Didn't Trouble the Scorers

The Pakistani cricket team has suffered from a frustrating recurring issue over the last 15 years, namely that there is about a 70% chance that both openers will be back in the pavillion within 10 overs of a Test Match. Numerous combinations have been tried over the years - among others Elahi, Butt, Umar, Nazir, Hameed, Hafeez and Farhat have all been given a spin. The situation got so desperate they even experimented with a hit and miss slogger (Afridi) and the wicket keeper (Akmal).

These failures have severely limited Pakistan’s effectiveness as a Test nation, often exposing the classy middle order to the perils of the new ball ahead of schedule. The opener’s primary job is to see off the new ball, so when the key batsmen at 3 (Khan), 4 (Youhana) and 5 (Inzy) arrive at the crease, they can face slightly better conditions to manufacture big scores. I remember numerous matches when Inzy would trundle to the crease just before lunch, visibly upset at the prospect of doing a full day’s batting.

On Thursday night I got to play the role of the Pakistani opener on my return to the live arena for the £50 Loose Cannon tournament. I was first man out, about 5 minutes into the 2nd level. I had poked around during the first level, and had about 3800 chips from my original starting stack of 4k when the following hand came up.

Jody raises UTG to 300, I re-raise to 1100 with QQ in the cut off. Jody flat calls.

Flop is all rags. Jody leads for 500, a very suspicious bet. I make it 1500 to play and Jody flat calls. I’m not sure how I feel about my raise on the flop - I think I have to define my hand, but once I raise to 1500 I am pot committed. In this case my raise was the equivalent of the Pakistani opener chasing some wide ball down the leg side and being caught in the outfield. Once Jody bets 500 on the turn I know I am toast but put in my last 900 chips. I expect to be shown a set, but Jody flips a rather defensively played KK to bust me. The flat call on the flop and the small lead out made it hard for me to put him on a hand here. I think if you are going to flat call the pre-flop re-raise, a more logical line, out of position, would be to check shove on me on the flop. It did the trick in any case - in a deeper stacked tournament I could certainly get away, but not with these relatively shallow stacks.

I won about £200 before tips/rake in the cash game, more through luck than good play. I won a number of set ups (eg being dealt AA v QQ verses Uncle Paulie short handed), and also took three big pots of the Baron, one of which was a good call, the others were suck outs on my part. Given the fact that I also stacked the other Tom, I should have ended more than £200 up were it not for some reckless bluffs being called down. Not happy with the cash play, so hopefully I can play better next week. And, of course, in the tournaments next week I hope to give the scoreboard keepers some work to do!