Great Neighborhood Action

OK, technically Kaj and I aren't in the same neighborhood, but we live so close to each other I still consider us neighbors. He and his crew have welcomed me, my friends, and the rest of the ATL bloggers with open arms, and lucky for us, open wallets, ;). Although I did not continue my streak of cashes with them last night, it was great to see Kuro, Weak (I officially stop calling him a blogger, but we can call him a poker Playa'), and Surf in the top 3 payout spots.

Kaj had a great long structure, good buy-in and huge turnout. Other than the WPBT summer game I attented last year, this was the largest live tournament I have ever played in terms of both size and money. I really liked my play in the game. I know you don't come here for poker wisdom, usually it's just a log for me to remember and gauge my progress, so here are 3 small highlights. I folded to an all-in river push by "Limpy" while holding A,10 with 2 other Aces on the board. I figured I was beat by a weak Ace that boated up, an Ace with a better kicker, or she hit her flush with suited connectors. I'm positive I was beat and I did find out that she didn't have the case Ace because Paul folded A,7 preflop. He didn't like seeing the boat happen, but he was completely correct folding it preflop. I was talking to her about the hand a little later and told her I would have called a smaller bet, and that's when she realized that we weren't playing with our usual starting stacks. I just didn't want to risk my tournament life to so many hands that beat me. It knocked me from 10K down to 8K, but I'm impressed that I could lay that down. Hey, for me, that's progress.

Later, I pulled off a great hammer bluff from the small blind when I reraised against a known tight player that had opened with a raise. My death hand was against Lee, my nemesis of the last 3 tournaments. As usual, I had the better hand when I pushed against him but since he opened the pot he wasn't going to let it go. We had almost the exact number of chips when called. My A,J suited falls to his K,10. He flops 2 pair but giving me the straight draw and by the river any A, J, Q or heart will win it for me. It was not to be as he hits another King for the boat. I will eventually get back on the winning side against you sucka. We joked all night about how I'm going to have to get it in dirty and crack his aces for some payback.

We started up a 5 handed .25/.50 cash game next with Ski, Kaj, David, Player X, and myself. Nothing real exciting at this table. It started off rough for me when I slow played A,J from the big blind and hit top pair on the flop with J, 10, 2. I checked to let David take the lead. He bets and I raise him slightly more than min. He flips over the Jack to get a read on me and I keep averting my eyes I look at his face. I finally smile and tell him to put the rest of it in there. He says OK and does. I show him my hand and ask if he has a 10 or a 2 under there. He says no and holds on to his until all of the cards are dealt. When the river Queen appears, he flips over his J,Q. Sonofa! So that knocks me from my $20 buy-in down to less than 5. I really don't remember to much of how it happened, but when I cashed out, I had run it up to $37.

It's probably about time for me to host a big game or I may make a trip to Biloxi with some of the other fellas. I talked to Surf last night about some Okie-Vegas options. Since I had my dates wrong, I don't know if I'm going to have enough vacation time to do it along with a Vegas trip this year.