Eric Rizen Lynch

$2k NLHE Today

I was a little tilted on the ride home last night. I was pretty excited about the $2500 HA (mixed PLO/PLHE) event. I got off to a pretty good start, was playing pretty well, had made some really tough (but good, I think) lay downs. I had looked around the table and had a pretty good idea of where my chips were going to come from and how I was going to get them. I think I misplayed an AK hand a little versus the table fish and probably missed some value. I got overly cute with the hand and played it kind of slow, something I really discourage my students from doing with big hands, but I still won a pretty good sized pot and was up around 13k.

There was a pretty good older gentleman across the table from me who I'd made both big lay downs against. I think they were good, but after seeing me lay down two pretty big hands (I didn't show them, but agonized over the decision for quite some time and don't usually act in those situations) he was betting into me a little more and adjusting I think (and rightly so). He was making a lot of full pot bets, which is actually a good thing in pot limit, but compared to the rest of the table I really felt like I could trap him at some point later into running a big bluff against me based on the table dynamics and his play style.

He had raised UTG and I flatted in the CO with TT66ssdd. Sometimes I muck that hand pre because flopping a set of tens or sixes can just be a trouble spot in PLO and a t high flush isn't super easy either, but I had position, the table fish was in the small blind and likely to come along and I had a read that I could potentially get the pre-flop raiser to run a big bluff against me. Flop was Q76 with two spades. So I have bottom set plus a bad flush draw. The original raiser pots it, I call, fish folds. Turn was a red 2 (not putting a second flush on the board). This is where I think I might have gotten a little cute. He pots it and I just flatted to try and induce a river bluff since my two flats was really repping a draw and based on prior play I could see him 3 barreling with any hand that had the As in it. If I shoved the turn he plays pretty perfectly probably, but at that point i probably should have been happy to take down what was in the middle. Although he would have been getting about 4:1 or so on a call, so he very well might have called anways.

River was a ten. He shrugs his shoulders and shoves. i was going to snap call any river but when he shrugged then shoved I felt like he was trying to induce a call by acting. I couldn't really justify folding the 3rd nuts there though so I called and he had KK89 no spades. I set it up pretty well based on table dynamics, under-repped my hand to induce the first two barrels (although he probably thought both barrels were for value since I was calling on a draw heavy board). In my head I was already counting my ~30k stack and off to day 2 which is a huge mental mistake before even the second break, but I'd been playing so well I got ahead of myself. Poker isn't a game that always rewards the right plays, and i think I should have shoved the turn not just because I lost the hand, but because at that point the value of winning the pot (especially in a tournament where chancing a suckout can put you out) was greater than trying to induce a third barrel.

I'm fine now and was honestly un-tilted within about an hour. I'm just going to go and try and play my 'A' game again today. So far I haven't won a significant pot where I was all in the whole series, so if nothing else the law of averages is bound to catch up eventually and let me get there even if I get my money in bad (which isn't the goal!). Based on my historic WSOP play I have a history in the smaller buy in events of either being out before dinner break or making a deep run and cashing. That's mostly because if I can work a decent chip stack into the middle levels I feel I have a huge advantage, but it just hasn't happened yet. I was hoping with the slightly better structure and triple starting stacks this year that would help change things a lot, but so far it hasn't for me, although the sample size is pretty small so far.

-Rizen