WinStar (Unknown Dates)

There are two entries of poker I have failed to update on as one made me mad and the other I was too busy at work to post.

The first trip to WinStar was a three-hour-and-forty-five-minute event that ended with a $180 loss when my pocket kings battled pocket aces.  Nothing ever came higher than a jack and we got all our money in the middle by the turn.  I was busted and left angry.

That trip netted me a negative $48 hourly rate and put me at $415 in the black for 2011.

My second trip was much more thrilling and lucrative, which normally go hand-in-hand.  I started with $160 and left with $815, resulting in a $655 profit for the day.

As 2011 was called the Year of the Napoli for the Texas Rangers, this game of poker was the Day of the Profitable Pocket Pair for me.  My first big pot won was with pocket nines.  It was a very poor call on my part, but it ended up resulting in a lucky catch on the flop.

I called for $2 with my middle pocket pair hoping to see a cheap flop.  The guy on my left raised it to $8.  I am obviously calling this bet.  An older player calls the $8 and the guy on his left goes all-in for $36 total.  It folds around to me and I have a decision to make.  As long as it is only going to cost me another $34, as I already have $2 out in the pot, I was willing to see a flop with two or three players and pray for a miracle.  The all-in re-raise is half the time a move of desperation from a guy holding A-X suited or even a low pocket pair.

After several agonizing moments of contemplation, I decided to go for it.  In hindsight this was stupid.  I usually never would make that call, but something about the situation felt like a gambling moment.  I had come to make a lot of money that day and I knew I would have to make some questionable calls to see this plan come to fruition.  However, this wasn’t a questionable call, it was a just plain dumb one.  But wait, there’s another dumb call coming.

The guy on my left called the raise and there were now three of us with $36 in the pot.  The older player who called the initial raise prior to the all-in bet moved all-in himself for an additional $45.  With the fourth player already all-in, action moved to me.  I again suffered over what to do with my mediocre hand, which is obviously beat at this point, and ultimately decided to take another chance with a call.  I had the $45 covered and wouldn’t go broke with the call.  I had chased bad money with bad money.  This is not a winning strategy.

The player on my left, who started all of this with an $8 raise, opted to sit out and watch.

In addition to my earlier call of $36 with pocket nines being a bad play, this too was a bad play because I couldn’t have the best hand and even if I did by some miracle at this moment have the best hand I would most likely have to avoid, at best, three overcards.  When it was my turn to make the $45 call from the second all-in player, the pot had $192 in it.  I was getting a slight bit more than 4-1 odds to call the bet and see it play out, however, the guy after me had more money than me, so had he gone all-in after I made my call I would have been in for more money that I didn’t want to put in the middle.  But by that point it would have been far too late to cut bait and I would have just had to put the rest of my money in the middle and pray for a miracle.

With my call and the initial raiser’s fold, the pot had $237 in it.  We were done with any betting and I flipped up my nines at the end of the hand, good enough for a set when a nine came on the flop.  I beat kings, which was what the older player had when he smooth called the $8 raise and then moved all-in after an all-in re-raise and two calls.  The first all-in didn’t show his hand.

Had the guy with kings played his hand more aggressively, which I am a fan of, he would have easily won the hand.  Calling a re-raise from him would be way different from calling an all-in re-raise.  The man with kings would have re-raised, the first all-in would have either taken his stand anyway or waited for another opportunity and that would have resulted in me folding my pocket pair.  Since the guy decided to be deceptive he ended up losing to a player who made two bad calls.

I built my stack up after that with winning some medium-sized pots that don’t necessarily need to be dissected.  Once I had amassed about $350 I came across this gem of a hand.

I held pocket kings and it was straddled for $4 total pre-flop.  I was first to act and decided not to mess around.  I made it $16 to go.  I was called by three players and we saw a flop with $64 in the pot.

The flop was K-8-7 with two spades.  After a check from the big blind and straddler, I bet $30.  I figured this was a perfect opportunity to disguise the strength of my hand and if a player was going to draw for the flush he would at least have to pay something for it.  The player after me, who was the older gentleman who misplayed his kings earlier and lost to my nines, raised it.  I was ecstatic at the way things were unfolding.  I would simply call his raise and let it play out.  He made it $95 to go.

After thinking for probably 45 seconds, the big blind moved all of his chips into the middle without saying anything.  The straddler folded and I didn’t wait more than 10 seconds before declaring all-in, not even needing a count from the big blind.  I had the big blind covered by about $80 and the older gentleman was the short stack amongst the three of us.

He eventually called, which scared me a lot as now I had to avoid more cards.  The turn was a red six and the river was the 10 of clubs, creating a board of K-8-7-6-10 and although the flush was off the table, now a player needed only a nine to beat me.  Nobody had that nine and I had about $800 in my stack.

The final hand worthy of noting was another pocket pair hand.  I held jacks and saw two jacks on the board of community cards, one on the flop and one on the turn.  I had raised pre-flop with one guy calling.  I bet the flop, again to disguise the strength of my hand.  Was called.  We both checked the turn, which holding four-of-a-kind is the correct play to do at that point.  The river completed an ace-high straight.  I bet $25 and was raised the minimum.  I came back over the top for another $75 and was reluctantly called.  I showed my quads and he let an obscenity fly, although not at me but instead the situation.  He held the straight that hit at the end.  By checking the turn I allowed him to catch what he thought was the best hand.

For another 15 minutes I played a lot of hands I wouldn’t normally, but holding more than $800 results in making a lot of questionable calls pre-flop.  I walked away after four-and-a-half hours of play up $655, resulting in a $145.56 hourly rate.

Two quick notes about some folds I made.

After flopping bottom two pair and betting it, I folded after betting again to a high raise on the turn from the older gentleman who continued to lose to me as I felt my hand was either not good anymore or the call was so much I would have to avoid many scare cards to feel good about it on the river.  This hand took place prior to my set of kings that busted two players and put me up in the $700s.

My other fold was with A-K.  I raised pre-flop and received a few calls.  The flop came A-6-4.  I was first to act and made a continuation bet with top pair-top kicker.  It folded around to the button, who raised me $50, which was a normal-sized raise considering the action that had come before.  I opted not to continue playing because who knew how much more money it would cost me to keep playing and being out of position I didn’t want to have to check-call all the way down with a single pair, no matter how big it was.

For the year I have won $1,070 and played for 48 hours total.  This equates to an hourly rate of $22.29.

I hope to play two or three more times before the end of the year and get my total profits up to more than $1,500 and maybe even more than $2,000.  However, the $5,000 goal I set at the end of the year definitely isn’t going to happen.