Spades were good to me all night

My Friday Night Home Game Web Page

We began the night with 13 players who all got the standard 1500 in chips. Along with the regular cast of characters, my grandmother and her boyfriend both showed up from WV to join our game. I drew my slip of paper from the counter and my "4" put me at the octagon table which become the final table later in the night. I hate playing at the big round table because it is so large that you have to pick up out of your seat to rake a pot or collect the cards from the center. I also hate when I make the final table and have to transport my chips, beer, cigars, bubble gum, my lucky turtle card capper and the vintage Bank of Paden City Deposit bag with all my poker paraphanelia to the other table. I just find that it breaks my momentum somehow in addition to being a pain in the ass.

I have David "Bozie" on my left which sucks because he chases and calls all night and drives me nuts. On my right sits Burl, my granny's boyfriend who is 70+ but a good poker player and very patient. FNG Tony who put me out last week sits across from me but I think I have drawn a very good table.

I played strong and aggressive early and scouped several nice pots on my way to building a sizeable chip lead at my table. From the table behind us came the moans and groans that could only signal one thing. Jimmy was rolling and everyone knows it when Jimmy is on a roll. I put all that aside and focused. I tugged my hat down firm and adjusted my sunglasses. The Miller Lite was going down kinda easily and started to feel all warm and tingly. About 1 1/2 hours into the game I get dealt Jc5c in the BB and I just check. In the pot are myself TJ and FNG Tony. The flop copmes 5 5 7. I check. TJ Checks. FNG Tony makes a bet about 1/2 the pot and I flat call him. TJ folds. The turn is a brick and I check again. Tony bets 1/2 the pot again and I immediately asked "How much you got left?". He counts his chips and calls. He had shown his hand to TJ who remarked "There can't be too many of those left". I splash my J5 into the center and Tony sinks in his chair as he tosses down his measley 45. The river brings no 4 for Tony and the revenge tastes sweet. We shake hands I and remind hin of the hand where he took me out a week ago and he smiles. Tadow ! I'm in great shape as we filter down to one table.

Ronnie was having his best night in a few months at the other table by rivering everyone who dared enter a pot with him. He had a mountain of chips and was starting to get a bit loud. The blinds are now at $40 & $80 as we redraw for the button. Toby pulls a King and thats puts me in the BB for the first hand. So we go about 20 minutes and then I run into a big time pot with Ronnie, who rivers his idiot gutshot straight after making a bad call on the turn to my big bet. That river card cost me almost half my chips and it put Ronnie into the lead by a wide margin.

The Final Table Looks like this
Me ( going to my left ) Jimmy, Jimbo(dad), Bill, TJ, Ronnie, Toby, Burl.

Then comes that hand that puts me back in the tournament. I'm holding Q6 off and I limp in one off the button which is Bozie who also limps. The SB and BB call limp and we have a 4 way pot.The flop comes J63. Sb and BB check and so do I. Bozie throws in a raise of $100 into a pot of $320. The SB and BB fold. I pause, take a drink and then call. As the dealer burns a card I reach for my cigars and announce ala Marcel Luske "Check in the Dark" as I try to act uninterested in the turn card coming off of the deck. I glance out of the corner of my eye and from behind my shades to see that another Jack has hit. Everyone is just sitting there quiet and I don't make a move for 20 seconds. Bozie looks at me and asks what I am going to do. Nobody at this game has ever payed attention to me when I make a check in the dark so I had to remind Bozie that I had already checked. He looks down at his chips and pushes forward $200. So I look down at my chips and I start to count them all. I gather two stacks of $100 with my hands shaking and place them in front of my cards. Then I reach back and make 4 more stacks of $100 and press them together in a group. Bozie is looking a bit worried as I push in the call and announce "raise" in a confident tone whilst gliding the other $400 about 6 inches ahead. The Jack had him spooked but he took a good minute and a half to lay down his hand. I raked in the nice size pot and mucked my hand. Bozie lights a cigarette and leans back in his chair. Several hands later he told me how hard it was to lay down those pocket kings. After he told me that I felt like nobody was going to be able to beat me. I never told a sole what I really had, I just represented the Jacks. My bluffs are always called at this game and when I pulled this one off I knew it was my night.

