1,025. The SB folds. I make it 3,500. UTG folds, and the button quickly moves me in for 13,000 more. I, of course, call, and the button rolls over 74o. The five on the turn gives him a sweat, but luckily the river is a ten and I double up.

Exception Two: The very first hand of 200-400, 50 ante. Folds to the cutoff, who is an actual poker player, loose, tricky, tough. He opens for 1,025. The button folds. I’m in the SB with 87o, and I make it 3,500 to go. The BB folds. The cutoff thinks for a long time, and finally four-bets to 8,550 total. I don’t fold much of my three-betting range when being offered 2.6-1, although this hand would certainly be a candidate. But I didn’t feel my opponent was very strong. I opted to call, making the pot 18,000, and leaving me with 27,000 behind. I planned on leading out all-in on some flops, check-raising all-in on some flops, and check-folding on some flops (and not necessarily always deciding in advance). The flop comes JT8 rainbow. I decide to check and then re-evaluate. My opponent bets 10,200. I don’t see anything to change my initial read, and so I move in hoping for a fold. Sadly, my opponent calls instantly with T9s. Oh well, at least the preflop read was right. I don’t improve, and that’s that.

I’m happy I went out swinging, and I made some nice plays earlier in the day on small pots. Time to refocus and get ready for the Main Event, which I’ll start on Monday (although even before then, I’ll probably play some online stuff on Sunday).

Well, I’m here in Atlantic City for another instantiation of the Borgata Winter Open. Tomorrow I play the $1,500 No Limit Hold ‘Em event. Follow my twitter feed for chip count updates, and possibly other observations.

Well, I was hoping to get some more guesses for my last post, but anyway it’s high time I revealed the results, so here goes.

Hand One: I’m the shortest stack of the three players involved in the hand. A mid-position limper for 200, and then a loose-aggressive player makes it 900 in the next seat. I call from the button, the limper calls. The flop comes 976 with two clubs. Limper checks, the raiser bets 2,500. I move in for 19,000. The limper folds. A) What’s my range? B) What’s the worst hand the raiser should call with?

A) This is a pretty big bet for me, risking 19k to win 5500, so my range isn’t all that nutso. A decent answer would be something like flush draws with two overcards, any flush draw with an eight, a set, a straight, two pair, TT.

B) The raiser has to call 16.5k to win 24.5k, so he needs to win a showdown a little more than 40 percent of the time to show a profit. AA would win about 38 percent against a similar range to what I described in part A, so big pairs are very borderline calls in this spot (which is the conclusion most of us would probably come to intuitively). Anything better than one pair is a more straightforward call (although bottom two is still close).

In the actual hand, I had 99, my opponent called with KK, and I doubled up.

Hand Two: Everyone has more than 40,000. UTG limps for 400. Two other limpers, and a loose-aggressive player makes a small raise from the button to 1,400. Folds to me in the big blind. A) What’s my range for reraising? For calling?
I call, UTG calls, both other limpers call. The flop comes K82 with two hearts. I check. UTG leads out for 3,500. The other limpers and original raiser fold, I call. B) What’s my range now?
The turn is a blank. I check, UTG checks. The river brings a third heart. I check, UTG bets 3,800 into the almost 13,000 pot. C) What range do I call with? What do I raise with?

A) I will call 1,000 more here with anything remotely playable, as I’m getting a huge price both in terms of immediate and implied odds. I will reraise here with a range that includes very strong hands (that is, hands with which I’m comfortable facing a four-bet), somewhat strong hands (hands like QQ and AKo that can’t afford to put 40,000 into the pot, but are good enough to isolate against the raiser), and total airballs (hands that will happily fold if I get four-bet, but that give me some resteals in my range and make me less readable overall).

B) Getting 3-1 on my money, I’ll call with some flush draws, some kings, and some sets. Maybe even with 99 or TT or some eights. I’m very unlikely to be calling-to-steal out of position, but that might be a 5% probability or something.

C) I should have some good flushes in my range, and I should raise with those. I can consider making a rare check-raise bluff with 99 or TT, if I happened to get that far with them. I think I should call with good kings, as my opponent might be trying to squeeze value out of KT or KJ, and also small flushes (if I even have any of those in my range at this point).

In the actual hand, I called with AK, and my opponent showed 7h4h to win the pot.

Hand Three: Blinds 400-800,  I open in the cutoff for 2,600. The button calls, the small blind calls, and Bill Edler calls in the big blind. The flop comes AQ2 all hearts. Checked to me, and I bet 7,500. It folds to Bill, who sets me all-in for about 60,000 more (Bill has me covered safely). A) What’s Bill’s range? B) What’s the worst hand I should call with?

A) I was hoping you guys could tell me. It’s a very big bet on his part, risking 67,500 to win about 18,500. Bill is highly aggressive, but I don’t think he’s crazy enough to be making this move without a real solid hand. I give him small flushes, 22, A2, AQ, KhQx, QxJh, AxJh, and maybe QxTh.

