Friday night, I went out to play poker at one of the NYC poker rooms. I left work a little earlier than usual and headed over there. I was looking to play a $1-2 game with buy in at about $200. There are a lot of solid players at this club. I get there and the main table is full, which I am somewhat glad. They are playing $1-2, but they have stacks ranging from $400 to 2 grand. I think they play $1-2 more like $2-5. They do this because the time (rake per half hour) is $6 for the $2-5 game while $5 for the $1-2 game. A short handed game is ready to start with 4 players, including me. I hate playing short handed, since my aggressiveness and inability to let go of hands get me in trouble.
In the first 2 hands I dropped about $150. My two pair ran into straight and my top pair lost to three of kind made on the river. I bought another $200 and slowly built my stack back to about $500. There were 3 very interesting hands:
Hand 1
I am the bb with KhQh, and we have one guy straddle for $5. Button and small blind calls, and I raise to $20. Straddle raises to $40. I am the only caller. Flop comes QQx. I check he bets $30 and I call. Another blank hits, and I check, he checks behind me. I put him on AK or better. Another blank and I bet $50. He thinks and calls. He had AA.
Hand 2
I am again in the big blind. The same player straddles again. One caller. I call "blind" and I announce that. The straddle raises blind. The other caller, calls and I call. Flop comes Q 8 4. I check blind and he bets $20 blind. Callers folds and I announce that I have to look at my cards. I have Q5. So I raise him another $20, making it $40. He calls. The turn is a 5. I bet $45. He thinks about it and goes all in. I have another $95 to call. I think about it and call. The river is a 3 and I win the hand. He said he had some draw.
Hand 3
Huge pot that I lost, but I feel I made the right play. We were still four handed and I am in the button with 5d 7d. UTG raises to $10. I call, sb and button calls. The flop comes 6d 4x 2x, I really liked this flop, but I feel like I wasn't aggressive enough. The guy in the sb, bet $10 (this is the same guy that bluffed me in hand 2), bb calls, utg raiser calls and I call. (I should probably have raised here but I wanted to get another card, and build the pot a bit) The next card is a Qd. Check, Check and initial raiser goes all in for $55. I think about it. I put him on KQ or AQ and I am not sure what to do here. I decided to call the $55. Small blind goes all in for another $78, in addition to the $55. I call. The river is 2. Small stack wins with AQ and small blind wins side pot with 43.
We move to the main table after a few spots open up. The stacks range from $200 to about $1700 and this is a $1-2 game. I have about $500. Here is pretty much my reads from previous experiences at this game. Seat 1 is neutral aggressive solid player, Seat 2 I don't recognize, but is in the first few hands, makes solid decisions and has about $1300 in front. I guess he is solid. Seat 3 is super loose super aggressive player, he is the player you don't want in the pot. He will normally bet you out of hands and give you solid bad beats. His style however is one that has huge swings. Currently he has about $1700 in front of him... must have had a good run. Seat 4 is one of the players who was playing in my table he has $500 in front of him. Seat 5 is a local pro who is always at this club, and has about $1600 in front of him. I am seat 6. Seat 7 and 8 are the other guys from our table, 7 is the guy who won the hand with AQ and 8 is also a local pro that is always around. He only has $300 in front of him. Seat 9 is another local professional with about $1400 and seat 10 is the loosest player, has money italian guy who has watched a lot of poker on tv and is trying it out.
First hand, seat 10 and 1 limps, 2 raises to $20, 3 calls, 4 raises to $120. Everyone laughs and asks why so much. Everyone folds and seat 10 says "Let's crack thoses aces", and pushes all in with about $180 in front of him. Everyone folds, and seat 4 calls and shows aces. Seat 10 has QJ. The flop comes QQx and he wins the pot, putting seat 4 on tilt.
We play for a while and I build my stack to about $750. I see seat 8 doubling up through seat 3 with quad queens and seat 3 tried to bluff him out on the river. That must be a good feeling. He leaves and the guy who bluffed a bit in the short handed game takes his seat. Seat 5 is a funny player and started talking about creating a business called 800 badbeat.com. It was hilarious, mostly because of the cracked aces hand. In all, we weren't read for what was about to come.
I am UTG with JJ and I raise to about $12. Solid tight player raises to $30. Next guy calls, seat 9 calls, seat 10 calls, seat 3 calls. Shit, I didn't want all these players behind me. So I thought about putting in another solid reraise. I reraise to $120, but it doesn't work and everyone calls me. OMG, WTF???? The pot is now around $720+. This is no joke. Flop comes Td 4d 2x. I think for a while and make the mistake of betting $200. I was second to act, if I was going to make that move I should have just moved all in and hoped for the best. Guy next to me moves all in with $590, seat 8 calls with $400 and everyone thinks hard about laying the hand down. Seat 3 decides to call and I fold knowing I either beat by an over pair or a set and in the worst case I am racing against the flush draw, so I folded. I am really pissed about my $200 bet, and the huge pot made me bet that much since I had over cards, but in that case I should have just let go, or not even make the reraise preflop. Playing and learning.
Seat 7 has KK
Seat 8 has 44
Seat 3 has xd xd for the flush draw
Flop is Td 4d 2x
Turn 2h
River is the K
The final pot turned out to be $2700 or something around that area. If you ever take a bad beat, you may call 800 badbeat-dot-com.