My dad finally busted when Ronnie raised $100 from the button with J10d and dad went all in with his pocket snowmen, only to have Ronnie river a ten to take him out. Ronnie had not won in several months and his mouth was getting dry. He was so elated with his success that he had me snap this picture with his giant chip pile. Good thing we got a picture while it lasted.

Ole Jimmy has a habit of asking other people how much the bet is all the time saying, "who is it up to?" Well the action up to Jimmy and of course he had no idea. He promptly asked who it was on and Uncle Bill snapped ! "It's on you for Christ's Sake !" he moans. Bill is like the referee at the poker table because he keeps the game moving and settles many disputes because he actually pays attention. Bills patience and scrutiny would pay off later in the night when he ended up winning the losers table along with a bigger payout ($220) than the main game becuase Jimmy bought back into the game 4 times and kept busting out. Congrats Billy !

yada yada yada ( people bust out, people drink beer )

The final three came down to myself, TJ and Ronnie. Even though he had a massive chip lead, Ronnie was playing very conservatively and TJ just wanted to get in the top two so he would at least make something. 2nd pays $40 tonight while first will get $200. I saw this as the best time to start stealing again. The blinds went to $100 and $200 and I began to raise on the button everytime. I took several small pots and got into 2nd chip position over TJ. TJ had a little under $2000 and I had maybe $3500 when I get dealt J10S in the BB. I look back at my cards again and decide to rasie $400 into the pot of $600. TJ moves all in and I call. He turns over a really bad hand for me..........JJ. I'm dominated. But the flop comes a ravishing SPADE SPADE SPADE and I take TJ out. : ) I love J10 suited.

Ronnie and I play back at each other for 20 minutes or so as the losers table heats up with action behind me. 11:16pm Jimmy is on his 3rd rebuy by now and somehow I look down to find that I'm in the chip lead. At one point I had dipped below the original buy in with 4 people left but I had persevered and put myself in position to win. I thought had a good read on Ronnie by now and when he made a small raise into me when I held "the speed limit" I felt it was time to push back a bit. I went all in and Ronnie felt he had to call at this point. He sheepishly flips over his own 55 and I let out a chuckle and show mine. Nobody makes a flush and the pot gets chopped.

I really had success tonight by playing the man and not the cards. Ronnie wasn't even looking at me by now and I wasn't looking at my hole cards. There must have been 7 or 8 hands where I bet without looking at my cards. I was raising when he looked weak and betting when the flop looked like it didn't hit him. I was taking alot of chips through pure aggression and a keen sense for when to fold.

It's now 12:40 am and we hae been playing steadly with no breaks since 7:20pm. I've got $7100 and Ronnie has $6900. Ronnie limps in weakly again and I peer down at KQ offsuit and prepare a $2000 raise. Ronnie ponders the raise and then decides he has had enough and goes all in. I call in a shot showing my KcQs and Ronnie drops his Ah6c which has me a small dog but with a great chance to win the whole tourney. The flop comes 345 all of spades. This flop gives me 9 spades in the deck that can give me a winning flush with my Qs but I am still behind Ronnies Ace at this point. Then the turn brings a lovely lady, the Qh. I'm now a big favorite with only one card to come. Wouldn't you know it ? River Rat Ronnie pulls an Ace on the river to give him a pair of Aces that whip my Queens. Ronnie bolts out of his chair and yells as I slump back into my chair in disgust. It takes 2-3 seconds before I see that it's the Ace of Spades and I have made a winning flush to knock Ronnie out ! Ronnie sits in stunned silence as he looks down at the board and sees the awful truth. I guess spades were good to me all night.

