93.8
That, right there, is the percentage favorite I was when I sustained the worst beat that I have taken in a NL game, thus far. It just so happened to be in the 2nd biggest pot that I have ever been involved in. Ya know what, though? I'm thrilled about it. I mean, truly, tickled pink.
Not because I lost a monster pot. No, no...Felix was down right ill when Daniel sucked out, on two consecutive streets to pull out his improbable win. Nope, none to happy at ALL! So why, you may ask, am I happy then? For two very important reasons:
1)The way I handled it. Now, don't get me wrong, I wasn't gracious about it because I didn't want to chase "Mr. Gill" away from the table, oh no, Daniel would still be there tomorrow. It was for the simple fact that, if I want to be a professional, one would think I'd know how to act like one. Oh, it stung like a bitch, surely, but it wasn't his fault he caught on me. He was more than willing to put his whole stack in as a huge dog, I should be praising him. It's what I wanted (want) him to do. It just sucked a lot that he caught.
2)The following day, less than 12 hours later, I was back at the felt, having put the huge loss behind me and proceeded to make over four times what I had lost the previous night. It really felt great. Played the best poker of my life and caught hands when I needed to...simple, really. I'm quite proud of myself for putting the previous session behind me and proceeding to crush the game that I was in. Those 2 things, being able to sustain a big loss and taking it like a professional and being able to bounce back immediately are two important traits in a poker player and I'm thrilled to know that I possess them both.
Last weekend, I had an extra couple of days off, due to the holiday, so it seemed like a good time to take off and go play some cards and clear my head. Off to Sandia I go, Saturday morning. I fly in, the resort picks me up and puts me up in a gorgeous suite that facing the mountain and overlooks the beautiful golf course they have there. Nice start to the weekend, lemme tell ya.
I head down to the poker room and they have a "meh" kinda 1/2 NL game going, and while it doesn't look that great (read: no real deep stacks), I have a few hours to kill before my room is made up and ready, so I decide to sit.
Within the first 45 mins, I'm down 3 1/2 buyins. Yay, this is fun. Flopped straights losing to rivered higher straights, flopped straights losing to rivered flushes, boat losing to rivered higher boat. Yeah, poker is fun, lemme tell you...
But, there was a silver lining. There was this kid in the 1 seat who was beyond belief. He would raise every single hand...blind. I mean, the kid got dealt two cards, would place a chip on them, then when the action got to him, he'd raise. BLIND! 9 out of 10 hands he would do this. And another 9 our of 10 times, he'd make a continuation bet blind as well, having never once looked at his cards. And man, he was catching cards. But by doing this, he made most everyone at the table play much worse and much looser than they normally would, as they were trying to "catch" him. I, on the other hand, was completely card dead. And since this kid was willing to push his whole stack in, blind, I knew I needed something resembling a real hand to go up against him. Oh and I was stuck a chunk already too and didn't want to start my weekend off in a HUGE hole that would take all weekend to climb out. So I decided to wait for a real hand. I didn't know that that would take upwards of 4 hours.
During that 4 hours, one dealer managed to piss off the kid enough to chase him from the game. The kid, "Gil" from here out, mucked out-of-turn two hands in-a-row, and when warned the second time, got pissed off at the dealer. Now, the dealer was well within his/her right to press the point, but come on, Gil is driving the game. Just STFU and go easy on him, PLEASE?!? I even tried to coalesce Gil by telling him the dealer would be out of the box in @ 13 mins. He didn't care. He racked up and left. I told him to take care and enjoyed playing with him, hoping he'd come back. Then I turned my attention to the dealer, shooting a look that told'em that I was really fucking pissed that they ran off my easiest chance to get unstuck. While I didn't say anything verbal, I think the dealer caught the point. Later on, after the dealer's down was over, I did take'em aside and asked, that, in the future, to please try and be more diplomatic when reprimanding a player for an infraction. The dealer was receptive, so hopefully this won't happen again.
About 45 mins later, another player had just left Gil's seat and this B & M rookie took their place on my direct right. Poor kid. He said he'd played in home games and such, but really had a deer-in-the-headlights look about him. He also said that he was waiting for a seat in the 2/4 LHE game to open up too. So not 10 mins after he sat, who came back into the room to put his name on the list? None other than Gil himself. I saw this and when Gil left the room, with his name 1st on the list (keep in mind that this was at 10am), I asked the kid if he'd get up from his seat for $20. He was like, "huh?!?". I then asked him again and he turned me down. The very next hand, the kid got stacked by another player and rebought short. Tsk tsk...should have taken the offer, kiddo. Oh well, after another 20 mins or so, his seat at the 2/4 LHE game opened and the seat came open for Gil. GAME ON!