B) I have to call 60,000 to win about 86,000, so I need to win a little more than 40 percent of the time to show a profit. Against the range I’m guessing for Bill, AQ has somewhere around 39 percent equity, making AQ seem pretty much like the borderline hand. I should fold weaker two pairs, and call with anything better than top two. Top two is a tough spot.

In the actual hand, I called with top two, and Bill surprised me by showing AxKh (I’d mostly ruled out AK based on the preflop action). Alas, a flush hit on the turn and I was eliminated.

I’m playing the Foxwoods Main Event in two weeks, and I promise at least one post before then. I’ll aim for more, but only promise one.

A few weeks ago, I took the old Greyhound bus to Atlantic City (thank God for the new train service that has just started) for the Borgata Winter Open. It’s been a while, so forgive me if I get a few details wrong in the descriptions below.

My first event was the $2,150 No Limit Hold ‘Em–the final preliminary before the deep stack, $3,200 buy-in main event. I gathered some chips in this thing, before running into my old nemesis from the World Series, Dan Heimiller. Dan open-limped for 200 from the cutoff, and the button and small blind followed suit. I made it 1,200 from the big blind with KK. Dan called, the others folded. The flop came 852 rainbow and I led out for 1,600. Dan called. The turn brought an ace. Obviously this wasn’t the card I was looking for, but I didn’t think it was the end of the world either. I put Dan on a pocket pair, or having flopped a pair. Why would it have to be specifically A8 or A5? I didn’t think he would’ve played so passively preflop and on the flop with something like AK, AQ, AJ. I also thought there was a decent chance Dan had just been calling along hoping to steal at some point, so I decided to check and call. Dan, as expected, made a bet of a little more than half the pot (3,200, I believe). I called. The river paired the deuce. I checked again and Dan made a small bet of 4,100 into the 12,400 pot. On the one hand, I’d played with Dan enough to know that a small bet like this in position was probably a monster. On the other hand, Dan is extremely tricky, and he absolutely had to have aces up or better to be betting for value there. Given the wide range I’d put Dan on after the flop action, I thought I had to call for the price. Dan showed A2o for the full house. He then stated that he thought I was bluffing preflop. “In my head, I had a much stronger hand preflop than I actually did,” he said. Indeed in reality too, as it turned out.

A few hands later I folded to one of Dan’s small river bets (rightly or wrongly) when I could beat a bluff, and pretty soon I was left with a restealing stack. Dan opened in the cutoff and a loose player in the button called. The small blind folded, and knowing that Dan was very unlikely to call if I moved in, I tried a squeeze play with 53s. Dan folded immediately, but then the button asked how much it was and I started to suspect I was in trouble. He eventually called with 66, a disaster spot if there ever was one. No miracles, and I was knocked out. Luckily my good friend Rob “Action Bob” Hwang ended up making a deal three-handed at the final table, so my first event wasn’t all bad.

Next up was the $2,150 HOSE. Not a ton of interesting stuff to report in this one. I played limit poker, and lost too many hands. I think I probably played too tight in the stud games, especially on the early streets. And there weren’t nearly as many soft spots as I’d hoped. My table was mostly pros, including John D’Agostino and Tony Cousineau, both of whom (I believe) play a fair amount of mixed games. I busted quickly.

All this set the stage for the $3,200 main event. They started us with 50,000 chips and blinds of 25-50. This was far too many blinds for my liking. (I say that jokingly, of course. I love a deep structure, but it does make it extremely difficult to bump up your stack by any meaningful amount for a while.) I’ll relate three key hands from this one in quiz form.

Hand One: I’m the shortest stack of the three players involved in the hand. A mid-position limper for 200, and then a loose-aggressive player makes it 900 in the next seat. I call from the button, the limper calls. The flop comes 976 with two clubs. Limper checks, the raiser bets 2,500. I move in for 19,000. The limper folds. A) What’s my range? B) What’s the worst hand the raiser should call with?

Hand Two: Everyone has more than 40,000. UTG limps for 400. Two other limpers, and a loose-aggressive player makes a small raise from the button to 1,400. Folds to me in the big blind. A) What’s my range for reraising? For calling?
I call, UTG calls, both other limpers call. The flop comes K82 with two hearts. I check. UTG leads out for 3,500. The other limpers and original raiser fold, I call. B) What’s my range now?
The turn is a blank. I check, UTG checks. The river brings a third heart. I check, UTG bets 3,800 into the almost 13,000 pot. C) What range do I call with? What do I raise with?

Hand Three: Blinds 400-800,  I open in the cutoff for 2,600. The button calls, the small blind calls, and Bill Edler calls in the big blind. The flop comes AQ2 all hearts. Checked to me, and I bet 7,500. It folds to Bill, who sets me all-in for about 60,000 more (Bill has me covered safely). A) What’s Bill’s range? B) What’s the worst hand I should call with?

Look forward to seeing some responses in the comments. Results to come in the next post.