Chase has won again ! This is my third win in a month if you include my losers table win from last week. Even worse for Ronnie is that he bought into the losers table for $20 in hopes of being able to join the game when our heads up session was over, but it took over an hour and by then TJ had lost all Ronnie's dough for him.

As a side note, I got home around 2am and decided I was too wired to fall asleep so I sit down in a .10 .25 Pot Limit Omaha High game on UB where I have no bonus left to clear : ( and I was down to only $11 after losing $50 in three hands with FH over FH in a .50 $1 NL Holdem game that my pal WBrumfiel told me I had no business in.


So I sat down with $7 of it and decided to play conservatively. I made some monster hands and took alot of dough from that table really fast. I was up to $50 in the first hour after a triple up and a double up. And by the time I hit the hay at 5am, the birds were chirping and I had turned $7 into $131. I slept like a baby, up $325 on the night.



Next week I'll be back in WV for my highschool alumni so no poker.


Hand Of The Week ??

Pick one of these two hands and leave a comment telling me which was better.

Hand 1)
TJ Flops trip Kings (the flop called "The Noose") KKK. TJ checks and Toby bets out with his measley Q2 and position. TJ smoothe calls him. The turn is a queen and Toby bets out again. TJ raises him just a little and Toby Calls. The river is yet another King giving TJ ("The Big Unit" KKKK ) and TJ thinks a minute before pushing all in. Toby now sits on a FH and thinks it might be good. Finally Toby lays it down and shows his FH. Being the good guy he is, TJ flashes the King and Toby felt he had escaped. Well, he had, but it didn't last long.

Hand 2)
Chase robs Bozie with Q6 offsuit.






Thanks for stopping by, have a drink on me.

When you have a big hand, you hope others do too.

That's been my problem lately. No action with my big hands. I've tried slowplaying and overbetting but I can't seem to squeeze the value out of my good hands for some reason. Maybe I need to switch to SNGs for awhile. I miss the days when I got hands like this ( check out my opponents holdings )



Please excuse the micro limits, but that's what I have been reduced to.

Pauly is killing himself for you damnit !!!

Check out his latest WSOP article on Fox Sports.


WSOP: Impressions from the first two weeks

And don't forget his Poker Blog which is updated everyday, sometimes 5-6 times a day. Up to date results, chip counts, stories and nuggets you won't find anywhere else. He is in the trenches of the WSOP and has unlimited acces to the biggest names in poker.

I have a bad habit of starting sentences with the word "and" lately. I appologize.

"I hope the River is Kind"
-Cincy Sean

Magic Shirt 2.0

Chase's Home Game Page

Folks say two outta three ain't bad. I'll take it in most instances. When It comes to poker, I'll take those odds any day. The Magic Moe's shirt is the shizzle my nizzle. Perhaps the players are distracted by the swirling array of color or maybe a few suffer 60's flashbacks in the midst of tie dye anything. Who knows.

Let's begin by saying that I didn't win the main event, just the measly 5 man losers table. Awinzawin I always say. We started with only 11 players on this Friday evening so we were paying out only 1st place. I was at table one with Nice Guy Eddie on my left and Bosey on my right. Rounding up Table 2 were the likes of Action Tommy, Food Lion , and "All In" who told everyone that he joined up with Uncle Sam to take on the Axis of Evil. That's right, Tim "All In" is gonna be Tim "G.I. Joe" soon enough. He joined the Army. Good luck Timmy and don't forget to duck.

Having said that. FU Tim. LOL.

Tim chose tonight as the night to "ChaseNCatch" on ChaseNFold it seems. He called every raise I made and contested almost every pot I entered. $100 raise........Call. $150 raise.......Call. I flopped two pair twice only to have him call each of my big bets and catch not one, but two gutshot straights on the river to eat my stack down to the low man in no time. And everyone cheered when Jimmy the Man busted out in 10th place and promptly exited the building which elicited and equal number of cheers and relieved sighs. Jimmy is always dangerous and nobody wants to see him with a big stack because he turns into a bully in a flash. I think maybe Jimmy went outside to look for his shoes but I can't be certain.

