what's the point?

Late Night Poker

It's 10pm on an exciting Saturday evening. Robin is writing a paper on embodied metaphors, I'm playing FFXI with Sam, Kam, Will, and Micaela. In game, I say to Sam, hey, fuck Final Fantasy, let's go to Spirit Mountain. That was about all the convincing he needed. Three hours later Sam, Kam, Robin and I are at the casino. I immediately get on the list for some 2/4 Hold 'Em. I considered moving up to 3/6, but I've been reading up a bit on winning in low limit games and I wanted to see how I'd fare. The wait was around 30 minutes or so, and I was at the top of the list. I finally got called and bought in with $100. I should've taken better notes (or really any notes at all), I don't remember the exact details of any of the hands, but basically what happened was this:

Hand #1:
I think I had two face cards in middle position, every called around to me, so I raised. May as well get people thinking I'm loose. Flop came up blanks, and I either folded there or at the turn.

Hand #2:
I think I had something like K5o in middle-late position. Everyone called around to me again, and I just called the blinds. Flop comes off 5 x x, someone raises, I'm not that confident with my hand, but I think the 5 was actually middle pair, so it could be worse. I don't have much to judge people's play by, but from the chat between the people who've clearly been there awhile, the guy raising seems to be very aggressive and his stack isn't very large, no one was reraising, so I decided to call. Turn brings another 5. The initial raiser checks this time, Talky-psychic guy to my right raises (every hand he would try and predict what the flop would be, he got it right once and couldn't get over it). I put him on trips as well, but I'm hoping I have him outkicked, so I reraise. We get a few callers. River is a blank, Psychic guy raises, I reraise, a few callers. I turn over a set of 5's with a K kicker, he turns up J5, and I take my first pot of the night.

Hand #3
Someone likes me, I see pocket aces. Remembering what I've been reading, I disregard any notion of slowplaying them. People are going to call raises at this level with anything, no point in hiding my strength, so I raise preflop. Most, if not all of the table calls, unfortunately no one reraises. Flop comes off A 8 J. The proverbial bells are going off in my head. Someone raises in front of me, I reraise, many callers. Turn was a blank, I wasn't even paying that much attention, once I hit the trips my plan was to jam the pot and if I lost, I lost. Someone bet, I raised, again many callers. River is an 8, giving me aces full, I didn't even realize it at first though. Someone bets, I raise again. The guy who had been betting the whole time turns up jacks full, my stomach drops for a second thinking I'm beat, then I finally realize I've got aces full and I drag in my second pot in three hands.

As a sidenote, Spirit Mountain has a bad beat jackpot. For hold 'em, any time aces full is beat by quads or better you win. Boy do I wish someone had had pocket 8s that hand, I would've taken in $3k instead of $50.

To sum up, I went on to win the next two consecutive pots as well, I forget what I had on them, one was an ace high flush, no idea at all what the other one was. At that point I was up around $160-$180, not bad at all for 5 hands. I seriously considered walking away right then, but I came to play poker, not make money. I played much looser pre-flop after that, figuring I'd try and catch some lucky hands. There was one point where I raised pre-flop on five consecutive hands, I think I was the only person at the table to ever raise pre-flop, everyone else was just a calling station. In that stretch I did have the cards to back up my raises for the most part, pocket Qs once, AJ suited another. It didn't work out all that well, I only won two more pots in the next 90 minutes, and ended up walking away up $98. Still not bad at all for two hours work.

I'm feeling pretty good about my low limit game, we'll see how it holds up in Vegas in July.

Posted by joshua at June 1, 2004 10:56 AM