Going AIP!

One of the media I exploit for my poker edutainment is the Ante Up! podcast. I just started listening about 5 weeks ago, and I'm really enjoying catching up on the back episodes when I have time. They have a great rapport, and the show is a good mix of education/exploration and entertainment.

For the last few weeks, they've been running a mixed tournament series called the Ante-up Intercontinental Poker Series (AIPS). Each week the tournament is a different poker variant, to encourage their listeners to check out some of the other games than just Hold 'Em. This week, the game was "Stud Hi/Lo, 8 or better", or "Stud/8". I guess I probably had an advantage over most of the field, since my local cardroom actually spreads this game, so I've gotten some experience with it in the past 6 months or so.

I got a couple big hands in succession about 40 minutes in, and moved from near the bottom of the field to the top 5. After that, I was able to play big-stack poker, and win a lot of pots through sheer aggression. (This was a good experience for me, because my usual style is much tighter, at least until I get to the short-handed part of the tournament.) By the second break, I had twice as many chips as my closest competitor, and by the time we were down to 10 players, I had half the chips in the tournament. Perhaps needless to say, I won the tournament:



My victory is officially commemorated here. I'm now 6th in the overall player standings, so I'm gonna try to cash again in the next few. After winning the "top banana" trophy for this tournament, now I'm going for the series trophy.

Important Safety Tip

Never muck the winning hand!

While this wasn't the biggest pot of the night, it was one of the most memorable for me, since I misplayed it.

The game I was in (3-100 spread limit, $100 buy-in) was mostly passive before the flop, so there were several limpers. I was in the cutoff with QJ of spades, so joined the limpfest. The button folded, so I had position, and small blind completes. Pot is now about $15.

The flop comes TT9, with one spade. Small Blind checks, Big Blind goes all-in for $28. Middle Position calls (with only about 25 more behind). I decide I want to gamble, and draw to the open-end straight draw with the backdoor flush draw. I have the big stack in the hand (over $400), so raise $50 more to isolate the short stacks. SB folds. MP calls his last 25.

Now since I often play tournament poker, I'm used to turning over the cards once everyone (or all but one) is all in. But at this table, everyone was waiting to the river to show. Since I was on the draw (I figured at least one of them had a Ten), I didn't show either. Turn and River were both blanks (like a 5 and a 2). Since I made the last aggressive move, the dealer asks me to show first, and since I missed, I just tossed the cards into the muck.

Of course, you already know my Q-high was the winning hand. Turns out the other 2 players were also on straight draws. The original raiser had 87o, and MP had J8o. So, the Jack-high ended up winning. Grr.

I was about to vow to *never* muck my hand before I see another hand that beats me, but I think it's OK to muck if I make a stone-cold bluff (with no showdown value, and no draw) and get called. Since there was no reason to want to conceal my cards this time, there's no reason to muck.

The good news is I only lost $50 this hand, and the rest of my time at the table was fairly productive. I ended up $500 for the day, even though I lost almost $200 at 6-12LHE and 4-8Stud/8 while waiting to get to the spread-limit game.

Vegas, Baby!

Yay to McCarran Airport, which has free wi-fi. I'm returning from 2.3 days in Vegas with my friend Barry. We stayed at the Stratosphere.

My poker record was pretty good, where basically my cash-game winnings paid for my entries into 4 tournaments.

My hold-em tournament record:

Friday:
Stratosphere Midnight Tournament: 5th out of 36. (no money)
Saturday:
Harrahs 3:30pm: 12th out of 40. (no money)
Stratosphere Midnight Tournament: 1st out of 32. "You're so money, and you don't even know it."

I also played in a no-limit Omaha tourney (Sunday Stratosphere Midnight tourney) of about 30 people, but (as I expected) I didn't do nearly as well in that one. I still don't really have a good feel for Omaha (especially since the only Omaha spread locally is high/low, and this was high only).

The tourney win paid for the whole trip, so it was definitely a success!

The big hand of the tourney went down like this:

We were 3-handed. Short stack on my right with an M of about 2. The other guy and I had about equal stacks (M around 5) but I thought he had me covered. I think I had a pretty good table image as a tight solid player, so since the blinds had just gone up, I wanted to steal them. I was in the small blind, and the short stack folded UTG. I looked at my cards (T3o), but tried to see AJ in my head as I raised it up (to about 2.5x the Big Blind). Big blind calls, after thinking for a bit. At this point, I've forgotten my actual hole cards, but going back to look at them would give away my weakness.

The flop comes AKJ, all diamonds. This seems like a fairly scary board, so I think for a bit, then push all-in. (I'm thinking he definitely credits me for an Ace, and figure he can't call without a diamond draw and at least a pair.) He thinks, and thinks, and thinks some more. He finally calls me. As soon as he calls, I say "Great call. I have nothing." He turns over KJ (no diamonds) for 2-pair. (I'm thinking, "Why'd it take so long, I would've called pretty quickly with that.") I turn over my cards (also no diamonds, but I didn't remember that when I pushed), and start to get up, when I realize I have four outs to the straight.

I luck out and get a queen on the turn, and luck out again, when he *doesn't* hit the full-house on the river, and then luck out *again* when, to my surprise, I actually have him covered.

Now I'm heads up with about 9x chips of my opponent, and get Ax the next hand. I put him all in, and he calls with Kx, which doesn't improve.

Overall, I was pretty happy with my play. I was shortstacked most of the tournament, and played with patience, picking my spots. That big hand was the only time I had all my chips at risk, other than when I got KK (which held up against AQ). I did definitely get lucky to win, but I think that it's probably necessary to suck out at least once in a tourney to win.