A Different Kind of Bluff
I tried something a bit out of the box last night, which didn’t work, but I hit a 4 outer on the river to save the day.
I popped down to the Loose Cannon to play the £10 rebuy tournament, followed by some dealer’s choice cash. The field was small - Sonny and Roy made up the numbers together with myself, Fluke, The Baron and a new guy. We made the rebuys unlimited for the first 40 minutes, which led to a nice pot and some pretty big chip stacks. At one point I had a 25k stack with blinds of 150-300 after eliminating Fluke. I ran pretty well, and bossed the tournament from the first round, but ended up chopping it with Sonny for £100 each, after he hit runner runner when I was on the verge of outright victory. Still, I was only in for £20 so I banked a decent profit.
The cash game went extremely well - I bought in for £100 and cashed out for a profit of about £400, recouping my losses from the home game the previous night. It was dealer’s choice, so there was 5/6/7/11 card Omaha, 2-7 lowball, triple draw, 3-2-1 Omaha, River blood and Deuces wild together with the standard holdem, irish and Omaha fare.
The interesting hand comes up in Irish - and The Baron is frankly still grumpy
about it. In this variant, you were required to show your discarded card face up .
I hold Ah4c5h and raise to £3 - I get two callers, including the Baron.
Flop arrives
At this point I decide to try something a bit different. I discard the Ace face up to the other players. Now, the only rational reason you would do this would be either that you hit a set with your other cards, or you had a huge combination draw. Since the board was discombobulated, in the minds of the other players I must have a set (well this was my thinking in any case). The Baron, undeterred by my show of massive fake strength bets £10 into the pot, and I decide to float, with the intention of putting him all in for his last £18 on the river (again consistent with a set). However, disaster for my strategy strikes when the Baron beats me to the shove on the river, and I am left with a gutshot straight draw with no odds to call. I am so disappointed that he hasn’t fallen for my majestic discard bluff strategy, that I spite call him for the £18. My inventiveness is rewarded with a 2 on the river to fill my straight and I scoop the pot. Baron not happy.
The other big pot also comes against the Baron and is the one reason I don’t like Omaha. Invariably in cash games aggressive players will get all in on the flop or turn, where one of them has the nuts and the other one has a huge draw. This makes the game extremely swingy. Fortunately I came out in front on this one, in a fairly big pot of £250ish I think. I held the nut straight, but with only one redraw to a bigger straight, whereas the Baron had a house draw and a flush draw. The money went in on the turn, so I am ahead, but I have a ton of cards to fade to pick up the pot and fortunately I do.
A busy week of live action will be concluded tonight with the League night at LC. After that it’s a rest day, before hitting the FTOPs Omaha $500 event on Saturday.