Darkened Poker

Poker after Dark is having their ” Top guns Cash game” and it is finally some pretty good poker TV.

In this episode Howard “The Professor” Lederer shows us how not to play AA as he gets stacked by Eli Elezra’s set of 8′s.  So many mistakes in this hand it was like a gift that Eli Elezra did not even have to work for.

1. Howard does not pick a way to play his AA, just calling Phil Iveys raise of 3k he could play them small ball and exercise pot control.  Re-raising big he could play long ball poker and either take down the pot or really maximize the amount of money he put in while ahead.  But instead he only re-raises to 10K and puts 10% of his stack in pre-flop ( started with 100k ) which told everyone he had AA or KK, pot committed him and still gave small pairs the odds to draw at him.  Just calling the 3k to trap Phil Ivey or re-raising to 20k would have been a much better option, if your going to announce your hand strength with 2 people still to play make sure the information is useless to them.  Also given that he is out of position I would raise even more to compensate for that fact, I sure do not want to be playing out of position for the rest of the hand against Eli and Phil.
2. On the flop there is both a str8 and flush draw which is never what you want to see with over pairs.  At this point he he bets 2/3 the pot which means 1/3 his chips are in the pot and he can be all in by the turn.  This bet is even worse than the pre-flop bet as 2/3 the pot is not enough to chase 2 people out with that many draws.  If he wants to drive people out a pot size bet would be proper, but in this case I do not think that is the right way to go.  Problem with betting the pot is he would only get called or re-raised with a Set or the combo Str8 and flush draw.  Since he is out of position I would check this hand, see what they do and use it as a bluff catcher if the situation is appropriate.  Most likely call Phil all the way down if he bet and Eli folded on the flop.  Maybe call one street if Eli bet and Phil folded but dump it past the turn if he is still betting as Eli could only have odds to call pre-flop with pair type hands.
3. The turn play is even worse, Howard hums and haws and then goes all in for a pot size bet of 70k.  Is anyone at that table really believing your acting job?  One good thing about getting all in on the turn is you are not put to a hard derision on the river if the draws get there.  It would be the right move if he was playing against fish that would call a bet that size on a draw.  But no one at that table is going to call him unless he is crush so he is just asking to get stacked.  Sadly he has committed so much pre-flop and on the flop that even if he just switches to check calling down now he would most likely get stacked anyway.   At this point he could just check and call down Eli if the flush or str8 does not get there.  It is not a great move and kind of weak but at least then his hand has some bluff catching power.

Hand in question happens at 9 min point.

Have not been a big fan of the Poker after Dark but these are getting almost as good as the High Stakes Poker shows.

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Darkened Poker

Found this great forum post at “All Vegas Poker” that I have to share, so sad but true.

http://www.allvegaspoker.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=7710&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=210#p122774

Player Nicknames

1.  Norman Chad-Hole: Guy who cracks the corniest, most overplayed jokes at the table. ” Hey! You know why the call A-K The Anna Kournicova? Looks pretty but never wins! Wokka Wokka Wokka!” You should be allowed to slap this guy once a session.

2.  Phil Hell-Meth-head Guy who can’t shut up at the table, cant stay still. Jumps up after every fold to steal 2 quick drags from his cigarette/crack pipe, all the while yelling ” Deal me in dealer!!” because if he misses just one hand, the bugs and worms in his head will eat his brain.

3.  Daniel Negra-Nerd Spits out statiscal analysis of every hand, and is usually wrong. “Ohh, A-K vs pocket 7′s? Your a 114% favorite cause you got like 54 outs twice.”

4.  Phil Ivey-Watching You The tool at the table who tries to stare into your soul when you make a $10 raise. I Actually had a guy last week do this to me. He took his sunglasses off and turned to stare at me over a $40 pot. He said “Why do you look nervous?” So I said ” Cause I don’t know if you’re gonna call or try to kiss me” He folded.

5.  Eli Ez-She really going out with him? The 22 year old smoking hot model seated directly behind the guy who looks like Tom Petty mated with a Mastodon.

6.  Mike Matu-Suck Dude who spews his buy in all over the table for hours then finally gets a good hand and slow plays himself into oblivion- Begins yelling “F$#K this game! I cant belive my aces lost to 5-6 off suit!” We know buddy, we can’t belive you checked behind him on a board of 3-4-8 with three hearts.

7.  Tom Dw-hat In the Hell Are You Doing? Watched way too much Dwan on High Stakes Poker. Can’t understand why when he 3 bets out of the position with J7 he loses everytime. Thats cause he can read players post flop, and you suck donky sack. DURRRRR!!!!!!!!!!

8.  Phil Laak- of Brains Folds kings face up because he gets re raised. Folds his big blind in a tournement and leaves himself with only 1 BB left cause he “Had Crap” Open bets pocket aces for $200 cause he “Always Loses With them”. Makes you just want to go buy him a tin foil hat.

9.  Sammy Far-Crying Out Loud Guy who builds his $100 buy in to $2100 in an hour buy continually sucking out after calling large pre flop bets with crap. Only good news is he wil spew it all back before the night is over.

10.  David Bennyme-Another Drink This guy is blotto, but keeps drinking and babbling while playing. Usualy gives up too much information- Like he has a King, He only raises when he got top pair, He wears his wifes underwear, etc. TMI for sure.

