Hella Hold'em

Well, I did it... I dropped the hammer for the first time at Trump last night.

It was a slightly tilty hammer. The backdrop: I lose a big hand with Pocket Aces to a guy who called me down for a runner-runner flush. The very next hand, I look down to see The Hammer: 7 of clubs, 2 of diamonds. I'm all over it. I say, "Let's try this again," and raise it up under the gun for the second hand in a row (the previous hand being the cracked aces). I get 4 callers. The flop comes K-7-x rainbow. I bet - 3 callers. The turn brings a second heart. I bet. Two callers. The river brings the third heart, and I actually almost surrendered and checked - I started to move my hand to the felt, pinky down (that's how I've been checking lately), and then thought, screw it. I went back to my chipstack before tapping the table and grabbed 6 chips to bet.

Both of my opponents folded!

I showed the hammer, particularly to the 4 college guys that were sitting to my right.

Ya see, there were these 5 guys at my table who had all come together. I had been on a waiting list, and when the 5 guys arrived, we had enough players to open a new $3/6 hold'em table. I thought, "Great..." It would probably be a giant pissing contest between the five of them, making play at the table obnoxious and unfruitful. I'm glad I didn't go by my first impression - the guys ended up being pretty cool, despite their tendency to criticize other players out loud. Had I been in a cranky mood I might have asked when their poker book was coming out - you know the type I'm talking about. They know everything about poker, and $3/6 is SO beneath them, but tonight they just want to get drunk and slum around in the baby game... that type. My Hammer showdown came relatively early in the game, after I'd shown down a couple tight winning hands, so it didn't have the anticipated effect: I thought the Hammer would get me more action, but from those guys - the one guy later admitted to me that the Hammer messed him all up and he didn't know what to think of it. It said I was "tricky" and that he was staying away from me (and he did).

Another memorable hand hit - the very first hand of the table, I had pocket seven's. I flopped a set, and turned quads. It was a shorthanded pot, so I didn't make a fortune on it, but it sure was nice to turn up quads again. They just look cool out on the table.

My small pocket pairs were abundant and useless - aside from the quads, I couldn't hit a set to save my life. You're supposed to hit a set approximately 1 in 7 times, and I had 12 different small pocket pairs. That means I should hit almost immediately next time I have a small pocket pair! LOL. The quads took all of my number karma.

The hand 9-10 was the hand of the night. I can't even tell you how many boards would have been won with 9-10, and MANY times, it did! I can recall 6 different pots that were actually won with 9-10, in addition to the boards that were favorable for 9-10 (most of them straights). I unfortunately only saw 9-10 in my hand once, and the pot was 3-bet preflop before it got to me, so I dropped it.

I had aces one other time last night, and they held up for a small pot. I was up fifty bucks or so after a couple hours, but for the last 2 3/4 hours, I folded folded folded. No cards. I bled back my fifty bucks, plus $20 more to finish down a Jackson on the night. I also had 2 Gatorades, so there goes six bucks.

It was an entertaining evening of poker, though, albeit a bit boring on the tail end. I'll pay twenty bucks for some more practice reading hands and patterns and people. I hope to get back out there Friday afternoon.

That's about it poker-wise for me. I haven't played online in a few weeks, after getting my ass handed to me. Randy's been playing on Full Tilt, though, and it makes me want to play. We'll see. I'm saving my Trump winnings for our October Vegas trip, and don't want to sink any more personal cash into online poker. Not while I'm running so bad online! Do you think the bad streak could be done by now??