Hit or Miss

So last night was my regular Monday night game. Lotsa new faces for the $40 tournament. One guy who busted out and left made the cardinal sin of driving through the grass. Not only did he drive through Dave's grass but he drove through the wettest part of the yard leaving a giant rut and the neighbors lawn too. And he ran over a landscape light. It was quite the topic for pretty much the rest of the night. As far as the tournament went, I played very few hands but at least I played them poorly. My first significant hand I raised with 76off which is pretty unusual for me but I got 4 callers so when I blanked the board I didnt try to take the pot. I turned an open ended str8 draw and bet it. I got called. Then I check folded the river and was shown the 2,3 for an even lower missed str8 draw. I went out by getting moved to a new table and the first hand raising with AK utg and calling all my chips to a reraise from KK. Once again my blog was an occasional topic of discussion. In fact I had one friend on the phone with a guy who runs a different game explaining to him who the fuck I was. No big deal or anything they just wanted to know who was writing it. Kooky.

The cash game was pretty tame. There was a guy who was new who bought in for basically a double stack which propted our local self-made-thousandaire to buy up to equal his stack and say something about needing to have the biggest dick on the table. My first real hand Im on the button with AQ and Mr. New Guy Double Stack limps UTG and it folds around to me. I make it $12ish and he calls. The flop is AKQ so I continuation bet $20ish. He calls. Im thinking he has a worse Ace or maybe a King and a gutshot. The turn is another King. He checks, I check. If I bet he can take me off the hand so easy but by checking Im just begging to be tested. I can call a reasonable bet on the end with the current size of the pot. The river bricks and he bets out the pot. I dont like it because I dont know him at all. Generally when people check big hands to me hoping that I will bet for them and I just check behind they like to over bet the river just because they are pissed the pot isnt as big as it could be and they want to get a few extra bucks for their monster. I tanked and looked at him and finally decided that since he bought in for double stack he may have been planning on slinging the chips around. I knew he could make that bet with a naked Ace which we would be chopping. He looked comfortable. He was shuffling his checks with no problem. I guess if he was strong he may have tried to give me a weak tell and look very uncomfortable. I finally make a crying call and he mucks pure air. He got himself a lot more action after that and a couple hours later left way down. I never got to participate in the feeding frenzy. I didnt pick up any hands. In fact I should just stop because the rest of the night was pretty boring. Mostly I would call and miss or I would raise and hit my Ace and win it on the flop. I limped and folded to a raise quit a bit. Rarely regretted it. I limped once and flopped open ended str8 flush draw. I bet $15 (about the pot) and got 1 caller. The turn paired the high card on board. I wanted to bet enough to get a competing flush draw out. If I get raised I would just have to decide if I wanted to gamble. So I bet the pot which was about $40. I get a call but it seemed like an over pair type call or a second pair. Well the river pairs the second highest card. I have 7 high out of position. I give up. Fucker has a flush draw (and bottom pair). I played that hand the way I would normally play a big made hand like a set against a bunch of limpers. If I just have the flush draw or just the str8 draw I dont play it like that. Oh well.

I so decided to cash out and leave on time. I was only up $60 in the cash game. I figured if I stayed and hit big I would feel too guilty to leave and I also didnt want to limp and call away $50 trying to hit a flop before I went home. I got a big family week coming up so I would rather not have a fresh bad memory of me pushing my Jacks into Kings.

Oh yeah and RDG aka LoveShack apparently made a coupla final tables in Tunica. I saw one 10th place. I see where Chris Moneymaker and Chad Brown are 1 and 2 going into the final table today. I wonder if its easier being a celeb. Maybe you dont get put to the test quite as much because people are scared you are going to pick them off or put them back to the test.