Hella Hold'em

Yes, Virginia, there is poker on this blog!

I played a little of the poker stuff last night, as my friend Scott hosted a mini Diamond game. As I've said before, cash has been a little tight 'round these parts, so my mortgage was rooting loudly for me.

I was feeling good last night. Normally, when it comes to no-limit holdem, I'm a tournament kind of girl, but I haven't played a whole lot of poker lately. Instead, I've watched a whole lot of High Stakes Poker on TV. That had me in the mood to play a cash game last night. The tournament alternative was likely going to be a rebuy game, and of all tournaments, I like those the least. So I threw my hat in the ring along with my vote for a cash game.

A cash game it was. $1/2 blinds. The five of us (Scott, Ed, Jim, Randy and myself) bought in for $100 in Monopoly money each. We played for a while - nothing really notable, no big hands, but after a bit I looked at my stack, and I'd nearly doubled up. Funny, I don't remember doing it. Here's what I do remember:

OK, I just spent like 10 minutes trying to write out the hand I was in with Randy, and I just can't remember all of the details. I had JJ and flopped a set on a K high flop. I think I bet out the flop and he called, then I checked-raised the turn. I was a tiny bit afraid he had KK as we went into the turn, but thought by his reaction to my check raise that my set was good. I underbet the river such that he had 8:1 odds to call me, and... he did. He had QQ. That was probably my biggest pot of the night, though I vaguely remember taking a decent sized pot off of Jim as well with AK and top pair, Aces.

There were a LOT of offsuit aces that I folded preflop that would have hit 2 pair on the flop. Had I loosened up a bit more, I probably could have snagged a few more pots. That happened probably 4 or 5 times. Ahh, the hands that could have been.

I slightly more than doubled up my Monopoly moolah, and January will end in the black.

In other news, rumor has it that the Empress poker room may be open as early as this week. C'mon, W2, where are you???!!