This Week In Poker

It was a rough week for me on the felt last week.

J-Dawgs Poker Extravaganza was a blast as usual. Bobby Dee smoked a brisket and he is a magician with a smoker. Put it on a bun with BBQ sauce, sweet onions and dill pickles and you have an AWESOME sandwich! Add a couple of side dishes and some pecan filled brownies that Stamps better-half had baked, and it made for some excellent grub.

I won a nice pot in a game of Badugi with a 6 high. We were heads up on the last draw, and Bobby Dee and I both held pat on both the second and third draws, so I figured he was strong. He called me down after all three draws, but lost with a 9 high.

In a later hand, I looked down at 7-2 offsuit from the cut-off on a hand of Hold 'em, got a wild hair and decided to raise. "Oh crap, Duck's got aces!" Stamps hollers. I only get two customers, which is unheard of in this 25/50 cent, limit game, where there are usually 5-6 players seeing the flop. The flop is J high and J-Dawg and "Cell" (because he spends most of his time texting on his phone) check. I bet and both of them call. The turn is an ace, and both players check. I bet and J-Dawg says, "I had you up till now" and folds. Cell comes along for the river ride. The river pairs my 2, Cell checks, I bet a dollar, and Cell mucks.

I really wanted to table my bluff, just because it's so hard to pull off in this limp-fest game, but I kept the secret to myself.

Friday night was spent at the Tin Man's tourney, which didn't happen because we only had 5 players, so we went right to the 10/20 cent NLHE cash game.

My favorite hand of the night was calling a 3X raise from Tin Man with a 5-3 of hearts. Tin Man is tight, so I knew he had a big hand, but thought "What the heck," and said to Tin Man, "I apologize in advance if I beat you with this piece of dog grunt!" The flop is J-7-3, with two hearts. Tin Man shoves for another $1.50, I call, hoping to hit my flush and once again apologize in advance if I win. Tin Man tables A-J, for TPTK. The turn is a brick, but the river is a 3! Everyone at the table goes "WHOA!" in unison and Tin Man breaks out laughing. You think Hellmuth would have the same reaction if I had done this to him?

Overall, I lost $16 in both games, possibly because I played too many hands like 7-2 and 5-3.

Other than the DON tourneys on Pokerstars, I generally had my hat handed to me online last week, dropping about $40. So I'll spend today going over hand histories to find the leaks in my game that I know are there.

Finally, if you are an active soldier or a military veteran, thank you for your service on this Memorial Day. May God bless you and your loved ones.