Can't Lock up a win at Razz

I've final tabled the nightly Razz tourney back to back nights, but a victory eludes me. I got 6th place on Friday, and this close last night:

AHHHHHHHHHH!

Why does 2nd place sting so much in a tournament? AltronIV went through the same thing in the Brawl last week. We might seem like cry-babies, but aside from the money, I'd rather finish 5th or 6th than 2nd. You're too close to victory. You can smell it. They always say that, in a poker tournament, only one person walks away truly happy. And I think the only person that can truly understand this statement, is the runner-up.

I've got to give some credit to thatslife1969. I haven't seen him at the Razz ring games, so I don't really have an indication of his game other than his performance at the final table last night. When we got three-handed, he relentlessly completed every bet if he didn't have paint showing. I felt like he was stealing a lot of "my pots" because I'd be sandwiched in-between him and the bring in holding (K,Q) 6 and have to fold.

At one point, I pokerdb'd him and saw that he had over $5k in Razz cashes, so I decided to back off and let him take out the short stack in third place. They battled back and forth a bit, but eventually he was able to felt him.

We got heads-up with pretty even stacks, and I was feeling confident that I could take the tourney down. thatslife1969 seemed to not be able to switch gears once we got heads-up, and would complete with hands like (X,X) 10 against my (A, 2) K. I'd smooth call, and then check raise when I improved on 4th, knowing he was firing 100% of the time. This got me into a lot of situations where I was drawing better heading into 5th. We traded the chip lead back and forth for a good 15 minutes.

Unfortunately, we got into a raising war when I made a 7 low on 5th against his (X, X) A, 5, 6. We both bricked 6th, and I really thought I was taking down the pot, but he tabled a 6 low, which I believe he made on 5th right along with me. It's possible he was drawing to it heading to 7th, but based on the action through the hand, I think we both were made on 5th. In any case, it was an awesome heads-up battle, and I owe thatslife1969 credit and a thank you for giving me some good heads-up experience in tournament Razz.

So here I am...a nice MTT day for me, but no victory to enjoy.


Damn Donkeys,


Bmore

Brawl Money Leaderboard Updated

The Bmore's Brawl Money Leaderboard has been updated and includes up through Brawl #8. The Money Leaderboard should be 100% accurate. I am still working on the KO Leaderboard, which will be a little tougher to get 100% correct due to the fact that I had to exit the Brawl early last week for a family emergency. I am working on getting a semi-update on the KO board posted soon, and I will verify everybody's KO count with Full Tilt once they send me the data.

See you tonight!

Damn Donkeys,

Bmore

Omaha sucks- How would you play this?

I'll be the first one to admit that my knowledge of Omaha is limited. Nonetheless, I feel that it is adequate enough to compete in small buy-in tournaments with decent expectation. A hand in one of the Battle of the Bloggers 3 events had me questioning my understanding of basic principles. Here's a screenshot of of me going busto on, what I'm thinking, was a bad beat:

So here's the situation. It folds around to the SB, who pops me in the BB. With the double suited aces, I'm not folding. I considered calling, but I decided on a re-pop based on the value of my hand and my position if he can make the call. I've read a couple of different passages that say you must push the action with aces. Considering I was double suited, and with the above-mentioned thoughts, I re-pop the pot.

And he re-pops me to about 10,000. I don't like the raise, but I can't see laying the hand for the following reasons:

1. the value of my hand (which I may be off base with)

2. the size of the pot (getting my money in and winning gives me the chip lead)

3. I'm trying to calculate his range quickly and I can't see a lot of hands that are ahead of me (part of this thought was that the chance of him being double suited with the aces as well seemed to me like the chances of AA vs. AA in hold-em- does that make sense?) I ended up ranging him on AAxx, KKxx, double-suited broadway cards...that's about it. So, looking at my equity, I concluded:

AAxx- should be ahead of most of these because of my hand being double suited
KKxx- should be crushing these hands
double suited broadway cards- worried me a bit, but guessed that I should have decent equity against these hands (also thought that he could be sharing suits with me on some of these hands)

Okay, with seven seconds, I put this together as much as I can and come over the top. The board runs out as seen in the screenshot above and I'm out. So, my questions are:

1. Did I over play this hand?
2. What are arguments for alternative decisions?
3. If, as me, you smooth called the preflop raise, what would you do on the flop? Against a check? Against a bet? Against a check-raise?

