Back on the Poker Track

I need to stop drinking Coke so late at night. I tried to sleep but all I could do was wiggle around trying to get comfortable. I figure I'll get tired sometime around sunrise.

Anyway, on to poker - I think I'm starting to break out of my poker funk just a little bit. Last week was our regular $60 buy-in game and I managed to squeak out a first place finish. It was no small feat.

I lost the first pot when I picked up 9-10o in the small blind and made a flush on the turn. Unfortunately the big blind and Seat 2 made a flush, too. The big blind raised my bet on the river and Seat 2 called. I knew the only cards that would beat me were the King or Ace of hearts, since the other cards were out on the board. I didn't think the big blind had either of them, but I wasn't sure about the other caller. So I made the call anyway, dummy me. Oh well, I was right about the big blind - I had him beat, but Seat 2 had the King. So a couple chips went down the tubes on that one.

The guy in Seat 1. That was the bane of my poker existence that night. He's the sweetest guy in the world - but he played EVERY MOTHERFUCKING HAND! I don't remember seeing him fold once preflop. And he was getting great luck. His chip stack was absolutely monsterous - he knocked out Dave and a couple of others on really sick calls, so pretty much all the chips were in front of him. When it came down to three of us, I picked up a pretty good hand (not great, but decent, it was something like Q-Js), but Seat 2 went all-in before me. I just knew "Ronnie Ramjet" in Seat 1 was going to call, so I laid down my good hand, figuring I'd wait it out and battle him heads up for awhile. Well, it worked and it was down to the two of us.

Right before Dave went out earlier, he made the comment that it was going to be nearly impossible to put a dent in "Ramjet's" monster stack. Teasing (kind of), I replied, "No it won't!" I wasn't trying to be a smartass, he can't be getting great cards every single time! Logic dictates he's playing a ton of junk and he's going to get caught eventually. Maybe not that night, but he's gonna get burned if he keeps playing like that.

Even so, I was resigning myself to a second place finish. I didn't think anything was going to dent his stack.

I only had about 3.5 big blinds left, so it was all-in or fold. I picked up something like K-4 on the button and went all-in. I won with a pair of 4s, so I doubled up. I went all-in a couple more times and either doubled up or picked up the blinds. Ramjet started tighteneing up considerably. I started successfully bluffing at the pot, mixing up my limping and raising, until we were dead even. No one (including myself) could believe how it turned around.

An hour later, I had all the chips in front of me. I was pretty proud of myself, but of course Dave said later, "yea, you had shit-ass LUCK with the cards you got". Given I was the only one seeing my cards the entire time, I think I'll be the expert opinion on that one: one part luck, one part skill. I've found I'm pretty good at playing the short stack - short stack play is terribly easy - it's all-in or fold and hope for the best. Once you start getting chips back then there's some room for creativity. I tried to be as creative as possible and it worked like a charm.

Hopefully I can keep the rush going.

I was proud of myself for one other uncharacteristic move I made that night - everyone folded around to me in the small blind. I refuse to look at my cards until it's my turn to act, but lucky for me the big blind didn't adopt that practice. I heard him make a disgusted noise when he looked at his cards - as soon as he got them. I know he's not a weak-when-strong player, so after everyone else folded, I raised with something like 5-2o. He folded and I successfully stole the blinds. That may not seem like a huge play to most poker players, but given I'm such a tightass when I play at a full table, I was fairly happy with myself. Yea, I'm still working on mixing it up.

Regarding Ramjet's playing that night - I found the perfect explanation. I found it somewhere online, I don't remember if it was CardPlayer or Bluff Magazine, but it was great... "Good luck makes you a bad player".

AMEN to that!

So that's it until next weekend - we'll be playing another small $10 game, so we'll see how it goes. In the meantime, I'll just have to content myself with World Series of Poker action on ESPN. I'm pulling for the local guy that made it there!