Starving Crazed Weasels League May Edition

We had an excellent turnout this month...13 people. We started with a table of 6 and a table of 7. At my table were Emily, Phillip & Tracy, Kevin & Cassie and myself. They were doing a lot of limping. I limped on some hands, raised twice with pocket pairs (3s and 6s), winning both. Meanwhile, the other table was playing retard poker. With blinds at 5/10 someone raised to 1100 pre-flop. 110 times the blinds. No matter what hand you have that is just stupid. Equally stupid, they got not one caller, not 2, but 3. And they all managed to get all-in on that hand. They not only called, they kept raising. Frankly, they deserved what they got. And on a night bad poker like that was being played of course a 2/7 won the hand, beating the initial raiser's pocket Kings, one caller's pocket Aces, and another hand that was better than 2/7 and worse than the others. I am laughing that the 2/7 won, sad that such horrid poker was being played.

In no time at all we were down to 9 people and collapsed to one table.

Prior to the collapse I was having a good time. It was a fun table. After the collapse...well, here we go.

By now the blinds were 10/20. Still a lot of limping but then as soon as the flop hit the raises were insane. With 60 chip in the pot the STANDARD raise was 500 chips. Huh? If you don't want to play...don't play. Even better, people then started raising it even more...so I was done playing for the night. From then on I was just waiting for a hand to go out on that was respectable so I could go watch Shrek II again (I had watched it earlier that day but when poker is being played this badly...I really prefer not to play. It just isn't fun.)

I had picked up something on Kenneth's betting patterns which I will not reveal here lest it be read by someone who hasn't picked it up. Suffice it to say on my last hand he raised 200 pre-flop (by then the blinds were 50 so it was a reasonable 4 times the blinds). That let me narrow his hand down quite a bit. As I like to do from the small blind position, I blind checked with my A/4 suited. There was an A/Q/rag, the rag being diamonds. He raised it 200 which let me know he either had a set or 2 pair. I re-raised to see what he would do. He merely called. I checked the turn. It was another diamond. He raised enough that if i called I might as well go all in. Now, if I were having fun I would first off not have called his initial raise. I was beat and knew it. Second, with the incorrect pot odds I would not have called the second raise. However, I wanted out of that game, so announcing, "I am gone if I don't get a diamond I called. The river was a Jack of spades and I was out of the stupidity.

It really makes me sad. Early, it was as much fun as I have had playing poker. On top of that, I was getting solid reads (Emily talked about one lay-down I made where I had led the betting until the river where I checked, she raised, got a caller, and I folded saying, 'okay, Em, show us your flush' which, of course, was what she had...a King high heart flush. Much like Kenneth, I had something on her betting pattern) on most people. Kevin and Phillip are the hardest to read. Phillip because he tends to occasionally play maniacally, kevin because he bet quite deceptively. I have Tim and Kenneth figured.

Additionally, it is cool watching people improve. Cassie has gotten better by leaps and bounds. I was especially impressed that she noticed Emily had changed her game up. Tracy can be a real threat. Kevin is changing his game up. For the most part, the group is improving their play.

On the dark side, the whole point of having deep chip stacks and slow blind raises was so everyone could play for a while, not feel like they made the trip for 10 minutes. I guess I will have to stop that. Next time we play I think the chip values will change to 25, 100, 500, and 1000 and the start will only be 3000 chips with blinds of 25 and 50. No point to setting up for long play if people are just going to make ridiculous raises. That makes me sad but I guess sometimes having a good game just isn't possible.

The worst part is...the horrendous poker being played makes it extremely easy to beat. To win it, just wait for a premium hand, let others bet it for you, take their chips. The problem is...that is boring. So here is hoping next month the revised blind structure makes it more fun.