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June 07, 2006

Watching Lance Funston is better than having pocket 10s cracked by a draw.

I try not to complain about having good hands cracked too much. I've done it to people on lousy bluffs and I've had it done to me. When it happened tonight, I consoled myself with knowing that I had the best hand before and after the flop, I got all my money into the pot with the best hand and my hand just didn't hold up.

Here's how it went down:

Table 5 - 1000/2000 - No Limit Hold'em - 20:36:12 ET - 2006/06/06
Seat 1: puckett101 (27,070)
Seat 6: Dipped808 (13,608)
Seat 7: ol22 (26,822)
Dipped808 posts the small blind of 1,000
ol22 posts the big blind of 2,000
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to puckett101 [Tc Ts]
puckett101 raises to 8,000
Dipped808 folds
ol22 calls 6,000
*** FLOP *** [8d 5d Ad]
ol22 checks
puckett101 bets 17,000
ol22 calls 17,000
*** TURN *** [8d 5d Ad] [9d]
ol22 bets 1,822, and is all in
puckett101 calls 1,822
ol22 shows [Kc Qd]
puckett101 shows [Tc Ts]
*** RIVER *** [8d 5d Ad 9d] [3h]
ol22 shows a flush, Ace high
puckett101 shows a pair of Tens
ol22 wins the pot (54,644) with a flush, Ace high
puckett101: gg
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 54,644 | Rake 0
Board: [8d 5d Ad 9d 3h]
Seat 1: puckett101 showed [Tc Ts] and lost with a pair of Tens
Seat 6: Dipped808 (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 7: ol22 (big blind) showed [Kc Qd] and won (54,644) with a flush, Ace high

So, in practical terms, here's how it went down. Three-handed play, I look down at pocket 10s. I have been aggressive pre-flop all-night with good hands (some of which went to showdown and revealed premium hands, helping to establish a tight, aggressive table image) and this is a decent pocket pair. I'm first to act and can put the pressure on for the entire hand so I raise to $8k. With that bet, short-handed and with those hole cards, I can understand the call. At this point, it's basically a coin flip and I'm a little ahead with the pocket pair. When the flop hit, I bet the pot. The diamond board worried me, but there was only one overcard and I didn't put my opponent on an ace, so I bet the pot. After some hesitation, my opponent called. At this point, I'm actually a little behind on a percentage basis, but still have the best hand. The turn brought another diamond and I was hosed. I was pot committed, didn't have enough for a blind and was done. I finished third, which isn't bad out of 45 players, but I was happy because I was aggressive, made good reads, made good laydowns and played damn good poker from start to finish and consistently added to my chip stack.

And with that little pat on my back to myself made, let's hear it for Lance Funston. I've only watched the first few episodes of his tournament (and in my mind, no matter what happens, it's HIS tournament) but I've never had more fun watching poker (except maybe watching Colin Quinn play rags in Celebrity Poker Showdown and then watching Phil Gordon all but put a gun to his head to escape the miserable play). Although I know opinions vary, I like Norman Chad as an announcer. It's like watching Click and Clack from Car Talk do poker play-by-play (and just as funny) to hear Chad's stunned reactions as Funston counts out chips by color ("I raise one purple, two green and five orange"), raises with the worst hand at the table and sucks out at the river to make his hand, and tries to see every single flop.

I swear, it's like no one ever taught the guy how to fold - or lose, for that matter. But still, watching him play is just flat out joyful. It's hysterically funny to watch him make donkey plays that work and then, because they worked, watch everyone try to play him in the hopes that it won't work only to find out he actually had a hand that time. As Chad said, J-10 off-suit might as well be quad aces to Funston and he plays it like it is.

I think what people are missing here is a concept that I keep hearing pros talk about but that Funston is being criticized for. To crib from Against Me!, "Fight every fight like you can win." Pros often talk about being able to play any two cards like pocket aces and I presume the converse is also true. I'll freely admit that Funston is playing far too many hands and I fully expect it to come back to bite him in the ass, but in the meantime, he's playing every hand like he has pocket rockets and is going to make quads at the flop and I think the guy deserves a little respect for that.

The catch, of course, is that I can't tell whether Funston is really as inexperienced with poker as he seems or whether he's acting like a fish to rake in the money as a smart strategy. Either way, it makes for a damn good story.

Now, in my warped little poker mind, these two tales are closely woven together for one reason, and that's a comment Phil Gordon made on ESPN (reprinted on Expert Insight) last year: "Great players experience more bad beats than bad players."

For clarification, I do not consider myself a great player. Hell, I don't even consider myself a rank amateur, but the article offers some salve to people who get beat by bad plays, draws, etc. It's really an outstanding article, but here is the core idea: "Great players get their money into the pot with the best hand and the suckers are forced to draw out. As a corollary, great players rarely deliver a bad beat: they almost never get their money into the pot drawing slim."

That is almost what knocked me out of the SNG today. In fairness, he could have caught one of 9 cards for the flush, 3 kings or 3 queens for top pair - removing the king of diamonds to correctly calculate outs, he had 15 (or, purely as an outlandish possibility, runner-runner for an a-10 straight). Using the Rule of Four, that's a 60% chance to strengthen the hand. The pot before my bet was $17,000 and I bet the pot, making the pot $34,000, so he was being asked to call $17k to potentially win $34k. At 2-to-1, he was right to shovel his money in.

I don't think I made the wrong play because his hand was not made when he called that bet and mine was still solid. I do know that he made the right one, both based on the math and the results (he won the tournament on the next hand).

But it's okay. I more than tripled up on my buy-in, got to analyze my play on the hand and conclude that both of us were right (and if I'm wrong, please let me know - I'm looking to improve my game, not stroke my ego), and got to watch Lance Funston frustrate everyone while reading Phil Gordon's "Little Green Book." I think, purely in a metaphysical sense, I'm the big winner.

Posted by puckett at June 7, 2006 03:05 AM

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Posted by: deborah austin at July 3, 2006 05:51 AM

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