Weatherford (August 20)

My favorite poker game to play in was this past weekend and I got to bring my buddy Danny out with me for his second time.  He did better than I, winning $140 for the evening’s effort, and it was because of a loaned $100 from Danny that I was able to turn a profit.

I had planned on taking $200 with me but ended up having an extra hundred in my wallet when I went to the game.  Even with three $100 buy-ins I could not do anything productive and was sitting on the couch watching preseason football after a couple of hours.

My first buy-in was spent little by little until I made an all-in stab at a pot with second highest pair on the river only to be slow-rolled by a new player holding a straight.  I had a momentary burst of anger that was directed toward the kid when he claimed he didn’t have “a” nine to give him a straight but then flipped over a pair of nines.

I regretted my outburst later, not because he didn’t deserve it, which he did, but because he truly had no clue that the sort of thing he did was frowned upon.  He barely had a clue as to what hands beat what and his $300 was spent rather quickly to learn the game of Texas Hold’em.  While I never directly apologized to the young man, I was joking about it shortly afterward and during the brief time he spent with us I was very nice toward him about when it was his turn and what his options were.

My second $100 was nearly all spent on pocket aces after a flop of Q-8-6 with two clubs.  I raised it pre-flop to $8 and got two callers.  Jared bet $15 after the flop, I raised it another $30, and Jared re-raised me to what would be all-in.  I didn’t think I was up against a set, so that left a crazy two pair that Jared is capable of playing out of boredom or a flush draw.  One of my aces was a club, so that took out the possibility of Jared holding A-X of clubs.  I should have let the pair go but figured even if I was beat by 8-6 then I could get lucky and hit either an ace, queen, or second pair with whatever card came on the turn, as long as it didn’t make Jared’s hand better.

After calling I found out I was up against two pair, but it was against a Q-8.  The turn was a club giving me many more outs, but none of them came and I was re-buying again.

My final buy-in went like the first one with a little here and a little there being divided up among many pre-flop and flop bets that never resulted in improvement.  I finally gave it all away when I held pocket sixes and a flop of 5-4-4 was the opportunity I was looking for to steal a pot from the guy who had raised it pre-flop.  Unfortunately he was not holding two overcards, but instead had pocket kings.  I lost that hand and was sent to the couch of shame waiting on Danny to finish up.

About 15 minutes later Danny saw me sitting on the couch and offered to lend me another $100.  I jumped at the opportunity hoping to win some of my money back.  I would have been happy recovering half of the $300 I had lost.

Not only was I able to recoup my original three buy-ins, but I ended up profiting $15.  I started with my fourth buy-in by losing about $30 of it the same way I had lost most of my money, which was seeing flops go nowhere and chipping away at it $2, $5, and $8 at a time.  I finally started winning some pots and never looked back.

There was no individual hand that won me a ton of money.  Instead, it really was winning a medium-sized pot one at a time until I eventually had $400 in front of me.

The final hand I won was a bluff against the host, Jason.  The flop came A-K-K and everyone checked it.  The turn was a three and again people checked it.  I was in late position and decided to see if I could win with a bet.  I put in about half the pot and was called by Jason only.  The river was an eight, giving a board of A-K-K-3-8.  I held 10-9.  I was first to act and knew I could only win with a bet.  I led out with a $20 bet and Jason contemplated for at least a minute.  He finally showed the eight in his hand and folded.  I asked if he wanted to see and after he confirmed that he did want to know what I held I showed the bluff.

I cashed out two hands later with $415, giving me a $15 profit on the night.  My hourly rate was $3 as we were there for five hours.

For 2011 I have won $595 and played for nearly 40 hours.  My hourly rate is $14.97.