Poker Shorts

Bob: Listen. Sit down to talk with Shane, and tell her that if anything happens to you, I'll take care of her. I'll raise her, nurture her, love her, then at sixteen I'll boot her out the door.
Frank: Sixteen?
Bob: Sure. I not going to mommy her forever, Okay? I mean, sixteen, sure.

”Osmosis Jones”

5 weeks and 4 days until I officially give away half my shit. I’m actually starting to get excited and nervous about it all, which is unusual for me as I generally rarely get excited about anything in advance. Except potential poker games, and speaking of which…

The usual suspects gathered again on Saturday night for a few more rounds of poker. I was sporting a brand spanking new pair of cargo shorts (city camo in colour) from Amazon that I got for some of the vouchers from Poker Source Online. These are now my poker shorts, and I am destined to good fortunes from the cards whenever I wear them.

Things started well for my shorts, as on about the 8th hand of the first game I was dealt TT. It was raised and re-raised in front of me, so I just called and got to see a flop with an already decent sized pot. The flop was T53, two spades. Top set is good, and I want to drive out any potential flush chasers, but the other two in the pot are pretty good players so it is unlikely they will chase a flush this early in the game for a substantial amount of their stack. They might bet on the come or try a bluff, but not a chase here. Player one (tight, rare bluffs if any) makes a decent sized bet. Player 2 (looser, bluffs pretty well) raises this bet by a decent sized chunk. I am slightly shocked, and feeling a little nervous as I imagine that one has an over-pair and the other possibly a flush draw. How the hell am I not leading the action on this hand? Can I afford to slowplay it to the river? I don’t think I can – besides, the pot is already big enough so that if I call here and then drop it I will be the short stack and have to work uphill from then on. I was feeling like they both forgot I was even in the hand, so I thought about it for a moment and pushed.

I don’t mind that move here, as I seem to have a bluffing reputation at these tables so that could work for me. Also I really wanted them to fold it so I could win a decent pot rather than suck out on me and put me on the couch 15 minutes into what would be a 3-hour game. If they both folded here I would be in the chip lead anyway, so all was well.

The tight player agonised over the call, and then folded to the looser player who also had I think about it. He said he wanted to see my cards before he called – I said I would love to show him! He eventually called with 53 for a flopped two pair (I said he was loose) and I had him dead save for running quads, which never came. Wow, I was the commanding chip leader already and also took a bounty later on when I finally knocked him out (he was down to 2 BB, and doubled up 4 times before being knocked out).

I claimed a few more scalps and eventually won the first tournament with a hand I do not remember. I made a massive lay down when there were 3 left (I had surrendered the chip lead by then). I raised into the chip leader with AQd, and he re-raised all-in back. In a 3 person game, I like AQd but I just had a feeling I was behind on this one. I folded face up to the amazement of the other players and asked to see the board anyway. It was no help to me and the other player showed Cowboys to make me feel better.

In game two, one player seemed to be eager to leave. He would raise 3-4 hands per orbit, and was showing a lot of them to be bluffs, with the odd big pocket pair thrown in. I seemed to be getting the worst of it too, and I don’t recall any hand where he failed to raise my blinds. I tried to defend but kept missing the flops so I had to dump them. Eventually, on one of my blinds I re-raised all-in with QJs, and he called with Kto which held up. At least I wasn’t out first.

But this game had the funniest hand of the night when it got down to the final three. In one of these games a few months ago, the loose player I spoke about before made a bluff all-in bet with 23o, and the same aggressive player who knocked me out called with AKs. The board showed AKQJT, so they had to split it up. We still talk about that hand and what a monster 23o is.

Anyway, it comes down to this hand and the aggressive player re-raises all-in against the loose player who is the chip leader. Every player in these games has a $5 bounty on them to go with the prize money. And the loose player starts giggling. I immediately know what he has, as does half the table. He decides to call the all in bet and shows 23s this time. The aggressive player has 93o. Quality cards!

And there it is, a 2 on the flop. To everyone there, except one obvious exception, it was the funniest thing we have ever seen. We are now getting all our old decks of cards and taking the 2’s and 3’s out of them to mail to him on a regular basis.

When the final game came around, one of the so called “dead money” players was hitting amazing hands. He was calling all-ins with things like Queen high earlier in the night and loosing – well now he was calling all-ins with Jack high and winning! He just could not be stopped! All I wanted to do was avoid him until it came down to the money, which I did.

3 way action, and I have folded, and the other player goes all-in on a flop of T52 rainbow. The “dead money” calls and shows pocket fives vs A5. Nothing helps and we are heads up with a massive chip deficit – and it’s about 3 in the morning and my eyes are getting very close to closed.

Very first hand, he raises it like he has every other hand. I have T8d, and figure why not, he’s going to call regardless of what he has and I need to double up 2 or 3 times in a row. I need some luck anyway. So I push, he calls and shows pocket 4’s. There is a four on the flop and he has hit back to back sets to take the win. I have to be content with second.

But this was also a good result – he’s a nice guy and has finished either last or second last in every one of these tournaments. Speaking to the host (his cousin), he agreed that this might keep him coming to the games and give him some confidence. After all, these games are just about fun and the money is never a big issue. Poker at it’s best for sure, and the so-called “dead money” is always welcomed. More so, just players are always welcomed. We haven’t had a game cancelled due to lack of players yet and I don’t want them to start now.

I have finished the PSO promotion of bodog, as I previously posted, and I also clocked a $125 profit in the process. Well, kind of. See, the deposit bonus they give you is credited immediately to your account, which is good. It was $160, so really I had lost $35. I tried to cash out because my “bonus balance” was at $0, but not to be. You need to clear 3 points per dollar of bonus, and no partial amounts are allowed. I was 280 points short, so I tried to run through them on Saturday. Man, was that a mistake!

I don’t know how it happened, but I dropped nearly $200 in a monster 4 hour session. I tried some Pot Limit Omaha again, but lost my buy-in on a 3-way all in. I had four pairs by the turn and the nut flush draw. Unfortunately, someone had the nut-straight draw and took that on the river. Not a good call, but if one of my 15 outs came I would have made a decent profit for the day from that hand alone. Anyways, long story short I lost my buy in and it was my fault.

And in the limit holdem game, I was just damn unlucky. I had top set turn into the best full house which lost to rivered quads. Not too long after this, with a four flush on the board I considered my options. The pot was sizeable, and only the King or Ten of diamonds could beat my nine. Was it worth one more bet to find out if he had either of them? Why not. I called, and he showed me them both for a Royal Flush. Well, I can now say I have lost to a Royal Flush, next is to actually hit one!

Everything I tried failed, no hands held up and no draws came. It was a horrible session with only a few bad beats to speak of but nothing too disgusting. I don’t know if that is worse or better than loosing to bad beats – just slowly bleeding away…But at least the fun of the live game made up for it all.
In my next post, I’m going to tell you about how I folded the nuts and still believe it was the correct move during that -$200 down session, and talk about starting hand names some more, which is one of my favourite topics no less.