If you haven't read the first 2 parts yet, I'd recommend starting there to get caught up:
Wynn Poker Tournament in Las Vegas: Part 1 Wynn Poker Tournament in Las Vegas: Part 2
After two hours, I had about 5800 (started with 4k, so I’m reasonably happy with my chip position, then in the next half hour I lose about half of my stack on the following hands:
Blinds: 50-100, betting rounds of 100-200
A couple players fold, and I’m first into the pot, and I raise with Jack Ten of spades, a fairly decent hand. I don’t like limping in this particular spot, I believe a raise is the correct play almost every time. If there were a couple of limpers in the pot, the raise would go down in value.
Seat 5, the older tourist, calling station extraordinaire calls one off the button with X-X (most likely King Queen off suit, or King Jack off suit, I had seen this type of call from him several times in the previous couple hours). If your curious what a calling station extrodinaire, looks like, I snapped a quick pic with my cell phone:
Flop: 7 diamonds, 8 Diamonds, 9 Clubs
Gin rummy, I flopped the nut straight
I bet out 100, as previously mentioned I don’t advocate slow playing very often, plus being the pre-flop raiser it’s somewhat unlikely the guy will think I have a straight (guys like this don’t think much, by the way, they just play their cards). Anyhow, Donkey Tourist calls
Turn: Kind of Diamonds
I bet 200, still holding the nut straight. The King of diamonds doesn’t scare me at all; I don’t even remotely think the guy has a flush. Donkey goes to muck his hand, but decides to check his hand again (looking for a diamond presumably) and then calls instantly after looking at his cards
River: 3 of diamonds
Ouch, this is what you call getting screwed.
Flop the nuts, and have the guy drawing close to dead, he needed to catch two perfect running cards to beat me.
I check, Donkey bets. I think about it for quite a while. If it was a cash game, I would have probably called, but this guy was very easy to read, he had never bet, or bluffed any pots in over 2.5 hours that I had seen, plus the look back/instant call on the turn, told me the guy had a diamond. I reluctantly folded.
This hand didn’t really affect me to much mentally, Donkeys play bad, bad beats happen, its part of the game.
Maybe, ten hands later, I pick up the 6 of hearts – 8 hearts and raise in middle late position, a fairly marginal hand to say the least, but I like to play these types of hands occasionally because when you flop something good, it’s very difficult for players to put you on that type of hand and you normally, get maximum action. (It’s worth noting, that I don’t recommend this type of play for beginners) This is a somewhat more advanced concept that can be incorporated into your game as your level of experience increases, especially if you play well after the flop
Anyhow, the same action donkey (Seat 5) from the previous hand calls, the small blind calls and we see the flop 3 ways.
The flop: Jack of hearts, Nine of Hearts, Seven of hearts
Yikes, I flopped a flush, with an open ended straight flush redraw and think I've hit the magic paydirt.
The small blind bets out, I raise with my flush, Donkey Calls two bets cold, small blind calls
Turn: King of Hearts (putting 4 hearts on the board)
The small blind checks in disgust, I check, the Donkey bets. Small blind shows his hand to his neighbor (neighbor confirms after the hand that he had ten 8 for a flopped straight). Now I’m in a bit of a pickle, I hated the flush card, but there are a lot of hands this guy could have, he could have queen ten for a straight, he could have King Jack for top two pair, or he could even possibly have AK, or of course he could have a big heart for the flush.
What should I do now?
I decided to call, in the event I was beat, I did still have two live cards I could catch and the pot was pretty big.
River: Small black card
I check, donkey bets, and I call, he shows me queen jack off suit with the queen of hearts, puke.
He called two bets cold with queen jack off before the flop. again
I picked up a few small pots over the course of the next hour and was just kind of surviving. I had about 3150 in chips going into the 4th round of player, when this hand came up.
Read the rest of my ridiculously long tournament story here:
Wynn Poker Tournament in Las Vegas: Part 4
