Folding Unraised Big Blinds

Here's something I've never seen before. I was playing in a single-table WSOP $10+1 sub-qualifier on PP. One player folded almost every hand. Now, that's not unusual, but this player even folded some unraised big blinds.

Here are all the hands he played:

• folded 6 hands
• checked big blind then folded on flop
• folded 16 hands, including 2 unraised big blinds
• raised preflop, bet on the flop, and won the pot
• had AK and paired up, but another player flopped a set of 7s and busted him out.

It was strange to see a player fold his unraised blinds. You would never want to do that, even with two really bad cards, because you get to see the flop for free and could hit a very lucky flop.

The only reason I could think of was that he was playing multiple tables and didn't have time to pay attention to marginal hands on this one. But at least see the flop...

- schneid

Bad Beat

No poker blog is complete without bad beat stories. So here's one...

I was playing in a qualifier for an online WSOP satellite. It was a single table tournament, and the winner would get a seat in a WSOP satellite. Then the satellite would award a seat in the WSOP main event to the winners, 1 seat for every 30 players or so.

Single table tournaments on PartyPoker always take about 1 hour.

Despite not getting any decent cards (the only pocket pairs I had the entire tournament were 55 and 33 and I never even had AK), I managed to build up a nice stack by playing tight (well, I had no choice) and hitting some flops. Here's a description of when things started to go bad:

This hand occurred when we had three players left. Porkchop goes all-in, I call with AcQd. He's got 5s3s. I flop top pair, he flops two pair and rivers a boat.

A couple hands later, I eliminate the other player. Now I'm heads-up with Porkchop and I'm up 6490 to 1510. Here are the remaining hands:

I go all-in with 33. Porkchop calls with KJd. A jack flops and he wins.

Porkchop folds preflop.

I fold preflop.

Porkchop raises all-in and I call. I have AsQd, he has 7d4d. I flop top pair but he turns two pair and rivers a full house.

I fold preflop.

Porkchop folds preflop.

I fold preflop.

I don't have a lot of chips left and go all-in with Jh7d. It's not so bad when I see that he has 9s5s (of course, I should be very scared when *this* guy had suited little cards. And wouldn't you know it, he flops a pair of 5s and makes trips on the turn. I lose.

In those four showdowns, I was the favorite every time. The odds of Porkchop winning all four of those showdowns were about 3%. Now, this is exactly how you want your opponents to play. You should be so lucky to always get all your money in there when you are the favorite! But sometimes it's tough to take a beating like that.

- schneid

2005 WSOP Plans

This is the first post to my new poker blog. Currently, the purpose of this blog is to share the details of my trip to the 2005 World Series of Poker. I will try to post updates on a daily basis while I'm in Las Vegas.

I'll be in Las Vegas from Sunday, July 10 to Wednesday, July 13. I'll be leaving early Sunday and returning very late Wednesday. My intention is to play in satellites to qualify for some of the smaller events, including the following:

Mon Jul 11 No-limit hold'em $1500 buy-in 12:00 NOON
Tue Jul 12 No-limit hold'em $1000 buy-in 12:00 NOON
Wed Jul 13 No-limit hold'em $1000 buy-in 12:00 NOON

A satellite is usually a 10-player tournament at a single table. The winner wins a seat in the next day's event. So if tomorrow's event is a $1500 buy-in event, then the cost of entering today's satellite is $165 ($150 towards the prize and a $15 entry fee). The satellite only takes about 1 hour, due to the fact that the blinds are pretty high in relation to your starting chips.

I don't plan to buy-in directly to any of the events. I'll play in up to three satellites in an attempt to enter each event. If I fail to qualify for an event, then I'll find something else to do or just watch the tournament.

The WSOP $10,000 buy-in Main Event will have already started a couple days before I arrive. I'm currently trying to qualify for the main event online at PartyPoker.com. If I manage to qualify for the main event (highly unlikely), then I will change my plans and arrive in Las Vegas earlier.

- schneid