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Darkened Poker

Season 5 Episode 11

This was finally a good episode again.  The mix of characters again is strong and Eli Elezra seems to finally step up and show people how to play against Tom Durr.

The best hand of the night was the final.  Peat puts in the 1,600 blind bet and Tom Dwan raises it to 6k.  Meltzer calls with A 3 and Elezra calls with AT of spades.

Flop: 8 4 A

Tom Dwan leads out with 14.6k, Meltzer stops and thinks for awhile and then call.  Elezra then raises it to 45k, Tom Dwan thinks for a second and then asks Elezra if he has about 250k behind.  Tom then calls and Meltzer fold.

Turn: J

Tom Dwan checks, and Elezra thinks for a second and then checks as well.

River: K

Tom Dwan bets 57.3k and Elezra thinks for a second and calls.  Tom announces 7 High and Eli turns over his Ace, it was almost comical.

Interesting aspects of this hand:

• First Meltzers just behind the raiser call with A 3 is very weak, either he is going to be heads up against a very agressive person with A and weak kicker or playing with an aggressive on his right but no position as there will be others to act behind him.
• Elezra’s call with AT suited is a bit better as he has relative position on the aggressive guy and a much better kicker.

Flop

• Tom Dwans lead on the flop is kind of risky, it is 14k into a 22k pot about 60%, but since he has two callers it is unlikely to take it down right there.  I would bet a little less if at all and give myself drawing odds.
• I like Meltzers call, he has position on and will let him bluff again by not re-raising.  If he is now beat, he will hear about it from Eli so by not raising Tom he is saving himself money and setting up to collect more later.
• Elezra’s raise is brilliant, since he saw that Meltzer was thinking about raising he knows he has the other Ace and is sure that Tom Dwan has the flush draw.  The raise has two potentials and both are good.  It either gets rid of Tom Dwan and leaves him heads up with Meltzer who is not sure about his Ace or he would have re-riased himself.  Or it provides a sqeeze play and gets rid of Meltzer which might have a better hand or also be drawing against him.

Turn

• On the turn I like Tom Dwan’s check, he is hoping that his call of the re-raise will slow down Eli and give him a free card.
• Eli Elezra’s check on the turn is a little confusing to me, I like the check for pot size control and it gives Tom a chance to bluff on the river if the flush does not get there.  But it also gives a free cards and the Pot is already 127k big and worth betting big to claim and get the hand over with.  It did work out for him thought.

River

• I am not sure why Tom Dwan bet here.  He got re-raised on the flop so I am not sure why he would think his hand was good here.  He fell for Eli’s “check on the turn and make you think he is scared of you move”.
• I think Eli took his time to call here just to be nice.

Eli says he put him on 76 of diamonds, I tend to not believe him here, I think if he honestly did he would have bet on the turn.  Hard to say.  Good episode though, can not wait for more now.

Season 5,  Episode 5

This one is very interesting as well.  First is that Daniel Negreanu is down quite a bit and handling it just like the typical newb would.  He misses a few draws and then start to get a little overly aggressive but not in a smart way.  He starts semi bluffing when it is quite likely he could be so he gets raised all in off the hands.  Now even broker he re-raises all in against Eli Elezra on a semi bluff and Eli getting 4 – 1 calls has to call.  Not sure what he was hoping Eli would have had that he could have folded, just did not make any sense other than he was on tilt.  He does not get there and gets stacked again…

Barry Greenstien makes great use of his image and re-enforces my theory that you should never talk about the game while at the table.  After Barry makes that harsh suck out on Tom Durr in the last episode he was playing very tight and had not done anything.  He finally picks up two good hands and makes a little noise so Eli comments on it that it has been 3 hours since he played a hand.  Maybe he is trying to get him to play more hands but all it really does is let Barry know that Eli is paying attention and thinks he is playing to tight.

So when Barry and Eli end up in a limped pot together were Barry lead at the flop with a flush draw and Eli called with his top pair and really weak kicker.  Then Barry uses that information to check to Eli on the turn and then check raises him 150k when Eli bets 40k on the turn.  He played it perfect, making it look like he though Eli had the flush draw and he had Ace big kicker or two pair.

Everyone else is just calling Tom Durr down very light and giving him money, he is value betting perfectly for this table as they seem willing to pay him off.

Then Daniel manages to flop the nut flush and bet into 3 of the most aggressive players around.  What the hell is he thinking, he can not be outdrawn.  He has been a calling station most of the game so far so why did he change from that image at this time.   He could have let one of them bet, call them down and pick off a bluff when if another flush card did not come on the river.  Instead he bets into them hoping to  charge them for a flush draw.  Since he had the King of of the flush they could not been happy about their flush draws even if they had them so they all folded.  He was just to desperate to make back his money and did not think about the situation and how to make the most of it…

Something else is wrong as Doyle could not be convinced to put the 2k blind bet on and Eastgate is now playing like scared money and can be made to fold almost any hand.  He almost make a good read against Tom Durr, but did not have the balls to pull the trigger with his JJ’s.  To bad that would have been a great read, think he was afraid of ending up looking like another idiot going broke with JJ like  Barry or Daniel.

Great episode you have to watch it.

Season 5 Episode 5

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