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.

Continue reading Return of the Home Game →

Double buy-in last night and probably every week hereafter. 10BB wasn’t really working out with our spread limit game.

JC +$2.35
ER +$3.35
CR -$5.35
PC -$2.75
JB +$4.10
EM -$1.70

Yeah. I lost set over set to JC (55 vs. JJ) early on and that accounts for most of that negative number there. Also lost a small bet with top pair vs. set before I folded the turn.

I tried to recruit ER for Party Poker, but CR quashed that idea immediately. Something about her losing his money. Heh.

Oy. Me and ER busted out early.

JC +$1.95
ER -$5.00
CR -$0.35
PC -$5.00
JB +$4.25
EM +$2.65
MT +$1.50

I didn’t feel up to buying in again and fighting my way back. I think it had something to do with the six beers I consumed. But I did hop online and more than doubled up at a NL table, thanks to Casino Gosain. Also got Hiltons twice and won both times, so that was nice.

The most damaging hand was flopping a set with MT flopping a bigger set. There was a four-flush on the board and I kept betting, but MT made the right call every time. Once the board paired, I had no chance of betting him out of the pot.

This happened again later when JB decided to call with his flush draw against my straight draw. We both paired up on the turn and he called me down to the showdown.

Most of the other hands were wholly unmemorable.

First weekly game of 2005, and notable for the fact that CR, ER, and EM had to rebuy. Wow. I can’t remember the last time, if ever, that ER has had to rebuy.

JC +$1.35
ER -$7.30
CR -$5.80
PC +$10.75
JB +$0.85
EM +$0.15

Ladies and gentlemen, I ran amok. Mostly due to some good cards combined with some good flops. However, I was able to extract relatively large sums from JC when I flopped trip aces and CR when I flopped a boat, threes full of Jacks with pocket threes. Both hands were marked by check-raises on the double value turn and payoffs on the river. After beating CR’s trips with my boat, CR threw his JX across the room. I don’t think we’ve ever seen that before.

Considering the fact that EM had to rebuy in the first hour or so, her comeback into positive territory was pretty damn good. On one hand she made quad sevens on the river after making a set on the turn. I was away from the table, so I can’t really say what the action was on the flop, but I think JC made a barely more than minimum bet on a flop that featured two Broadway cards and two to a flush. I guess EM put JC on a draw or something.

JB had the honor of showing down and winning with the hammer after 3-betting preflop. Woah. CR’s ace high couldn’t stand up to JB’s paired 7 on the turn. Or was it the 2? Either way, it was a nice play.

This was also the first weekly game where 4 of the 5 smokers did not smoke. Something to do with New Year’s resolutions, I think. I continued to suck away at my cancer sticks, but I’m going to join them in giving up the smokes. For the record, I am not quitting. I’m just not smoking until all four of them fall off the wagon. Considering they all have a 6 day head start on me, I guess technically I am not smoking until a week or so after the last of them gives in and lights up. Oh, that reminds me… I forgot to suggest betting on who was going to go out first and who was going to last longest. Next week.

Not sure how this came about, but we decided to play poker into the New Year.

JC +$4.60
ER +$0.75
CR -$1.35
PC -$1.70
JB -$9.30
EM +$7.00

I don’t really remember what time we started, but this session lasted quite a bit longer than our normal sessions. We also doubled the buy-in (to a whopping $10) in honor of the occasion.

The biggest pot of the night involved a KJT flop. I had KQ, so I had top pair/open-ended straight draw. ER checks, I bet, JB calls, JC raises, ER calls, I call, and JB calls. Turn is a rag, it’s checked to JC who bets, and we all call. River is a K, it’s checked to JB who bets, JC raises, and ER folds.

When JC raised the flop I put him on two pair. Not sure which two pair, but two pair. So there was a good chance that he’d made a boat on the river, but I decided to call with my trips because the pot was large and there was the slimmest chance that JC could have been betting with JT. JB folded immediately. My trips lost to JC’s boat (kings full of tens). It turns out ER had QX and also had the open-ended straight draw, which explains all the calls. Not sure what JB had, but I suspect Q9 for the flopped straight, slowplayed until he was outdrawn. All in all, I think there was $7 in that pot, $2 of which was my contribution to the JC poker fund.

The largest pot I won was when I caught the anti-christ. No slow-playing this one. There had been a pre-flop raise and some callers, indicating some Broadways out in the field. With possible flush and straight draws on the flop (KJ6), I had to get my chips in while I still had the best of it. The turn was a worrying A, but I bet anyway. I slowed down on the river when a 10 hit and ER bet into me–any Q would have made the straight, and AQ was a distinct possibility. But she just had AJ for two pair and MHIG. Thank you, Dark Lord.

Other than the Anti-Christ, I don’t think any of my pocket pairs made trips. Nor did I get any pairs larger than nines. Never got slick. Rarely got suited aces. Yeah, I was kinda card dead. Thankfully I was able to get some decent flops/draws with the cards I did get, and I guess that’s better than getting the tier 1 starting hands and being outdrawn/flopped.

EM had a very good session despite an early loss when I spiked a better boat on the river. However, it could have been better. For whatever reason, EM seems to have a problem with betting her hands for value. Had she maximized her winnings with her good hands, she probably would have doubled tonight.

JB had a very bad session. The poor guy got the hammer 7 times! He managed to bluff with it successfully on at least two occasions, but was never granted a good hammer flop.

All in all I had a good time, and with the exception of going to a casino to play poker, there’s probably nothing else I could have done that would have been as nice a way to enter the new year.