"Victory is Sweet"

This Saturday night I went to a "guys night out party". The party consisted of alcohol, food, music, and poker. We had nine players start a $20 buy-in NL Holdem tournament. I had to scramble to get there on time. We had a 2 hour baseball practice. After practice we had to rake the field. I rushed home, but I did manage to fly into HEB for some tecate and pretzels. I took a very fast shower and out the door I went. I was a little on tilt. When I arrived there was a friend of mine there that I knew in Houston. I ate a slice a pizza and chugged a tecate. I was ready to go.

Early in the tournament I had TJo and the flop came TTJ. I checked. The other player checked. On the turn there was a flush and straight potential so I checked again. I set the trap for the other player to catch a hand. I led out with a modest bet and he raised me. I made another raise of $2K. He called and I took a third of his stack.

I bluffed more than usual with some reasonable sized bets. I built a reasonable chip stack. I did call an all-in once and lost, but the person was short stacked.

We were down to the final three and all were in the money. I got AKo. The host went all-in. I had to call. He had a medium pocket pair. The turn brought an ace and I took him out. I was heads up against a solid opponent. We battled for along time. I was not going to make a mistake. He would call my big blind and I would just check. Everytime he hit his straight I would fold or check it down. So I never lost a large sum of money. He thought I was psychic. Then came the final hand where I had the opportunity to give him a taste of his own medicine.

I looked at my cards in the small blind and saw AA. I just called the big blind to slow play the aces. He raised, so I popped back the magic words "All-in". He immediately called. He called with Q5o, so I think he thought I was trying to buy the pot. A queen did come on the flop giving me a scare, but I did win pocketing a nice c-note.

There was a cash game going on and I was feeling no pain. We were listening to a DVD of Rush live in Germany for their 30th reunion. I have not been a huge rush fan, but that DVD rocked. I held my own for several hours. It was 3:15 AM when the host and I were playing a hand heads up. I was holding pocket tens in the small blind. I made a small raise. The big blind called me. The flop came 548. I bet out. The big blind goes all-in for about $15 dollars. It was the host of the party. My beer infected brain could not put him on the correct hand. I ended up calling. He turned over 45o for two pair. I did not feel bad since the money was going to the host. The lesson here is to take my time and think about what potential hads the opponent may have. I did not think about it at all.

Any rate I had an awesome time and a net profit of $60.

I am going to miss the next installment of the race for the bracelet. Oh well! Baseball and the kids come first. Perhaps I will show up late and jump into a cash game.

Play on!