Random thoughts about my interests which include (in no particular order) poker, finance & investing, politics, football and whatever else I happen to see that piques my interest

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

The weekend wrap up


Is just a little late. Went back to Derby Lane Saturday night to play a little more and register my wife to play in the 8pm tourney. She was attending the high school Xmas dinner with her sister and our niece and wanted to make sure she was registered for the tourney so I went over there early. So I signed her up out of my winnings the night before and sat down to play some cards.




They actually had an omaha hi/lo table going this time with a waiting list so I signed up while I killed some time playing 1/1 no limit holdem. Did not get a hand to play so I mostly folded the entire time I was at the table. Did get involved in one hand with A-10 suited where I flopped the flush draw but couldn't hit another card. Typical of my holdem luck lately it seems. No biggie. Thankfully I was soon called to the Omaha table.




I sat down and the first hand was a half kill pot. Normally I would have just waited for a normal hand to start because you have to posted an ante equal to the big blind when you sit at the table and I usually would rather not start paying $6 to play. But it seems lately a lot of hands have been kill pots so I figured I might as well play this hand. The guy to my right who is kind of a dick tries to convince me not to play. I've played against him before and don't care for him so I play. After I look at my hand I wished I had listened to him. K-10-7-6 unsuited. Yuck. It's called around to me in the middle of the table and I check. Further down the way some guy raises so now this hand is gonna cost me $12 just to see the flop on this hand. But I call anyway. Flop is so so - QJ8 giving me a bit of a straight draw with 2 clubs. It's checked to me and I check as does everyone else. Turn is a sweet little 9 of hearts. It's checked again and this time I bet out for $12. One guy raises to $24 and I put him on a set with maybe a flush draw. Surprisingly a couple of others call back to me and I call as well not wanting to push more money into a hand I have a decent chance of getting most of my cash in on the first hand and getting whacked on the river. But the river is an off suit 6. I bet out again and get 2 callers. I figure someone else probably has K-10 as well so I'm splitting the hand but no. One guy has a set of queens, the other has 10-7 for a smaller straight. Can you say scoop?? So I'm one hand in and up over a hundred already.




I play 3 of the next 4 hands and win or split all of them. Not great hands but I was in for the half kill for the first one, in the big blind for another and really had a good hand the third time. Deck just kept hitting me and I'm up about 200 in no time. Not only that I am wiping out the jerk to my right at the same time, which makes me even happier. Then of course the poker gods decided I had been lucky enough and the cards deserted me. I just kept dumping hand after hand after looking at crap cards time after time. I was lucky in the sense that I wasn't getting cards worth playing so I wasn't investing in the hands. The few times I did get good cards the flops were completely opposite what I wanted. But I keep plugging along biding my time cuz I know the cards will turn again if I give them enough time. You know when you're running good how the cards hit you even when you play shit or you'll go through a time of garbage cards but then it turns and you start raking again. That's how I felt. Not like some other times where nothing went right.




The wife came by on break from her tourney. She doubled up by cleaning out one gal and then hit quad sixes a couple of hands later for another decent pot. Later on she even catches a royal flush in diamonds - unfortunately in tourneys, only a spade royal pays a bonus - but didn't get paid off on that hand for much. She looks at my mini pyramid of chips and starts envisioning a trip to the mall or a pedicure and massage. I envision a couple of bottles of wine and a steak. Women are from Venus aren't they?




After she headed back to the tourney I managed to hit a couple of hands only to get rivered and losing. Fortunately a little while later I flop perfect right to my hand when 2-3-5 hits the board to my Ace 4 of clubs. Not only that 2 clubs are sitting there. I'm hoping for a high club to come on down to make this one a real winner but it doesn't hit. I bet every street and get called through the turn by 4 people. Lucklily even though the river isn't a club, it doesn't complete any other draws either as a 10 hits. I bet again and 2 people call me, one with a set and one with A-6 so I still scoop the pot.




I play a little while longer but don't make anything and just piss away some chips. The table breaks not long after and I stack up my $160 extra chips and go check on the wife. She's holding her own but not getting much in the tourney and the blinds are starting to climb. They get down to 2 tables and I go to play a bit more 1/1 holdem while she continues playing. I don't get to play for long before she busts. Since we're both a bit tired we decide to wrap it up and go home. She is very unhappy about busting out, not because of the hand she lost but a hand a little before that.




She is on the button with 9-9 and starting to feel the increasing blinds pressure her. She is planning on pushing in when it's her turn when the guy to her right who is slightly shorter stacked than she is pushes in. She knows he is a very tight player and that really makes her 9's shrivel up a bit, plus nines just kill the both of us more often than not. So she dumps the hand and the big blind calls the guy. He flips over AJ suited which made her unhappy as she read him a lot stronger but what really kicked her off was the flop was 995. The other guy takes this guy out with a small pocket pair. After that she couldn't buy a break and was soon gone. That might have been the maddest I've seen her after playing. And I didn't think her fold was that bad. I tried to convince her that she had the right read, at best she was 50/50 with the guy (which she was vs that AJ) and quite possibly she was down 4-1 preflop but after seeing those 2 nines she was so sure she screwed it up. What do you think? Would you have called for almost all your chips in that situation? She was down to about 16-17 big blinds so she couldn't wait around much longer but do you trust your read enough to dump a pretty good hand in that position? I thought she did the right thing but I'm pretty conservative so I wonder how everyone else would play that.




Sunday we went to the mall as we both had to pick up some stuff we ordered online and had delivered to the mall for pickup. Weather started turning nasty. Cool and rainy and and very windy. As the day went on it got cooler and Sunday night was downright chilly and windy. The mall on the other hand was HOT. Both Sears and JC Penneys were baking, especially Sears. I know they are not doing well but making all of the shoppers uncomfortable is not gonna help sales I think. Eventually my wife turned to me and said, I gotta leave, this place is making me sick I'm so hot. So we left. And went to Total Wine and Spirits (my favorite store). I picked up 4 bottles of wine and some beer along with a bottle of water for the wife and pepsi for the daughter all for $40. We got a call from my wife's sister inviting us over for dinner so we brought over a couple of bottles of wine and had a good dinner while we watched some football.




All in all a good weekend. Hope everyone else had a good one too. I'll write more soon. Till then stay lucky you nuts.

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