Last night we played $1/$3 at Aria. I ended up breaking dead even. It was somewhat fun, somewhat annoying. One thing did make my night though. Just the crazy things you see in poker sometimes.
I sit down and I'm instantly down $100. Basically doing my standard raise with anything, bet the flop when I miss, 2 barrel the turn, have to fold. No big deal.
I'm sitting next to this guy, kinda big black dude with a backwards hat and sunglasses. He's being a little annoying. Like there is a guy and a girl sitting next to him and he's all like "get her number already!". That type of thing.
So he says to me, I want to bust her so bad (that girl). If I do it, I'll give you $30. I'm like, sweet! I'm down. Haha. Of course, this sounds just like some idiot thing to say that nobody would ever follow up on, so whatever. I ended up leaving that table pretty soon after to go hang out at my wife's table. He said if he does it he'll look for me and give me the $30. Whatever. :-)
At the next table I didn't have that many interesting hands. I'm definitely raising too many hands. It's a combination of bad hands, and hands out of position (sometimes both). I will certainly raise J-9s under the gun sometimes right now. Actually I had a hand yesterday where I raised under the gun with 3-2s. Flop came 4-5-9 with 1 of my suit, so I was able to bet and take it down. Not that I wouldn't have bet out anyway. :P
I'm also c-betting like 100% of flops, which isn't that great either.
In one hand yesterday, I raised to 8 with pocket 8s. (Or maybe I called this tight old guy's raise, I can't remember.) Either way, it got reraised out of the blind to 26. The old guy called and I called.
Typically I try not to look directly at the flop until it's my turn to act. It's dual purpose - I get a fun sweat out of it and also I don't give off as many tells. I can see some things though - colors, whether cards are pictures or not, and the general range of numbers (lot of spots = 8,9,10, etc). So I see the flop out of the corner of my eye and I see some cards that might have hit me, but I'm not sure. The preflop reraiser checks. Old guy reaches for chips and puts out $75. Big bet. Moment of truth, I look at the board.... 8! Hell yeah.
At this point I have about 200 left. If I shove I figure I'm getting called 100% of the time. However, who knows what's going on with the other guy. I figure I want to get him in too, so I just call the $75. In retrospect maybe that was stupid because calling $75 looks really strong too, especially when I don't have that much more behind. The preflop reraiser ended up folding.
Turn card sucked. It brought the 3rd diamond, so now a flush was on board. The old guy checks, I shove for $125 or so. He folds. I knew he didn't have a flush draw, it was basically impossible for him to have that on the flop. But that was the only kind of card that could kill my action. At least he didn't turn a bigger set, right? :-)
That got me within $50 of being even. I had a blind vs blind hand that won me some decent money too. :-) I never chop and I love when I win a hand where I didn't chop. So it comes to just the blinds and the small blind limps, didn't even ask if I want to chop. Perfect for me, I love that. I look down, A-Q. I raise 10 more, to $13. He calls.
Flop comes J-10-x. He bets out 10. I figure that I have a lot of cards I can hit to improve, and I'm putting him on a weak pair of some kind. I raised to $29. He called. OK.
Turn, blank. He checks. I thought about betting, but from looking at the guy I couldn't tell if he was someone that might fold or not. So I just checked behind and tried to hit my hand. River, I miss again. Damn it. He checks. I thought about betting here, but for the same reason as before, I just didn't get a good feeling he was going to want to fold something here. Although now that I think about it, it's probably fear that makes me say that. I could probably bet like $30 or $35 here to make it look like a value bet with Q-J or whatever, hopefully getting him to fold. However, I just checked. He showed Q-9, for the busted straight draw. SO sick, if the king hit I'm basically getting all of his money. Damn! Either way though, still a good pot for me.
Here is the typical hand that I'm playing lately, kind of my new bread and butter play. For better or worse. :-) I'm in late-ish position, maybe 2 off the button. Like 1 limper, and I raise with 8-4 suited to 8. The 8-4 suited is actually MY hand. I'm trying to keep this blog somewhat anonymous but we call it the ***** (my last name). I get a couple callers and go to the flop. The flop is K-8-5 with 1 of my suit. Checks to me, I bet like $13. One caller. Turn, 6. So I pick up a gutshot. Checks to me, I bet $30 or so. Guy folds. Yay. :-)
I'm loving betting flops where I have some kind of backdoor outs. Backdoor straight, flush, I don't care. Any pair + backdoor outs is just huge. 2 barreling is so much easier when you pick up additional outs.
So I'm sitting there down about $50, and that guy from earlier comes over. He's like "I was looking all over for you!" and he splashes 6 $5 chips on to my stack. I'm like "You did it?" I get up and fist bump him and high five him. He points at the girl, who is now sitting behind someone (not playing) at a different table. He tells me about the hand. He got all-in preflop against that girl. He had A-Q, she had A-A. LOL. And he rivered a straight. Awesome! I was dumbfounded, I couldn't believe the guy actually followed through and gave me the $30! He said he was looking all over for me at a bunch of tables and finally found me. I had a ton of fun telling the table about it and it really made my night.
I have to give that guy some props. I did NOT think he would actually go through with it and ship me $30 if he busted that girl, especially once I left the table! But he totally did. Sir, I salute your integrity. You are the man. And that is a great poker story that I won't soon forget.
Moments like that I put into the category of "the magic of poker". In poker, you meet a ton of people you would never meet in real life. Just people from all different walks of life, a ton of foreign people, weird old guys, a random collection of people. A lot of the time, those people are total dicks. But sometimes you do have these awesome moments that make playing poker worthwhile.
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