Mixers, 6/21

Ah, yes...the first day of summer and time for some hot poker playing. Before it started Roman and I were goofing around with a little bit of strategy and a light clicked on for me. Duh...I have been limping in a lot for weeks because lots of other people are. But that plays straight into their hands as it is "their game" so they are comfortable with it. Linda always cracks me up because whenever SHE has a big hand pre-flop she raises but if other people are raising then she complains, "Can't we just have a friendly pot?" Well, since she is one of the bigger threats then making her play my game is to my advantage and playing her game works to hers. So it was back to planning to raise or fold pre-flop.

Roman & Juan beat me to it, raising the first few hands. Roman was hot, twice cashing big on pocket rockets. The second one was costly for me. I had suited connectors and flopped an open ended straight draw with a flush draw. Neither hit and I ended paying over 1000 chips to see it...but there were 3 other people in the pot (Roman, Juan, and a guy I had never seen before) so I was getting better than 3-1 on my money and was better than 3-1 to hit it so I would do it again.

Next I picked up A/J and raised. 2 callers. Flop was a queen and 2 rags, I raised again, only Tor called. Here is where knowing your competition matters. Tor likes to see the river so he will almost always call to the river. He is also unbelievably predictable. I have something on him and know when he hits his hand. I also know he overvalues hands with a face card. I knew I had him beat. I also knew I could drive him out by changing my raise from 200 to 600. I decided to string him along. I raised on the turn, he called. Neither of us had so much as a pair at that point. The river was a 4 and he did his eye flick. Som of a mother, he donked out on me with a 4. Sure enough, his hand was a King/4. He called 600 chips off with a King high. Oh, well. On the one hand, my fault for raising with essentially nothing, especially against someone I know will donk to the river and who I know I could have driven off the hand with a large raise. On the other hand, I believed my read and it was dead on. I raised when I was ahead and checked when he hit his little card.

Ironically, he was in the small blind the next hand, people limped to him and he folded. He called a raise to 4 times the blind with K/4 off and then folds to no raise? Hahahahahahahahaha good one. Grr.

So now I needed to get some chips back. I won one hand with a straight, won another where I did not have to show, then went card dead for a while.

Blinds raised to 200 and I only had 1200 left. I started looking for a chance to get it all in so I could either double up and have chips to play with or get rolling towards home as I still had 3 miles to run. Unfortunately, before I could I got blinded to 825 chips. Then I weakly limped in with a/3. nobody raised. Flop came A/middle card/3. I had 2 pair. I went all in. Roman was priced in and called. Everyone else folded. He flipped up an A/6...cool, I was ahead, he was drawing to 3 outs, about 12%. "No 6, no 10" I said. First card was a blank. Last card was a 10. I was screwed. As I mucked my cards a guy from the OTHER table leaned over and said "6 plays!" Really? Is that why I mucked my worthless 2 pair? I think Roman felt a little bad about sucking out on me but he shouldn't for several reasons;
1) I limped with a weak hand. One reason you should not play from early position with A/rag is there is an excellent chance someone behind you will have a better Ace.
2) He was priced in when he called.
3) He put out (ego alert) a very dangerous player instead of more than doubling them up.
4) That is why you play some hands where you are beat...because x amount of the time you beat them.

So I was out fairly early. Overall, looking back there is not a lot I would have done different. I played pretty well but got sucked out on twice and could not suck out one other time. When the odds catch up I will be back on top. Best of all, it was a fun game and it reinforced my belief that making people play my game (pre-flop raise/fold instead of limping) throws certain people off their game who are otherwise very dangerous; Linda is no threat to me even though she is a very good player...good enough that she is top 5 in overall points. Ironically, the real threats at this point are, in no particular order, Jeff, Dawg, Roman, Dee, and Eric. Jeff and Roman are solid, strong players. Dawg is all but unreadable for me, I have no clue if he has the nut flush or nothing. Jeff also falls into the Dee/Eric category of wild play swings and massive bluffing. Bert bluffs a lot but he has given away a lot of information so I usually do pretty well against him. EEEEEexxxxxxxxccccceeeeeellllleeeeennnnnnntt