What a long strange trip it's been

Interesting night my last session. Tuesdays are Alan nights, so after dinner with the wife and kids at Souplantation, I headed to my night job.

I get to the casino and there are two 20/40 games running. I get a seat in the must-move game and we are 7 or 8 handed, for most of the first part of the night. I don't really do much, and my chip stack stays within +- 300 of my buyin. Then the game gets short, and I end up playing heads up with AB. AB is horrible. He wins like the first 4 pots off of me, and then I win like the next 10 in a row, some with real hands, 2 or 3 with ace high only.

Then some others join us and we get back up to 4 or 5 handed. When 4-handed the following monstrosity happens:

I get Kd Kc in the BB, UTG opens, AB cold-calls on the button, David T calls in the SB, I 3-bet, UTG caps, all call.

Flop comes 9d 7d 2d. I lead, UTG raises, AB cold-calls, David T 3-bets, I call, UTG caps out of turn, we all call.

In case you haven't noticed, the pot is pretty big at this point, and I have an overpair, plus the second nut flush draw.

Turn is the ugliest card in the deck for me, the ace of spades. Checked to the button who of course bets, David T check-raises. Here's the decision point of the hand for me. The pot has 19 BB in it, and I am getting 19:2 immediate odds to call, but the action will not be closed. I am very likely in 3rd place, and could be drawing dead. However with AB holding any ace here, I have to think I am live. So I cold-call two on the turn, which I rarely do. UTG mucks JcJs exposing it to the dealer and in the process to me, so the dealer tables it for all to see, AB calls. River is a rag diamond. Yah, I just got there! David T checks, I fire in a bet, and now AB raises, David T mucks disgustingly, and now I crying call getting 25:1 to get shown the nuts, A9o, with the ace of course being the ace of diamonds.

So in fact I was drawing dead. David T later told me he had QdTd for the flopped flush. So let's look at the hands and the percentages at each point in the hand

SB QdTd 13.8% 66.3% 75.0%
BB KdKc 47.8% 2.8% 0.0%
UTG JcJs 16.9% 2.1% 0.0%
BTN Ad9s 21.6% 28.8% 25.0%

So I was drawing dead on the turn, like I feared, and went from a favorite to a huge dog, just like that.

Later while I am 3-handed with David T and AB, I flopped a set of kings against AB's set of 3's and he just called my flop and turn bets. The river was an A, which I successfully check raised him on, but again he didn't put in 3-bets on the river and just called. Where's the rest of my POT! He is supposed to go animal with that hand and a K73 rainbow board, what he just magically knows that I flopped top-set?

Later, the main game finally loses a player and I am forced to move over there. I have to immediately change mind sets from playing a 3/4-handed game to a full ring game. I play here for quite a bit, but only get to play with Alan for like an hour or so before he takes off, so once again I miss his weekly visit.

Even here, the game eventually gets short, which is my strength, and I pound some on the fish. All in all, I book a 1385 win, which is always nice. Lately I have been killing the 20/40 game. Since June 1, I have been beating the game for over 2.5 BB/hour. Too bad, that in the 40/80 in the same time frame I have lost 120.7 BB. So for those keeping score, in terms of big bets I am up 71.4 BB, but down actual dollars in that time frame. Joy.

What a strange night, I go from playing full to short to full to short.