Another Up And Down Weekend

This was my last free weekend for a while, so of course I decided to play poker the whole time. Friday night Kirsten and I headed to Gemini to play. I knew I was in trouble early on. I buy in for $200, get dealt Q9c in the BB. Mid position short stack makes it $10. I'm the only caller. Flop K-J-10 offsuit. I open-shove on him, he snap calls. Turn K. River A. I know immediately I am fucked, and he rolls over a K and shows it. Then he waits. The dealer goes to shove me the pot and he finally rolls over the A and shows the full house. Not only did he need runner runner to beat me, but he was a slow-rolling asshole about it too. I add on another hundred and get J-10 the very next hand. I limp and BB makes it $10. I am the only caller. Flop Q-J-9 with one spade. I check, guy bets $20, I call. Turn 8s. I have the straight. I check, he bets $25, I call. River 3s. I bet out $40, he snap calls and rolls over a 6 high spade flush. AWESOME. He was betting the whole way on runner runner 6 high flush and got there. I rebuy another $100 and start blinding down. I get plenty of playable hands (AK, AQ suited, pairs, etc) but can't make any hands. I finally lose my last $85 when I get dealt KJ suited. I raise it to $10 from the button, guy behind me (who has been re-raising people all night) makes it $22. I shove my $85 in and he snap calls. Flop K-Q-2 2 hearts. Turn 8c. River 8d. I show KJ and he rolls over AK and I am done. Kirsten cashes out and we head home. It's still fairly early so I decide to go to River Pete's and try to earn some of it back. I sit at the $1/1 where TK and Slacks are totally shitfaced. Terry is throwing a party. On my 3rd hand I get 5-7c. Terry raises it to $7 and I call. Flop is J-4-2 two clubs. I check, Terry bets, and I call. Turn is a club. I check, Terry bets, and I repop it all-in. He tanks for a second and finally calls. River is a blank and I roll over the flush. He shows AJ (no club) and I double up. I plod along up and down a little. I get into a hand with HipHop where I raise to $7 preflop with A-10. He calls, flop comes Q-8-4 all spades. He bets $15 into me. I have the 10s, and it occurs to me that if he flopped a flush he'd let me bet. I pop him all-in (another $50). He tanks and starts talking to himself. I turn up the 10s to show him. After a few minutes he calls. Turn 4, River A. He tables Q-8 for flopped 2 pair and show my Ace for the pot. I got into one other big pot later on. I get pocket 2's and Grayday makes it $10 to go. Hiphop and I call. Flop 4-Q-4. HH and I check, Grayday bets $35. He has another $51 behind. HH folds, I tank. I put him on AK, I think he completely missed it. I shove in and he snap calls and rolls over AA. Oops. Turn Q. River 2, ship it! I cash out +$210 and a much needed win.

Saturday K and I planned to hit Gemini early and head to Dave's later for cash. We get there at 6 because there's supposed to be a $5/10 limit game but despite 12 people on the list only 5 show up and it doesn't go. I sit down at $1/2 and prepare for the usual ass-kicking. I sit at a table with this girl I remember from Mountaineer, she runs with a crew that play $1/2 and $2/5 around town. She's being extremely quiet, and gets mad at me when she gets in a big hand with someone else and pulls her hood down to cover her eyes. I want to see what she does so I lean down and stare at her from the table level. She ends up mucking her hand but won't speak to me after that. She gets in a hand with Kirsten where she flops top 2, Kirsten turns Broadway, and she rivers a boat. On the river bet she pops K $100 even and I pick up a tell on her. We get into a hand a few minutes later, she has the button, I am one behind the cutoff. Table folds to me, I limp. She limps. SB makes it $10. I call with 10-9. She calls. Flop 9-7-6. SB checks, I check, she bets $25. We both call. Turn 8. No flush on board. SB checks, I bet $45. She raises it to $145. SB folds. I catch her tell, she either has the same hand as me or I am nutted. I don't want to play for stacks with 2nd nuts, I fold the straight face up and she stares at me. I am sure she had J-10. She bet the gutshot when we both checked as a semi-bluff or steal and hit the gutter with me. I should've repopped the flop bet or checked her the turn. Hmph. I also picked up a huge tell on Matt S ("Little Fag"). He bet me off a few pots and I finally got his tell, then it was confirmed when he showed down a huge bluff in a $200 pot. I moved tables before I could use it against him though, but I'm sure we'll play together again and I can pick him off. I got bumped to the $5/10 and started off great. I get AK on the button, flop comes K-10-9. Checks to me, I bet, 4 callers. Turn 9. Molson leads out into me. I call. River 6. He bets again, I call. He shows 9-7 for trips. Next hand I get QQ. Bump it to $10, three callers. Flop Q-7-5 two spades. Checks to me, I bet. Three callers. Turn 2s. Checks to me, I bet again. Three callers. River 5. Checks to me, I bet again. One caller. He shows KK, I show the boat. Ship it. It was the only $5/10 pot I won. About 10 minutes later I get AQ on the button. Raise to $10. 7 callers. Yes, 7. Flop K-J-10 offsuit. Mid position bets $5, I raise to 10. EVERYONE CALLS. Initial bettor makes it $15, I cap at $20. EVERYONE CALLS. 8 people to the turn. J on the turn. Mid position bets his last $3. I pop to the full $10. EVERYONE CALLS. River 6. No flush. Checks to me, I bet $10. EVERYONE CALLS. I show my straight, the guy who capped with me on the flop rolls over KJ for the boat. Everyone else shows cards, they all had face cards. He literally had only ONE OUT and hit it. I've played NL with him too and I'm sure that hand plays out like that in NL too. I request a $1/2 seat again now that I've dropped $100 in two hands. Bumped back to $1/2 I get dealt K-10. Angry arab guy on the end is making it $17 preflop every hand. He's stuck and he's spewing chips. I call, two other calls. Flop K-Q-3. Check to him, he bets $33. I call. One other caller. Turn 10. I shove $214. Guy behind me snap calls. Arab guy snap calls. River a blank. I show K-10. Guy in the middle shows K-10. Arab guy had KJ and missed and we split his stack. Angry internet kid between us berates us for our play. A few hands later, internet kid makes it $10 to go and I call with AKh. Flop 7-4-2 2 hearts. He bets half his stack, $35. I push all-in for $340. Folds around to him, he calls off his last $30. Turn Qs and he flips up Q-10 off. River a brick and he wins on his 4 outer. I cash out for the night +$60 instead of +135 or more. I guess a win is a win though.

