Friday Nite On the Felt

Played in our usual Friday night home game last night. We start with a no-limit hold 'em tournament, $5 buy-in (small potatoes). We generally have 10-15 players, with nine sitting down at the table last night. As players bust, they move over to the cash table, which has a $2 buy-in, with 10 and 20 cent blinds. Again, small potatoes.

I was UTG on the first hand of the tournament and mucked big lick (69 off). Flop is 6,8,9, rainbow. Turn is another 9. Oh boy, I hope that's not a sign!

I still had my most of my starting stack, $100T, when I looked down at AK off in late position. Blinds were still at the $1-2 first level. There was one limper, so I raised 3X plus one for the limper. The original limper called, which is not unusual in this game. Flop is garbage, 4,7,2, rainbow. Limper bets $10T into me and I call. Turn is an 8 and he leads out for $20T. The villain, Josh, is a tight player that will fire one bullet, but not a second unless he has a hand. After judging his body language, I folded, figuring I could find a better spot to go to war. He later told me he had a set, which is what I was afraid of.

Later in the tourney, with blinds at $3-6T, I was in the cutoff with JTd. With several limpers in front, I limped behind. Flop had two diamonds and all under cards. Josh lead out with a small $10T bet with everyone folding to me. I called. Josh checked an innocent turn card, as did I. The river brought a beautiful diamond! Josh checked and I pushed my last $36, which was about the size of the pot. Josh folded and I raked a nice pot.

With blinds at $5-10T, I had built a nice stack of $250T and was dealt 74 off in the BB. I checked behind three limpers + the SB and saw a flop of 2,4,7, with two diamonds. I lead out with half pot bet and was called by Freddy, one of the better players at the table. I put him on a flush draw and bet pot after a non-diamond 8 hit the board. He pushed all-in for $105T. Crap! Guess I read that one wrong. I folded and Freddy showed 65d for the made straight with a straight- flush redraw. Good fold Lucki Duck!

I was able to continue to chip-up and had a huge chip lead when we got ITM. I took out Beverly, a tight passive player when I pushed from the SB with K5 off. Bev was down to one BB and called with Q8d, but didn't improve. The next hand I pushed again with K5s and Freddy called with 97 off. The turn completed my flush and I took down the $25 first prize!. WOOT!

More on the cash game in my next post.