Poker, Because There Really is Nothing Else

Cash game.

$0.10/$0.20 NL texas hold'em.

8-handed most of the day, 9-handed at some points.

Randy to my right, Raj to my left, with Mike one seat behind Raj. All that means is that I get to pick off Randy's calls (at one point, he had called preflop for about 30 consecutive hands), but also have to avoid being super dumb.

Started off pretty well, I guess. First hand, A-4 suited on the button, call one raise of $0.50 from Raj with about 3 other guys. Flop is A-J-2, with one card of my suit. Raj checks, Mike bets $0.75, fold to me, and I call for $0.75, on the button, with backdoor flush and straight draws. Raj calls too. Turn is an offsuited 3, Raj checks, Mike checks (he regrets this now), and I check, pretty sure my Ace is outkicked, if not worse. River is the 5. I have the second-nuts (the "peanuts" as I like to call it), save for 6-4, which I can only hope no one was fucking around with. Raj checks, Mike bets, I raise, Raj folds, Mike calls, and I turn up the suck-outed straight against his top two pair. About a $20 pot total.

Fold mostly for about 2 rounds, when I get back on the button with 8-5 offsuit. 3 weak calls after the big blind enticed me to make a play at this one, using my position and my image. "Raise, 50 cents more," I announce. To my chagrin, 3 calls total. Flop is Q-5-3, two spades, and all is not lost apparently. Check, check, Vince bet out $0.50. Vince can get creative at times, and he'd bet out here with a lot of hands that can't stand much pressure. I make a value-looking raise for $2 more. Vince folds, saying how he knows I'm going to come over the top of him for a lot of chips on the next card anyways (hehe, it's working, it's working!).

Life is pretty darn good, eh? Fold fold fold fold, and then, bam! K-10 offsuit under the gun. Maybe I was getting bored. I'd folded K-10 twice before in early postion, so I guess I wanted to change it up a little. Standard raise for $0.50, and I pick up 3 or 4 callers (I don't remember, there's always a lot of dead-money calls where they fold after the flop to any pressure). Flop is K-10 (first two cards off, both spades, so I was praying for a nonspade next) -9, all spades. Randy checked to me, and I bet out $2. Mike called, and Vince called (he regrets this now). Turn is my bingo card, K of hearts. Slowly check, pretending as if my A-10 with the A of spades was not so hot anymore. Mike checked, and Vince checked. River was the J of diamonds (Mike regrets this now). I check again, confidently in my mind, and Mike comes out firing for $5, and before the fireworks even start going off in my head, Vince CALLS. Oh boy oh boy, life sure as heck is REAL good. I ponder for a moment, checking my cards again slowly. I have no idea how they'll react to me, but I don't really care. Slowly, deliberately, I raise it, $10 more. Actually, I announced the $10 raise before I even checked my own stack. Turns out, I only had a buck left anyways after that. Mike calls pretty damn quickly, and Vince flipped up his Q-J as he thought about it. Wow, how awesome would it have been for him to call me too? Instead after several seconds, he makes the tough but correct decision to lay down the flopped straight. I turn up K-10 for my full house, Mike, in shock I guess, flipped up A-Q, for the nut straight. In hindsight, I guess he must have thought I was trying to buy the pot, maybe with 3 kings, maybe with a K-high straight trying to avoid a split (he had the A-high straight), or maybe I was pure bluffing. I guess I am capable of it. I'm just crazy like that.

So, that was about a $40 pot. I was up to roughly $46 at one point in my stack. Then the cards stopped coming, and I couldn't shake anybody off of anything. Notably in my memory, my J-J got, among others, a call from K-6 suited, and the flop came K-6-3; later 8-8 got, among others, a call from Randy with 10-7 offsuit, flop came 10-10-3, he bet out $2 (should have noticed and made the weird laydown here) but instead I raised $5 just to make sure, as he went all-in and I folded.

Final hand (by now the cards had gone completely dead), I limp in with J-8 to an almost-family pot (Raj folded), and the flop was J-8-3, two diamonds. One bet of $0.75, Vince raised all-in for $3.40 total, and I reraised another $7 to make sure. Heads-up between us it went, and he flipped up 10-7 for nothing but an inside straight draw. Sure enough, the 9 on the turn (and another one on the river) cost me about a $9 pot.

Oh well. I cashed out for $34, up $24 for the day, and went home shaking my head, certain I could have hit $50 easily if my quality hands had just held up too.

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Joe Sebok, son of Barry Greenstein, on playing online poker:

"There is also something to being able to say, 'Fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, damn it, for the love of all that is sweet on this earth, FOLD!' out loud during a bluff, which is very freeing."