Straight Flush & Heads up with Wayne

I flopped a straight flush last night in the 20/40 game. I limped in with 67h. Flop came 345 all hearts. David T bet, Wayne raised, I called, David 3-bet, Wayne 4-bet, I called. Turn was 2h. check-check-bet-call-call. River was 3d. bet-call-raise-call-fold. David had Ah2d, for the 5 high straight flush. Wayne claims he had pocket 4's for a full house on the river. So close to a jackpot. In all my poker playing I have never had even a table share of a jackpot. Granted I don't play in jackpot eligible games very much, but I have put in a reasonable number of hours in the 8/16 and 20/40 in the past. David T needs to have A2h instead of Ah2d, or the river needs to pair the 4 instead of the 3. Oh well, eventually I will get a jackpot, it is a statistical certainty.

Eventually the game got short and Troy, Wayne, and myself were playing 3-handed. I was pounding on Troy, while Wayne was pounding on me. I prefer playing against Troy. Troy is actually a thinking player, while Wayne is still a 1st level thinker even heads-up. We eventually busted Troy and then Wayne and I played heads up for about an hour and a half. Wayne should be easy to play against, he never folds a pair, never folds any draw, even gutshots, never folds overcards, never folds his blind. Basically playing against Wayne heads-up is playing showdown poker, since he won't fold unless it's hopeless for him. I've had reasonable success playing Wayne heads up, this was our 3rd time. I may need to rethink my strategy on how to play Wayne heads up.

Isn't poker fun?

Dropped 4 racks in the 20/40 game last night. Sometimes when I lose and I am sitting at a table full of donkeys, I don't understand how I could be sitting at this table and be losing. Oh yeah, then I remember, the gutshot fairy and runner-runner pixie dust is out in full-force tonight. Oh well, I'll get them next time I suppose.

Pocket Nines

Played 20/40 last night. Got to the casino rather late, since my wife went out with her girlfriends in the early evening. Got in around 11:30pm, planning on playing the 40/80 but the game had already broken. Not sure if it is the economy or just the poker craze subsiding, but the limit holdem games at Oceans-11 have been pretty weak lately.

I had a winning night, up $470. Should have been more, but I got a couple of bad beats. Both times I had pocket nines, both times I flopped top set, both times I lost to a straight when my opponent held 10-7! It was different opponents each time, but still. In the first I raised the button and the SB 3-bet me with 10-7 suited. He flopped a gut-ball plus a flush draw, and hit his straight on the river. The other time I raised in the cutoff with pocket nines and the big blind called and he flopped open-ended and got there on the river.

Other funny thing happened last night, some player I had never played with before sat in the 20/40 game and the first hand he played he tried to go all-in preflop. The dealer and the players explained to him that we were playing limit, not no-limit. He played a hand so weird against me that I was totally confused. Short-handed I raised UTG with A3 suited. Called by the cut-off (weird no limit guy abbreviated WNLG), and the big-blind (Chuck an off-duty bad playing dealer). Flop comes 8 3 2 rainbow. Chuck bets, I raise, WNLG 3-bets, call-call. Turn A, checked around. River 2. Chuck checks I bet, WNLG cuts out $120 in chips to raise. Dealer tells him he can only raise to 80. Chuck folds, and I'm completely at a loss of what to do. I have no history with the guy and am totally confused by his line. Against anybody I have some reasonable history with I would likely raise like 90% of the time, but since he played it so weird I just called. He tabled pocket queens, and I win the pot. What a weird line to take with pocket queens.

WSOP Absence

World Series of Poker is going in Vegas right now. Means that the local cardroom has been kind of empty these days. Been on a pretty big downswing since returning from Minnesota, down 100 BB's in less than 100 hours of play. Been playing a lot of short-handed 20/40 as well. Arab James has been killing me lately. Flop top set of queens when I 3-bet preflop out of the big-blind, and he called two cold on the button with T9 offsuit. Don't worry, flop comes QJ8 to give me second nuts to his flopped straight and of course I can't fill up. Nights like that are frustrating sometimes. Would like to get out Vegas during WSOP time, maybe take a shot at the 100-200 game out there. We'll see.

Canterbury Park Recap

Date : 5/12/2008
Place : Canterbury Park Card Club, Shakopee Minnesota
Mission: Pay for the family vacation
Result: Resounding success!

