Thursday night Lee hosted a small-stakes poker game at his house. (Lee is one of my new friends whom I’ve mainly gotten to know through playing Magic.) There were 7 of us all together, and we started off with a little tournament: $10 per person in the kitty, top three spots paid. We started with $6000 in chips.
I had a pretty good session. My most memorable hand was one where three people called my $100 big blind, and I checked with 6-5o.
And the flop was 2-3-4. I’d flopped the nut straight.
Action was checked around to me, and I made a bet of around $200. Jamie (a new player I hadn’t met before) folded, and Daniel raised to $1000. Lee folded. It was a social game so there was a lot of chatting going on, but I thought for a bit and finally went all-in. Jamie folded, and Daniel thought for a lo-o-ong time. Finally he called.
And he winced when he saw my straight. Then I winced when I saw he had two pair – he had 2-3 – so he had 4 outs against me. But the turn and river didn’t help and I crippled his stack.
That as pretty nifty, though Daniel didn’t think so. He thought I had either top pair, or an overpair. I wouldn’t have gone in with top pair, and I would have been reluctant with any overpair less than 10s. But obviously he didn’t expect me to have a straight, he just ran into my moment of supreme luck. So I guess it was not a bad call on his part. I arguably could have just reraised rather than gone all-in since he probably would have folded anything less than two pair, but I felt the pot was already valuable enough that I wanted to take it down then.
I ended up getting knocked out in fourth place when I went all-in with Jacks, and Adam made the runner-runner wheel straight to beat me with his A-5. Gah.
We played a cash game after the tournament was over: $10 buy-ins, and nickel-dime blinds. So it was small stakes, but it was a good learning session. The cash game was basically Lee’s game as he won a couple of huge pots. I was pleased (on one hand I wasn’t in) that I correctly guessed that he had a set when he went all-in. I think he was surprised I had figured it out from his betting, alhough he may have figured I was just BSing him. I do make correct assessments like that from time to time, but it’s far from a consistent skill, unfortunately.
I checked out around 11:30 pm, but I had a great time. I’ve been enjoying getting to know these new friends of mine!