Monday, May 22, 2006

Day One (Part IV) Bellagio Championship

I'll comment here some hands played by Scotty Nguyen.

With blinds 200-400 and 50 ante, Scotty raised to 1400 in LP, I was seated exactly to his left in the CO, I had AQ and the first important decision was to call or raise, with deep stacks, I don't like to build big pots with AQ, still, most of the time I raise in this spot, but in this case I decided to call, one more reason why I decided to call was the old man in the BB, since I thought there was a good chance of him calling the raise with Ax and he have showed a willingness to call with one pair hands. He didn't disappoint me and he called also. The flop came As7c3s, which looked like a good flop for me, old man checked, Scotty decided to make a probe bet of 1500 into the almost 5k pot. I knew Scotty was going to make this bet with no hand or with a monster, so his bet gave me no information, but I knew also Scotty is a pretty logical player and not the kind of player that will make wild random big bets in future streets, also, there was a chance the reraise would make the old man fold, nah, if he had the A, he was calling. Still, I decided to just call again the 1500 and old man called also. Now the pot had about 9500. Turn was the 8d, old man checked and Scotty checked, now I knew I have Scotty beaten, no way he was checking here with a better hand than mine, so I decided to bet 5000, old man called, I was almost positive Scotty was folding, he thought for a while, played with his chips as if he was going to raise, but he decided to call !!!!, mmmmmm, what the hell is happening, old man could have by now a weak ace or a flush draw; but what about Scotty, I didn't think he had an ace, or any made hand, most probably he was drawing also, I didn't think he had the flush draw, what did Scotty have?. Probably he caught a draw in the turn with something like T9, maybe he had 65; with 2 callers, I felt like my hand was really vulnerable. The river was a terrible card, the Js, flush got there, straight got there, even AJ got there, old man checked, good, Scotty checked !!!, nice, I knew I had Scotty beaten, Should I value bet here? Nah, too dangerous, and old man was the kind of player who could check a flush or AJ there, so I checked. Old man showed A5, Scotty mucked and I raked a nice pot. I was surprised by Scotty, what did he have?. After the hand, he seemed mortified and later told me, he misplayed that hand, he told me he had KK and thought I may bet a flush draw in the turn, but still he should have folded after the old man called. He was mad at himself because of the way he played the KK.
The day didn't go well for Scotty and he was down to about 30k when the following hand happened; Italian young guy with about 70k fumbled to make a raise UTG, the blinds were 300-600 with 75 ante; this guy spoke almost no English at all, not even the numbers; so when he wanted to raise, he could not raise something like 1800 if there weren't 100 chips in his stack, because he couldn't say "1800", so he always raised to even amounts depending on the chips he had, I remember him raising to 5k in earlier rounds because of this same problem; happily here he had 2 1000 chips, so he raised to 2k, Scotty reraised to 5500, and Italian guy called. Flop came T63 rainbow, as soon as he saw the flop, his face literally lighten up, you could tell the flop hit him, and what did he do being first to act? Well, he went all in for about 65k !!!!. Scotty looked like he could not take it anymore and called almost instantly; Italian guy had 66 for a set and Scotty had AA. I don't know if I'd folded AA there, but at the very least, I'm not calling instantly, and you just have to see the guy, he looked so happy; as soon as he went all in, I knew he had a set, Scotty should have taken some time; and more importantly, he should have remembered a hand they both played earlier; in the 1st level Italian guy raised preflop to 600, Scotty called and I called, flop came 973, he checked, Scotty bet 1100, I folded and then he check raised to 5000 and Scotty called. 2 in the turn and he checked again, Scotty bet 6000 and Italian guy just called, 3 in the river, Italian guy checked again, Scotty bet 10000 and he called again and showed JJ, Scotty mucked. If you analyze the way he played the JJ there, it was unlikely he had an overpair in the T63 flop and went all in with it; and you add the analysis of the JJ hand to the big smile he had in his face and I really think the AA belonged to the muck; but Scotty looked impatient, he knew he was at a very good table, he was the best player and he hadn't been able to get some chips; so, he just decided to go. That day we just lost 2 players in the table, Scotty and Victor. In the last level I won a nice pot with 87c, I already posted that hand here. I finished the day with 68k, better than the average, I didn't want the day to end, since I really liked my table. But I felt confident with my game and eager to play day 2.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I still love when Scotty busted out of a WPT event and was being interviewed by Shana and he said "sometimes you just gotta swallow baby".

I'm guessing some other rich poker pro put him up to it for a good sum o' cash.

Anonymous said...

Alright, here's my take on it:

The previous time I saw him being interviewed by Shana, he complained to her that she was too beautiful and distracted him (i.e. he was hitting on her with his wife in the audience, such a pimp!)

Now, yes, he "could" have meant "swallow your losses".

But he was talking to Shana, and telling her to swallow. He didn't say "your losses".

I thought it was hilarious, and said in a way to ensure it could be aired.