I proceeded to muck damn near everything for over an hour as Gil got more and more chips. A little while later, I'm UTG, but talking to a friend the table behind me and just throw the $2 into the pot, blind. One other limper and then Gil pushes his whole stack (about 2 buy-ins) in the pot, from the BB. I look down to find A3o and decide that my Ace was good enough to gamble with. Right or wrong, I only had about $150 infront of me, so why not...I'm already stuck over $700...plus I really figured that my A-high was better than a random hand, so let's gamboooooooool! The rest of the table and we see a flop of Q42r heads up. The turn brings a Q. River pairs the 4 and MHIG!
Ok, now that I have at least a little something to play with, I finally start catching some hands. Next orbit, I pick up QQ in the SB. Gil raised on the button and I just called, hoping he'd get frisky on the flop, assuming no A or K flopped. While not a standard play, Gil is still playing it blind and I wanted a safe flop before playing a big pot against him, now that I have a stack that has at least a little "oomph" behind it. One other player tagged along (maybe it was a mistake to just call the raise now, but at the time, I thought it was the right play). We see a flop of Q85r. BOOM! Now, normally, I'd bet right out here, but with Gil last to act, he was sure to fire at this bad boy...and fire he did. Both MP and myself checked and Gil didn't bet...HE PUSHED! I insta-called, knowing that MP was long gone and he tables a set of 5's. Apparently, Gil looked at his cards at some point...something I was keenly aware that he hadn't been doing. Nonetheless, a couple of bricks on the turn and river and MHIG again.
Over the next 3-4 hours, Gil rebought another 3-4 times after that, 2 of them he lost to me, and the rest to the rest of the table and after 10 hours of play, I was unstuck and showing a profit for the trip. When Gil left, the game tightened up considerably and it was time for me to go take a nap until 2am or so, so I could be fresh when all the stuck players are playing tired and trying to get unstuck.
And with that, I headed up to my suite and crashed out, not knowing the roller coaster that awaited me the follwing 2+ days.
We'll continue this tomorrow night...until then, play well!
Not because I lost a monster pot. No, no...Felix was down right ill when Daniel sucked out, on two consecutive streets to pull out his improbable win. Nope, none to happy at ALL! So why, you may ask, am I happy then? For two very important reasons:
1)The way I handled it. Now, don't get me wrong, I wasn't gracious about it because I didn't want to chase "Mr. Gill" away from the table, oh no, Daniel would still be there tomorrow. It was for the simple fact that, if I want to be a professional, one would think I'd know how to act like one. Oh, it stung like a bitch, surely, but it wasn't his fault he caught on me. He was more than willing to put his whole stack in as a huge dog, I should be praising him. It's what I wanted (want) him to do. It just sucked a lot that he caught.
2)The following day, less than 12 hours later, I was back at the felt, having put the huge loss behind me and proceeded to make over four times what I had lost the previous night. It really felt great. Played the best poker of my life and caught hands when I needed to...simple, really. I'm quite proud of myself for putting the previous session behind me and proceeding to crush the game that I was in. Those 2 things, being able to sustain a big loss and taking it like a professional and being able to bounce back immediately are two important traits in a poker player and I'm thrilled to know that I possess them both.
Last weekend, I had an extra couple of days off, due to the holiday, so it seemed like a good time to take off and go play some cards and clear my head. Off to Sandia I go, Saturday morning. I fly in, the resort picks me up and puts me up in a gorgeous suite that facing the mountain and overlooks the beautiful golf course they have there. Nice start to the weekend, lemme tell ya.
I head down to the poker room and they have a "meh" kinda 1/2 NL game going, and while it doesn't look that great (read: no real deep stacks), I have a few hours to kill before my room is made up and ready, so I decide to sit.
Within the first 45 mins, I'm down 3 1/2 buyins. Yay, this is fun. Flopped straights losing to rivered higher straights, flopped straights losing to rivered flushes, boat losing to rivered higher boat. Yeah, poker is fun, lemme tell you...
