Posted by Dr Fro 5:02 PM
I played on Tuesday night with a new crowd of guys. The host is a neighbor of a coworker that I met. When he said the buy-in was $200, he got my attention. They play dealers choice, but only 4 games are called: HE, O/8, 7-stud, and 7-stud Hi-Lo. Mainly HE and O/8. The stakes in HE and O/8 are interesting: $1-$2 blinds with a spread limit of $2-$5 on all streets. Without increasing stakes on later streets, there is less incentive to draw. I tried to adjust my strategy to bet as much as possible on made hands and throw away all draws except where cards were free or maybe from the SB.

The gang was interesting…a bit eclectic in backgrounds and age. The majority were professional types – I banker, programmer, CPA (me), consultant, etc. One guy may have been an outlier here. All nice. More importantly was their skill, of course. Nobody was a sucker; nobody bet up a straight with 3 suited cards on the board, etc. Then again, nobody was particular clever in their game. All around, it was a pretty straightforward group that played slightly looser than normal, but bet good hands and tossed bad hands. This made reading hands pretty easy.

I hit some great hands early and quickly was up $130. I think I (incorrectly) got labeled as lucky because I rivered some big hands. What was not analyzed in these situations was:
- Yes, I once hit a flush on the river, but I had a draw to the flush and the straight
- Yes, I once hit a gut shot, but I had top pair, which was ahead anyway.
- yes, I once made trip 4’s on the river, but I got 2 free cards to get it.

So all of the situations put money in my pocket AND make me advertise that I am a bit loony. Perfect.

Unfortunately, that perfect situation deteriorated when I went over an hour without winning a hand. Over 2 hours, I only won a couple hands. In the final hour of play, I finally got some hands and ended up +$17 ($27 minus $10 for pizza). Not impressive, but my luck was pretty shitty and I didn’t lose. That makes me very optimistic for the next time when I get even average luck or possible good luck on the cards. I think I like this game.

Next week they are stepping it up. They are dumping the$5 max bet rule they have had for years, and playing NL Holdem only. Blinds increase (I don’t know why…perhaps because people can’t separate WSOP from a ring game of NL) from $1-$2 to $3-$6. That could be quite the opportunity to recover the cost of my OU tickets.

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