Busy and Successful Poker Month So Far

I have had more than the normal opportunities to play in home games this month. So far I have fit in (5) 1 table games and (1) cash game in 3 different nights of playing and I’m up $138 for the week. To avoid poker overload and not take away too much time from Stacie, my online playing has been limited to only last night’s Mookie.

We started of the month with an impromptu 9 man game over at Kaj’s place on the Sunday before Labor Day (go congratulate him on his recent big win). We agreed to double the buy-in for the first game since we only had 1 table and would pay out 3 spots. I survived down to the final 3 and we were almost even in chips so we decided to chop and get to the second game. For the second, we went back to a normal buyin and I busted out in 5th. This put me up for the night and I cleared 3 normal buyins.

The Thursday following Labor Day was the next stop for our neighborhood league. We had a smaller than usual turnout, but still enough for a full table of 9. We mixed this one up a little and took $5 from each entry and made it a bounty on each person. I bubbled out of this one with my 4th place finish courtesy of Jeff’s second 4 of a kind for the night and wasn’t able to collect any bounties. I was able to make half of my buyin back at the short handed cash game that followed.

Kaj’s neighbor put together another last minute game on Saturday and I joined 6 other players for some short handed action. We were only paying top 2 since there were only 7 of us. When it got down to 3 of us, I offered a 60/40/40 chop and start up the next game. The other 2 guys agreed and this made the 2nd game a freeroll for me. I was able to knock out 2 players and take a huge chip lead in a hand where I made a questionable call. I found myself thinking about the advantage I would have if I hit any of my outs and that swayed me to hang around with the nut flush draw. I got one of my needed cards and that gave me enough to hang around for the final three with a huge chip lead. The 3rd place player joking offered a chop while he was holding about 3x the big blind and we politely declined. He was about 2 or 3 hands later and then we got to heads up. We were paying 100/40 so I offered a 90/50 deal and he took it. If it hadn’t been so late, I would have played it out until the end or stop he offered a chop later.

I made a deep run in the Mookie last night but was the first one knocked out at the final table. I think I was 8th out of 9 and pushed my pocket jacks preflop. MeanHappyGuy had already come in UTG and thought for a while and called the additional. He had 55 and I’m sure he just thought I was pushing with A,X and took the opportunity to knock me out since I was a shortie. Well being a 4 to 1 favorite wasn’t enough as he hit another 5 on the flop and I got the pleasure of staying up way past my bed time and go away with no money. It really didn’t bother me too much because I played a good game and I have gained some confidence this month. I even felt I would make it to the final table before the game started. I made it all the way to the final 9 without a knocking out a single player or needing a river save and I had AA only once.

I just can’t keep money in my pocket very long some times and my fun money is especially susceptible to impulse spending. I took $100 out of my home game winnings for the week and bought a used table off of Craig’s List. It is the full table style with a non-folding top, but folding legs. It wasn’t exactly as advertised, but he also threw in a new set of 500 chips and case. The table matches one of our existing neighborhood league tables, complete with a slight tear in the vinyl. Since I am not going to finish in my basement, I will probably see if someone else in the neighborhood wants it and I will stick with the oblong table topper style so I can host in my dining room on the existing table. I’m also going to try get rid of all of my existing chips and buy a big set with denominations already on them. I found a cool Las Vegas set of 1000 on Ebay that lets me pick a combination of denominations.