Poker Content / Concussion

Saturday morning I played touch football with a group of friends on the East River, early on I was injured. The injury and aftermath is documented here
I spent Saturday afternoon with a slight headache watching some great College Football games and Syracuse Basketball with a friend of mine. Afternoon slowly turned in to night and my buddy left around 10 PM to do whatever it is non-mild-concussed people do on a beautiful Saturday night in New York City. It was around this time that I decided to make the aforementioned post on a poker and Phish message board and research a bit more on my injury. After consulting with my mother and lurkers of many message boards, I was confident enough that I probably was fine and didnt need to go to the Hospital. My plan was to stay up for another few hours, watch a movie, surf the internet etc.

I hadnt played poker all day. I put in a lot of hours during the week, so I was using Saturday as a much needed day off from poker. My headache so far had further disauded me from jumping in and screwing around for a few hands, which is normally standard for a "day off from poker".

I was pretty bored though and was still reading up on mild-concussions on the computer. I decided to pull up Full Tilt in hopes of sweating a couple big games that I assumed would be running. I cant remember what real big games were running, but I had found Full Tilt Pro Roland de Wolfe playing Heads Up 100-200 limit hold em vs a tough opponent and also sitting in a 100-200 6 Max table playing Heads Up vs a guy I had never played with before.

For the first time all day I started to have the very familiar itch to play poker.

Roland, has had an amazing run at NL tournaments over the past year or two. By all accounts he is a great NL tourney player and probably a great NL player in general. Despite his tournament resume, my guess was that he might not be a great shorthanded limit hold em player on the internet, especially while also paying attention to another HU limit table and who knows what else.

I decided to sit down. My first hand in the bigblind I was dealt 85 offsuit and folded to the 3rd player Reshos' button raise. Once that hand was over Resoh quit and left me heads up with Roland. I was stuck 100 bucks now, so obv quitting wasnt an option.

We played 21 more hands over the next 7 minutes before Roland quit. I wrote up my recap of the hands mostly for entertainment value, but I do believe there was some interesting stuff.

Our complete heads up match unfolded as follows...

Hand #1 of HU

Me ($3900)
Roland ($5,034)

I raise 3c Qh on button, Roland calls...Roland check-folds A77 rainbow flop

Hand #2

PRE-FLOP : Roland Raises the button, I just call in the BB with [Ts Ad]

FLOP : [As 4c 2s] I check-call

TURN : [As 4c 2s] [6s] I check-raise, Roland 3-bets, I call

River : [As 4c 2s 6s] [9s] I bet and Roland folds.

Hand #3

I raise KK on the button and Roland folds

Hand #4

PRE-FLOP : I defend my BB with [9c Td]

FLOP : [5s 8d 7d] I check-call

TURN : [5s 8d 7d] [8h] I check-call

River is a 4, we both check and Rolands J5o wins.


(Right or wrong, I Played hand #4 passive because I had won the first 3 and figured he was gonna try his best to win this pot)

Hand #5

PRE-FLOP : I raise [As 3s] on the button, Roland defends

FLOP : [3d 7d 8c] I get checkraised and I call.

TURN : [3d 7d 8c] [Ts] Roland bets I call

RIVER : [3d 7d 8c Ts] [Kh] Roland bets I call, he shows 65 offsuit and I win.

Hand #6

PRE-FLOP : I defend my BB with [3h 5s]

FLOP : [6h 5c Td] I check-call

TURN : [6h 5c Td] [Jh] I bet and call Rolands Raise

RIVER : [6h 5c Td Jh] [5d] I check planning to raise and Roland checks behind with Kh8h

Hand #7

PRE-FLOP : I raise J3o, Roland calls in BB

FLOP : [Kc 9h 5d] Roland leads and I fold

Hand #8

Roland open folds his Button, I had K2

Hand #9

I raise 33 on the button. Roland defends and check-folds a QJ5 two-toned flop

Hand #10

PRE-FLOP : I defend my BB with 5c3c

FLOP : 2h As 5h, I check-raise and get called

TURN : 2h As 5h [Qs]....I check and call

RIVER : 2h As 5h Qs [Ac]....check-check and I beat his Jack High [3s Jd]

Hand #11

PRE-FLOP : I raise 63s, Roland 3-bets from the BB and I call

FLOP : [3h Ah 7c] Roland bets I call

TURN : [3h Ah 7c] [Ac] Roland bets I call

RIVER : [3h Ah 7c Ac] [5d] check-check and Rolands Fullhouse 5s Ad wins

Hand #12

PRE-FLOP : I defned my BB with [Kc Qd]

FLOP : [Ac Tc 4c] I check, he checks

TURN : Ac Tc 4c [6c] check-check again

RIVER : [Ac Tc 4c 6c] [8d] I bet, he folds

Hand #13

PRE-FLOP : I raise [As 6d] on button, Roland defends

FLOP : [4h Th Jh] Roland leads and I call

TURN : [4h Th Jh] [Jd] Roland leads and I call

RIVER : [4h Th Jh Jd] [2c] Roland checks and I check, he has (6h Kc)...I may have missed a value bet here

Hand #14

PRE-FLOP : I defend my BB with [Th Qs]

FLOP : [2s 7d 5d] I check-call

TURN : [2s 7d 5d] [5c] I check-fold...this was possibly poorly played, but a combination of not having much of a hand and also picking up something small on his betting speed, not wanting to give him momemtum and also obv being a pusse led me to take this line here.

Hand #15

PRE-FLOP : I raise [5h Kd], Roland defends

FLOP : [2d Td Ts]...I get check-raised and call

TURN : 2d Td Ts [Kh]...I call Rolands bet

RIVER : 2d Td Ts Kh [4d]...I call Rolands bet and beat his [2s 9s]


Hand #16

ME $7,345.50
Roland $1,582

PRE-FLOP : I defend my BB with AsTs

FLOP : [4s 8c 3s] I check-raise and Roland calls.

TURN : [4s 8c 3s] [2s] I lead and 3-bet when Roland raises me...roland folds (sigh)

Hand #17

ME $8,145
Roland $782

PRE-FLOP : I raise the button with AhTh and cap when rolland 3-bets me from the BB

The rest of the money goes in post flop and I lose to [Kd 9s]

Hand #18

Roland raises the button and I fold [2c Ts]

Hand #19

I raise 9h 4c on the button, roland defends and folds to my bet on a A39 two-toned board

Hand #20

PRE-FLOP : Roland raises and I defend with [Qh Th]

FLOP : 3c 6d 7d...I check-call

TURN : 3c 6d 7d [8s] I check-call

RIVER : 3c 6d 7d 8s [Kd] check-check and my queen high beats his [Js 9h]

Hand #21

ME $7,962
Roland $963.50

PRE-FLOP : I raise 9s 7h, Roland 3-bets and I call

FLOP : Ah 9h 4c...I call Rolands bet

TURN : Ah 9h 4c [6c]...Roland checks and calls my bet

RIVER: Ah 9h 4c 6c [3d]...Roland checks and calls my bet. His K8 offsuit loses.


After this hand Roland left the table.

I won $4600 in 7 minutes...now I just had to get through a night of sleep without falling in to a coma and it wouldnt be such a bad Saturday.