Another $.5/$1 session: why I hate AQ
The single largest factor in my play from last night was the dreaded hand, AQ, dealt to me in early position. Even suited, it’s still a tricky hand to play unless you can predict the behavior of the other players at your table well enough. I may actually fold it if I get it in early in a session before I have a read on the general mood of the table.
Here’s my totals from last night.
151 hands played, saw the flop (not a blind) 13.68%. Voluntarily put $ in the pot 16.56%.
Can you tell? I had crap for cards. For limit, these numbers are low, I think.
Early position: played AQs, AQo, and ATs. No junk was played. (Hey, I’m getting better)
Middle position: AKo, AQo, and ATs. No junk was played.
Late position: AJo, ATs, ATo, A5s, A4s, KQo, K8s, J7o, TT, 87s, 55, and 22. I played the K8s without sufficient callers (I needed 4, but I only had 2 plus the blinds). Bad bad.
The J7o was the original posted bet to enter before my blind, but I made the mistake of calling a raise because it was one more bet and I had position. The extra bet was a waste, and position is obviated by people at this level who can’t lay down AA or KK to a scary board. I gotta learn not to do that.
Small blind: In the small blind I played T5o, A9s, QJs, 98s, and 74s. As you imagine, I consider the T5o and the 74s to be wanton wastes of money.
I’m generally playing without Matthew Hilger’s book in front of me, which accounts for my deviations from normally solid starting hands, to try and hone my instincts about what starting hands do well. For this session I had three instances of junk hands out of 151.
This is the most interesting hand of the session, in my opinion. It’s just me and one other guy. I had him read for a 9 or a Queen on the fourth card, and my instinct told me that I was drawing to a straight to chop (four outs) or a bigger top pair (the three outs for my Ace).
Before the flop I was roughly a 60-40 favorite. The flop didn’t change much. The turn made me a 7 to 1 underdog, and I called the bet while getting only 4.25 to 1 odds. This was a statistical mistake that worked out ok, but long term is a poor play unless I think my opponent bluffs a lot.
Here’s the blow by blow.
***** Hand History for Game 2183305886 *****
$0.5/$1 Hold’em – Friday, June 10, 00:06:15 EDT 2005
Table Table 12769 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 8
Seat 2: ChefMarco ( $22.25 )
Seat 5: randyf51 ( $25.13 )
Seat 6: Canascope ( $27.5 )
Seat 7: marktlc ( $32.75 )
Seat 8: Rust_Dragon ( $23.25 )
Seat 4: PkrWidow ( $25.25 )
Seat 10: player123 ( $0.75 )
Seat 1: prohibo ( $20.75 )
PkrWidow posts small blind [$0.25].
randyf51 posts big blind [$0.5].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to ChefMarco [ Ad Js ]
Canascope folds.
marktlc folds.
Rust_Dragon folds.
player123 folds.
prohibo folds.
ChefMarco raises [$1].
PkrWidow folds.
randyf51 calls [$0.5].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 8c, 9s, 4h ]
randyf51 checks.
ChefMarco bets [$0.5].
randyf51 calls [$0.5].
** Dealing Turn ** [ Qs ]
randyf51 bets [$1].
Lannsoon has joined the table.
ChefMarco calls [$1].
** Dealing River ** [ Td ]
randyf51 bets [$1].
ChefMarco raises [$2].
randyf51 calls [$1].
ChefMarco shows [ Ad, Js ] a straight, eight to queen.
randyf51 doesn’t show [ Qd, Th ] two pairs, queens and tens.
ChefMarco wins $8.75 from the main pot with a straight, eight to queen.