Page 10 - September 2007 • Southern California Gaming Guide

Jim Mercurio: Poker
I Can See Clearly Now
I was in Albuquerque, New Mexico last week as part of an incredible week-long lm festival called the Duke City Shootout. When I wasn’t on the set of the shorts, I was duking it out, pun intended, at the tables at Sandia Casino.
I found a great game. It was 1–2 blinds with a max buy-in of $200, so it quickly became a relatively deep- stacked game. After a few hours, average stacks were in the neighborhood of $400. I was up almost $2,000 after three sessions and felt pretty good. I was seeing the player’s mistakes and I was able to quantify my edge in the game.
I was felting people left and right, and one player even threatened to beat me up. I am thinking, “Dude, it’s poker. We’re here to take each other’s money.” So the next night I come back ready to run my winnings up to $3,000. Well, I have the worst luck, and I go through 5 buy-ins in an hour. QQ vs KK twice for half a buy-in and then I get all my money in on the turn with the nut straight, and some lame ush draw hits a 9-outer, and let’s not even talk about the set over set.
So, I am patiently waiting for my chance. I pick up KQ♦ in the cuto and call an early position raiser. e table is pretty deep with money and I have $400, so I gure I can look at a op. e only problem was that my call triggered the button to call. So I didn’t have position. e op comes 459 with two diamonds. An early position player bets out $40 which is about the
size of the pot. I raise to about $100. My raise does a few things. It garners me position, hopefully. It builds the pot. And other than a set, 45 or an overpair, I can’t think of anything that can raise me. And the other reason I raised is so that some player with the A♦ by itself doesn’t get frisky and decide to call.
Although one of the reasons I raised was to get position, the button deliberated for a minute and then called. In this game, if a player is going to call $100 with a draw here, then I think the nut- ush is an autocall for him. So his pause makes me think he’s doesn’t have the A♦ with another diamond. However, it is a distinct possibility that he has the A♦ by itself.
A non-pairing diamond comes on the turn. Using my aforementioned logic, I concluded that he didn’t have the nuts. Playing out of position sucks, but I can’t give a free card, so I just shove all of my chips in the pot: like $290 more into a $250 pot. He thinks for a second and calls. I know what he has. He has the ace of diamonds. Of course the 4th diamond comes on the river. An $850 pot poof, gone!
I ended up losing $1,700 that night to bad luck like this. When I told my friends that I was back to even,
they looked concerned. I told them not to worry, that I had played well. I think they thought I was delusional about my skills and the edge in the game.
But let’s be objective. My raise on the op was great. It gave the runner-runner ush odds of only about 5:1, but he needs about 20:1. And then my all-in shove on the turn made him put in $300 getting less than 2:1 when he needed 4:1 to call. is player made two huge mistakes back to back thanks to me. He may have won the battle, the pot. But he doesn’t have a shot at the war, the test of time.
Buy Jim’s lm Hard Scrambled at www.hardscrambled.com or if you like his column, contact him at jim@jamespmercurio.com.
Page 10
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
September 2007
Poker: Wired Aces and River Rats