Sunday, January 23, 2011

NLOP Weekly Championship 11: If Only

For the first time since early December, we qualified for tonight's weekly championship at National League of Poker. It's not easy to get there (especially if you don't play online a lot, and we don't). And it's not easy to win, with 1,441 entries. So here's what happened....

:00 IN: We start with 3-4. Someone doubles the bet, and we fold -- missing out on a 4-3-A flop. It winds up being a straight on the board with 5-2 following, but two pair could have led to an early gain.

:01 IN: We have 10-J in the next hand. The flop is 7-8-5, and we call a minimum bet of 30. The turn is a King, and a bet of 90 leads us to fold. Too bad -- the river is a 9, and we would have made a straight.

:20 IN: We have 10-10 under the gun and call. Another player raises 100, and we call. The flop is 8-6-6. We bet the minimum 60, and two players call. The turn is 6, giving us a full house. We bet 120, and players call again. The river is an 8, putting a full house on the board -- only ours is better, so we bet 120 again. Players call, but they don't have a pocket pair. Our "boat" brings in a $1,420 pot.

:35 IN: We have Q-A and limp, calling a doubled bet of 400. But the flop is 2-10-6, and we bail out when a player goes all in with it.

:48 IN: We have A-K of diamonds under the gun, and double the bet to 400. An opponent goes all-in, making our total bet 595. The flop is 7-8-K, and we go all-in with 630 chips remaining. Two people call, and a chip leader shows a measly Q-4! But amazingly the turn is a 6. The river is a 5. That measly hand becomes a winning straight!

Final score: 515th place out of 1,441 players. We ached early about the hands not played, then wound up getting burned by someone making a donkey-looking call simply because he could afford to do it. It worked for him; usually it winds up burning us.

(But the good news is that we've qualified for NLOP monthly championships both Tuesday and Wednesday night. Maybe things will improve?!)

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