Man, the players at Canterbury Park were just horrible! It's like they just started spreading holdem, and nobody has figured out how to play the game properly! I won 1700 in like 2 hours of play at 15/30, when there was just an interest list for 30/60. It's not like I even played that many hands, but just about every pot I entered and played on past the flop I won. One example of a hand I played, I limped with KQs under the gun. Loose crazy Helen whom had been playing for like 45 minutes and in that 45 minutes I correctly had her pegged for loose crazy, unbluffable limps as well. Button pops it, small blind calls Doug -> weak tight, never folds, and big blind calls Dule -> reasonably decent player.

Flop comes Q, 6, 4 rainbow.
Following action:
check, check, bet(me), call(Helen), fold, checkraise(Doug), fold (Dule), reraise(me), call(Helen), reraise (Doug), call(me), call(Helen).

Turn K, still rainbow:

bet(Doug), raise (me), call (Helen), call (Doug)

River, offsuit deuce:
check-bet(me)-call(Helen)-call(Doug)

I got overcalled by Doug on the river. Guess the hands? Doug had AQ, for top-pair top kicker on the flop, but didn't 3-bet a field of limpers and a button raise preflop. I really didn't like his re-raise before the flop. His check-raise wasn't too worrisome, as I thought he probably just had a queen, reasonable kicker like a ten or jack. His 4-bet had me worried. Helen had K2 suited for a rivered two pair, plus a backdoor flush draw on the flop. Her call of 2-cold on the turn, plus my raise should have made Doug muck his hand, but oh-well. His overcall on the river is horrible.

After that I shortly moved over to a short-handed (5) 30/60 game. Game filled up reasonably quickly and was full for most of the 12 hours I played at the table. I made a straight flush with 56c about twenty minutes after someone else had made a straight flush with 56c as well. I got a free Canterbury Park cap for that. I made quad 7's on a pot with a live 60, and a blind 90 to start off with, with me first to act. I made it 4 bets to go, and it folded over to the blinds and the straddlers who all called. I flopped the set, and turned quads. No river payoff. I showed anyways. Would have flopped quad jacks, with QJd, but Dule open-raised UTG and I mucked even though he had been getting frisky lately. Player in the 1 seat 3-bet it, and eventually won it with pocket aces. Would've gotten max action from him if I had called preflop.

I played another interesting hand where on the button I had AQd, young wannabe-pro open raises from mid-position, next wanna-be pro isolation 3-bets. I call on the button. Flop comes Td, Jd, rag. Many bets go in on the flop. Turn is a rag, bet(donk1), raise (donk2), call (me), call (donk1). River is an offsuit queen. check-check-? (I took like 30 seconds before I decided what to do. At this point I thought did someone really play AK that way on the flop river the nuts and check it? I was 60% sure I had the best hand but wimped out and checked). donk1-KTo, donk2-KQs, I table AQd and take down the pot. It was like that all night, and I finished up 5900 after buying in for only 1500. I should move to Minnesota and play there professionally! :-)

Back Home

Got back from Minnesota tonight. While in Minnesota, over the weekend the family drove to Wisconsin Dells in Wisconsin to stay at the Chula Vista resort. The kids enjoyed the indoor water park there. I went to the Ho-Chunk casino with my brother-in-law one night. The poker room there was pretty small-time. The biggest limit game that had going was 3-6, and they had a couple of 1-2 no limit games with a max buy in of 300. Didn't even bother to play, not worth my time to sit down in those games.

I got to play at Canterbury Park on Monday. I put in a long session, around 14 hours or so. Most of it in the 30/60, with a couple of hours in the 15/30. I made a killing, finishing up 5900 in the 30/60 game and up 1700 in the 15/30 game. Right now I'm pretty tired, so I will post more details later, including some memorable hands of the night.

Hitting the Road

Going to the land of 10,000 lakes tomorrow with the family to visit the in-laws. Don't know if I will get any time to play poker while in Minnesota, but they have a good (at least when I was there last time) 30-60 limit holdem game at Canterbury Park.

The second quarter of the year has been kind of slow for me. Haven't gotten out too much and right now I am 2479 in the red for the quarter, putting me into negative territory for the year. Maybe a change of scenery will help.