A Little Live

Welcome to 2010, hope everyone's New Years was exciting, I know mine was. We had a party at my friend Sam's house and at the end of the night, 2 other guys and I played a little poker. $10 buyin with one rebuy available if wanted. I was the first to rebuy when I pushed with AKs into a four to the flush on the flop against my buddy's pair of 10's that held up. To be completely honest, that is the only hand I really remember though, as there was obviously a lot of drinking before that to ring the New Year in. In the end though, I won the whole thing winning $60 total for a profit of $40 on the night.

The next night we went over to another friend's house to play a little bigger game. 8 people wanting to play this time and it was $20 with on rebuy available. I wasn't drinking as much this night, so I remember more key hands. We started out playing that the payout would be 120-40-20 and the winner would get all of the rebuys(top heavy, right?), but once it got down to 4 and everyone who was playing had rebought, we all agreed that 2nd and 3rd would both get $40 to break even and the rest was 1st.

So the first hand I'm going to talk about was the one that I ended up busting out the first time with. 5 players left in the game and I had just over my starting stack left. I'm in the big blind with A7s. First two players fold, button(my friend Joey) calls, small blind(my friend Matt) completes. Now Joey, the chipleader, is the type of player who will call just about anything(he LOVES chasing draws), but will many times try to raise you off of the pot, he's the definition of a LAG player. Matt is the complete opposite; he won't bet unless he has a real hand and I knew he wouldn't call a big raise here. My point was to get Joey in hoping to be able to extract value from him if I hit something. I raised about 3xBB and Joey called, Matt folded as expected. Flop comes K38 rainbow, no help to me, so I fumbled my chips around and then just raised about half the pot, Joey thought about it then called. Turn comes a 7. I quickly checked, so did Joey. The river brought the A, giving me two pair. I bet half the pot again, thinking that Joey would try to raise me off the hand like he had been doing on the river a couple times earlier in the night taking advantage of his large stack. He comes over the top for about 3 times the pot, I then pushed all in and he thought about it and called. I turn over two pair, Aces and 7's, he turned over two pair Aces and 8's, the first time I have ever seen him slowplay...

Another big hand that was about 4 orbits into the game, I was again in the big blind and Matt was sitting to my right in the small blind and it folded around to him and he just completed. I looked down at 72o and I wanted to make a play with it. Up until this point in the game I had been played very tight, mainly because I really hadnt' gotten any big hands so I just had to pick my spots to steal blinds, so I had a good image to steal. I raised it kind of big to 4xBB. Matt thought about it and then called. Flop was 10-6-3 all clubs. Matt bet half the pot but looked really uneasy about it, so I popped it up to 3 times the pot. He was very uneasy with the call, saying at one point that he knew I had the flush, but eventually did. The turn came the Q of diamonds. He checked again, I bet pot and this time he raised me just 2x original pot. So I knew he had the Q, but I also knew that he thought I had a flush. I tanked for about 2 minutes on this, thinking that if I pushed allin, he should most definitely fold. Although I ended up folding just because I haven't played enough with him to know that he would fold top pair in this situation. He ended up turning over AQo. I asked if he would have folded if I would have pushed all in, and he said he would have for sure(he also isn't the type that would be lying here) so I learned something for later on that one.

All in all, that night I ended up rebuying with 4 people left thinking that I could at least squeeze into the money(blinds were kind of high compared to chips, but the low stack had already rebought and was back to being very low, lower than my rebuy actually). I ended up doubling up on the first hand after rebuying. Then I took two hard hits, the second one knocking me out in 4th. The first I was all-in with AKs vs QQ that held up. The second, I was short stacked to about 3/4 the starting stack and got 77, so I pushed and got called by KK that held up. So I lost $40 on the night there. So for the weekend live, after two little SNGs I am even money, without any rake even taken out.