I kicked and scratched my way back to the original buy in once by getting aggressive preflop with the myriad of Ace rag hand I kept getting dealt all night. I never once had so much as A 10 all night. My best hole cards were 99 all night. TJ "Food Lion" got down close to the felt and pushed with A8 only to have our resident suckout expert Tim call him with A7. Tim made a FH with the seven to complete yet another come from behind to send TJ to the rail.

We lost enough players to merge into a final table just as the blinds had been raised and I had the beautiful shiny button in front of me. Rats. We move our chips and draw cards to place the button and I pull a black Queen. Some guy I had never seen before tonight ended up with the button a few seats to my left. TJ told me that his name was Tony and that he had played in the game long before I ever did but that he had been too busy to show up for the last few months since I had joined the game. The first hand is dealt and I peer between my knuckles at 77. And after the night I've had it looks like AA to me so I push. I have about 800 in chips and the big stacks have 4000 or so. I get called by the Tony on the button and he flips over the Hilton Sisters . I don't improve and the night is over. Short and sweet. See more Interesting " nicknames for hands here.

Heads up it came down to Tony and Toby.

FNG Tony went on to win the main table and we only paid out first place so the first loser this week was Toby. First last week and 2nd this week. Toby is on a tear rivaled only by Dan Harrington's back to back WSOP final table appearances.


I waited around for a few more players to get bumped out so we could start a losers game. Finally there were 5 of us so we each threw in $20 more and sat down. Low and behold, what am I dealt on the first hand but the Hilton Sisters. How divine. The flop come Jack high and I slowplay the sisters and end up taking half of Ronnies stack. Good start.

On the second hand we had an interesting turn of events when the board read 677 Q A and everyone played their kickers. The four people in the hand including myself all had a King high and we had a 4 way chop pot. Very odd. I had a nice run of cards for awhile and I bluffed alot of pots with big drawing hands. I got to be the big stack really quick and I was feeling great. I got lucky againt Ronnie when he was short stacked and he went all in with 78c and I called with 37 off suit and ended up chopping another pot. I had a good Chuckle at Ronnie's expense. It came down to me and TJ again. We once played heads up for nearly two hours before I bluffed off my money to him. I was determined to take him out on this occasion and I did exactly that. I can't even remember any of the hands we played heads up but I was in the zone and I was calling his bluffs and making moves. It didn't take too long. It felt nice. So I ended up +$60 on the night. Not too shabby.
We got a shot of us after the final hand was over. I tripped my pocket 3s and sent him packing in the end. It really wasn't very exciting but the end result is the same. My second win and the respect of millions. What more could a guy ask for ?


I found out that some of the guys at the game had finally taken the time to check out my blog and web page with all the pics on it. Everyone seemed to like it and had nice things to say. Jimmy took offense to me calling him Lucky @$$ so I pulled that down. Sorry Jimmy, but you're still the luckiest guy I know besides Dudley Snider. Nevermind, just trust me. Toby said I missed my calling after he looked at my Blog and that was a compliment I guess, since I won't be making a living at poker in this life.



A few Show notes.

For those who care to know, I missed last week and I came to find last night that indeed Toby brought home the bacon for the 5th time. This puts Toby in an elite group with the likes of Barry Greenstein and Stu Ungar.

Rounders

DL this poker show from Vancouver Canada. They interview the biggest names in Poker and there is some great insight to be had.


Rounders the Poker Show

ChaseNFold recommended !

The art of War and Poker

IV. TACTICAL DISPOSITIONS

Sun Tzu said:

1. The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then
waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.

6. Standing on the defensive indicates insufficient trength; attacking, a superabundance of strength.

tips from the oldest known text on the sublect of warfare. good advice for poker players if you ask me. I've all but given up SNGs for the lucrative small stakes cash games on UB. The players are so bad, that if you have an hour to kill, you can play only the nuts in the penny Omaha rooms and make $10 and hour. Hands like this make it easy.

