The IP and The Beau Rivage

Oscar Levant once said "There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line."

I believe that this quote describes my last 36 hours that I was awake. Its Sunday morning and I wake up around 10am. I decide to venture over to the IP in Biloxi to play in there nightly $200.00 dollar buy in no limit holdem event. Things went well, I made the final table, and I made it heads up with Will Souther aka The Poker Monkey. The rest is history, I finished second by the way. We finish at roughly midnight and immediately thereafter I decide to head down to the poker room and play a little 1-2 no limit cash game. After playing for several hours and leaving slightly ahead. I make my way to the Beau Rivage to get into a slightly larger game. I sit in a 2-5 no limit which is my game of choice. But I do have to say that it isnt out of the ordinary for me to buy in a 2-5 no limit game for a minimum of $1200.00 or so, but this game was stacked slightly deeper. The guy in the 10 seat is from Tampa Florida and has roughly 20k behind. Also remember we are in Mississippi and cash is allowed on the table. Average stack at the table is somewhere in the neighborhood of #2500.00. So I play for an hour or so and end up cashing out for about a $300.00 dollar winner. I decide to go eat some breakfast and by this time it is about 4am. After eating breakfast I head back to the poker room and sit in another 2-5 no limit cash game. Roughly the same as the table before, deep stacked and aggressive. I did have some nice highlights during that session that made sitting in that game well worth while. I am in late position with pocket 7's, roughly $1300.00 behind and I am facing a three bet with two callers. The raise was to $25 and eventually we would go 5 handed into the flop. The flop came 2-7-5 rainbow, which is a pretty wet flop. The original raiser utg+1 decides to bet the pot which is roughly $130. We loose 2 players and the action returns to me. I decide to re-raise to $350.00 in this position to eliminate any draws that may be lingering and to entice someone that may have a pair think that I am just making a move to take down the pot. We lose the guy behind me and the original raiser snap shoves all in and I immediately call. I flip over pocket 7's for top set. He decides not to flip his cards over. The turn sealed the deal when the case 7 hit. With him being at best a 19:1 underdog, he instantly mucked his had and left the table. It was a pretty good feeling. Just a few hands later the table begins to break and we are moved to start a new game.

After moving tables there are 5 new players added to the mix. Still playing 2-5 no limit and in the top 33% of stacks at the table. It is about 9am. Ive been up for at least 24 hours straight. So the game begins and things seem a little tight. After several hours of play at this table, I feel that I have a pretty solid read on the players that surround me. Once again I get involved in a big hand. I am on the button with around $2000.00 behind. I look at KQ of diamonds. There is no raise ahead of me so I make what seemed to be the standard button open raise for that table to $25.00. After a few folds, I get 3 bet to $75 with one caller. The pre-flop pot is at about $275.00. So I decide to flat the 3 bet. Now 3 to the flop and the flop comes 2-J-10 with 2 diamonds. So I have two overs to the board, king high flush draw, open ended straight and straight flush draws. Original raiser now decides to lead out for $500.00 and gets a call. I decide with the size of this pot and the plethora of outs that I was priced in. So now we are around just shy of $1800.00 in the pot. The turn comes a Q of spades. Well that now given me a pair in addition to all of my draws. At this point with a Q high board with straight and flush possibilities that the original raiser has to have one of two hands. Pocket aces or pocket kings. It would be tough to think that he was just on the ace high flush draw but it was a possibility. So after the turn the original raiser decides to shove. The player in between us folds and now I have a decision to make. I have a little over 25% of my stack invested in the pot of what I had when the hand began, which gives me at least 33% equity in the pot. So I go into the tank for a bit and start calculating my pot odds and probabilities of hitting one of those outs. Well I figured if this guy has aces, I was a 4:1 underdog pre-flop, after the flop I am just on the downside of a coin flip, after the turn I am now around a 3:2 underdog. So basically I think to myself that any of the 9 diamonds, any 9,K,A,or Q would book me a winner. So that is 9 diamonds + 2 Kings + 2 Queens + 2 A's= 15 outs. So my math entering the turn was (15 x 3 + 9)% which comes down to 54% which is basically a coin flip even though at the table if I thought this was the senario that I was in that I would be a slight underdog. When the turn hit, I went from being a slight favorite to having a realistic 33% chance of hitting one of my outs. The math on the turn to improve on the river was 15 x 3= 45. 45 rounds up to 50 and I add the first digit of the rounded number to get my percentage. So 55% of the time, I am going to improve on the river in this situation. So I decide to make the call and he leaves his cards face down. The river is dealt and its a FUCKING QUEEN! Holy shit!!! He did flip over pocket aces and was dealt the bad news. One time for the kid. So now the adrenaline is definitely rushing and before my chips are all raked in and stacked I look at KK in the cutoff. I am thinking to myself you have got to be fucking kidding me. So after several limpers, I decide to make it $80.00 to go. All the limpers fold except the gentlemen (And I use that term very LOOSELY) two seats to my right. He just decides to flat my raise. So the flop comes out I dont even remember what, just a bunch of undercards and rainbow. Well the gentleman decides to lead out for about $250.00, I snap call, because I figured that it may have been a continuation bet. The turn reveals a Q. He then makes it $500.00 to go. I have to go into the tank again and replay the last minute or so in my mind. Is it really possible that I am going up against aces, a set of queens or another set of some kind? I felt that it was unlikely that I was going up against a set unless it was queens or I was up against aces. So I just flat the bet on the turn. The river was dealt a blank and the board is not paired. Howard the Duck then makes it $1,000 to go and after a short while I am thinking to myself that this guy is going to have to show me a set of queens or aces because I am not laying this down. So I call and flip over my kings. The son of bitch slow rolled pocket aces. He was such a cold hearted asshole that I wanted to beat him, but I politely said nice hand sir and went on about my business. After that the day went completely down the drain and what seems like every time I was a favorite in a hand, I was destined to get out drawn. I ended up taking one on the chin, but that's poker. Tomorrow will be another day and today was just another lesson learned. It is what it is and I will just have to keep grinding it out.