weird poker game
Cut for those who don't care.
I play in a tournament once a month on Fridays. It's $20 buy-in, $5 bounty. I didn't do well-with a healthy chip stack, I called a bet I clearly shouldn't have-and lost interest in playing. In part because I heard that Artichoke Joe's jackpot was maxed out. When all of the reserves get to $100K, the requirements to hit the BBJ drops to any aces-full-of-jacks beat by quads.
Jenn was OK with it, so I decided it was field trip night.
When I got there, they had two NL tables running with the same 1-2-2, 5-to-go format they've had for years.
Not long after I sat down, they mentioned the club has been there for 95 years. That's a long time. I wonder how long it's been all legal-like. Anyway, Happy Birthday, AJ's! And congratulations to all the various Artichokes who have kept it the most charming club in the area.
The game looks juicy at first glance. There's like $4K on the table with three or four big, $1K+ stacks, which is great for a game with a $400 buy-in.
After I've been in the game for about an hour and down a few bucks, I catch AQo in the cutoff and make it $35 to go. Why $35? I assume it was a kill pot and I was trying to knock people out. So, five callers.
Flop: AKAhh. Pretty good, I think. Checked to me, I bet $85, leaving me about $120 behind. Steve calls. Steve is a regular. He plays well enough that I never remember really beating him. He is tricky, but I have AAAKQ!
Turn is a blank. Steve checks. I jam. He calls $60 all-in and shows AK for the flopped boat. I say, I'm drawing thin (two Ks for a split).
River is a Q. I show, because I want sympathy. What this does is cause the dopes in the game who don't know the bad beat rule (AAAJJ beat by quads) to call the floor over to verify that I get nothing. "I'm not even going to win a handshake," I said.
Floor comes over and says I win nothing. I ask for a soda. He offers a soda and crackers.
I re-buy. I am not terribly unhappy with the hand. If AK wants to play the flop and turn slow, I guess he's entitled. Am I supposed to fold AQ in the cutoff? I guess I just have to pay off the nuts in that situation. If 5 players are calling me pre-flop, it's just gambling, I guess.
Within the next ten minutes, two of the big stacks go at it. Some normalish action pre-flop; maybe there's $200 in the pot, but I doubt it. Flop is 268. Loose cannon jams for something like $1500. Old guy insta-calls. Loose cannon has 66 for flopped set. Old guy has KK for crushed dreams. I was thinking this was a $4K pot, but I think it was only $3K.
Okay, so that makes no sense. Neither does the next hand I kind of remember. It's now right before midnight. Actually, somewhere in here I get QQ and turn my $230 into $410. Then,
(1) I call $30 pre-flop with 44. The table is insane, and I have some kind of weird implied odds. The $30 bet was huge, and there were a lot of these outsize bets from that player. I don't know why I did it, but it sure looked like a good idea at the time.
(2) At least five other people also call, including two big stacks and one short stack.
(3) The flop is J44. I look at my cards at least twice to make sure there are no repeated suits. I have a recurring dream in which I flop the nuts and then look back to discover I have, in fact, a four-flush with AhKd, or my Broadway has turned into Diagon Alley. Whatever, I have the immortal lock nuts and if it gets cracked I will probably win the jackpot.
(4) The floor annouces that it's now midnight. High hand bonuses are in effect. Quads pay $100.
(5) Simulaneously with 4, there is action on the flop. I'm having trouble remembering the action. Given that it was four-way, perhaps you understand: it made no sense for me to get action. I think there was a $100 bet to me from the loose cannon. I raised it to $200 hoping he'd re-raise, and hoping to get some calls from the other players. He did raise. Was it to $300? I think so. I made it $381 all-in which someone commented didn't re-open the betting, so I think that's right. Anyway, like I said, it made no sense. There aren't enough jacks in the deck to justify that action. Four way. I have quads. Yum. Look at the sea of red chips I'm going to win.
(6) The turn and the river do not crack my quads.
(7) The two big stacks resolve the main pot. Loose cannon has a J7 for top pair, shit kicker. Old guy has TT for what-the-hell-are-you-thinking. TT bet the $30 pre-flop.
(8) After that's resolved, I show my quads. "Oh I knew you had a four" someone lies. The all-in player mucks. I toke the dealer $20, I think. I stack the pot. It's about $1450.
(9) Time passes. The floorman brings me $100. I toke him and put the rest in my stack. Later I'm told that has to go in my pocket since it's a limited buy-in type thing. OK, whatever.
I'm up a lot. I hate to hit and run, but I really should just get up and go home. Instead I play for what seems like a long time, but couldn't have been much more than an hour. (Time passes quickly when I'm ahead a kilobuck.)
Oh, by the way, about half the pots are killed, and the loose cannon is raising blind to about $20-$25 per hand when he's in straddle position, and checking all kinds of flops dark. Yeah, it's that kind of game.
I bleed a little, then recover it when I get AK in back-to-back hands. Later, I get it a third time. Some guy goes all-in pre-flop for $78. I look down at AKd and make it $178 to try and go heads up, but Steve-remember Steve?-calls. At this point, Steve has about $900 in front of him and I have about $1350 left in my stack. The flop comes all low, one diamond (I have AKd). Check, check. The turn is a blank to me. Check, check. The river is a blank. Check, check. He has 88 and wins both the $200 side pot and the main.
Before this hand, I'm thinking, I really need to leave the game to lock in this win. There's so much money on the table, if I go against Steve (who I can't read) or the loose cannon (who is unreadable because he's insane) I can get hurt so bad, I can't recover it. I was already intending to leave, but after this, Steve says basically the same thing to me and I realize I've just got to go home.
I get off the roller coaster and cash out, +$900. My results for the year now look like a bathtub curve.
