Another Friday, another chance to throw down in the cash game streets! This time, the Cadillac of poker, the mighty Texas No-Limit Hold-Em! Allen R., Lea Anne, Jeff G., Art, Mike C., Jeff S., Colin, Priya, Ian and yours truly - 10 handed alright - started the night off with a bang in a three way pot that saw all the money in the middle after the flop! Two top pair top kickers and a set of jacks! Ouch!
Yes, that’s Priya saying run it once! She of the set of fish hooks! No need to worry about tight players, it was obvious, even though it was a bit of a cooler, that everyone was here to gamble!
I would like to say that things settled down after that, but that was not the case. Frequently we had three bet and even four bet pots. It was pretty standard to go to a flop with a full PSP old school tournament buy-in ($45) or more in the pot! Our a little game has grown up a bit, but every single player at the table was good with it and comfortable being a shark among sharks. Very proud of all of us!
Inevitably, when you swim with sharks, even if you happen to be one yourself, there is a very good chance you’ll get bit. Several players left with nothing but dust, Allen R. was a victim of a particularly disgusting river and had to call it a bit of an early night.
I myself also saw bare felt, not just once but twice! Both times the money went in very good on the flop and the poker gods had other plans on the run out. Pretty happy with myself as I was calm as a cucumber both times, and genuinely wasn’t rattled at all. It’s taken me almost 20 years of playing this game seriously, to finally get to a point to be completely at peace when my decisions are good and the results are not.
As a result, I was able to not only crawl back, but eventually grind out a decent $80 profit by the end of the night. No small feet after being down $200+.
I was nowhere near being the big winner though, Jeff G, Ian and the magnanimous Mr. Mike C all walked away with nice chunky profits. Mike I believe had the most of all, in for $100 out for just over $400. He had a very good run of cards but I also played well, snapping me off when I tried to bluff him and making other nice maneuvers that worked out well.
Yes, you are not going crazy, that top photo is a straight flush that Mike had towards the end of the night. He did not reach showdown, but we rabbited the river and he binked it!
Not too surprisingly, we were all done by midnight, burnt toast. It had been a long almost 5 hours of intense action, but a hell of a lot of fun!
A big thanks to the biggest degenerates in our game for coming out, y’all are true gamblers and it’s an honor to throw down with all of you. We had bomb parts galore as well as a raucous Nit Game where Priya played for the first time. Alas, she was the last person standing with a button in front of her and had to pay out the bounty. She was a great sport about it and even took the time to break her red chips into blue ones and pay everyone out individually. Class act all the way!
Don’t forget, our annual Crazy Pineapple tournament is next Saturday at the usual time. The next cash game will be the circus, a.k.a. mix games, and will be on the Friday after the CP tournament. Hope you can make it! Stay tuned for the invite!
Until then, peace and we out!
