It might be too much to anoint him the savior of the high stakes action, but for many of the fans there is little doubt that Isildur1 is the one they want to take them to the promised land. We might have to wait a bit before we see any million dollar pots again, but he seems to be playing a decent roll, so I wouldn’t put it past him to climb up through the stakes fairly quickly.
The comeback started quietly with a match of $50/$100 PLO (4 tables) against Urindanger where he won $4K in 359 hands. The next challenger was Jungleman12 who wanted to play $50/$100 NLHE (6 tables), but after 2322 hands he had to concede defeat by $28K. Finally, Ugotabanana was able to draw blood, but only by $2500 over a 609 hand, $50/$100 PLO (4 tables) match.
However, Isildur1’s luck was about to turn when URnotINdanger2 entered the arena. In 3802 hands of PLO and 351 hands of PLO Isildur1 lost $77K and $40K respectively. All this puts his result at -$87K, something I am sure that he is not happy with. He was, however, seen with several dep stacks at the $25/$50 tables, so his final result is probably better than that.
UgotaBanana picks off Isildur1’s bluff and wins a $67K pot.
The largest pot of the day, and one in which I think both players played well. Isildur1’s 3-bet before the flop is quite standard with that hand. Connectors, even when not suited play well heads-up, particularly for the player who holds the initiative in the pot.
The flop wasn’t ideal for either player, but from Isildur1’s point of view it is a decent chance that his opponent missed, so he has a clear continuation bet in this spot. UgotaBanana doesn’t have much more than a gutshot to the second nuts, but in position it is normal to float on a flop as dry as this since it might be possible for him to steal the pot on later streets. It has to be said that this last point is more effective against players who are not as aggressive as Isildur1, but UgotaBanana can’t fold every flop he misses since it would make him way too predictable.
On the turn the hand starts to get real interesting. Obviously, UgotaBanana hits his straight, but it is well within Isildur1’s range to have the nuts at this point so he can’t be too sure that his hand is good. On the other hand, there is no way that UgotaBanana is folding his straight here, so he might as well play it as though it was the nuts. When Isildur1 makes his check raise, the consideration that UgotaBanana has to make is not whether or not his hand is good, but how he can extract the most value in those spots where he is sitting on the winner. In this case he opts for the cold call, a decision that I really like. With a player like Isildur1 on the other end of the table it is very unlikely that the turn aggression will not be followed up by a shove on the river, particularly since UgotaBanana is representing a drawing hand by just calling here. You could argue that Isildur1 will probably call most shoves here anyway, but the keyword here is ‘most’. Isildur1 could be on a pure bluff, and it is in this case that the cold call makes extra money compared to the alternative.
Isildur1 gets Jungleman12 to stack off with a marginal hand. $53K pot
Isildur1 flops the nut straight against Urindanger’s second nuts and two pairs.
URnotINdanger2 flops top set and gets Isildur1 to pay him off. $64K pot
On a side note, we are making some improvements to the tracker we are using to follow the games, so that is why the live results have not functioned as that should over the last few days. We are confident that we will restore the service to its normal standard shortly.
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Original Isildur1 comeback thread