Donkey Night Analysis

A recap of the recent Batface Thurs. night game, for those who care.

Thum WAS in rare form.

I feel like I should clarify some things:

Last night's play was uniformly excellent. I'm not kidding. People played hands aggressively, re-raised at good times, made some excellent river calls when semi-bluffs didn't get there (a couple of times these calls were against me). There were a couple of donkey hands, although not the ones Adam mentions, for reasons it makes no sense to go into. The hand where Adam turned a straight against my top pair, top kicker, for example, was well-played by him, calling a pre-flop raise in position with two other callers with 6-8 [not 5-7]. To him, it FELT like he donkeyed me, but only because the reason he made the call was because he was tilty and it was his big blind. But the play was solid, and when he took down a big pot, it was the others at the table who called donkey, not me. In fact, I misplayed the hand and shouldn't have lost as much as I did.

I will say that one of the biggest donkey hands of the night was when I called a $5 raise from Fawcett with garbage and hit it, but primarily because Fawcett is good enough to get away from hands, and rarely pays people off, and he didn't there. Which is why every single one of Thum's plays made perfect sense -- he called aggressive raises from people who like to fire chips at people with less than made, because he was holding small connectors or one-holers into multiway pots where he could easily fold if he hit nothing or take huge pots if he hit, which he did more than once. This also made his truly strong pre-flop hands more effective, so that when he had, in three consecutive hands, Q-Q, Q-Q, A-A, he was again paid off, except the first time when his Q-Q ran into my K-K.

If we want to talk about bad plays, the worst play of the night easily was made by me. It was the one that helped Tim go from 500 down to 300 down. Five limpers, and with A-Ks in the big blind I raise to $10. Three callers, including Tim, who announces, Fuck it, I'm tilting. Flop comes A-Q-10 with 2 diamonds. Checked to Tim, who fires $30 at the pot. Folded to me, and I tank a bit, deciding he has a weak ace or something like K-Q, a pair with a gut-buster draw. I make the worst play I could possibly make there and call. Turn is a 5, Tim bets $50, I push all in, he calls with A-5. Just a horrible play by Tulsa. Again, people were screaming that Tim donkeyed me, but that was a hand that I allowed him to take control of and was too scared to push when I should have.

Oh, another interesting hand. Four players, fairly limpy, flop comes 10-8-7 rainbow. I bet, Thum raises big, Tim pushes all in, I go into a monster tank with 10-8. I fold, Thum calls, $400 in the pot, both show 6-9, river is an 8, I woulda tripled up. I may have cursed. Dan called later to tell me it was bad poker to fold the winner.