The Worst Hand I’ve Ever Played in a Tournament
This hand came against a young kid by the name Jon Lane, I believe. He was one of the chip leaders at one point, not sure how he finished up. This was at the same table with Kido, and with Kido now crippled after my big all in with him, Jon was the big stack and kind of running the table. He had shown down a lot of mid pocket pairs for winners on scary boards, and seemed to only play from position. He raised from late position, and I looked down at A9spades.
Mistake #1: I should have folded or reraised. Folding was a little weak considering how frequent he was raising, so I think I should have reraised. I called.
Flop: 9 7 5, rainbow
Mistake #2: I should have lead out. If I am calling pre-flop, there is no better flop I can really hope for than this one. I have to lead out and gauge where I am at. My other option is to check raise, but that puts a lot of my chips at risk for a little information. Early in the tournament I like a lead out of about three-fourths of the pot. I decide to check.
Jon bets about three-fourths of the pot.
Mistake #3: I should either release or raise here. I need to establish where I am at in the hand. Am I against overs, a lower pair, a set? I call because I am the worst poker player ever.
Turn: K
This is rather worrisome, as any K now beats me, and any hands that would have paid off if I am good are now scared. I should check here to see what he does, and I do.
He bets hard, I forget the amount but it was about the size of pot.
Mistake #4: I should again either release or reraise here. Thanks to my wonderful flop play, I have no idea where I am at when the K comes off. I really don’t think he wants me in the hand, however, and I really think I am ahead. I should raise here. Instead I call, the worst of the options.
River: 8
The board now reads 9 7 5 K 8. There was a flush draw somewhere in there that missed. I check, as I am now in a pickle. I could lead out, but I am very susceptible to a bluff, or just a call with a better hand. I decide to check and see what happens. He has had a tendency to check behind with marginal hands, so I am really hoping for a cheap showdown. Instead he fires again about the size of the pot. I am really trying to put him on a hand he’d do this with, and can not come to a conclusion. I finally decide the river is a bluff and call.
He flips 6 6 for the straight.
At every point in this hand, I made the weak (and thus wrong) play. I was almost tilting after this hand because I played it so awfully. Luckily we went on a break soon after and I was able to refocus my thoughts. I like the hands I play bad even more than the ones I play well, as it’s when I play bad that I am able to improve the most.
August 10th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
That’s a good point about learning from your mistakes. My question is how do you remember specific hands from a long session so well? Are you taking notes during play and can you explain the breadth of such notes?
August 10th, 2006 at 12:53 pm
I have never been one for notes. I don’t think I have taken notes on any players since the 2/4 nl level. I don’t remember every hand, and certainly not every player, but I after you multi-table poker for so many hours your mind naturally catches up to the cards. In the same vein that you need to numb yourself to the loss of money, your mind also has to speed up to catalog all the hands you play.
August 10th, 2006 at 7:26 pm
yo rock can we look foward to seeing you at the new 100/200 nl table on fulltilt??? check raise on the flop and dose he definently fold there or on the upcoming turn bet for sure cause if he makes it to the river with ya, he wins . so do u think you could have got him off the b4 the river???
August 11th, 2006 at 10:45 am
I hate A9 now. I lost a 20K pot to Phil Ivey and then a 20K pot to sbrugby with A9. It’s a miserable hand for me to poop on. I will fold it heads up, in the battle of blinds and even muck it preflop in the big blind after everyone has limped (in live games). I will muck A9 to an AA9 flop if anyone min bets at the pot. A9 is evil, definitely the work of satan.
August 11th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
i agree with kooler up there. granted we dont know blinds/stack sizes or if hes the type of person who can fold an open ended draw. a re raise pf tends to make a person more committed, thus that flop might look pretty ideal. i think you should cut yourself some slack regarding the worst play ever in a tourney, as i think you saved yourself a good amount of chips. unless you opted to fold before the river based on those feeler bets that is, which again, i think is unlikely. thanks for sharing tho.
August 11th, 2006 at 4:02 pm
Isn’t A9 the hand Kathy Liebert loved so much during USPC? Oh wait..that’s Kathy Liebert. I’ll take iRock’s word over hers. Is anyone else as dissapointed as I am that Gold won WSOP?
