QFV Day #4 and Elite Benefit

I won $302 in 3,000 or so hands today and had one hand that was fairly interesting. I'm going to call it Hand of the Day #7 (I have no idea if that's right, but who cares!).

In a $5/$10 game I got dealt K9s under the gun and open raised. The small blind three bet and I called. The flop came down K J 7 which was either a very good flop or a trap flop depending on what my opponent had. Barring some very coordinated runners, I was taking this one to the river and it was just a matter of how agressive I wanted to be.

I was surprised to see my opponent check and figured maybe he had a hand like TT or 88. Of course I bet, and started to get worried when my opponenet check raised. I decided to just call.

The turn was a real beauty - a nine! Oddly my opponent checked. I'd say only one or two times in a hundred will someone check raise the flop and then check the turn when a relative blank shows up. Now I was confused, but it was an easy decision to bet. Again my opponent check raised! If I had to make one guess I would have put my opponent on AA, but I couldn't rule out KJ, a set or even QT. Feeling even more confused I thought about 3 betting, but decided to just call.

The river was a total brick - a six. My opponent checked again! Now I was thinking he either had absolutely nothing or a total monster. I knew there was a fair chance I was going to get check raised again, but I just couldn't check two pair, acting last, on the river. Of course my opponent check raised me! ACK! I called while I prepared to berate myself for being such a dunce, but was pleasently surprised to see my opponent show K2! HA!

My good friend Matt lessinger wrote an article for Card Player magazine 7 or 8 years ago called "The Poker Hat Trick" which was about check raising the same player three times in the same hand (A hat trick is when someone scores three goals in a hocky game). I read it in the dawn of my poker career and I can say for certain that I've never check raised someone three times in the same hand. If I have the stones to check raise the flop and the turn I always bet the river. There have been a few times where I bet the flop, turn and river, got raised on each round and three bet, but I've never pulled off the hat trick.

I think this instance was the only time I've gotten check raised three times and won the pot. My gut tells me I've gotten hat tricked a few times before and had the worst of it. I can tell you it makes you feel like you are as dumb as a sack of rocks and that you just got totally schooled.

In other news I had a realization today that in leiu of taking a free entry into a $10,000 tournament later in the year, I could take $10,000 cash. I didn't want to do this because the tournament entries (I have one left that I can use for one of 4 $10K buy in tournaments) also come with $2,500 in cash for expenses, but the potential for money 6 months or 9 months from now doesn't seem as helpful as $10,000 right now. While I feel I've got the ship going in the right direction, my bankroll is a little thin right now and adding $10,000 should allow me to make more money in the interum as well as feel much less stressed. So after a quick talk with my wife I pulled the trigger.

Amazingly, I sent pokerstars an e-mail asking them for $10,000 and they wrote me back in 5 minutes and told me I'd have it within the hour. In actuallity it only took about 15 minutes.

Now can someone tell me why when I have a problem with my f-ing Ipod it takes them three days to send me a form letter that has nothing to do with my question when I can get $10,000 in 20 minutes?