Johnny Illness

My friends Jeff and Syd are in a band called Johnny Illness. They had a free concert tonight in Issaquah at the Kung Fu Club. Airi and I arrived a bit late (more on this later) so we missed the first couple of songs, but when we arrived it was a pretty jumping place with a decent crowd and rock'n music. Jeff was playing the guitar and was the lead vocal while Syd played the bass. There was another guitarist wearing a kilt, a keyboardist, and of course the drummer. Although I know that Jeff and Syd has been playing music for quite some time, this is the first time I've heard them live. They were pretty good and Airi and I had a good time. Their sound reminded me a little bit of Green Day.

So we arrived a little late tonight because we had some trouble finding the place, but also because I was in a poker tournament before the concert. The concert was at 8pm so I figured I'd have enough time to play a tournament starting at noon. Today was the monthly $100 buy-in deep stack tournament. We had 23 players and started with 10,000 chips. Playing a deep stack tournament is a little bit different than a regular tournament where you'd start with 2000 or 3000 chips with the same blind structure, but in addition to the larger stacks, the blind levels were also longer. So you'd have 10,000 chips with 25/50 blinds and 40 minute rounds. For the most part, this means you don't want to take unnecessary risks early on.

After we combined to two tables (probably about 4pm or so), an interesting hand came up. I had about 23,000 chips. I was on the button and it gets folded to me, I have AK offsuit. I believe the blinds were 150/300. I raised to 1000. The small blind folds. The big blind who has me covered and was the big stack decides to raise. He raises to 10,000. This didn't make any sense to me. I think most people would probably have pushed all-in with AK, but instead I decided to fold and showed my hand. So why did I fold? Well, AK is no doubt a strong hand, particularly heads up, but part of the strength of AK is being able to get someone to fold preflop, but if they call, you have a decent hand and won't be significantly behind except against KK and AA. Even against QQ it's almost a coin flip. So he made a significant raise that was almost half my stack. If I went all-in, he would have to call given his bet. So I couldn't get him to fold and would have to win with the best hand. The hand he most likely had at that point was a pocket pair of some sort. If he had AA or KK, he would likely have raised less to get me to call. By betting half my stack, he really left me with two options, fold or all-in. Just calling would have been a poor move as I had no betting power after the flop with ~10k since the pot would have been >20k. So most likely we had a coin flip situation and in this case, I had about the right pot odds to go all-in, but if I fold, I still had about 20k left and only had invested 1k. It was a pretty easy fold for me. Why risk my tournament life on a possible coin flip? I figured I was a better player than him, so it made sense for me to wait for a better situation. The only reason I almost called is that I had been raising often and I thought he might do the same thing with AQ or AJ, but only if he thought I was bluffing. It wasn't worth the risk and I think most likely he had a pair.

So I made it to final 3 players. I was the chip lead, but not by much. The third place player had significantly less chips. On essentially my last hand I was in the SB with JTs. The button (short stack) puts in a raise. I call and the BB says something about having an interesting hand and "just calls". The flop is J83 rainbow. I bet out about 3/4 the pot. The BB pushes all-in. The button folds. So I have an interesting situation here. I'm familiar with how the BB plays and I think he's likely to do the same thing with any J, but also 99 and TT (he may not have put me on a J and a push all-in might make me fold a J with a bad kicker). It was already almost 8pm so I had to go to the concert, so I decide to call. Unfortunately , he had KJ and I didn't get lucky. I was severely crippled now with about 3xBB. On the next hand I had J8s and pushed all-in and both players called. I didn't hit anything, but neither did they, but lost to Q high. If the last hand was a full a table, I could have easily folded top pair, but with it being 3 handed, top pair is a much stronger hand. He could easily also have J9 or a pocket pair less than JJ. However, I should have considered that the third place guy had significantly less chips even if I folded and probably should have folded even if I thought I had the best hand and waited til the short stack busted out. The payout difference between 3rd and 2nd was ~$120.