An interesting dilemma, and an interesting hand

I was two-tabling this morning on Party when one of the games suddenly became short-handed. Now, if there are seven or eight players, but at least one of them is very weak, I am happy to stay at the table. The conventional wisdom is that your advantage is now greater, since there are fewer good players to take the weak player's cash. But this game rapidly decreased to just four players, although one of them was a serious fish (71% flops, few raises).

At this point a paradox develops. Although there are now only three of your trying to take the poor player's money, that person's own play automatically becomes less bad. If he carries on playing just as he did before (no alteration of starting standards) his style might even become marginally profitable!

Anyway, I stuck with the game, despite my own lack of experience in the four-handed realm. I did so partly because I want to gain some experience in short-handed (so I might as well do it when I know that there is a fish around). And, happily, I won a few bucks. I think that I did this partly because the other two "good" players were equally inexperienced at short-handed (clearly they were thinking the same as me!), but they over-compensated, playing too aggressively and too loosely. Then again, four-handed is not six-handed. An interesting half-hour.


+++++

I spend so much time recounting hands where it all went tits-up for me (I folded a hand yesterday, last to bet for $10, into a $172 pot, which, as it turned out, I would have won. And I would fold again if the same sequence of betting turned up). But I get so much hindsightitis (people are less willing to venture an opinion when they do not know the result, I notice!) that I am hesitant to reproduce the hand.

So, here's one where I can say "look, it all went right".

$5/$10 Texas Hold'em
Table Money Machine (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 2: sparkycal ( $171.51 )
Seat 3: PlayMeSoft ( $520.50 )
Seat 4: andysmith33 ( $127.50 )
Seat 6: boatman21111 ( $602.35 )
Seat 8: Pjoker ( $212.50 )
Seat 10: edefect ( $384 )
Seat 5: RBRINK24 ( $114 )
Seat 7: Birks ( $443 )
Seat 9: patty3outer ( $178.57 )
Seat 1: TheOnlyAlex ( $250 )
andysmith33 posts small blind [$2].
RBRINK24 posts big blind [$5].

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to Birks [ Ac Ad ]

UTG+1 is not the greatest spot to get AA, but I'll live with 'em anywhere.

boatman21111 calls [$5].

Birks raises [$10].
PlayMeSoft raises [$15].

boatman21111 calls [$10].
Birks calls [$5].

The crucial play

** Dealing Flop ** [ 8d, 8s, 3d ]

boatman21111 bets [$5].

Unless boatman has an 8, this is not a strong play. I haven't seen any evidence that boatman is capable of thinking two levels up. I reckon him on either a diamond draw or a mediocre pair that is testing the water for AK vs AK.

Birks calls [$5].

However, boatman's bet gives me another opportunity to stitch up PlayMeSoft, a tightish winning player whom I am already putting on KK (he could have QQ or AA, but I know for sure that he isn't beating me at the moment).

PlayMeSoft raises [$10].

Sure enough. He reckons boatman is on a "test" or a draw, and that I have AK, AQ, AJs or something like that.

boatman21111 calls [$5].
Birks raises [$10].

Time to pull the trigger. If boatman had folded I might have just flat-called here.

PlayMeSoft calls [$5].
boatman21111 calls [$5].


** Dealing Turn ** [ 2s ]

I very much like this card.

boatman21111 checks.
Birks bets [$10].
PlayMeSoft calls [$10].

PlayMeSoft probably has an impending sense of doom, but the pot is big enough for him to be willing to call it down for two big bets

boatman21111 calls [$10].

Presumably still on a draw. No way does he have an 8, because he would either have raised on the flop when he had the opportunity or raised here.

** Dealing River ** [ 9c ]

I like this card as well

boatman21111 checks.
Birks bets [$10].
PlayMeSoft calls [$10].
boatman21111 calls [$10].

Birks shows [ Ac, Ad ] two pairs, aces and eights.
PlayMeSoft doesn't show [ Qs, Qh ] two pairs, queens and eights.
boatman21111 doesn't show [ 4d, 4s ] two pairs, eights and fours.

Birks wins $154 from the main pot with two pairs, aces and eights.

I will admit, if a four had come on the river and boated boatman up, I would have been caught for at least three bets on the river!

Katrina and The Waves

I was looking at the hurricane weather tracker a few moments ago, to see what path Hurricane Katrina was taking (http://html.nbc5i.com/sh/idi/weather/hurricanes/hurricanetracker.html). I'm quite inured to reading about hurricanes this past 12 months, but they have an eternal capacity to surprise you. In this case Katrina seems to have decided to zoom up to category 5 (only three of these have hit land in the past 100 years or so) in virtually no time at all. If it continues on its expected path at its expected slow speed (hurricanes have two "speeds" -- the speeds of the winds generated, and the rate at which the hurricane is moving) then, to be blunt, New Orleans is genuinely fucked. Not vaguely fucked in a Miami Dade County kind of way last weekend (a mere $1bn in damage), but seriously in danger of a kind of flooded and destroyed fucked that we haven't seen in a major US city since San Francisco in 1906. Most of this will be because of flooding (the famous Katrina Waves....) that, if the levees break, will move through a city that for various reasons was built mainly below sea level.

Flooding, as you may or may not know, is not covered by insurance in the US. It is covered by the Federal Emergency Management Authority. Basically this means that someone living in a rockies home in Colorado pays taxes for flooding that occurs in South Carolina. Curiously, the Americans seem to have put up with this for many many years, even though you might think that Billy Cowhand in Montana might reckon that there isn't much chance of a flood coming through his back yeard, so how come that is federally protected, but the hailstorms that might destroy his car aren't? Well, historical accident, basically. Life ain't fair, that's for sure.