Bubble hand

4 players left in a SNG.  3 paid. 

 

I'm in the BB with ~2500 chips.

 

UTG (cutoff) shoves 1500 chips in.

Button calls.  he has about 6000 chips to start the hand.  He's been rather aggro, shoving his big stack in on numerous occasions.  The call here makes me think there's some weakness. 

SB overshoves for about 3500.

 

I look down at KK.

 

Call or Fold?

 

There are two hands I'd ever consider calling with here and I have one of them. 

Monday Ramblings

Last night I polished off the complete Take2 bonus on FullTilt.  Having started a couple of days late, I grinded my way to the finish line, not missing a day since I started.  This was a very clearable bonus, with minimum play required, though I would often go well past the limit when the time and or opportunity arose.  A nice move if you can pull it off is to play late at night/just past midnight - clearing both bonuses in a short amount of time.  More notably, it's the first time I've gone through a bonus-whoring process *and* made money beyond just the bonus itself.  No definitive stats available (yeah, I'm that guy who still doesn't have Poker Tracker or Hold'em Manager), but the bankroll is about where it was a month ago yet I've been in the shitter for certain with the few tourneys/SNGs I dove into during September.  Also, I feel like I'm at the point where I can now strike a balance between managing two 6-max cash tables, juggling various fantasy lineups, filtering through far too many podcasts, performing general web surfing duties, and attending to various wife/dog needs and wants.  Christ, you know it ain't easy.  You know how hard it can be. 

 

Special hats off to the idiot girl ('lthgirl' somethingorother) at my .10/.25 PLHE table on Friday night who ensured that I stayed in the black for Take2.  She was felted at least half a dozen times in a ~2 hr session, rebought for the max most of the time and probably dropped $200-$300 easily at this low stakes table.  I was the recipient of about $50 of it.  The guy to my immediate left made about $235 on the session.  She was the dream tablemate.  She'd continually bet pot, regardless of the holdings.  The strategy was just to sit, wait, find a hand and bet it big.  She did wake up with AQ on me once when I had JT and got excited about a QQJ flop.  Fortunately, she was short-stacked for that one and it only cost me $15 or so.  How crazy was she?  The average .10/.25 PLHE table has pot sizes averaging around $3.  We were north of $15.  An audible groan came up when she left the table.

 

I've tweeted enough about PSU already.  How can a "powerhouse" football program have such horrible OL play so often?  Sure there are down years, but when it's constantly the same achilles heel, can't you address it through strong recruiting?  One would think.

 

A perfect fantasy day yesterday.  I won my primary league big - everyone got me 13+ points except for my stupid kicker, and yet not one of my guys had one of those MJD-type banner days.  Just consistent performance throughout.  It's a PPR league and we've been doing it that way for about 5 years now.  You would think people would latch on to the concept that receptions count, but they don't. I just nabbed all the Ray Rice, Steve Slaton, Derrick Mason types to complement the studs and even when those guys don't score or rack up much yardage, they do get you 3-6 receptions and 10-12 points. 

 

Lost late last night in my other league, in which my draft thoroughly sucked and old man Tomlinson's ankle is just killing me.  The best news of all is that with the Take2 and fantasy out of the way, tonight is a night for pure R&R. 

 

Finally, when you slog through the rain and are -1 thru 6 holes, it's best not to finish with three straight bogeys.  Furthermore, when you make the turn and are then -1 on the back through 5 holes, it's best not to finish with three bogeys in the final four holes.  I can't figure out why this keeps happening, but it needs to stop.  I'd like to get in one more solid round before the snow flies to overcome this.  On the positive side, it was good to make four birdies yesterday.   

 

 

PLO Ring Hand

This happened last night and I'd be interested in any feedback.  I'll get this on a forum or two once I get out from behind the great Internet prison that is my office.

 

PLO 0.10/0.25  I selected this table because it had a very high % flop and very high average pot size.  Turns out the three people to my right clearly know each other and are making no attempt to hide this in the table chat.  One of them was discussing how he was winning $1k pots at some other table simultaneously - I didn't go to verify this at all, but thought it was a bit telling that they may just be joking around here - the action would back that view up.  I don't believe they're colluding, but they are playing pretty big pots with one another with sub-premium holdings.  So the strategy is simple - wait for a big one and play it big. 

 

I've lost a big pot played three-way against two of these clowns earlier.  I flop a pair and a draw, turn the nut straight and get it all in.  One guy calls with a set, the other guy calls with the flush draw and the flush gets there on the river.  They bantered back and forth about the hand in the chat, about how each of them had to do what they did, basically ignoring that I got it all in with the current nuts.  I was silent. 

 

OK, in the key hand, I'm in the BB with 458J.  Bleh.  It's a free flop for me though.  The flop is 445 with two spades.  I bet out and the villain on the button raises me.  I call it in the event he has the flush draw - I don't want to scare him away.  Plus given his play it's hard for me to necessarily put him on 55, though it's certainly a possibility. 

 

Turn is a J and we get it all in here.  Sure enough he has the 55.

 

Well the river is a J and I make Jacks full...I take the $45 pot down.  And then the expected chat box banter starts in.  "Fckn donk"  "f a g", etc. 

 

And my contention was this...neither one of us had the nuts.  44 is the nuts.  I knew he didn't have 44 because I had one of the fours.  Only one hand could beat me: 55.  BUT he couldn't contend that he had the nuts post-flop either because I could have had 44 there.  Each of us, essentially, got it all in with the second nuts - based on what each of us were holding.  I happened to be the one who was behind and I happened to be the one who sucked out. 

 

I told him that I couldn't put him on exactly 55 and 55 alone there, but of course this band of idiots didn't want to hear anything about it.

 

Questions:

* Am I looking at this right?  "Each of us got it in with the second nuts" is the correct view?

* Could you fold the under-full here?

* Should you fold the under-full here?

Another JoePa Presser Epic Moment

A gem from Tuesday's JoePa presser, courtesy of Black Shoe Diaries:

Another rookie reporter asked Joe how his team compared to the other teams ranked in the top five. Which prompted this hilarious monologue.

I imagine you don't pay attention to rankings too much, national rankings, but being No. 5 in the country do you ever compare your team's development to other teams?

Paterno: No, don't get me into that. I don't know what we are, for crying out loud. Geez, that's the same thing -- hey, I honest to God, are we No. 5 is that what you're telling me?

Yes.

Paterno: I don't know that we're No. 5. You guys don't seem to understand, I don't pay -- I don't read anything about us. I get the paper. I go to the bathroom. I take the paper in there and I scan it. I look at it. The first thing I do is look at who died. All right. Second thing I look at are headliners, something that says Paterno is the greatest, I read it. (Laughter) If it says I'm a bum, I don't even look at it.