Bigger Deal

Those of you, and once there were many, who lived in fear of BigArm on Poker Stars will sleep easier tonight. For today I can reveal that shadowy eidolon is none other than today’s friendly-faced blogger. Whilst unlikely to beat “No, Luke…I am your father” to the top of anyone’s list of all-time great revelations, this admission does allow me to report first hand on the first Tuesday Night Game of the new season.

Along with 103 other hopefuls, I anted up at 8pm UK time for what has, sadly, become the only absolute in my poker calendar. Dripping wet from a post-run shower and flicking through the channels for some background entertainment, I semi-bluffed my way into a runner-runner nut flush the first hand I played. It was the start of something beautiful and, sadly, rare - a near perfect hour of luck. Playing a simple value-based game, I built my stack to nearly treble the average within the first 30 hands.

Around this time I noticed that Anthony Holden had busted in 73rd after a rather lack-lustre display. ‘What happened?’ I asked my friend the next morning. ‘I scarcely won a hand,’ he told me. ‘I wasn’t really concentrating - buzzing around the tables too much, schmoozing with pals and other punters. That’s my excuse, anyway. Next time, I’ll stick to the matter at hand.’ We look forward to it, Big-T.

Midway through the first hour, the tables were re-shuffled and I found myself sitting a few places to the right of my good friend PiesAndLager. A student of mine, Pies won’t mind me saying that we play a somewhat similar game. The similarity of our styles and the contrast of our fortunes so far provided perfect evidence of the importance of luck in tournament poker. Had he been in my seat and I in his, he would have been running over the table and I plummeting towards the Red Zone. The pre-flop moves he made were re-raised, his rare top pairs were out-kicked and he hadn’t seen a single legitimate raising hand. Nearing the first break, I picked up AKo in late position and made yet another standard steal-raise. Pies picked up his best starting hand of the first hour (ATo) and with an M of around 6, moved over the top of me from one of the blinds. It’s a move we’d all make (I hope!) but a bland flop added his chips to mine and saw him reaching for the Ginsters and the Carling.

BiggerDeal’s good friend DrPauly of NYC (though today fighting out of Los Angeles, CA) put in a spirited performance to finish 21st- (details can be found on his excellent blog). He describes his demise (yes, readers, at the hands of BigArm!) thusly:

“I busted out in 21st on a bad call. I had 2-2 in the small blind and called a standard raise from a very aggressive player. We were heads up and the flop was 5h-4c-3h. I bet the pot (or roughly 2,800) and he came over the top all in for 11K. I put him on Big Slick or some other Big Ace or even a flush draw. If by chance he had a big pair, I still had some outs and wasn’t drawing dead.”

I remember the hand well. Indeed I had been pressing hard so far, but only because my excellent run of cards had demanded it. Aware that I was probably being pigeon-holed as loose-aggressive, I had to consider this when someone played back at me. This time, I held TT. My thinking when DrPauly bet out was that a flopped hand of 2 pair or better would probably check to me (given I was a “very aggressive player”), and either move in when I bet, or even slow play once. The hand that made most sense at this point was a solid one pair hand, possibly with a draw. The only thing I really feared was running into a slow-played overpair to my tens. I pushed all in, happy to pick up a solid pot if he folded but confident that I was at least marginally ahead if called. I wasn’t delighted to see Pauly’s 10 outs but, as was the norm of the last hour, I dodged a few bullets and took down a huge pot.

As we approached the money, Lady Luck excused herself for a worrying half hour. A few races went against me and all of a sudden I was in the bottom third of the leaderboard, and not yet in the money! With the blinds now putting pressure on all but the biggest of stacks, I picked up a low ace in the blinds. Another medium-sized stack made a standard steal-raise from the button. Aware that he would make this play with a wide range of hands, I figured that I had a reasonable chance of being ahead. Doubly aware that we were approaching the money, and his instinct would be to release a marginal hand and live to fight another day, I pushed. He quickly called with 88 but a miracle ace on the river doubled me up and sent me to the final table with an average stack.

I flirted with the chip lead for much of the final table, running well, winning the races when I needed to, and picking up a few pots uncontested. Unfortunately for me, PokerMan2345 was running just as well and, I fear, playing even better. As the button paused for one hand and we moved to heads up, I had a 1-3 chip deficit. Against a tricky player who seemed on top of his game, I knew I would need a bit of help to lift the trophy. Pokerman2345’s preflop mix of fold/call/raise/limp-reraise was spot-on. Unsure whether I should try to bully and wear him down, or sit back and wait for him to bluff off his stack, I found myself lacking a game-plan.

Aware that a big bet in position on the river indicates either a rare power-house or a frequent naked bluff, pokerman2345 had correctly looked me up several times with bottom pair or even ace-high. He even admitted in the chat to being a fan of the hero-call. I was rapidly becoming an (envious) fan of his hand-reading skills. He polished me off in a hand that best reflects the nature of our heads-up struggle. After I’d called a raise with medium- suited gappers, the flop spectacularly missed my hand. Without a strong read on his cards, I went for a check-raise on the turn, relying on blind faith that he didn’t have a piece of it. He duly called, and the river was another brick. With just 10 high, I could only win the hand by brute force. Giving up on the hand would have left me with but a sixth of my opponent’s stack. A bleak spot indeed. I shoved my remaining 25k chips into the pot and prayed.

Pokerman went into the tank. He’s a hero-call merchant, so I could be in trouble. I knew this, and he knew that I knew this. Did he REALISE that I knew that he knew….Enough of this! He made a brilliant call with ace high (he had nut flush draw on the turn) and we had a thoroughly deserving champion. Lady Luck shrugged and turned away to seek other company. She’d been doing her best for me all evening but, being called all-in on the river with the worst hand, not even she could get me out of this one.

Congratulations to all who placed in the money. The final leaderboard was as follows.

1 ($562) pokerman2345 of Jersey City.
2 ($377) BigArm
3 ($285) Arizona Pat (Phoenix)
4 ($193) Burnley Joe (Plymouth)
5 ($142) uberslug (Glasgow)
6 ($107) change100 (LA)
7 ($86) dilipalai (Antrim)
8 ($76) teaulc (Burgess Hill)
9 ($61) Shamanlix (St Louis)
10,11,12 ($49): Juma115 (Lisboa), HoldemEagle (Pell City), borokp (Ingelton).

And here’s a date for your diary: Next month’s Tuesday night Game will be held at the same time (8pm UK time) on Tuesday September 16th. Password : JDuthie.