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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (35401)	8/15/2005 11:43:32 PM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

OT - With all this recent talk on poker I just have to chime in My favorite form of poker is high-low My favorite game is Big Squeeze (6 card stud hi-lo with a pitch). My track record at hi-low games is probably amazing but much less so straight high. Believe it or not, I think I hold bad cards. That makes ZERO sense given the laws of probability but I swear I am a bad card holder. Obviusly that is an enormous advantage at hi-lo, especially cards speak with straights and flush's swinging... A2345 is low. One more piece of knowledge to set this all up... I do not think I ever lost a game in which the Creek Brothers played (Bob and George Creek) regardless of what the form of the game we were playing. I played in dozens of games with the Creek brothers. The hand I am describing goes back to junior college days. I have hardly played since then, but poker was my "summer job" back in the good ole days. I was in a game, limit poker straight high unfortunately, perhaps something like .25 ante and $2.00 limit. I had a friend in the game, his name was also George so he shall remain George and George Creek will hereby be referred to as Creek. My friend George was quite competant. A decent player. Creek was really hopeless. I did not know anyone else in the game. 7 card stud - straight high I had kings in the hole and was showing something like a 6. George was showing a jack or something and Creek was showing two random cards. I bet and a couple people called including george and creek. The next round everyone received random cards that did not seem to help. Again I opened and this time only George and Creek called. Next flop I paired 6's or something but George hit and Ace and Creek hit a Queen. I was not happy about this at all because I now think Gerorge has Aces up or at least aces, Creek has god knows what, and I am stuck with second best hand. Still this is limit so what the heck. I am high with a small pair in the air and I check. George bets confirming aces I am thinking, Creek calls and I call. Why not? It's limit. I might catch a full house and george might only have aces, not aces up. The next card no one catches a thing except Creek pairs his queens in the air. He checks (confirming he has nothing), I check and George bets. George knows his aces up is the best hand. We are the only three left in the pot. For Creek not to bet those queens it has to be all he has. I am beaten with Kings up by Georges aces up and I know it and he knows it (or is at least is hoping I do not have hidden triplets or better). Bad play or not I call, I think at limit, with no raises it was warrented based on pot size. The river card comes. It does not help. Creeks queens are still high and I am thinking that after he checks there is no freaking way I am going to bet because George knows damn well that I might bluff him but I would never be stupid enough to bluff Creek who will call on anything. I was resigned to losing this pot because I was not going to buck George's bet when I thought he had aces up, and perhaps he might have even improved them! The hand was over IMO and I was prepared to fold if George bet. But Creek bet! I was imediately sure he hit queens up. I was hoping it was not 3 queens. This took very quick analysis to figure this out but remember I was analyzing this hand as it progressed. I immediately raised without hesitation. Here I was raising when I would not have neither bet or called. My analysis was that Creek made Queens up and had the third best hand at the table but was betting it. Had he checked I could not bet because I would get called for sure by George. Now.... The quandry for George was multifold What did I hit? What did Creek have? and George knew full well that I would not possibly be stupid enough to bluff Creek with a hopeless hand because Creek would call. George also knew that if Creek really had anything, and even perhaps if he didn't that Creek might raise. Also remember this was limit NOT pot stakes which made my play much tougher (or am I giving myself too much credit). I gambled on reading not only the cards at the table but I also played George to be strong enough (even in a limit game) to figure out every last bit of it all except for my bluff of George himself. After a long long long pause George tossed his cards in. In a proud moment of arrogance I turned to George and told him point blank (before Creek acted) that he threw away the winning hand. Creek thought and thought but not as long as George. Had he raised I would not have been happy but I would have called. The hesitation gave it away. Creek called. Sure enough It was Kings up for me Aces up for George (who showed me) Queens up for Creek who had no business being in the hand at all. George threw away the winning hand as announced at the table ahead of the final call. Any hesitation on my part and I think George would have called me. Yes I gambled that George did not hit a full boat or that Creek did not hit 3 queens but I would never have raised in the first place had Creek not bet. I also knew that George was unlikely to bluff back on a mere pair off aces with Creek siting behind him with god knows what. OK what do you harsh critics think of that play. Mish.