A Good Start to the New Year

What's a better way to start off the New Year than with money in my pocket?

We played poker this New Year's Eve, and at around 3AM January 1, I was declared the winner and pocketed a nice $330.

It seemed things were going my way all night long. Our host put a slip of paper in the bottom of one of the chip racks - whoever got that paper got a nice comfy chair to sit in all night. I happened to get it! Woo Hoo - off to a good start! I chose a spot at the table (we don't draw cards for table position), then changed it as I saw two of the looser players take a seat. I wanted to be directly to their left. Lucky for me they sat next to each other, so I was in a prime position to slam them for loose calls or raises. They're nice guys and all, but hell, I wanted to win! (It's not all about the money, it's more of an ego thing with me). We did draw for the first deal, though, and I ended up on the button for the first hand. Double Woo Hoo! After the cards were dealt and betting came around to me (most people called, that's how it usually works), I looked down to an A-Q suited. I raised three times the big blind (thank you Phil Gordon), and got two callers. The flop was something like A-7-5 rainbow, and everyone checked to me. I bet twice the big blind, and got one caller. We saw it down to the river - she had A-8, I had my A-Q, so I won with a better kicker (Thank you Dan Harrington for your book, slapping me into shape about bad kickers). Triple Woo Hoo!

There was only one other hand I really remember - it was down to 5 of us (10 players started originally), I had J-10 suited, everyone was in the pot, and I was in a fairly bad position. Lucky me, the flop comes 10-J-8 rainbow. I was fairly psyched, so I bet three times the big blind again, got three people to fold, and one caller. Turn card was something innocuous, like a 3 or such, so I confidently bet hard. My opponent called. I was confounded. What the hell could he have? Jacks? Tens? Well, the turn comes out a 9, I bet, and my opponent re-raises all in. Dammit. Does he have a straight or does he just want me to think he does? So I kick in to chatter mode - "Whatcha got, a 7? A Queen? A Queen-7? Huh?" - I'm just dying for some kind of tell. But unfortunately I got conflicting tells from him. He gave me a "Well, call and see" that came out fairly easy - which tells me he's confident about his hand, but his eyes were kind of darty, telling me he was uncomfortable. Then I remembered when I played him heads-up several months ago, he did the same thing (called all-in with a possible straight on the table), and it turned out he was bluffing. So, finally I said, "fuck it" and I called. He had two pair - J-8. I nearly pissed myself and he was like "Holy shit, I can't believe you called me!". Hell, I can't believe it, either, but I figured if I lost, I would still have an ok chip stack left.

So at that point, the rest of the people at the table were looking down at their stacks with a son of a bitch expression on their faces - I had a pretty dominating lead.

When it came down to the end, my heads-up opponent went all in with pocket 7s. I had pocket 8s and they held up. Happy New Year to me!!!

But now I'm in a little bit of a quandry. Dave signed us up for a tournament tomorrow night at the American Legion close to home. So here's up to 75 people to start, people I never played with, don't know anything about how they usually play their games (loose, tight, etc), and playing after working all day long. I'm a bit nervous. Dave said one of the guys he works with will be there - a guy who does tournaments up at Foxwoods a lot, so it's entirely possible I'll be walking in as dead money. Did I mention I was nervous? In a way I fully expect to be only one of very few females there, with a lot of "You know how to play poker, little girrrrl?" going on. That kind of crap will most likely piss me off and make me play stupid. But who knows? As long as I'm not the first one out, it may be ok...

It would be an even better New Year to put more money in my pocket, though!