In any case, on Saturday-St. Patrick's day, I get to the card room a little later than usual around 9pm. The beginning of the night, starts off very choppy and I can't get into any kind of rhythm. Before I left home, I called ahead and got my name on the 8/16, 20/40, and 40/80 games. All three of these games are usually must-move games, and you can call ahead to get on the list. I arrive and there are two 20/40, and two 40/80 games running, along with three 8/16 games. I get a seat in a 20/40 game, lose some and move into a 40/80 game. As usual, before I sit down into the 20/40 game, I look around at the games that I usually play to see if there is any particularly hard table that I'd like to avoid playing, or a particularly soft table I want to get on.
I notice that Brenda, the rich accountant fish is in the room. I haven't seen Brenda around in a while, and I mentioned to Moke, sitting next to me, that I saw Brenda in the room. Moke responded that he saw Brenda about a month ago and she dumped off somewhere around 15 racks in the 40/80 game. The 40/80 game is played with $10 chips and 1 rack is $1000, you do the math. Brenda is playing 40/80 and I tell Moke that I can't wait to get into that game. Moke says I'll be lucky if I get into that game before 2:00 am at the earliest. Moke is on the list for 40/80 as well.
Part of my lack of rhythm problem was that I never seemed to be at any one table long enough. I started at the 20/40 and after 1 hour got called for the 40/80 game. Brenda had already moved to the main game however, so I still needed to make it to that game to play with her. I played for an hour and a half before the game got really short and broke. While I was playing, Jessica, the cocktail waitress I usually order from, bought me a "lucky" beer for St. Patrick's Day. I thanked her and hoped it would come true. After the second 40/80 game broke, I went back to 20/40 and played for half an hour, before a seat opened up in the main 40/80 game at around midnight. So far, I was down 655 on the night played on 3 different tables and put in 3 hours of play.
I get to the 40/80 with Brenda. Unfortunately, she's short-stacked, although over the next 2 and half hours I played, she dumped off 3+ racks because she was re-buying chips so often, but I don't know how much she was in for total. A lot I imagine. I could never imagine losing 15 racks in a single session of poker. I realize that it's all just one big long game, and that I am an overall winning player, but if I have a bad night I call it quits. There will always be a poker game another time. In fact I would never take that much money with me to play with. I have a pretty strict 3 rack loss-limit at whatever level I am playing. If I lose that much, I quit and go home. In any case, I don't get involved with Brenda in too many pots, so I don't seem to get my fair share of her chip spewage, but there's always next time.
In any case, as I am sitting down to the 40/80 game, Jessica who is sweating her boyfriend in the game asks me if the beer she bought me was lucky. I reply "Not so far", she replies "Don't worry I feel it coming". After about 30 minutes in the following hand comes down:
I have qd 8d in the big blind, 5 limpers and the SB completes. 7 players take a flop of js 9d 7d. SB checks. I think to myself, I don't want to get raised out of this pot. I have a flush draw, and gut-shot straight draw. If I check, and it comes back raised to me, I'm going to have to dump it. So I bet out. UTG, Lem calls, everyone else folds. Jd on the turn, completes my flush. I bet, Lem calls. Td on the river. I have the absolute, stone-cold, immortal nuts, a queen-high straight-flush. I bet, Lem raises. I 3-bet, Lem 4-bets, I 5-bet. Everybody at the table, except maybe Lem knows that I have the straight-flush. Hell, there's a single card straight-flush possible on the board, with 7d, 9d, td, jd on board. Lem says "one more time", and 6-bets. I 7-bet and Lem finally just calls. I open my hand, dealer announces queen-high straight flush. Lem had the nut-full house with jc tc. It went perfect-perfect for me to get that much action from Lem. Even on the flop Lem was the slight dog:
http://twodimes.net/h/?z=2515355
pokenum -h qd 8d - tc jc -- js 9d 7d
Holdem Hi: 990 enumerated boards containing Js 9d 7d
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Qd 8d 498 50.30 492 49.70 0 0.00 0.503
Jc Tc 492 49.70 498 50.30 0 0.00 0.497
So, as I rack up to leave a couple of hours later, Jessica says to me
"See I told you that it was a lucky beer!"
Happy St. Patrick's Day indeed!
