Arlington Cash Game

Give me a little money at the beginning of the night... I'm NOT going away. I know it won't be like this every night.. but I'm pretty happy with my cash game skills right now... Most of these games I'm playing in are friendly cash games. Last night was pretty friendly and surprisingly a pretty 'tight' game (while I was there - I think things changed quite a bit after I left)... A looooot of limping last night. A looooot of high-pitched screaming from drunk girls last night. Folks taking shots of Patron at the table.. beer being spilt on the table.. but really a solid cash game (.50 / $1).. Fun atmosphere and all.

As for the actual game.. Once again I don't remember too much.. Ran a pretty good bluff that I showed to my buddy Scanlon early in the night.. I believe he had middle pair.. and yeah, I had suited crap... All in fun. I went on an early rush.. got my stack up to like $80 something bucks early on... But you know poker.. Hands cooled off and I decided to tighten up pretty much for the rest of the night. While it was a tight game and a lot of limpers early on.. there began to be a good amount of pre-flop callers of standard size raises (3x big blind) as the night progressed.

My favorite play of the night was a check-raise/sandwich play that I pulled after the flop from early position.. I won't reveal my cards but I sensed no true strength and a lot of drawing hands at the table.. After I checked (I was in second position and the guy in first position checked before me), the person after me bet $3.00... There were 4-5 more people (including Russell and Frank) to act after the bet and they all called (except for the guy in first position.. I think he folded). I came over the top of all of them with a $12 raise.. making it $15 to go... Everyone folded and I heared whispers of what people thought I was holding and they might have been right and they might have been wrong.. I won't reveal my hand.. But the board was K, Q, rag... A nice play I must say :)

There were a couple girls that played at the table last night... The other table had some loud ass girls.. I'm glad I wasn't at that table and I don't blame Frank for moving from there. GEEZUS. Nice change of energy playing with girls.. it's usually a sausage party at these poker nights. The first girl was tight-aggressive and barely knew the ranking of poker hands before we started playing.. I thought she was gonna clean up... She would come from left-field with random $10 and $15 bets/raises and chase folks away... I played back at her one time and she folded 'cus I noticed she would play low pairs and aces with weak kickers very aggressively and I would've had her dominated that time around... The second girl (a BLACK woman! - playing poker! - wooooooooooow!) that sat down next was suuuuuper tight-passive from what I had seen from the few hands she played .. If what I saw continued after I left, she probably got blinded away.. You can't always wait for premium hands to get your chips in the middle sista.

The night slowed down for me and I lost $20 something dollars in my last two hands of the night.. Both times I believe the river hit my opponents' flush draws... I didn't lose as much money as I would have compared to when I first started playing poker (I would fall in love with hands early on).. so I'm proud of that.. The last hand particularly sucked 'cus I was holding KK and the board had all under cards .. a little paint.. but FOUR DIAMONDS... That diamond on the river gave my opponent the king high flush.. He was first to act after the river and he checked to me.. He was attempting a check-raise, but I didn't fall for it (good job Chris).. I told him, "nice hand bro" in true Craft fashion... He said he got lucky and I agreed... MAYBE I could've bet more after the turn to make him fold.. but I think he was frustrated and would have been willing to gamble anyway to hit his card... He was holding AK off-suit and knowing that now.. I feel that he would've gambled to try to hit his flush, king, or ace (another king on the river would've been nice for me)... He had a nice amount of outs... But let's do the math on his flush draw and his ace:

There was at most $11 in the pot before I bet on the turn.. I bet $10 after the turn came... making the pot $21 and $10 for him to call.. So his pot odds were 2.1 to 1 (not that good) .. I don't think he had a straight draw... So he had 3 aces and 9 diamonds as outs... So that's a total of 11 outs (you can't count the ace of diamonds twice)... So there's 46 cards left for the river.. 35 cards can't help him and 11 can... That's 3.18 to 1 for his drawing odds.. So the odds weren't in his favor.. BUT this is a cash game.. so folks gamble a little bit more and he had a chance to make more money if he DID hit his card - implied odds (if I were to play my kings strong and bet after his check on the river) .. Oh well.. "that's poker."

If everything held up the way I saw it before I left... Russell had a huge night... Scanlon had a good night with a late rush (was still on his original buy-in)... And I'm hoping ol' Frank got him a rush of cards... I honestly don't know how the night ended for everyone 'cus I wanted to leave early and get some good rest.. So I got 3 or so hours of poker in and I finished up $33 ($10 / hr) - solid night with a good sandwich play.

Quan, where were you homie? - I heard you showed up eventually.

Later,
Craft