I made the trek to Milton last night to hang out with some of my buds to play a little No Limit Hold Em. The Baron, Thumbs, the Tournament Specialist and I played a little No Limit Hold Em for fun. The first time around thumbs was -occupied, and it was The Tournament Specialist and the Baron. I busted the Baron and had a commanding chip lead before Thumbs made his entrance.
So we started from scratch once Thumbs joined us, and I lost a pot early on, but one a couple so I had about 60 chips and we initially started with 50 each. The blind was $1 and T.S. made it $4 to go and I called. I had K6 of diamonds. The flop came Ad Ks and 8d. T.S. raised to 5 and I re-raised to 10. T.S. Immediately went over top of me and pushed all in. At this point I was pretty sure he had A-x? I had second pair, but I also had the nut flush draw with 2 cards to go. I ran a quick calculation with a poker odds calculator and the odds were 53.3 – 46.7 in favour of T.S. I made the call, and it turn out T.S. had pocket rockets. I didn’t make the flush and that was it for me. I think it was not a bad call on my part, but not an optimal call either. I want to try and pick my spots better and get off coin flips on drawing hands. I think I played it mathematically correctly but since I am looking at changing my strategy away from “standard” poker strategy, I’ll chalk this one up as a failure.
I am looking to separate process from outcome, something I want to show the Baron next time we get together, by simulating 100 random draws with a poorly ranked hand…
