Poker Update (partial)

21 players. $25 buy-in. Very strict house rules. Looks like we’re playing real poker tonight folks! I’ll stick to the notable hands.

I get A-J. I raise the 50-100 blinds up to 300. Someone else raises it another 500. Two more people call. I have decent pot odds with a decent hand, I call also. The flop is K-K-10. Three people bet 500 to me. Hmm. I think someone must have a king. So the only winner for me is a Queen which would give me the straight. Four outs, two cards left, that’s somewhere around 18% odds. 500 into a 4500+ pot… I think I’m supposed to do it. But I don’t trust the pot odds, so I fold. The turn is (of course) a Queen. I let out a huge swear. One player goes all in, the other two call him. The river is another Queen. The remaining two players go all-in with the little they have left. Everyone turns over their cards. The two big stacks both had K-10, for full houses of Kings over Queens. The smaller all-in turns over a pair of pocket Queens for a monster four-of-a-kind! He becomes unquestioned king of the table for the next few hours. I suddenly feel very lucky I folded as early as I did.

It’s a loose night. It’s very hard to get people to fold. Our table has two or three people who will call any pre-flop bet, and will casually bet most of their money with absolutely nothing. My philosophy is when they are loose, you should be tight. I don’t play many hands. The hands I do play I often steal pots on.

There are 4 minutes left for rebuys. I have about 2,200 to an average stack of 3,000 or so. I decide to play super-aggressive. I raise 500 pre-flop with K-6, another 500 post-flop, then he folds. The same thing next hand, I end up making 1,500 profit when a 9 pairs up. With buy-ins over, I have about 4,000. Nice. There have been 12 buy-ins, so there are 33 total stacks out there. I have roughly the average stack.

Now blinds have gotten up to 200-400. With A-4 suited I raise the blinds on a semi-bluff to 1,150. (I like to vary the 3x bet by just a little here and there, it sows confusion.) The big stack (4-of-a-kind guy) raises another 2,000 over that. I think he’s full of it, but with only 3,500 left reluctantly fold. I would have been effectively all-in, I’m not ready to risk the night on my read of him.

Twenty minutes later I get 4-4. I raise to 1,200. Again, he raises another 2,000. I think he remembers that other hand and is just trying to bully me with the big stack. And even if he has two big cards I’m a coin flip. I instantly call (hoping my insta-call will intimidate him into a fold). The flop is 4-x-x, giving me my trips. That’s a nice break for me! I go all in, his pot odds make him call. He turns over K-Q suited, I double up through him. I am suddenly a strong second place in chips at our table.

(He’s one of those loose players. K-Q suited is a fine hand to start with. It’s a fine hand to raise pre-flop. But to come over the top with a re-raise? These guys don’t know semi-bluff, they just figure they have something half-decent, they’re going to go all the way and see what happens.)

Break is called. It’s 12:10. I call home to see if the babysitter can stay later. She can’t. Oh no! What do I do? Can I pay her, lock up the house and come back? It’s only two blocks away, what can happen in the early hours of Sunday morning to a locked house in a safe neighborhood? It takes me a few minutes to realize how stupid I’m being. I can’t leave three young children alone in the house. I reluctantly turn my chips over to a proxy friend and come home.

So here’s the situation as I left. Ten players left. Top seven finish in the money, the top three get really good payoffs. The average stack is somewhere around 8,000. I have 12,000. We’ve just combined into one table. The proxy I picked is a conservative player. Since there are ten people, some of them are very loose players, and some of them are very very drunk*, I figure if he just plays premium hands and nothing else we should finish in the money. I’ll keep you posted with an update as soon as I know.

* There’s drinking to have a little more fun while playing, and there’s just out and drunken idiocy. Dude, you’re fifty years old. You’re trading shots back and forth like liquor’s going out of style. When I tell you it’s 400 to you, stop replying with “What’s the bet?” I just told you. Stop asking who’s in, look and see who has cards. Stop taking two full minutes to decide and fold 10-4, and yes I know what you have because you hold your cards up so I can see them and I already told you once I can see them so I’m not telling you again. The bet is 400, the same as it’s been the last six hands. Stop trying to raise 200. Stop asking me who bet what when the chips are right in front of them. Just… just stop.

Quality of Hands: One low pair in four hours. But plenty of A-J, A-10, K-10, K-Q etc. I had A-K once but everyone folded my pre-flop raise. I think I was neither lucky nor unlucky with starting cards.

Tonight: ????

Update: We came in fourth place for $79. The drunken wrecks apparently self-destructed soon after I left. I’m happy with fourth place. How should I split the pot with my replacement? 50-50? Should he take it all because he was a full replacement for me with no preconditions? Do I get it all because it was still “my” stack? I offered to refund his entry fee of $25. That feels about right to me. Getting from 10th to 4th with an above average stack and a few seriously inebriated players at the table deserves something, but not too much. For purposes of tracking my wins and losses I’m going to count the full $79.

Tonight: $54
Running Total: $529