The State Of My Regional Team

The other day I was playing live poker at my local pub again and to my delight I found myself seated at the same table as a player wearing a professional APL T-shirt. I have seen these shirts around the pubs before and the player who I consider to be the best in my region wears one (John Lane).

I'm not exactly sure how you are able to acquire one of these shirts but I have only seen three or four around. The player in question who I shall name "Bob" had "Regional Team" written on the back of his shirt, I hadn't seen this around before.

When Bob came to my table we were down to the remaining 14 people and I had a stack of 15 000 and the blinds were 500 and 1000 (an M of 10). Bob was brought over from the other remaining table to balance the numbers and had a stack of 2500 (an M of 1.6), I had spotted Bob earlier and I was hoping to reach the same table as him at some point so I could pit my abilities against him and try to get a bit of perspective of my chances against an experienced player.

When Bob sat down I realized that he was in "all in or fold" mode because of his super low M, personally I will rarely let my M get to that point before I make a move of some sort. It was disappointing that Bob would probably be out in the next round of blinds and I probably wouldn't get a chance to play against him unless he gets really lucky.

So I had been playing tight earlier in the tournament but I had recently changed gears and began picking off blinds to increase my chip stack so I was still in this mode when I found my self in a hand with Bob.

I was in the small blind with 15 500 and Bob was UTG with 2500. Bob hadn't played a hand yet and I knew he would be looking to make a move either during this hand or in the BB but I was expecting an all in now, Bob decided to limp in. Straight away I gave him a questioning look and he simply smiled at me, this led me to believe that Bob had to have AA or KK, there is absolutely no reason to limp UTG with anything else (and i personally believe limping even with AA or KK is a terrible play, especially from UTG). It was folded around to me and I looked down at Q4os, absolute trash but the pot was laying me 5 to 1, and I knew if I hit I might be able to win a side pot off of the BB (a muppet). So I called and the BB checked, the flop came down K82 rainbow. I checked ready to fold to Bobs all in when he made it (the pot was laying him 2 to 1 so an all in would be expected if checked to him), the BB checked and then Bob checked.

I couldn't believe it and was so confused, this player was meant to be a regional team player and I couldn't understand his thinking, the only thing that I could possibly think he'd have was KK but again an excellent player really wouldn't play KK like that especially with 3 or 4 calling stations remaining at the table, including the BB. I was doubting that he had KK when a 4c hit the turn and paired me up, I went into a thought process and decided I wanted to see what Bob had and it would only cost me 1500 to see and the BB might call me with nothing so I made a bet of 2000.

The BB insta folded and the Bob calmly mucked his hand, I stared at him in disbelief, obviously bob was playing at a level so far above mine that I couldn't comprehend how his brain works. I asked him what he was thinking and he pointed at the flop and said "I only had ace nine!" I looked at him questioningly for a third time and asked him why he only limped the flop from UTG and he replied "they were suited!" like I obviously didn't understand the game as much as he so obviously did, I simply laughed and raked my chips in and said "ok mate".

He got knocked out the next hand when he went all in on the BB and someone had JJ.

So much for my regional team, I wonder if you can bye those APL shirts at K-Mart?

Signing off

Shane