Llew's FARGO Epic Part 2

by Llew213

This page is part of Ken's Poker Page

On 23 Oct 1998 13:45:19 GMT, in rec.gambling.poker llew213@aol.com
(Llew213) wrote:

Llew's FARGO Epic, the Unabridged Version. Part 2.

Friday, October 9

*****ALERT! Actual Poker Content (APC)!!

Robb took off for Yonkers and I got to the casino about 1 P.M., I think.
Got seated in a 5-10 hold'em game with a kill. This was my first
experience in a kill game. Mostly I liked it. Bigger pots. Playing
10-20 with $2 and $5 blinds was great when I was one of the blinds. The
extra $10 kill blind makes stealing the blinds more profitable. When the
10-20 hands are actually played (no steal), it is easy for the pot to
reach the kill level again. Often several consecutive hands were played
at the 10-20 level. The only negative was having to post the $10 blind.
Once when I was posting it, I said something like "Oh, I have to post this
thing again". A guy at the table said that he *loved* posting a kill
blind and that he would *love* to have the kill button every time. To
which I replied, "Well, I guess I'm funny that way. I kind of like to
*see* my cards before I bet on them". Hell-ooohhh.

ADB Chaz, aka Charles Haynes, also played at this table. Most of the time
he was on my immediate right. Lucky for him. I have a habit of "nudging"
a player next to me sometimes (if I know him/her) to emphasize a point. I
usually do this unconsciously, not even realizing that I am doing it. As
Charles' *right* arm was in a sling - he was recovering from a broken
collarbone he suffered in a motorcycle accident - I could have inflicted
some serious pain had he been seated on my left. :-} This was the first
time I had played with Charles and I really enjoyed getting to know him
during our marathon session.

If you read Charles' TR and Jaeger's (Eric Holtman) post, you know that we
had the world's biggest fish at this table (Eric called him "the Mother
hand" :-). He *never* (and I mean literally *never*) folded pre-flop. He
went to the river 85-90% of the time no matter what he had! One hand that
I remember which illustrates his play (can't recall if Charles already
posted this hand): Pre-flop raising; flop was AK3 rainbow; (don't remember
turn or river cards, they were not relevant); Eric Holtman had been
betting strong from the beginning (pre-flop). At the showdown, Eric
turns up AK. Fish turns up his hand - 73o! As Eric said in his post, the
fish *always* showed his hand at the end. I think that most of the time
he did not know whether he had anything.

Well, with the Big Fish (BF) at the table, the pots were big, sometimes
huge for 5-10 (or even 10-20). Anybody who had anything would call down
BF. Of course, occasionally BF would catch something and, of course, you
never knew when that would be. (I remember him scooping a pot that was
over $500.) And if *I* were in the hand, his chances of having the nuts
increased about 10-fold - or at least it seemed that way :-}.

An example. I am in late-middle position with As8s. Several players call
pre-flop, including you-know-who. Flop has 2 spades. I semi-bluff raise.
Turn brings a third spade. BF bets into me! I love it. Of course, I
just smooth call. Thinking back, I probably should have raised as I know
that BF would have called no matter what he had - guaranteed! However, I
was hoping to keep some of the other players in (didn't work - they all
folded). Anyway, river card pairs the board, BF bets and I raise my nut
flush. Sure enough, BF re-raises! Ruh-roh. I make a crying call
(mandatory with the size of the pot and the previously clueless BF play).
He turns over J7o for a full house. He had flopped the 7 (middle pair),
turned the jack, and paired the 7 on the end.

::::sigh:::.

Rocco also played at our table for awhile. He played very well, but the
BF really beat him up. He just could not make a hand. After a few hours
(and a stack or two), he gave up in disgust.

I knew that I should get a good night's sleep before the NL hold'em
tournament on Saturday. But there was no way I was leaving a juicy game
like this. So on we played through the night. And it did pay off,
especially after I got a good read on the other players, including the BF
(well, as good a read as it is possible to get on a guy who plays *every*
hand). I was even able to bluff him out a few times, no mean feat! From
an early deficit of close to $300, I recovered to about $500 up by the
time the tournament was scheduled to begin.

Rocco returned to the game for a while before the tournament and the cards
finally started working for him. I think he recovered his previous
night's losses with interest. Best of all, he got most of it from the BF.

I *seriously* considered skipping the tournament. This game was still
great, the pots were still big, and - most important - the BF was still
playing. I knew that, if I gave up my seat, I would never get it back.
But I thought, well, I did register for the tournament online, so I felt
obliged to play. What a good choice that turned out to be.

Continue to Part 3

Published with the permission of the author.
Reproduction without the author's permission prohibited.

Try a Free Evaluation Copy of LinkScan
LinkScan is a website quality assurance tool that checks links and produces two types of SiteMaps using multi-threaded simultaneous processing that provides reports on HTML pages readable from any browser on any platform. It is capable of checking as many as 40,000 links per hour. Download is only 240 KB. Get a free evaluation copy.