Friday, December 31, 2010

Thursday night game, now with more alcohol

I'm not usually a big drinker at the tables - one or two beers during a five hour session just for enjoyment. Last night worked out to 4 beers in 6 hours - still normally low enough to prevent intoxication from setting in, but in this case the beer in question was Great Lakes Christmas Ale, and the higher, 7% alcohol content snuck up on me. I woke up this morning with a good old fashioned hangover, one day early. Whoopsie.

Not sure if my poker game suffered or not. I lost a big pot early but played it fine against several fishy players. Six-Seven of hearts in a limped pot, board was nine-jack-king with two hearts. A blind lead out for $3 and I raised to $9, which chased away everyone else. The blind reraised to $20. Hello. Ok, he's got two pair or Q-T. Probably a fold most of the time against most players, but this guy won't fold anything bigger than two pair as long as I don't shove my chips all in when I hit. He'll go to value town with me as long as the train isn't too fast.

The turn misses, and this guy, apparently seeing monsters under the bed, bets $10 into a $50+ pot. 6-1 odds to hit my 9 outs, for direct pot odds? Yes, please! I call and then fold a strike-three-yer-out river. He shows the straight that he would never have folded.

More bleeding, bleeding - I win some medium pots but I'm having to buy back in to top my stack up to a reasonable amount (hmmm, maybe the beers were having an effect, wish I had a video of my play) - the last hand of the evening redeems me. I raise AK and get Mr. Pietzak to call (who is resplendent in his "crack you with rags" style tonight), and one other caller - the same guy with the straight earlier, calls also.

Flop Ace-Two-Four, two diamonds. Looks fine to me. I bet 9 into a 12, Pietzak reraises all in (14 more, riding the short stack), and Straight Guy calls! Hello, dead money with top pair! No guarantee I'm good right now, Mr. Pietzak can triumphantly flip over a 3-5, even with a 30 big blind stack, and straight guy might have hit the ace-rag two pair, but he also might have a flush draw or a worse ace. I think there's more money to be had from him overall, so I just call the $14 as opposed to taking the pot heads-up vs. Mr. Pietzak.

Turn is a beautiful brick, and I bet $25 into the empty side pot, forcing Straight Guy to pay big for his flush draw. I think I even said as much out loud. He pays the toll, and the internal prayer vigil starts for a non diamond river.

The prayers pay off - a black ten. We check the river, with my thought being he's not putting more into the pot anyway, and I've already built up a doozy of a pot with one pair (I lost two big pots with top pair already tonight, but both by making correct folds in the hand to obviously bigger hands, so no mistakes there, despite the Xmas ales). I show my AK. Mr. Pietzak had the flush draw (A magnificent ten-five suited gave him a gutshot as well), and Straight Guy had ace-queen. Hmmm. Maybe I could have squeezed a bit more out of him and his second-best kicker.

Ah, no matter - a big final pot pushed me into positive territory on the night for the first time. +60 big blinds. Not bad for a drunk guy.

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