A few months back I posted a blog entry about my hatred for Jean-Robert Bellande. He read it and emailed me the following unedited response.
Wow. You put so much thought into your blog I figured you deserved a response from me. Let me start by saying I too hate the way I played that hand...however it was not brainless play or self-loathing that caused me to get my money in so poorly.
1stly, I was not a dog in that line-up as you suggest. Peter Jetten and Brandon Adams are the 2 players that are better than me. Tom Dwan, Huck Seed and Joe Cassidy are 3 people that do not ever put there money in charitable or neg ev situations and they each had 10% pieces of me.
Ferguson normally a non-factor from playing too tight. Matusow, grinder and ph are often down right juicy.
From my vantage point it looked like CF was using a new game plan in this session... It seemed like he was high roll squeezing us with all that FTP $...taking down pot after pot without ever a show down. My gut told me that he had keen full of shit... I see now that he actually had the goods everytime!
Normally passing AQ in this spot to a solid tight like CF would have been optimal but in poker you have to trust your gut and my gut told me that he was bullying the scared money. Flagging would've been ok too (and such an easy flop to fold too in hindsight)
When I opted to 4-bet, I wanted take away his 5 bet bluff-shove option by letting him know that I was pot-committed. I absolutely hate this part of my play but that was the reason for my huge over-bet. I believe that you are mistaken about 50k being left...I think I was left w about 40k and I was indeed pot committed( unless I could put him on aces or kings which he clearly did not have based on his deliberation...). Btw, everyone at that tbl knew that I'm quite capable of being a 3rd or 4th smooth caller w aces. They've seen me do it. However, as CF pointed out, I prolly wouldn't over-bet aces like that. Huck said I played such a beautiful trap except that I was missing the aa or kk lol.
As far as not running it twice... I was in a bit of shock at the moment w my life br in the pot and hadn't even thought of the option until afterwards. But that's not a significant error.
So brutal because I played the best of anyone at that tbl until that fkn hand.
Again I hate the way I played this hand. Just letting you know why I made these decisions...
It also sucks that I lost you as a fan.
gg wp
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JRB@JRBpoker.com
