Day of the Donkey

Well after reading the post from Iggy's blog on Tuesday I went mentally prepared to play some good poker. I have a little bit of a drive from work to the casino and I use that time to think about poker and how I am going to play that day or what I want to work on during the session. Lately I have been getting off stuck and then working my way out of a hole and getting winner. Yesterday I got right into the $30/60 game no waiting, cool. I sat down prepared to win and play good cards right from the start, and I did play good cards, I just got run over by the Donkeys at the table to get stuck $1,200 at the low point. I did not win a hand for the first hour or so of play and $800 straight. It was Donkey day. All the bad players were hitting, all day long, it was just funny the hands that were winning. The Donkeys took tons of money out of the table and then they were replaced by more donkeys who then would win as well. It was a very trying day for me. I was getting my usual run of mediocre cards, but I was playing good poker. When there are that many bad players in the game you see 5,6,7, and sometimes 8 way flops. It does not take too many of those pots to get up winner. I just stayed in my game and did not go on tilt. I knew that the Donkey money was in play and I would get my share of it if I were patient and did not play their game. It can get really hard however when your A,Q looses to 2,5 soooooted after you have raised preflop and they call when an A hits the flop and it comes runing 3,4. Good stuff.

It worked. I played a pretty long session and quit at about 1:30am up $1,221. That was a small win relative to some of the big wins people booked in the game, but I was happy with it somewhat. I would have liked to win more. If I would have had some cards to play I would have won more. But I stayed out of pots with all but the strongest of hands when there were more than 4 people in a pot, or I was in early position. I do have to relate one hand just because it worked out so beautifully. I had pocket AA in third position. I just limped, I almost never do that, but just wanted to play them a little different for once. Huge risk in this game letting people in, but I thought what the hell. I get raised from middle position, and two callers, then I back draft raise it to three bets. All three people call. The flop comes with an A,7,6, no color. I bet out, I get raised, and the other two players fold, I call. Turn a K, I check, player bets, I just call. River, 9, I check player bets, I now raise, he calls. I win nice pot. Got to love it when you actually get paid all the way down with a big hand. That was the only time I saw AA all night. I did see KK only once and they did get cracked. It happens. I will take the small wins as long as they keep coming.

On a side note I just booked my trip to Vegas for the Bellagio tournament for the weekend of the 13, 14, and 15th. There are three no-limit tournaments that have buy-ins from $1,500 on Thursday to $2,500 on Saturday. I might play in all three, but two for sure. The cash games are always fun and I am looking forward to a poker packed three days. Talk to you soon..SJ