Posted by Johnnymac 12:44 PM
Last week, Mrs Johnnymac mentioned that there was a "slight possibility" that she would be taking a business trip to California this week, but that she wasn't too sure. On Sunday in the car on the way to church she said she was leaving for sure on Tuesday morning. I am a bit suspicious that her uncertainty was a ploy to fend off a poker game being planned, but you can't hold Johnnymac down! I was able to get some guys together and we played in the garage last night. It was unfortunate that after about 4 warm nights Mother Nature remembered that it was January and made last night a bit colder, but my space heater (sans one trip of the circuit breaker - my next home project will involve an electrician installing a dedicated 240V circuit in there) made things at least tolerable for us to play.

The game was good. We played 50c/1.00 NL holdem and the limits worked out well. Champ Padilla was the big winner of the evening, yours truly won a decent amount, and Nichol won a bit, too. No one lost a whole lot.

I have two hands to discuss. On the first, Nichol made a small raise UTG and I called from the BB with JQ. The flop came KQQ and I ended up checking and calling the flop and turn (9) and winning a moderate sized pot on the river (T) when I made a one card gutshot straight and didn't bet. Until the very end I was afraid that I was up against a better hand but it turned out that Nichol was bluffing all the way. Rather than write it all over again, I'll quote an email exchange from this morning:

-----Original Message-----
From: Nichol
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 9:49 AM
To: Johnnymac
Subject: RE:


Still wonder if I could have gotten you to fold to my 2-3 suited if I would have bet the river... ;-)


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-----Original Message-----
From: Johnnymac
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 10:31 AM
To: Nichol
Subject: RE:

I'll bite on that -

Since you raised preflop and then came out swinging on the flop, I figured you with AK or AQ against that KQQ board.... AK I have you beat, but AQ and you have me dominated... I figured it was 50/50 and I didn't want you to trap me, so I decided to just check and call all the way to the end if it was relatively cheap to do so since my trips was well disguised and could have been pretty profitable if you did indeed have AK. But when you bet again on the turn I was more concerned you had AQ and I seriously considered throwing my JQ away. Had you bet more than $10 there on the turn, I probably would have folded, but then I made a running gutshot straight on the river and knew I had you beat no matter whether you had AQ or AK... but since I felt bad because it was such a suckout, and since I figured you wouldn't call any bet, I didn't.

Here is the answer to your query - the only way I would have folded the river would have been if you had gone all in or made some other crazy bet to make me think you had a boat (KQ, KK, TT, 99) or backed into a better straight than mine (AJ)...

So he was sort of right - I wasn't too fond of that hand, even the trips, until the very end because my kicker was pretty poor and I probably would have folded had he shown more strength on the river or or even on the turn.

The other hand I want to mention was the one where I flopped a set of deuces and got paid off well when Jerome came back over the top with his top two pair. You all know my feelings already about how a lot of players severely overvalue little pocket pairs, but lately when playing NL and PL I myself will often try to limp (or even call a small raise multiway) into just about any pot from any seat in the hope of flopping a well-disguised set. Last night I was dealt 22, 33, 44, and 55 many times and I only hit my set once, but that one time paid for all of the others and then some. I really like that play, provided that the discipline is there to throw it away immediately if the set (or an otherwise dream drawing flop) weren't to come.

Later on in the night, I folded 44 to a raise and reraise preflop only to see the flop come 46A. Junell and I fished our cards out of the muck and lo and behold he had been dealt 46. It turns out that Morris and Kim each had an Ace (one of them had AK I think), and together created a nice pot - had Junell and I both stayed in it is quite possible that it would have been the largest pot of the night and I would have had a great chance of winning it. Oh well. [UPDATE: maybe that's for the best because the more I think about it, the more I think one of them made a runner runner straight on that hand... whew]

Anyway, that's it for last night. It was a good game with a good group of guys. I am going to try and have the infamous PLO8 game sometime in the next few weeks. If you are on the list be expecting an email from me soon.

3 Comment(s):

Posted by  Dr Fro, at 6:02 PM, January 11, 2006  

how did the trash can fare? no dents?

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Posted by  Johnnymac, at 6:08 PM, January 11, 2006  

Some cinder blocks attacked Padilla's shins but that's all I can remember!

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Posted by  Padilla, at 6:54 PM, January 11, 2006  

Except for the U of Delaware clanging repeated shots off the rim, the trash can fared well.

My shins, well, cuts heal. But then again, who puts cinder blocks right next to a doorway that leads to beer. That's just crazy! Something's bound to get damaged.

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