Friday, September 19, 2008

serious home game

Tony and I went back to the "serious" home game last night. As usual, Tony fared well, winning $120. And, as usual (at least this month), I lost - about $64 this time.

Most of these losses came in two hands. In the first, I got a free play in the big blind with K8o. The flop comes 8 8 4. I check, someone bets out, everyone else folds. I reraise, and he pushes. Ok, now I have to call - I'm only behind 2 hands in the deck, A8 and 44. How can you fold that? You can't fold, not for $20. I call and he's got A8. Once again, nothing you can do there. You're destined to get it all in and lose. Seems I've quite a few of these this month.

The second hand was well-played by my opponent - I had As6s and the game had turned into a limpfest (this game switches inexplicably from raise/reraise preflop to limp/limp/limp at a moment's notice). I got to get in cheaply. The flop came 3 3 K with two spades. We all got to see a free turn card as everyone checked. The turn was an ace, and one player from the big blind bet out. I didn't know if the ace had put me ahead or not, but the nut flush draw was still there, so I decided to call. The river blanked out, but my opponent bet the same small amount on the river that he had on the turn. I decided in the end that he had a K - his turn bet was a feeler bet, but once I called he was afraid of the Ace and didn't want to push too hard. I called. He turned over 3c9c and his trips took the pot. His small river bet sucked the perfect amount of value from me - I'm pretty sure I would have folded to a pot size river bet.

I also won a few hands, but the pots were small and I was never over $10 profit. In one, I played A8 and flopped 8 8 A, but couldn't get anyone to play along. In another, I had 4 people limp to me in the big blind, and I raised it up with QQ, but everyone folded preflop.

The last hand of the night (preannounced as the last hand before the table was breaking up), I had my last $4 in chips on the table, and was under the gun with Tc9c. I figured "what the hell" and shoved it all in. I knew I would have callers since it was the last hand, and we ended up with 4 to the flop. The flop came nine-high, giving me a bit of hope, and then the turn came another 9, and I finally felt pretty good about a showdown (unless someone turned over J9, of course). Showdown came and I took the main pot, quadrupling up to $16! A nice last hand to turn another poor night into a slightly-less-poor one.

Most of the rest of the night was a slew of crappy preflop non-starters (J5/Q7 type crap), and a few missed flops (AK vs. Tony, flop comes Q 2 2, he donks into me, ended up having AQ).

In the end, I felt like a played very well - that call with the pair of aces against trip 3s was not the smartest in the world, but I don't think I made many other mistakes. I maintained my tight discipline in the face of 2 hours of stone cold dead cards, and I didn't let the losses affect me mentally.

One other note - one of my Friday night home game guys, Kevin, tagged along with Tony and I on this trip, and lost $300 in the biggest displays of second-best hands and river drawouts/suckouts that I have ever witnessed live. It was quite uncanny. Kevin lost out with a flopped set three different times. He lost 2 pair hands to flushes and counterfeits, he lost just about every showdown he was in. It was a grade A trainwreck of a night for him.


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