Riding The Poker Rollercoaster

I have had a very up and down week in poker, and now I'm back stuck in the mostly down part. I couldn't play last Friday due to "family commitments" (no day care at Gemini), so I decided to hit Dave's Saturday for the Chili cookoff and semi-deepstack tournament. I also entered the chili cookoff as a goof. I had talked to several people about entering a canned chili to see if the "judges" could tell it from all the others. They couldn't. My 9 cans of Chunky Roadhouse chili finished in second place and only lost to El_Diabl0's chili by 7 points (which is nothing, really). After they announced the winners I let everyone know what they'd be eating. I found out later that Mark had entered a large can of chili dog topping he put peppers in. The idea wasn't mine, Steve Graham wanted to do it years ago but never followed through.

The tournament was really large - 56 buy ins I believe. I got lucky early on. This new kid raised, and when he did he was shaking bad. I knew he had a huge hand. I called his raise with J9c. Flop came 10-3-2 with one club. He continuation bet, and I called hoping to either turn a draw or bet him off on the turn. The turn was the Qc, giving me a straight and flush draw. I open-shoved on him and he tanked for a minute before calling and turning over KK. River? 8. Ship it! After that, I got into a sick hand with Karl. He raised preflop, and I called with J9 again. Caveman folded, and when he did he accidentally showed me the Ace of spades. Flop came A-9-2. Karl leads out, and I think about this...only one over on the flop, and I know an Ace is dead. I decide Karl missed and I shove on him. He snap calls and rolls over A-10. River J pumps me up to 30k and I cruise to the final table. I finished 4th after I raised with K-10 4 handed, flopped a K and got it all in against Caveman, and lost to his runner runner 2 pair. Had I won that pot I would've had over half the chips in play and would've squashed that final table. As it was, I cashed $380 and only had time for a few rounds of 8 game where I dropped $50.

Sunday I decided to hit Gemini again and play some $1/2. I took a few horrendous beatings (including a hand where I flopped a set of 9's and lost to runner runner heart flush). I dropped my tournament earnings back there and decided to call it a night. Monday night I went back for a few hours of $1/2 and took yet another squashing. I should've got up after the first beating, but I stuck it out. I got AA on the button and mid position made it $10. I raise to $30. BB (who just rebought $100) shoves his $100 in. Mid folds and I snap call and show my AA. He rolls over AKh and I am fucked. Flop? KKQ. So, I rebuy $100 and play a bit more. At one point I triple up with QJ after flopping top two and consider leaving but am too stupid to do so. I then proceed to lose $250 in two hands after paying off two rolled up sets. I finally go broke when I flop and open ended straight flush draw, get called all-in by a $2/5 guy with KJ high, and go brick brick to lose. Discouraged, I decided not to buy in again and just leave. Today I went back with another $300 and had a go at it. I barely made it an hour. Hand #4 I raise with QJc. Flop K-3-4 two clubs. I bet and get called. Turn 10c. The other player shoves in and I snap call. River a blank and he rolls over K7c. FUUUUUUUUUUUCK! I rebuy $100 and lose half when I turn K's and Q's and the other guy rivers a 6 high heart flush. On my last hand I get AKc. I raise to $10 and get a few callers. Flop 3-4-5 with 2 clubs. I check, guy in the middle bets $25, I push in $100 more and he snap calls and rolls over 6-5h. Turn 6 river 5 and he fills up. I decide to leave, down $300 again. So far, I have only profited in my first trip there and have proceeded to get pounded in my last four trips. I apparantly need to take a break from there for a little bit. I hope Dave's Saturday will be a good rebuilding game.