Regarding to your post, it is great for a player to study what they did wrong, which I do all the time. But, as kooler and oscillator said, he might not have folded an open ender…so don’t be too hard on yourself.
August 11th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
3 points:
1. It was NOT an open-ender. Scott had no way of knowing it, but the other guy was drawing to 6 outs.
2. As good as iRock is, Kathy Liebert is a far more accomplished poker player.
3. A9 is an evil, evil hand. From my 2 hands of high stakes experience, it’s very obvious that A9 is never any good on 9 high flops.
August 11th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
I didn’t pay attention to the flop, I should have noticed..thanks for the correction. Then yes, I am sure he would have folded his gutshot. As for Liebert, I was just being sarcastic about that concerning the A9 pessimism.
August 13th, 2006 at 10:01 am
Do you think it was just a coinicidence that A9 was the hand which drove Matt Damon’s character to driving Kanish’s truck???
August 13th, 2006 at 9:31 pm
oops too involved in the thought process to notice it wasnt open ended…silly me. oh look, dags called tay down with a pair of fives for 50k!
August 14th, 2006 at 11:37 am
(1) Still Learning…I watched your A9 hand with Ivey. i think he was SB and you were BB. He raised with J10 and you reraised. Ivey probably should have released. Ivey flops the nut straight and you hit top pair with top kicker. He checks you bet and he reraises you. Tough decision on what to do next, but your initial $1300 bet was reraised to $5K. You have to think he has over or a set based on his initial preflop out of position reraise. You then move all in probably trying to represent AA or a set yourself. the rest is history.
(2) iRock…your description of the play of A9 in tournament is totally out of character for the way you play (at least when I have observed online). In a cash game (especially 6 handed) you would have been the agressor. My question is what % of your stack did you lose on this hand?
August 15th, 2006 at 2:42 pm
psmith - I’ll try to explain that play for you. Ivey had raised to 300 every single time so his preflop raise had lost its meaning. He was just bullying. I decided to take a stand with A9 as any ace heads up is pretty strong. When I reraised to 900, I didn’t expect Ivey to fold - the battle of the blinds was on. After Ivey checked to what seems like an excellent flop for my hand (9 high w/ A9 looks great), I bet 1600. At this point, I’m already invested $2,500 which is a quarter of my stack. Ivey would checkraise with a wide variety of hands there which were behind: (like 9,10; J,9; 6,7; 6,8;10,8, etc.). It was a really stiff raise, so he could have flopped bottom two or a set (hands that are less likely mathematically). If Ivey had TT or better, he would have certainly reraised me preflop because he is too aggressive to slowplay a hand other than possibly AA preflop in a heads up situation out of position.
The LAST hand I suspected was the stone cold nuts J10 on that 789 flop. Because Phil is such an aggressive player and you are already invested $2500 (you can’t fold really strong hands in these situations or Ivey would grind you down to a toothpick; you also can’t fold coinflips after there is already 5 grand in the middle otherwise you can’t win at poker). After all of this crossed my mind, it was blatantly obvious that Mr. Ivey had earned his 10K from me with his play as my only option was to shove top pair, top kicker.
The other 20K pot I lost with A9 was against sbrugby (another aggressive player). I reraised preflop with A9 and he had A7. The flop was 777!!! And to make things worse, the turn was a 9. Was it bad luck/cold deck? It really doesn’t matter, sbrugby was already up almost 6K before that so I was being outplayed as well. Taught me never to play heads up with sbrugby again. Also, A9 is EVIL.
August 15th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
I understand. I only watched about 5 hands (obviously the one you were in with Ivey) so I understand the context of your play. I also agree with you that Ivey would check raise you with any kind of hand there: two overs, OE draw or maybe even 2nd or third pair with a gut shot. Thanks for your analysis.
What kind of betting occurred on the flop of the 2nd hand? I assume you were in position and the quads were checked to you (at least that is the obvious play) or he bet 1/2 to 3/4 of pot and you called. Just curious.
GL to you at the tables.
August 16th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
On a different note. Did anyone recently see THENEWPLAGUE play on Full Tilt? What is up with her? I saw her win very big over several sessions and then she disappeared. Anyone know what happend?