Here's the hand history if it helps with the questions:

Full Tilt Poker Game #5599835419: Skill Series (40521358), Table 10 - 200/400 - Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 23:30:20 ET - 2008/03/11
Seat 1: Virge (18,375)
Seat 2: thebmorekid (14,757)
Seat 3: SirFWALGMan (6,031)
Seat 4: BamBamCan (3,070)
Seat 5: Jestocost (48,434)
Seat 6: jmlabrie18 (4,136)
Seat 7: KngofKngs (10,915)
Seat 8: bayne_s (4,393)
Seat 9: KillinKegz (24,665)
Virge posts the small blind of 200
thebmorekid posts the big blind of 400
The button is in seat #9
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to thebmorekid [As 5s Jd Ad]
SirFWALGMan folds
BamBamCan folds
Jestocost folds
jmlabrie18 folds
KngofKngs folds
bayne_s has 15 seconds left to act
bayne_s folds
KillinKegz folds
Virge raises to 1,200
thebmorekid raises to 3,600
Virge raises to 10,800
thebmorekid raises to 14,757, and is all in
Virge calls 3,957
thebmorekid shows [As 5s Jd Ad]
Virge shows [Ac Ah 4c 3s]
*** FLOP *** [9h 8d Jc]
*** TURN *** [9h 8d Jc] [8c]
*** RIVER *** [9h 8d Jc 8c] [9c]
thebmorekid shows two pair, Aces and Nines
Virge shows a flush, Ace high
Virge wins the pot (29,514) with a flush, Ace high
thebmorekid stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 29,514 Rake 0
Board: [9h 8d Jc 8c 9c]
Seat 1: Virge (small blind) showed [Ac Ah 4c 3s] and won (29,514) with a flush, Ace high
Seat 2: thebmorekid (big blind) showed [As 5s Jd Ad] and lost with two pair, Aces and Nines


Any comments would be greatly appreciated...


Damn Donkeys,


Bmore

Bmore's Brawl #8 Tourney Recap

Thanks to all who attend Brawl #8. I didn't get a chance to send out email reminders this past week, and combining that with a few Brawlers being up in AC for the Ceasars WSOP events, we had a relatively small turn out of 23 participants. A special welcome to HarleyFund and Stuart Paterson for making their first appearances. On to the highlights:

I believe this was the first straight flush in Brawler history:

Talk about beginner's luck!


Harleyfund would continue his good fortune in his first Brawl and get to the money. Congrats to Stuart Paterson, Harleyfund, Amstel34, xojones and NELKO for making it past the bubble. Stuart Paterson would be the first out when Amstel34 tripled up below:

Harleyfund was next to go when AK couldn't hit again:


Next out was Amstel34 when couldn't out run xojones:

This brought us to a heads-up battle between xojones and NELKO. The chip lead changed hands a couple of times, but a nice catch by NELKO on the river ended the Brawl:

Congrats to NELKO for his first victory in the Brawl. Final lobby is below:

As you may or may not know, I had to exit the Brawl early for a family emergency. A special thanks goes out to AltronIV for stepping in and documenting the rest of the Brawl for me.

This week should be fun, as we'll have some first time Brawlers getting their feet wet...

See you Wednesday!

Damn Donkeys,

Bmore

New Brawler Blog

Adultswimmer has started a blog....check it out...should be an entertaining one as time goes on...

See everyone Wednesday!

Damn Donkeys,

Bmore

Profile: Keith Sexton

The Brawl was happy to welcome Keith Sexton as it's second guest appearance of a Full Tilt Pro.
Keith has been playing poker for over 30 years in Vegas. He is best known for his stud game, but has multiple WSOP cashes across all forms of the game.


Like Beth Shak last week, Keith comes from a poker playing family. All of his sons play, including Paul Sexton, who has developed into a formidable tournament player as well.


The Brawlers, once again, thank Keith Sexton for coming out and taking some flops with us...

Damn Donkeys,

Bmore

Bmore's Brawl #7 - Brawlers Meet the Punisher

Thanks to everyone who came out last Wednesday for Brawl #7. A special thanks to xNoIdeax, Amstel34 and Keith Sexton for attending their first brawls. With the appearance of Keith Sexton, we again had special $11 KO bounty on a pro. mind27 KO'd Keith and got his full buy in back, as well as an FTP t-shirt. Congrats!

We shattered the attendance record again with 35 participants. It was a hard fought battle, but seven Brawlers made the money this week. Congrats to momX2, NELKO, adultswimmer, roccav, Amstel34, purplerain05 and Serious4. Let's recap the action...

After the money bubble burst, momX2 was the first to be eliminated when her set ran into the punishment of Serious4:

Did anyone not see that one coming?

Next out was NELKO when his AJ ran into the dominating AK of purplerain05:

adultswimmer had a nice run in the Brawl, but his tourney came to the end when Serious4 pushed the punishment button:

Shortly after that, roccav got punished when he pushed with A10s:

Amstel34 borrowed $11 to get into the Brawl from your truly. To return the favor, he cooled me with AA when I pushed with KK to bust me. After that, he made a strong showing, but went out in 3rd when Serious4 turned the punishment meter up a notch:

This left purplerain05 and Serious4 to duke it out for the title. Congrats to both of these guys, as Brawl #7 would be their first cashes, and nice ones at that. purplerain05 never had a chance though. As we all know from Thursday late nights, once the punisher is in the building, he doesn't leave until he has all the cheese and crackers. Here's the final hand:

Congrats to Serious4 for dominating the final table action and picking up his first Bmore's Brawl title. Final lobby below:



Money and KO Leaderboards are updated over on the left. I hope everyone had a good time at the Brawl. Next week should be just as exciting. See you Wednesday!

Damn Donkeys,

Bmore