We're Off To See A Whale's Vagina*

Stacie and I head to San Diego early tomorrow morning for a week. We can't wait. I am in serious need of a vacation. Along with the usual touristy things, we are going to meet up with Smokkee and Love_Elf at Ocean's 11 on Sunday night and then have dinner and drinks with Iamhoff and his DAPGF sometime mid-week. Of course I will have photos and a trip report later. We will do our best to stay classy. I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day weekend and let's all think of those that have died in service of our country.

* - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0357413/
I'm really not a big fan of the movie, but it goes well with the San Diego theme.

Cash Game Craziness

We had 6 of the regulars show up at "Main Event" Mike's for some .10/.20 cash action. At first there were only 5 of us and we played like broke ass nits. Shortly after 8PM, Andrew, our fun-loving Scottish neighbor showed up and the game was on like Donkey Kong. Andrew loves to build pots and over bet every street. He is truly in it for a fun evening of drinking and splashing some cash. This makes for some spectacular beats. I was one of the victims for the night, but more on that later.

Our wildest hand of the night came when it was 3 limpers. The flop was all clubs with connectors and all 3 hit their hands. This gave Andrew the straight in the big blind, Mike H hits a flush from the small blind, and "Main Event" Mike crushes them with a flopped straight flush on the button. It was like a hand from Casino Royale. No more clubs came on the board and as you can imagine, by the river, all of the money was in the pot. "Main Event" Mike ended up with over an $80 pot. You can't beat a 400x big blind pot. I think it was the largest pot we have ever seen in our .10/.20 game. It is just so rare to have that many people with such large hands.

We were winding down and on the second to the last hand, the button and small blind limped to me. I took a free look at the flop with the Canadian Hammer and flopped a monster. It was checked back to Andrew who put in a buck. Chris called and I bumped it up a few more. Andrew decides to go all in for his last 10 and Chris folds. Of course I called and asked Andrew to at least apologize for the bad beat he was about to put on me.


I need to stop jinxing myself because of course he hits a heart on the turn and another on the river to swing the pot to his side of the table. So instead of profiting about 12 or 13 bucks for the hand, I end up shipping 10 more his way. Fortunately, he had already paid off my boat earlier so I was still able to book a win for the evening. I will have to clear this type of recreational playing out of my head before I play a couple of nights in San Diego during Memorial Day week.

Running Bad and Playing Bad

As well as April was, May is tipping the scale to the other side. It has been a lethal combination of running bad with some bad play on my part. I knew I was bringing the pain when I gloated about last month.

Online, I have only played two Brit Bloggerments and a Mookie. I played poorly in one Brit game and my first Mookie outing for the year. I played much better in the second Brit game, but TuscaloosaJohn got the better of me when his flopped trips bested my turned straight by boating up on the river. All the money went in on the turn, so I don’t know how I could have avoided that one. He flopped 3 of a kind and checked allowing me to hit my open ender but the river was truly unkind.

We had our normal monthly game at Kajagugu’s neighborhood and followed it up a week later with a higher buyin charity game. I got knocked out of both of these with the same scenario, we both have a common card and I have a better kicker. I’m down to about 10 big blinds and I see a chance to take the limped pot so I push from late position. The first time I had AQ and my opponent had QJ. The flop comes out with 2 jacks, which are NOT OK. He had me covered so that was it for me. Then, the following week, I push from the small blind with A,10 and all the limpers but one fold. He calls the additional 9 blinds with A,8. If you believe in jinxes, then I surely did it when I said, “don’t worry, there are only 72 more 8s in the deck.” I was the dealer and I rewarded him with not just 1, but 2 snowmen on the flop and I get bounced again.

I thought my luck was returning the night following the charity game. We had a full table at Matt’s with some bonus money thrown in from last year. I doubled up during the first or second level when KK tried to push me off of AA preflop. My hand held up and I was able to take out another player when my Q high flush bested his 10 high with the K on the board already. It was a paired board so I was a little leery, but I ultimately decided he didn’t have the boat. With my nice chip lead, I picked my spots and put pressure on the shorties. When we were down to 5, Surflexus raised 3X from the cut off and I raised enough to put him all in with my AJ from the big blind. He called with his JJ and they held to take about 1/3 of my stack. A few hands later Chris went all in from second position and I had 3-4 times his stack. I wanted to isolate, so I shoved with my JJ. Surflexus quickly called from the big blind with his AA. His aces held and unfortunately he had built up enough to have me slightly covered. So in the course of about 4 hands, I went from chip leader to bubble boy. That really sucked. We stuck around and played a little cash so I got back about half of my tournament buy-in back. I had a great time for the evening but I just couldn’t stop thinking about what could have been or wondering if I played either hand wrong. I realize I haven’t given enough detail like stack sizes and blind levels to determine, but the fellas that were playing agreed I played the hands like I should have. I’ll try to get some of my losses back during another cash game at Mike’s on Wednesday.