We hosted a small home game last night, the first since HDouble’s home game ran afoul of the neighbors and got voluntarily shut down. A few of the usual suspects were rounded up to make donkey calls and ill-timed bluffs against each other on the green felt. We started with a single table tournament with starting stacks of 4000 chips, starting blinds of 25-50, and 30 minute levels. Seats were drawn and cards were in the air. The players:

“Any Two” Lance in the SB.

Mrs. Absinthe in the BB for her second live tournament ever.

StudioGlyphic (that’s me) UTG.

The S.O. UTG+1.

Bill Rini in EP.

Shane in MP1 riding high from his second place finish in an FTP $50 MTT.

Fhwrdh in MP2 and still hatless.

Absinthe in the HJ, directly across from me.

Katkin in the CO.

MySpace George on the button.

The bigger starting stacks and longer levels were intended to give everyone a little more play for their money and give us more room to make good decisions. I think we still had all or most of the starting players with us when we took our first break at the end of level 3. Of course, for whatever reason the action seemed to move faster during level 4, when a starting stack still had an m of 13. Several players got short-stacked, or felt they were getting short-stacked, and one after the other, everyone got knocked out.

Four of us made it to the bubble: Bill, Shane, Mrs. Abinsthe, and myself. At this point, we moved to the small table so that the others could start a cash game at the large table. Shane was leading with a healthy stack that resulted from being a card rack most of the night. He used his big stack to beat on the rest of us, and lost some of his lead when his raises were snapped off or he was pushed out of the pot on the flop, but his downfall came at the hands of Mrs. Absinthe. Tired of the barrage, she called Shane down with pocket fours on a board of KQ7TK (or thereabouts). He had J high. I think she’s had some coaching from the master of the great call. Shane pushed his remaining chips on the next hand and Bill and I both called and checked it down. Bill’s AK beat my KQ and Shane’s rags.

At the break, I suggested racing off the 25’s, but Bill suggested that we’d be finishing soon anyway. Three-handed play lasted about three levels. God. There was some back and forth exchanges of stacks and a couple chopped pots, but things stayed fairly even for most of the three-handed play. The way things were going, it felt like we were on the bubble and only paying two spots. We finally got down to two when I caught a pair in the SB and Bill pushed in from the BB. My pair held up and Bill doubled his buy-in.

Heads-up play against Mrs. Absinthe was notable for the number of big pocket pairs I was dealt. Little by little I wore away at her stack, though the largest pot I won was while bluffing with A high. Mrs. A considered calling me on the river because she suspected I had nothing, but quickly realized she had less than nothing (Q high) and folded on the river. Heads-up play ended the same way three-handed play ended. I caught a pocket pair and called her all-in raise. They held up. Mrs. A took down 30% of the pool for second, and I took half of the pool for first.

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I didn’t participate in the cash game since it was pretty much down to three players by the time we finished up the tournament. I was also pretty tired after playing for over four hours and drinking half a dozen beers. So the only thing I can note here is what I overheard: George busted twice and Shane called all-in on a four-outer and hit it against Fhwrdh’s top set. Oof. Fhwrdh later laid down two pair when the third flush card hit and Katkin bet. Yep, he had it.

So… that was fun. We should do it again.