I play in a tournament once a month on Fridays. It's $20 buy-in, $5 bounty. I didn't do well-with a healthy chip stack, I called a bet I clearly shouldn't have-and lost interest in playing. In part because I heard that Artichoke Joe's jackpot was maxed out. When all of the reserves get to $100K, the requirements to hit the BBJ drops to any aces-full-of-jacks beat by quads.
Jenn was OK with it, so I decided it was field trip night.
When I got there, they had two NL tables running with the same 1-2-2, 5-to-go format they've had for years.
Not long after I sat down, they mentioned the club has been there for 95 years. That's a long time. I wonder how long it's been all legal-like. Anyway, Happy Birthday, AJ's! And congratulations to all the various Artichokes who have kept it the most charming club in the area.
The game looks juicy at first glance. There's like $4K on the table with three or four big, $1K+ stacks, which is great for a game with a $400 buy-in.
After I've been in the game for about an hour and down a few bucks, I catch AQo in the cutoff and make it $35 to go. Why $35? I assume it was a kill pot and I was trying to knock people out. So, five callers.
Flop: AKAhh. Pretty good, I think. Checked to me, I bet $85, leaving me about $120 behind. Steve calls. Steve is a regular. He plays well enough that I never remember really beating him. He is tricky, but I have AAAKQ!
Turn is a blank. Steve checks. I jam. He calls $60 all-in and shows AK for the flopped boat. I say, I'm drawing thin (two Ks for a split).
River is a Q. I show, because I want sympathy. What this does is cause the dopes in the game who don't know the bad beat rule (AAAJJ beat by quads) to call the floor over to verify that I get nothing. "I'm not even going to win a handshake," I said.
Floor comes over and says I win nothing. I ask for a soda. He offers a soda and crackers.
I re-buy. I am not terribly unhappy with the hand. If AK wants to play the flop and turn slow, I guess he's entitled. Am I supposed to fold AQ in the cutoff? I guess I just have to pay off the nuts in that situation. If 5 players are calling me pre-flop, it's just gambling, I guess.
Within the next ten minutes, two of the big stacks go at it. Some normalish action pre-flop; maybe there's $200 in the pot, but I doubt it. Flop is 268. Loose cannon jams for something like $1500. Old guy insta-calls. Loose cannon has 66 for flopped set. Old guy has KK for crushed dreams. I was thinking this was a $4K pot, but I think it was only $3K.
Okay, so that makes no sense. Neither does the next hand I kind of remember. It's now right before midnight. Actually, somewhere in here I get QQ and turn my $230 into $410. Then,
(1) I call $30 pre-flop with 44. The table is insane, and I have some kind of weird implied odds. The $30 bet was huge, and there were a lot of these outsize bets from that player. I don't know why I did it, but it sure looked like a good idea at the time.
(2) At least five other people also call, including two big stacks and one short stack.
(3) The flop is J44. I look at my cards at least twice to make sure there are no repeated suits. I have a recurring dream in which I flop the nuts and then look back to discover I have, in fact, a four-flush with AhKd, or my Broadway has turned into Diagon Alley. Whatever, I have the immortal lock nuts and if it gets cracked I will probably win the jackpot.
(4) The floor annouces that it's now midnight. High hand bonuses are in effect. Quads pay $100.
(5) Simulaneously with 4, there is action on the flop. I'm having trouble remembering the action. Given that it was four-way, perhaps you understand: it made no sense for me to get action. I think there was a $100 bet to me from the loose cannon. I raised it to $200 hoping he'd re-raise, and hoping to get some calls from the other players. He did raise. Was it to $300? I think so. I made it $381 all-in which someone commented didn't re-open the betting, so I think that's right. Anyway, like I said, it made no sense. There aren't enough jacks in the deck to justify that action. Four way. I have quads. Yum. Look at the sea of red chips I'm going to win.
(6) The turn and the river do not crack my quads.
(7) The two big stacks resolve the main pot. Loose cannon has a J7 for top pair, shit kicker. Old guy has TT for what-the-hell-are-you-thinking. TT bet the $30 pre-flop.
(8) After that's resolved, I show my quads. "Oh I knew you had a four" someone lies. The all-in player mucks. I toke the dealer $20, I think. I stack the pot. It's about $1450.
(9) Time passes. The floorman brings me $100. I toke him and put the rest in my stack. Later I'm told that has to go in my pocket since it's a limited buy-in type thing. OK, whatever.
I'm up a lot. I hate to hit and run, but I really should just get up and go home. Instead I play for what seems like a long time, but couldn't have been much more than an hour. (Time passes quickly when I'm ahead a kilobuck.)
Oh, by the way, about half the pots are killed, and the loose cannon is raising blind to about $20-$25 per hand when he's in straddle position, and checking all kinds of flops dark. Yeah, it's that kind of game.
I bleed a little, then recover it when I get AK in back-to-back hands. Later, I get it a third time. Some guy goes all-in pre-flop for $78. I look down at AKd and make it $178 to try and go heads up, but Steve-remember Steve?-calls. At this point, Steve has about $900 in front of him and I have about $1350 left in my stack. The flop comes all low, one diamond (I have AKd). Check, check. The turn is a blank to me. Check, check. The river is a blank. Check, check. He has 88 and wins both the $200 side pot and the main.
Before this hand, I'm thinking, I really need to leave the game to lock in this win. There's so much money on the table, if I go against Steve (who I can't read) or the loose cannon (who is unreadable because he's insane) I can get hurt so bad, I can't recover it. I was already intending to leave, but after this, Steve says basically the same thing to me and I realize I've just got to go home.
I get off the roller coaster and cash out, +$900. My results for the year now look like a bathtub curve.