Home Game

For anyone patiently waiting for the ups and downs from my PLO8 tourney run last week, well there's really not much to look at.  It's basically a story of me getting real short, real quick (down to 150 chips after 3 hands), then doubling/tripling up a bunch of times thereafter with some blind leakage mixed in.  Most of the play was jam or fold, as I was most often (as usual) one of the shorties.  If there was any strategy, it was simply in trying to see cheap flops with drawing potential hands.  In other words, standard. 

 

There were a couple of massive suckouts late, including a two-outer which was nice to be on the winning side thereof.  For a change. 

 

I read through the hand history and was compiling a massive history of the event, but it was so damned boring, my head hurt.  So it'll sit in the Blogger "draft post" file for eternity.  So be it. 

 

Had the home game down the street Saturday night.  Expecting 11 so we set up two tables...the n00b no-showed so we had 10.  Instead of collapsing to one table, we somehow settled on playing two.  Well that's OK, save for the table draw, which placed three of the four quality players in the bunch at *my* table, along with one of the loose ones...who seemed to tighten up considerably Saturday night.  So while the chips are flying around the other table, there's a lot of fold-fold-raise-fold-fold going on here. 

 

Not that I couldn't take advantage of that.  I did - and I even ran a couple of *sick* bluffs on the player to my right, winning a couple sizeable pots that I had no business being in.  That's just exploiting tendencies and position...nothing more. 

 

No, the problem that this multi-table format generated was this: I hit four sets in the first 2.5-3 hours of play.  Four.  But all of them were at this table before we merged (with 8 left) and all of them came on draw-heavy boards.  In all of them, I bet something like 2/3 or 3/4 pot to try and define things, and in all of them, I got no action.  All-in-all, this table played very very tight at a time where I could've amassed lots-o-chips at the typically looser table. 

 

I got it up to 10-11k chips right around the table merge.  Here's a question for those with more MTT/Home Game experiences.  When we merged, I had just been the button.  The play came over to *our* table.  What we did was have all 8 players redraw for seats, the Ace got the button and the blinds fell from there.  My argument was that the order of players on *our* table shouldn't shift - but rather we should shuffle in the people from the second table so that nobody got double-whacked with the blinds, etc.  What's the right approach here?

 

Well I got effed on the draw.  First off, I drew the big blind when things were starting to get tight - it was 300/600 and I had about 9-10k in chips left.  Not AIOF yet, but we're getting there.  Second and more importantly, I got the worst possible seat.  The big stack - loose and crazy - was to my immediate left.  The TAG who was short-ish stacked but not crippled was to my immediate right.  The fish were across the table.  Cripes. 

 

Same story as always from here.  I fold A6 from MP, watch the big stack play A2s aggressively and take a big pot.  I fold a couple hands that would've rivered the nuts.  Correct decisions...poor outcomes.  Standard.  And I basically go card dead. 

 

Here's one interesting hand - seven handed, I believe.  I'm UTG with 44.  Limp in and see a flop of Q53 rainbow.  It checks around.  The turn is a deuce and I bet out after one limper.  Fish at the other end of the table goes all-in for about 3x my bet.  It gets called by the TAG to my right.   There's no way I can be good here, though I may have the best and only draw, but I throw it away.  Fish flips over QT for top pair, TAG tables 52 for the BB special.  The river would've spiked the straight for me, but alas I watch the chips go to my right and now I'm surrounded by big stacks.  Story of my life. 

 

Soon thereafter I'm in the cutoff w/ A3.  Blinds are 400/800 at this point and I have appx 7k chips left.  I insta-shove - hoping to scare people away with nothing more than the speed of my action, and preparing to rely on my Ace to get me out of trouble.  Well it's called by big stack LAG to my left and then called by player to his left too.  This is just SOOOOO typical - I pick a spot and get steamrolled.  LAG has A9o and other guy has TT so I've managed to shove with the third best hand.  WP.  Flop an A but the turn is a 9 and IGH in 5th for a completely mediocre finish. 

 

After that I watched the LAG chip dump to the TAG when the TAG rivered a flush, shoved, and got called by the LAG with, um well, I'm still waiting for him to show up with a hand.  It just blows my mind. 

 

Really, though...whatever.  It's $11 for these events.  I can burn through that in 1.5 hours online, with a higher success rate.  These are fun, laugh-filled events foremost.  I need to keep this in perspective. 

 

At least we got the Turning Stone wheels in motion ... finally. 

 

Finally the weekend was capped off with a $10 SNG last night.  Chipped up a bit early, bled a little off to a guy who was playing very curiously at best - trying to reraise me every chance he had.  I had something like 99 on a 10-high board, but he check-raised me all-in and I had to release it.  The very next hand, I have 1200 chips w/ 80/160 blinds (5 or 6 handed), so I'm open shoving w/ AQo 100% of the time here.  He calls with AJo.  The river is a fishhook.  Nice to know I can still get sucked out on with the best of them after a fairly decent online week last week.