I think it comes as no surprise to anyone that Isildur1 has his ups and downs, and yesterday certainly falls in the latter category. Playing mainly NLHE against ZeeJustin and PLO against Brian Townsend, he lost a total of $903K in almost 2300 hands.
Isildur1 started the day playing NLHE, and as you can see from the graph, his sessions started out fairly uneventful, hovering around 0 for about 650 hands before things started to go south. Over the next 700 hands he lost $300K before it was time to take on Townsend in the $300/$600 PLO game.
That duel didn’t start out any better than the previous had ended, and Townsend needed only 200 hands to get ahead about $450K. To his credit, Isildur1 managed to turn the trend and in the next 450 hands he battled back and actually took a slight lead over Townsend. From there on, however it was all Brian Townsend and in just 300 hands he had taken $600K from Isildur1 before they called it a day.
Isildur1 flops a set but can’t fade Townsend’s massive draw on the river. $416K pot.
In the largest pot of the day, Isildur1 flopped middle set, but still found himself a very slight underdog against Townsend’s 13 wrap and flush draw. It would not have been very surprising to see all the money go in at this point, but Townsend opts for a slightly more sophisticated line. By waiting for the turn to put in the last of his chips, he leaves himself the option of folding if the board should pair on the turn.
The interesting thing to notice is that the odds do not change very much on the turn if the board doesn’t pair. Townsend still has a 42% chance of hitting his hand on the river, so it makes a lot of sense to postpone the final decision until he sees the turn card. It would have been interesting to see if Townsend would have been able to make the laydown if the board had indeed paired on the turn, but we will never know the answer to that question. Instead, the players were all in as expected and the heart on the river decided the hand in Townsend’s favor.
Townsend moves in on the turn with a flush and a straight draw, but Isildur1’s two pairs hold up to take a $281K pot.
Isildur1 was not completely shut out even though things went against him for most of the day. On this hand Townsend chooses a line we have seen many times before by 3 betting the flop, check calling the flop and check raising the turn. This line is normally made with a very good hand like top set or the nut straight, or it is made with a hand like the one Townsend holds here. The flop is good but not great, so he attempts to keep the pot small by not c-betting. When he adds the nut flush draw on the turn he tries to steal the pot by making a large check raise.
This time it wasn’t possible to make Isildur1 lay down the hand. Having two pairs and a flush draw on this own there is no reason for him to go anywhere since he is likely to have a few winners even if Townsend should have a big hand. Obviously, when the cards were flipped over, it became that it was Townsend who needed to improve. In fact, he was a 2-1 underdog, and this time he couldn’t overcome those odds.
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