On a Roll

I am on a roll right now. Not running hot, but playing really well, I am in the zone right now. I am betting while in the lead, checking when behind, and laying down when beat. I am getting the most out of my pots, and not putting in dead money or extra bets when unnecessary, and getting most of the extra bets when I see they are available. I could still use a little work on value betting the river, but I am not going to quibble with results right now. As usual I went down to the Muck on Tuesday night. But unusual was that there was a $50/$100 game going on. Unfortunately I did not get down there until after work and the game was full with no one moving out of the game. There were two people in the game that had been there since 2:00am the previous day when the game started. I took my seat in the $20/$40 game looking longingly at the game next to me waiting for my shot. I ended up playing a few hours in the $20 game and then I finally got a seat, I left the $20 game up $600. I should have been a little more careful for what I asked for, this game was tough.

The game was started by Chris, who I mentioned a few posts ago as a high limit player in California, and a damn good guy and damn good poker player to boot. Pete had come back from the commerce to Seattle, and Barry who has also been out of town was in the game as well. There were almost no soft spots in this game. This whole game was built around one guy who was gambling like a fish and had a nice chunck of change to lose. I sat down and focused on playing my game. I went no where for hours, basically up and down within a $1,000 of even all night. Then down about -$1,200 I made my move to the plus side and never looked back. I looked down and had pocket 55's in the SB, there was a raise in second position, and by the time it had got back to me there were already 5 callers. I announced to the table that this is my get even pot and if I hit I will let you know. The Flop came 5,Q,6, no suits. I check, BB checks original raiser bet, two callers, I raise, BB calls all others call. I announced that I hit it, but no one believes you anyway, and I did not announce what I hit. Turn a J which also puts two suits on the board. I bet out, and still get called by two players. River a big fat ol' 5, GIN. I did not need the card but it sure was nice to lock out the deck with that card as there were a few draws and I am sure either KK's or AA's out there. I gave the old hesitation move like that card might have hurt me and then bet out anyway and got called by the original raiser. I showed my QUADS and took the nice big $2,000 pot. I never looked back from that point, but I never got much above $1,500 until late in the night when.......

It got short handed, which will tend to happen in a bigger game as the weaker players eventually go broke. At $50/100 if you play poorly you will pay dearly. You can and will lose thousands of dollars in a short period of time if you are playing loose and in every pot. The good players will extract all those extra bets out of you and you will never get a free card when you want one. In the lower games you can just go back in to your pocket to get more money. It's not that bad to buy in 40 or 50 BB if you lose that much at $4/8 or even $10/20 that only $1,000, but at this game that is $5,000. Not that many people travel around with $5,000 in their pockets in Seattle. Hell even I only brought $5,000 as that is plenty for a $30/60 game, if I had known we had a $50 game going I would have brought $10,000 just to feel safe. There were people in the game for up to $12,000 just for perspective. So back to the short game, which if you read this blog you know I love, and I consider myself a favorite over almost any player in Seattle. The good players started breaking the weaker ones as the game got short. We went from seven to six all the way down to just three of us left at around 1:00am. Some just left as they got even or up a little and others went flat broke. I busted the guy who the game was built around at about 12:00am and then some of the other good players left as they did not really want to play with Barry, Chris and myself. I played with those two for another hour or so and did fine. More for fun than for money, as both of those guys are good players and really none of us had an edge. It was going to be a game of who could get luckier than who was better. I was the lucky one and ended up getting another $1,000 during that hour.

All in all the roll continues. I most likely will not play again in September and I did not book one losing session during the month. I have not done that in a while, maybe two years. Feels good and my bankroll thanks me. I ended up the night a positive $3,141 6.28 BB per hour. Not bad. Good luck and talk to you soon...SJ