new ring game

Well a poker buddy of mine introduced me to a new cash game on Sunday nights. It's not a weekly game. It's like every 3 Sundays or so.

So I came down to check it out.

The first game I was in, I lost to a girl who flopped quad jacks. The game was 0.50/1.00 limit. The cap buy-in was $100...pretty standard. Anyway, this girl limped in for a $1 with pocket Jacks. That practically made it impossible for me to put her on a couple jacks. So when the flop came out with two jacks and a Ten, with 8s9s I had an open ended straight. The turn, another spade, brought me more outs that were in reality all dead. She gave me the right odds to call and when I hit my flush, I thought I was good. She value bet her quads and I had paid her off. I definitely put her on a Jack but not quads. Oh well, a hand like that should get paid off. I don't think I played that one bad but I just ran into some bad luck.

As the night progressed, I was down to my last $22 but made a comeback with pocket 5s on a scare board that showed all clubs. I knew if I got called, I was losing. But nobody called.

Next all-in moment came when I called a raise with 4 others in the pot with AJo. I flopped top pair and went all-in with $38 and got no callers. I was on my way back to getting back to even.

Then two hands later, I got priced in with J9o in the small blind and made the call with 6 players. I flopped the absolute nuts(8TQ-rainbow). Being in the small blind along with my tight image, I checked. This guy to my right is quite aggressive with any type of hand, so I got another reason to check. So UTG guy bets out and got two callers, including the guy to my right. Awesome...I'm getting more dead money into the pot. Turn - 3c. No help and no flush draws either. I'm still sitting pretty with my straight. I check. The UTG bets out and chases out the other two bettors and it comes back to me. I examine my stack and wondered if I should go all-in or just call. So I posture a little and count out my stack and also take a look at how much I'd have left to potentially call on the river. I call. A 9 comes out on the river which pretty much was a scare card for my opponent. Now all kinds of hands I could have been check calling would have made it and I knew if I checked, he'd check behind me. So I had to bet first. I didn't have much left but I felt the right amount had to be a little less than an all-in. I bet $25 into about $95 pot. I felt it was about right. I'm giving him almost 5:1 on his money to call. He smiled figuring I had the Jack and called. I showed him my cards and I slow played the nuts the entire time.

That hand catapulted me into the black by about $40 - which coincidentally was for the most part contributed to the dead money with two callers on the flop.

Of course all my profits and stack went to shit about 30 minutes later. I was in late middle position with AJo. It was min-raised and min-re-raised to $4. I called and the small blind raised it up to $6. He wanted to see how strong his hand was. I noticed that everyone who called the min-raise called. Action was back to me. There was already about $40 in the pot with nobody showing any kind of real strength. So my only options were to fold or go all-in. IMO, I considered the dead $40 just waiting for an owner. So I took the rest of my chips and went all in which was around $140 more. Everyone, like I expected, dropped out like flies. Until it got to the host. He sat there trying to figure out what kind of hand I had. He pondered for a good minute thinking he felt lucky and ultimately made the call. He showed A8 and I turned up AJ. Apparently, I made other people fold 99 and JJ due to my tight image. Well, the flop came out Ax8. Well, at that point I wanted to puke but with two jacks gone, I'm drawing to one jack in the deck and of course I didn't get there. But I shrugged it off and said, 'That's poker.' I didn't feel like re-loading for another $100. The host apologized and honestly, I was fine with it. I mean it was a bad call but to get mad about it doesn't do anything but get other people in a bad mood and it doesn't change a damn thing. The last thing I want is to discourage people playing poorly. In a cash game, the good thing is you're never out. You can buy back in with more money and in the long run make it all back. Part of playing poker is making the best decisions and poker all the time. The money will take care of itself in the end. I think I made the right decision in the pot, I could have folded but it was against my intuitions. I would have made my Aces on the flop against the JJ and the 99 and took down the pot anyway. It would have been a coin flip against those pairs and I thought they wouldn't want to gamble the rest of their chips. A couple of those guys already had to re-buy a couple of times already. I didn't think they wanted to tangle with me for all their chips.

So, the thing that I found pretty remarkable was I wasn't as pissed off on the inside as much as I thought I'd be. I'm much better with taking bad beats. I know I with this crew, I'm going to be a long-term winner. Anyway, I think a large part of my attitude was reading the book on being a pro. Bad beats are good for poker. It keeps the poor players keep playing poorly.