Doke gets rightly Lappined

Well, I haven't blogged in a while, mainly cos there was nothing much to blog about, and I resisted the temptation to write a blog about not having anything to write about.

I did end up in the Fitz one night after meeting Lappin in town. For anyone wondering why I insist on referring to him by his surname in contrast to my "Christian names and/or screen names" policy for all my other friends, it's because I feel if someone has a surname as awesome as Lappin, then Goddammit it should be used as much as possible. Ever weirder, I ended up sitting in live cash for about 30 minutes while waiting for my lift to arrive after busting the tournament. Regular readers will be aware of my aversion to live cash. This was the first time in well over a year I put myself through the trauma. I ended up almost 100 big blinds which seems like a decent hourly if perhaps not sustainable :)

A few night later I was finishing up an evening session online when Lappin popped up on Skype to tell me he'd just signed up to Irish Eyes and wanted me to jump into a cash game with him. Since I was down to a few tables, I humoured him. I nitted it up for an hour or so while Lappin played something like 55/45 all the while abusing me for the nit that I am. We did eventually play a big pot: I threebet aces, he min reclick four bet, I five bet small enough to let him think the 6 bet shove might have fold equity and and he shoved in the 130 bigs with AQs. All well and good except his flush draw got there before the river so I got rightly Lappined. If you're gonna lose those, better it be to a friend than a foe I guess.

I headed down to Cork on Friday for the Macau Classic with Mick Mccloskey. I had a pretty good day 1b, chipping up from 20k starting to 48k. The biggest and most interesting pot ended with a November Niner getting a Doking. It started with Richie Lawlor (one of the best tourney players on the scene at the moment who came within a hair's breath of the remarkable and unprecedented achievement of cashing in 4 UKIPTs on the trot) opening to 750 utg at 150/300. I flatted with ATs two behind, as did Eoghan O'Dea two behind me. The flop came 764 with two of my suit, Richie led for 1050, I called, Eoghan raised to 3800 with 10k behind. Richie tank folded (queens according to his Twitter) and I had to think now too. Folding didn't seem great when you play ATs and hit a two overs and a nut flush draw flop, calling seemed unpalatable too, so I ran through the math quickly to see if shoving was ok. I figured Eoghan's range as 44+ (that is, sets, overpairs and pairs with a straight draw). I have about 42-43% equity against that range so even if he never folds the shove is plus Ev. If he ever does fold it's even better for me. Also, if I widen his range to include worse flush draws like KQs, my equity gets closer to 50%. As it happened, he had a hand I'd never even considered (76o for top two) but even if I include 2 pair hands (I excluded them because Eoghan was playing very tight and didn't think he'd play something like 76o from mid position with less than 50 bigs) I'm basically a 5/4 dog against the range so the shove's ok with the dead money. And there's always Plan B, hit the flush, which I duly did. Hopefully Eoghan's getting his run bad out of the way before November.

I got my comeuppance on day 2 though, losing a load of races to shorties. After losing with queens against AK, I was down to 4k (4 bigs). I staged a recovery to 50k before I lost a few and ended up shoving 15 bigs with KQ in late position over a few limpers. After the last limper tank called I figured I was racing but wasn't: his AQ held.

I bought in late to the 300 side event and lasted precisely two hands, the second of which was reminiscent of my Lappining. Utg limped for 150, I made it 400 just behind with aces, a guy in late position made it 1200, I fourbet to 3400 and called his 16500 shove. Someone said "aces and kings" but my opponent said "No, I don't know what I was thinking" before sheepishly turning over AJs. Flush got there of course.

The Macau made their main event a re-entry tourney which wasn't to some people's liking but I think is a good idea. Anything that increases prize pools is good, as is anything that encourages people to gamble sub optimally. Another advantage is if you travel for one of these games, it's good to have more than one bite at the cherry. There's nothing worse than travelling to play a game like that, see your aces done by AJs for millions of big blinds in level one, and spend the rest of the week fretting about the broadband in your hotel. Hopefully other organisers will follow the example of allowing players to re-enter without having to pay the registration again (as is the norm in ripoff Las Vegas).

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