Hella Hold'em

Here's a new one. I'm sitting at the tire place, blogging on my Blackberry. Sweet! Getting a nail in Randy's tire fixed. Thank goodness they can fix it - the car isn't even a month old!

Randy and I headed up to Trump on Saturday night for some $6/12 action. Randy can't seem to catch a break at Trump...

I was doing alright. We arrived at 9pm or so and, since we had called ahead, were seated within a few minutes, at separate tables. I recognized one regular at my table from last Wednesday. A rock. For 3 hours or so, I held my own. Pocket kings held up once, and I dragged a couple other small pots. I was up $60 or so.

Then, the beats started hitting. KK in the pocket got rivered by A2 offsuit (called down all the way for the river ace). My AQ clubs hit 2 pair in a $10/20 kill pot only to get rivered by 9-4 when the board paired fours. I got bluffed out of a ig pot on the river with pocket 10's when the board came 4 clubs (of which I had none). My 2 opponents started raising like mad when that 4th club hit, and I folded. Then, they both showed down ACE HIGH with NO clubs! My pair was good. I don't usually comment on people's plays at the table, but seeing that showdown, my eyes bugged out of my head as I said, "WOW..." In disbelief. A couple of the better players at the table had a laugh over it - which is easy to do when it's not YOUR $60 that just got shipped over to Captain Idiot (who was already in for 4 $100 rebuys that hour).

Yeah. That sucked.

Shortly thereafter, the table went shorthanded and was broken up. I was down $80 or so, so when the other $6/12 table was full, I opted to go to $3/6. Good thing. I managed to eradicate my bad beat losses at the 3/6.

I wasn't feeling good early on though. In one of my first hands, the dealer exposed my 2nd hole card, a 10. As + waited for my new 2nd card, he says, "I hope the other one wasn't a ten!" Yeah,well... It was. No pocket ten's for me - instead, a 10-6, which I folded. +pI'd have flopped a set and rivered a boat on a hand where one guy in made his straight. That would have been a monster pot. It was not to be...

I tried hard not to get discouraged (all that Zen and in-the-moment stuff), and sure enough, my luck turned. I made big pots on JJ and QQ when both times my opponents tried to bully the new girl at the table. Their betting patterns made no sense though, and my gut said my pairs were good. I went out on a limb and trusted my gut and was paid off nicely. (One guy tried to push me out with 8 high, and the other had a low pair of 8's). I made a flush with A9c in the big blind and picked up a couple extra bets when the board made a straight.

Those few pots were healthy, and 2 orbits at $3/6 made up for my earlier losses. I decided to cash out and call Randy (who was down at the video poker machines). He works early on Sundays, so we left around 1am.

End result: I was up +$10. Woohoo! Hey, profit is profit, right? Randy also made back his losses on the video poker machines and went home even. A decent night overall.

I'm a bit torn though. I think I want to stick to the 3/6 game for a bit. It's not that I don't think the 6/12 game is beatable - quite the contrary. I just seem to be having better luck at 3/6. Yes, that's just dumb luck. But maybe I should ride it while it's hot.

Anyway... I'm trying to pick a day that I can make my regular Trump day. Right now it looks like it will be Mon or Tues nights (though the weekends are just ripe for the pickin'). I'm looking forward to my next trip...