With the kids at camp this week and Joanna going out for a girls night, I elected to try and win a little money at WinStar. It was ultimately a profitable night of $110, but I spent most of the evening on the defense and trying to break even.
Playing $1-3, the first hand I got involved in was with A-6 where I flopped middle pair with the six. I was against one opponent who I had just seen get called in a bluff and decided to play it out to the end. It turns out he had a straight on the turn and I started $75 in the hole. From that point on I was trying to get back to my starting chip stack. The lowest I ever reached from the initial buy-in of $300 was about $120.
For the first four hours of the night I only got one pocket pair (nines), which ended up winning a small pot. I eventually got aces in the small blind, but nobody called and the big blind and I ended up chopping. I never saw A-K once.
After struggling for four to four-and-a-half hours I finally started making some headway and got to about $340 when I held K-Q suited and put it all in pre-flop against a smaller stack holding tens and got called by another guy with the other pair of tens. I ended up flopping three of a kind and with all the tens accounted for by my opponents I went from $130 to $340.
However, I immediately lost about $100 of that when I held a beautiful hand that didn't hold up at the river. With some newly acquired chips and a little confidence, I elected to make a raise in middle position with 9-8 offsuit to $13. I was called by four players and we went to a flop with $65 in the pot. The flop was 4-6-7 with two hearts. The big blind who was playing with about $90 in front of her bet $20. If I hit my hand I wanted players along for the ride and didn't want to inflate the pot for those on a flush draw, so I elected to not raise. I called, as did two other players. There were four of us going to the turn and $145 in the pot.
The turn was a beautiful black 5, giving me the nut straight and letting people holding a lone eight in second place. The big blind female who bet the flop decided to slow down and checked the turn. I decided to check the turn and see if the river was a non-heart. If so I would bet the river and fight it out with anyone holding a lesser straight. If it was a heart I could likely let the hand go since it would be obvious someone had hit their flush. The two players behind me also checked. Pot was still $145.
The river was the worst heart in the deck. It was the three. This now put a straight on the board with three hearts. The big blind went all in for $69. I was so dejected about my ultra-straight now being second (or third, or even fourth) best I wasn't thinking clearly. In a fit of small rage I said call just to see if she was trying to bluff us off a made hand on the board. I thought maybe she had flopped two pair and was now representing the flush. The player to my immediate left called the all-in, which at that point I knew I wasn't going to be good. The last player folded.
The female big blind did have the king-high flush. The player to my left had the eight for a better straight than what was on the board. Had the river been a brick (or even better a non-heart three), I would have certainly busted the guy to my left since he'd have thought an eight-high straight would be good enough.
That was certainly the most disappointing hand of the night. It was a struggle for most of the evening to get anything going as I continued getting hands like 9-5 offsuit and 7-2.
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