Hand #6413670-1619 at Sutter Creek (Pot Limit Omaha)
Powered by UltimateBet
Started at 15/Jun/05 20:23:46

fame722 is at seat 0 with $1.37.
ChaseNFold is at seat 2 with $1.34.
Aces23 is at seat 4 with $.96.
tootired is at seat 5 with $.96.
straje is at seat 7 with $6.65.
alcira is at seat 8 with $1.08.
10man is at seat 9 with $.70.
The button is at seat 2.

Aces23 posts the small blind of $.01.
tootired posts the big blind of $.02.

fame722: -- -- -- --
ChaseNFold: 9c Kd Qc 6d
Aces23: -- -- -- --
tootired: -- -- -- --
straje: -- -- -- --
alcira: -- -- -- --
10man: -- -- -- --

Pre-flop:

straje raises to $.07. alcira calls. 10man calls.
fame722 calls. ChaseNFold calls. Aces23 folds.
tootired folds.

Flop (board: 5d 7c 8h):

straje bets $.38. alcira calls. 10man calls.
fame722 folds. ChaseNFold goes all-in for $1.27.
straje calls. alcira goes all-in for $1.01. 10man
goes all-in for $.63.

Turn (board: 5d 7c 8h Ks):

(no action in this round)


River (board: 5d 7c 8h Ks 8c):

(no action in this round)




Showdown:

ChaseNFold shows 9c Kd Qc 6d.
ChaseNFold has 9c 6d 5d 7c 8h: straight, nine high.
straje mucks cards.
(straje has 9s 8s Qh Th.)
alcira shows 5h Js 9d 7d.
alcira has Js 7d 7c 8h 8c: two pair, eights and sevens.
10man shows Ad 7h 5s Ah.
10man has Ad Ah 8h Ks 8c: two pair, aces and eights.


Hand #6413670-1619 Summary:

$.15 is raked from a total pot of $4.56.
$.10 is raked from the main pot of $2.90.
$.05 is raked from side pot #1 of $1.14.
$0 is raked from side pot #2 of $.52.
ChaseNFold wins the main pot $2.80 with straight, nine high.
ChaseNFold wins side pot #1 $1.09 with straight, nine high.
ChaseNFold wins side pot #2 $.52 with straight, nine high.

and fish like this make life worth living. $8.10 pot in a .01 .02 room.



Check out Pauly's WSOP Coverage. If you ain't in Vegas,at least Pauly is.

Card Club on Lord Admiral Radio is a must listen Poker Podcast

And Iggy is due for a monster post any day......

Iggy busted my balls, so I added his link.

I must be a numbskull to have not included the Igg Meister.

Online play looking up ; )

My luck at the tables has swung around. I'm not playing in small spurts anymore just for fun. I've been waiting on hands and playing them a bit less aggressively. Consider this hand I played yesterday that I normally raise for a pot sized bet to extract value. If I had bet, I probably would have never made as much as I did in the hand. What do you think ?

