Spaceship!

Last night one of the stranger things happened to me at Oceans-11. The 40/80 game broke really early like 7:15 pm. I got there around 7, and got into the short-handed 40/80 and then the game broke, mainly cause I ran really lucky and everybody was trying to give me their chips. I made almost $1500 in less than 15 minutes.

I think I won every hand I played postflop, and only lost my BB or SB once or twice, when I either folded preflop, or just check folded on the flop. So, I played the 20/40 for a couple of hours, and then they started back a 40/80 game. At least I got to play with Dan Dreger, one of the part owners of the casino. He's a super nice guy, super friendly, and a bad poker player. Everything you want from my point of view! He was drinking last night too, so it made it even better.

However, since it was late at night, the only free table they had was one of the worst tables in the casino in terms of location, and it didn't have a shuffle master. The location is the first table you hit as you walk in from the main entrance, and there is literally no space around the table as it is against a wall and the stairwell leading down into the main casino floor.

Well, a spaceship sort of just landed at our table. Some guy out of the blue, who just happened to walk in, see that our table had empty seats and decided to sit down and play with us. He had some cash on him and at least bought a rack of chips (later after he lost most of first rack, he purchased another), but it was obvious he had very little experience playing casino poker, as he played super slow on fairly easy decisions, counted out his chips 1 or 2 at a time, didn't know how many chips to bet or raise with on each street. At first it was excruciatingly painful, but since he was donating, I think everybody put up with him.

I knew that eventually he would pick up a monster and snap someone off by accident, and of course it happened to Joe sitting to immediate right, who I am friendly with. He beat Joe with pocket kings, on a very scary board that 99/100 times Joe will have him beat, but he doesn't know that. However, in a different hand this guy took one of the strangest lines I have ever seen before. He called from the big blind Joe's cutoff raise. On the flop he check raised, Joe reraised and he called. On the turn he bet, Joe raised, and he called. And then on the river he check - folded!

Then I played the following hand with him.

One other fishy limper, all folded to me on the button, I raise Ad7d, SB folds, spaceship calls in the big blind, limper calls.

Flop came 8x 5d 6d. Checked to me, I bet, both call.

Turn comes 2d. Spaceship checks, limper bets, I look left and I see what looks like the spaceship getting ready to raise, so I just call. Spaceship raises, limper folds, I 3-bet, spaceship calls.

River is a blank. Spaceship checks, I bet, he check-raises, I 3-bet, he 4-bets, and I ponder a 5-bet, but realize that if this guy 6-bets I will throw up and call, I just call his 4-bet and I announce straight flush good. He says, uh, I don't have a straight flush, I table my hand and he flips over his hand, Kd 3d. So I guess I should have just kept raising, as this guy thought he had the nuts or something, but I didn't want to be his second victim of the night, plus anytime I get 4-bets on the river I'm pretty happy.