Started ranked 4, finished ??. Started slow but slowly worked my position forward and had a good Friday. Woke up Saturday just a game back and was in first for a nanosecond when the leader lost his first game but before I lost mine. Then got completely outdrawn and killed in the next five games Saturday for an 0-6, -750 day. Maintained pleasant disposition through it all. Made slight recovery Sunday morning to make it to the outside looking in. Made $200 gambling on the side on Scrabble.

Found great no-limit game at the Reno Hilton. Played 2 hr/night on three different nights. Won $740. Made one bad play when I put all my chips in after turning three fives and someone else had flopped three queens. Long analysis of hand at the end. Played in poker tounament Sunday night at Peppermill. Took 2nd, $360.

Saw grammy-award winning musical Smokin' Joe's something or other featuring the songs of someone and someone.

Made haj on Sunday to world's largest gambling store. Got some cool books.

Happy and refreshed back at work.

JG

Poker Hand analysis:

Eight-handed no-limit texas holdem. $2 and $5 blind. My starting hand: 55. My position 7th to act out of 8. My chips: ~$350, no one at the table had much more. Several players call the $5 blind as do I in late position. Button folds. The person who posted the big blind then put in a modest $15 raise. I called, although I'm not getting good money odds currently, (the odds of me finding a magic 5 on the flop are 7.5:1, and I'm dead otherwise) the implied odds to come if I should hit a 5 on the flop justify calling. Every one else calls making a $100 pot (5 * (5 +15)).

Flop A-Q-3 different suits. Airball.

I'm ready to fold.

The initial raiser checks. An unusual move in that normally a pre-flop aggressor will follow up the flop with a sizable bet to try to win it there. I know he has hit his hand somehow and is trying to trap. Doesn't matter to me; I'm dead no matter what. It gets checked around to me and I check it as well. I know that he was hoping I'd try to steal (as he suspected I had done several times previous).

Turn card 5. Ding.

Now I have my dream card, but I'm know I'm no shoo-in. What does he have?

If I accept that he would value all three hands after the flop similarly, playing to trap, I figure I'm a 3:2 favorite to take his chips. 3 combos of AA still available, + 3 combos of QQ still available v 9 combos of AQ still available.

He bets $100, I raise over the top. He calls. He shows QQ. Surprisingly, no 5 on the river. I rebuy. He starts looking for racks to cash out.

Possible flaws in analysis:

Implied odds of playing a pair of 5's come along with implied costs when I hit a set and lose.

he won't put his chips in with less than a set :

he wouldn't have checked AQ:

Other players slowly disperse as well. Was able to keep the game going 3-handed while I tried stealing 7 dollars at a pop to get even. Took a while.

Postscript 2/99:
The real flaw in this analysis is the assumption that the possible hands that he hit would all be played similarly, and then doing a straight Bayesian weighting. One cannot give AQ the high-% consistency shading afforded the sets. That swings the pendulum from 9:6 in favor of AQ to something else that definitely favors the sets being out there.

Last Modified 9/26/00

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