PokerStars Game #1861053304: Omaha Pot Limit ($0.10/$0.25) - 2005/06/08 - 22:28:59 (ET)
Table 'Hedda II' Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: SillyGooose ($19.45 in chips)
Seat 2: IplayLIKEgus ($9.75 in chips)
Seat 3: mrHysteria ($25.90 in chips)
Seat 4: Ramza412 ($8.05 in chips)
Seat 5: ToughGuy_TJ ($28.35 in chips)
Seat 6: Steve McNair ($35 in chips)
Seat 7: Riffe ($21.60 in chips)
Seat 8: airpooh ($17.30 in chips)
Seat 9: clark46 ($15.90 in chips)
airpooh: posts small blind $0.10
clark46: posts big blind $0.25
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to IplayLIKEgus [Ad 8s Ac 5d]
SillyGooose: folds
IplayLIKEgus (chasenfold): calls $0.25
mrHysteria: calls $0.25
Ramza412: folds
ToughGuy_TJ: calls $0.25
Steve McNair: calls $0.25
Riffe: folds
airpooh: calls $0.15
clark46: checks
*** FLOP *** [Kh 2c As]
airpooh: checks
clark46: checks
IplayLIKEgus (chasenfold): bets $0.75
mrHysteria: folds
ToughGuy_TJ: calls $0.75
Steve McNair: folds
airpooh: calls $0.75
clark46: calls $0.75
*** TURN *** [Kh 2c As] [9h]
airpooh: checks
clark46: checks
IplayLIKEgus (chasenfold): bets $2.50
ToughGuy_TJ: calls $2.50
airpooh: folds
clark46: calls $2.50
*** RIVER *** [Kh 2c As 9h] [Kc]
clark46: checks
IplayLIKEgus (chasenfold): bets $3
ToughGuy_TJ: raises $3 to $6
clark46: calls $6
IplayLIKEgus: raises $0.25 to $6.25 and is all-in
ToughGuy_TJ: calls $0.25
clark46: calls $0.25
Ramza412 leaves the table
*** SHOW DOWN ***
IplayLIKEgus (chasenfold): shows [Ad 8s Ac 5d] (a full house, Aces full of Kings)
ToughGuy_TJ: mucks hand
clark46: mucks hand
IplayLIKEgus collected $29.25 from pot
clark46 leaves the table
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $30.75 | Rake $1.50
Board [Kh 2c As 9h Kc]
Seat 1: SillyGooose folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: IplayLIKEgus (chasenfold): showed [Ad 8s Ac 5d] and won ($29.25) with a full house, Aces full of Kings
Seat 3: mrHysteria folded on the Flop
Seat 4: Ramza412 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: ToughGuy_TJ mucked [2d Kd Js Ah]
Seat 6: Steve McNair folded on the Flop
Seat 7: Riffe (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: airpooh (small blind) folded on the Turn
Seat 9: clark46 (big blind) mucked [Qh Qc Ks 9c]


I think Omaha is great, but not at a homegame full of people who don't understand it. We still have some folks who get mad when they find out that the flush on the board means that they have to split the pot even though they have the deuce of spades and that guy didn't have any spades. ( Sorry Jim.....it's true ) Not to mention all the shuffling and dealing necessary. Can you say 15 hands an hour ?

Pics from my homegame


One week ago I dropped fitty bucks into Neteller. Then put $25 into UB and $25 into PokerStars.

After a week of light (not if you ask my wife) play I am sitting on $112.02. More than doubling up on UB to 65.52 (I was over $70 briefly) and $46.50 on PokerStars thanks largely in part to the hand posted above.


I have been playing all cash games. Small stakes PL Omaha High and NL Holdem only. I need to start mixing in a few SNGs to break the monotony.

I'm lazy. Congrats to Cousin BJ on his Main Event Win!

Sorry this took so long. Both of you who read this should expect more timely updates for sure. I've been in a peculiar mood as of late and procrastination will be my favorite word tomorrow. Perhaps the next day. But here it goes.

BJ won it all ! The $50 NL Holdem Main Event Tourney is over ! $400 into the bankroll of my favorite cousin. BJ played tight all night, getting down low and coming back with big hands time after time. He held out to beat Jason in a back and forth heads up match that saw some big chip swings on some mediocre hands.

I got busted out with K 10s when some guy who had never been to the game before decides to call my post flop bet when I hit my King with his inside nut straight draw after seeing the next card come off the deck. We both saw it I'm sure. I saw it was a 10 and it gave me two pair. He saw it and then decided to raise after saying call. It was a sticky situation and if I knew the guy at all It might have ben an ugly scene. Oh well, I saw the 10 and was happy to see it, I guess that's what I get.

I did come home late and manage to run my recent $25 deposit on Ultimate Bet into nearly $70. Not anything major but it might spell a turnaround for the online game that had deteriorated to the point of flounder.

I promise a better post when the next game comes around. This week I am off to visit family and won't be playing. Please