Lot's of Sets at The Commerce, Some better Than Others

I’m back at the Commerce and I have to say when it comes to poker it the “nuts.” The cash games downstairs with the tournament room upstairs in unparalleled. Although I started the day with the 4pm 8 game mixed it didn’t go well for me. Out of the 106 starters I went out in the middle of the pack, and right from the beginning just seemed to struggle. Tiffany Michelle came over and gave me endless grief from busting her out of an event on Full Tilt the night before where she had KK and I held JJ, spiking a jack on the flop. I had her covered four to one and the way the hand played I couldn’t lay them down based on stack sizes at that point of the tournament. Still, she made me feel bad. I know she got some negative criticism for her WSOP main event performance from 2008, but she is a really nice person, and has always been a good friend.

After that I went downstairs to plat $20-40 NLH and wound up in a pretty good must move game. After a few hours and a few small hands I managed to recover my tournament buy-in when I flopped a set of sixes against KJ on a J62 rainbow board. He fired the flop and turn, which I raised and he ran. Then I get moved to the main game which was a much tougher game.

There were 6 solid pros and it almost felt like that stage of a tournament where every hand went raise and maybe one call, then bet fold on the flop. I was pretty much even at this table when I looked down at KK UTG+2 and raised the standard $140. I got two callers, the last guy who is a well known owner of a chain of high end restaurants. The flop came KJ4 with 2 diamonds, the king being one of them. With $480 in the pot I opened for $420 and the mid guy folded and the restaurant guy raised $800 on top. I took a moment and he had about $6,000 behind and I had him covered, so with just under 3k in the pot, after counting my call of his raise, I re-raised $2,200. His call hit the pot almost before my chips. The turn brought the deuce of diamonds and he moved in instantly for around 4k, which was a little more than half the pot. I felt physically ill. I was sitting there with top set and I knew he either had a flush of best case for me AJ with the ace of diamonds or a lower set. My mind said fold but I couldn’t bring my self to do it. I figured worst case I had a little over 20% chance of the board pairing on the river. I went ahead and called, and just to make matters worse the ace of diamonds came on the river. I meekly showed my set of jacks and he quickly tabled 74 of diamonds.

I’m thinking “welcome back to the Commerce.” So now I’m stuck around 6k so I added some chips to cover him. I don’t always re-buy at this point and still had 7k in front of me, but felt like it was worth having him covered. I played a couple of hands and eked up a little bit, and about 15 minutes later I looked down at 10 10 in the small blind after an early position raise of $160 and three callers and smooth call. The standard pre-flop opening raise in this game was somewhere in the $140-200 range. This is well over the 2.5-3.5 big blind tournament range, but has been the usual and customary here in the Commerce $20-40 NLH. So the flop come 10 7 5 all hearts. I love it and I hate it. I open for a full pot sized bet of $800 and it folds around to me restaurant friend and who raises me $2,100. Of course I’m thinking “Danger Will Robinson, danger,” but this time I felt like he didn’t have it, at least not yet and if I can get to the turn without another heart, or of course if the board paired I’d be in great shape. A black 4 hit the turn and I checked, and he moved all-in. This time I was pretty sure I was still ahead and he had middle set or the ace of hearts with a pair. This was a whole lot more money this time, and I still had him covered, but it was around 12k with about $6,600 in the pot. After quite some time I call. The river brings a very pretty black 7 giving me top full house. He shows 68 off suit and had turned a straight. Suck out city, thank god. Ironically I remembered him from playing with him last time around 9 months ago as very wild and live and I guess I turned out to be the wild live player.

I can’t decide what to play today. There is a HORSE tournament and a Chinese event here at Commerce, as well as a $300 re-buy FTOP’s event today online. So much poker, so little time.