But, there was a silver lining. There was this kid in the 1 seat who was beyond belief. He would raise every single hand...blind. I mean, the kid got dealt two cards, would place a chip on them, then when the action got to him, he'd raise. BLIND! 9 out of 10 hands he would do this. And another 9 our of 10 times, he'd make a continuation bet blind as well, having never once looked at his cards. And man, he was catching cards. But by doing this, he made most everyone at the table play much worse and much looser than they normally would, as they were trying to "catch" him. I, on the other hand, was completely card dead. And since this kid was willing to push his whole stack in, blind, I knew I needed something resembling a real hand to go up against him. Oh and I was stuck a chunk already too and didn't want to start my weekend off in a HUGE hole that would take all weekend to climb out. So I decided to wait for a real hand. I didn't know that that would take upwards of 4 hours.
During that 4 hours, one dealer managed to piss off the kid enough to chase him from the game. The kid, "Gil" from here out, mucked out-of-turn two hands in-a-row, and when warned the second time, got pissed off at the dealer. Now, the dealer was well within his/her right to press the point, but come on, Gil is driving the game. Just STFU and go easy on him, PLEASE?!? I even tried to coalesce Gil by telling him the dealer would be out of the box in @ 13 mins. He didn't care. He racked up and left. I told him to take care and enjoyed playing with him, hoping he'd come back. Then I turned my attention to the dealer, shooting a look that told'em that I was really fucking pissed that they ran off my easiest chance to get unstuck. While I didn't say anything verbal, I think the dealer caught the point. Later on, after the dealer's down was over, I did take'em aside and asked, that, in the future, to please try and be more diplomatic when reprimanding a player for an infraction. The dealer was receptive, so hopefully this won't happen again.
About 45 mins later, another player had just left Gil's seat and this B & M rookie took their place on my direct right. Poor kid. He said he'd played in home games and such, but really had a deer-in-the-headlights look about him. He also said that he was waiting for a seat in the 2/4 LHE game to open up too. So not 10 mins after he sat, who came back into the room to put his name on the list? None other than Gil himself. I saw this and when Gil left the room, with his name 1st on the list (keep in mind that this was at 10am), I asked the kid if he'd get up from his seat for $20. He was like, "huh?!?". I then asked him again and he turned me down. The very next hand, the kid got stacked by another player and rebought short. Tsk tsk...should have taken the offer, kiddo. Oh well, after another 20 mins or so, his seat at the 2/4 LHE game opened and the seat came open for Gil. GAME ON!
I proceeded to muck damn near everything for over an hour as Gil got more and more chips. A little while later, I'm UTG, but talking to a friend the table behind me and just throw the $2 into the pot, blind. One other limper and then Gil pushes his whole stack (about 2 buy-ins) in the pot, from the BB. I look down to find A3o and decide that my Ace was good enough to gamble with. Right or wrong, I only had about $150 infront of me, so why not...I'm already stuck over $700...plus I really figured that my A-high was better than a random hand, so let's gamboooooooool! The rest of the table and we see a flop of Q42r heads up. The turn brings a Q. River pairs the 4 and MHIG!
Ok, now that I have at least a little something to play with, I finally start catching some hands. Next orbit, I pick up QQ in the SB. Gil raised on the button and I just called, hoping he'd get frisky on the flop, assuming no A or K flopped. While not a standard play, Gil is still playing it blind and I wanted a safe flop before playing a big pot against him, now that I have a stack that has at least a little "oomph" behind it. One other player tagged along (maybe it was a mistake to just call the raise now, but at the time, I thought it was the right play). We see a flop of Q85r. BOOM! Now, normally, I'd bet right out here, but with Gil last to act, he was sure to fire at this bad boy...and fire he did. Both MP and myself checked and Gil didn't bet...HE PUSHED! I insta-called, knowing that MP was long gone and he tables a set of 5's. Apparently, Gil looked at his cards at some point...something I was keenly aware that he hadn't been doing. Nonetheless, a couple of bricks on the turn and river and MHIG again.
Over the next 3-4 hours, Gil rebought another 3-4 times after that, 2 of them he lost to me, and the rest to the rest of the table and after 10 hours of play, I was unstuck and showing a profit for the trip. When Gil left, the game tightened up considerably and it was time for me to go take a nap until 2am or so, so I could be fresh when all the stuck players are playing tired and trying to get unstuck.
And with that, I headed up to my suite and crashed out, not knowing the roller coaster that awaited me the follwing 2+ days.
We'll continue this tomorrow night...until then, play well!
posted by SirFelixCat at 2:25 AM
|
