Horseplay

Having hit a downswing that has knocked my confidence, I'm mostly taking a break from poker. Because I'm addicted, this means not playing much, not not playing at all.

So I played a dollar HORSE tourney the other night and finished second and a threedollar HORSE last night.

I like playing HORSE on Stars, because I have an edge against the typical microlimit player. Two edges actually. The first is that I'm simply a better player than average at this level, particularly in limit holdem and razz, which most players are hilariously bad at. The other is that I'm a better judge than most of when to put the money in short. The best thing to do, I think, when you're fairly short is to get all your money in on a promising hand and hope to win. These HORSE tourneys turn into crapshoots because the blinds become very high. The following hand shows both edges in action.

I forget the stacks but the blinds were high enough that I knew I was likely to get all of mine in on this hand. The other guy had me covered, but not by enough to take too many chances.

So I pick up (A4)7 and raise the buyin. A guy with a J showing calls the raise. It's obvious enough what his hand is. He must have two low downcards. I think he has likely made a mistake here, and should fold, for two reasons. First, although I could have something like (Q4)7 or worse, and just be stealing the buyin, the most likely hand for me is three to a low. Second, I know exactly what he has and can easily play correctly against him.

So fourth street makes us
(A4)73
(xx)J8

I bet and he has an easy fold. But he does not fold. Far from it. He raises. This is terrible. The best he can have is three to an eight, and I'm showing two to a seven. My most likely hand is the one I actually have. With three cards to come, he's a mile behind. I reraise, of course, and he puts the cap in, which puts me all in.

So we turn our cards over and he has (63)J8. I am comfortably ahead. One 5 has been folded, but that leaves three 5s, four 2s, three 6s to make my hand, and 8s, 9s and Ts also make me a winner if he doesn't catch twice.

I couldn't have found a better spot. Of course, this would not be worth commenting on if I didn't get a bad beat! I caught A77 to make a full house, which is not a good hand in Razz.

My opponent made a Jack low and I was busted. There's no justification for his play. You could argue that calling the raise made some sense because I am often stealing, and you could argue that he could call a bet on fourth because he could be ahead if I was stealing, but capping it has to be wrong.

Earlier, a player with two aces in his board had got into a betting war with me when I had three nines. When he bet his aces and I raised, he had an easy fold. This was, I think, on fifth street. Even with 9s up, I'm not raising, so he is left with trip 9s and a bluff. Okay, sometimes I'm bluffing, but he will have to pay me on the next two streets to find out. When he reraised, I put him solidly on two pair. An ace had folded, so I thought three aces were very unlikely. Of course I capped. He only had three outs to beat me!

As it turned out, he only had one, and caught it on the river. Even if he didn't think he had a fold when I raised, he certainly did when I capped. So the tourney was not too lucky for me, all in all, having played my way back from near extinction. Frustratingly, I went out in 26th, and 24 were paid.