Some prize

I mentioned in my last entry that Boody P was the first person to comment on one of my posts. I told he won a prize for that. It was a bit of a joke, of course, but my payback was a little more painful than I intended.

Tonight was the regular Tuesday WWdN tournament over at Pokerstars and I ened up on the same table as Bloody P. Things appeared to be going swimmingly until this hand came up:

PokerStars Game #4211189781: Tournament #20540898, Hold'em No Limit - Level I (10/20) - 2006/03/07 - 20:44:41 (ET)
Table '20540898 9' Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: Lasner (1060 in chips)
Seat 2: Gilain (1390 in chips)
Seat 3: dsheep (1105 in chips)
Seat 4: FishyMcDonK (1555 in chips)
Seat 5: smalldog (2460 in chips)
Seat 6: darval (1430 in chips)
Seat 7: Systems2005 (1410 in chips)
Seat 8: Bloody P (1340 in chips)
Seat 9: FatBaldGuy (1590 in chips)
darval: posts small blind 10
Systems2005: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to darval [Qd Qc]
Bloody P: raises 80 to 100
FatBaldGuy: folds
Lasner: folds
Gilain: folds
dsheep: folds
FishyMcDonK: folds
smalldog: folds
darval: raises 160 to 260
Systems2005: folds
Bloody P: calls 160
*** FLOP *** [2s 3s 7s]
darval: bets 400
Bloody P: raises 400 to 800
dsheep said, "hey - no raises, D!"
darval: raises 370 to 1170 and is all-in
Bloody P: calls 280 and is all-in
darval said, "oops"
*** TURN *** [2s 3s 7s] [9h]
*** RIVER *** [2s 3s 7s 9h] [3d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
darval: shows [Qd Qc] (two pair, Queens and Threes)
Bloody P: shows [Qh Ad] (a pair of Threes)
darval collected 2700 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2700 | Rake 0
Board [2s 3s 7s 9h 3d]
Seat 1: Lasner folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: Gilain folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: dsheep folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: FishyMcDonK folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: smalldog (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: darval (small blind) showed [Qd Qc] and won (2700) with two pair, Queens and Threes
Seat 7: Systems2005 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 8: Bloody P showed [Qh Ad] and lost with a pair of Threes
Seat 9: FatBaldGuy folded before Flop (didn't bet)

It was not the prize I wanted to give - although there might be a lesson in here somewhere.

So perhaps the lesson is to explain my thought process, and hope something can be learned here.

I had a high pocket pair. My original raise was for two purposes. The main one was to reduce the number of players in the hand to no more than 2 or 3. The second was to see/test the response to the raise that was on the board. If he had raised all-in, I would have had to think hard about calling it - and given this was early in a tournament, I probably would have laid it down.

The flop was pretty scary - I bet 400 as a test and I should have be concerned with the min raise, but I couldn't see the previous action being on suited cards. It may also have been a read on his play, but I am not sure of that. For whatever reason, I felt the right move was to push all-in and prevent a draw hand - maximize my overpair while they were still good. In hindsight, I am not sure this was a great move, but it seemed right at the time.

I am not sure why he called this, other than perhaps the belief I was bluffing. The board was even scary if I had gone in with the hammer.

Of course once he called, it was all over by the crying. I am curious to see what others think of this (in particular whether I should have pushed on the flop). I also hope Blood P is not too depressed to tell us what he was thinking at the time.