Badger Poker...Leaving Las Lava

The final week of the season is upon us. And it is time to say sayonara to the Lava. Can't say I will miss this place as it is pretty damn small. All the tables are pretty much smashed together to fit everyone in. Besides, I never really did well there. Sure I came in second once but I think my overall negative impression of the playing conditions had an affect on my play. Kinda like last night.
Well, I guess I can't blame the Lava for how I did last night. I made two bad plays at the last table that may have cost me. But let's start at the beginning. I liked my first table. Has little Gus Hansen there along with Boston hat. Boston hat is a rather weak player. A nice chip distributor. Brewers hat was there, a tough player that takes chances as was Cowboys fan. There were two 'surf' dudes there. What is a surf dude? These two live in Milwaukee but had that dirty blonde messy hair with all the gel in it, open shirt, talkin like dude look. They were ok players (until the end which I will get to). Some guy with a Homer Simpson hat was there. As play went on I kinda studied him and came to the conclusion that if he wasn't wearing the hat, there is a good chance he actually would look like Homer. There was the Rock 102.1 dj and of course, my favorite guy of all time, the infamous Bagman! Bagman cracks me up week after week. Lately, he has taken to wearing a suit while he plays cards. Last night happen to be the same suit and tie he wore last Wednesday. Not the bad suit and a really ugly tie that he doesn't even tie right, but this one may be his best. I think he is trying to impress someone. Why? Who the hell cares? As long as his play doesn't change. Also last night he was talking about how stupid the Packers were for trading Mike McKenzie. As much as I wanted to, I stayed away from calling him an idiot.
Nothing much happened when the cards started going around. I had a nice pickup early. Bagman raised it to 600 and little Gus called. Saw Big Slick and raised it up to 1600. All folded except for these two. Flop missed me but I bet out and took it down uncontested. I noticed how one of the surf dudes was slow playing a lot of pots. He was taking chips off of little Gus and the Brewers hat. Homer was taking some good pots off the other surf dude and the Cowboys fan. Homer took out Cowboys fan early. At that point, he may have poisoned that spot on the table as anyone who came in to that seat went out rather quickly, and usually to Homer. Of course watching Bagman was the fun point. He likes to play just about any hand. He tosses his chips up like they just don't matter to him. He was also quick to fold any big raise. Bad part was I only had two hands to take some chips off of him. The second hand I took a couple off of him was when I had A J suited and hit the A on the flop. He bet out and I raised and he folded quickly. Another thing about Bagman is that he doesn't understand the rules. He questioned the "one show, all show" rule claiming that it does not exist and he can show whoever he wants/doesn't want his cards. Makes me think I should bring in the rules just for him. Anyways, in one pot, he gets set up by Homer and loses a decent amount of chips. So what does he do next hand? Of course he pushes all in preflop. No one calls him down and he shows K Q. Bagman even had the audacity to question how someone had their chips stacked and where he kept his cards while in a hand. Bagman messed up and tried to blame this guy. There were 5 guys in the hand. Flop came A Q 3. I checked along with Boston hat. First surf dude bet 1200. Bagman declared he was all in. Problem is that two guys hadn't acted. Surf dude didn't quite like that and wanted the muck rule enforced. I went along with it just to tick off Bagman. Thus Bagman was done on the hand and Surf Dude won. Bagman then claimed he couldn't see that the other guy was still in the hand because he kept his cards under his hands and close to the rail. With the chips in the way, he couldn't see the guy was still in the hand. Uh..ok. Bagman got away with another misstep a bit later when he bet out and mucked before Surf Dude acted. SD let him have that one when he folded. I told SD he should have raised him back because he mucked. I would have done just that to send Bagman over the edge. It didn't take long for Bagman to go out. He went on tilt and all in with A 9. Little Gus Hansen turned over A K and Bagman was sacked. Surf Dude number one went soon after. One bad part about that first table was that I didn't get much to play. I left there with about 19000 though. What cards I got, I made count. I misplayed one hand there. With K 4 in the big blind, the flop came K J x. I bet half the pot on the flop and had both surf dudes call. Turn was another J. I checked feeling that one had the J and that my kicker even with the K was not good. River was an A. I bet out now because I knew neither had a J and now I liked my A kicker, but second surf dude had the A. I let take a free ride.
At this point they broke our table and I was moved to a slightly tougher one. There was Twins fan, J, they guy who gets extremely loud when winning a hand, second surf dude among the short table. The big problem with play here was surf dude was done. He played 3 straight poor hands and went out because he didn't want to play anymore. Asshole. He basically gave his chips to one guy. In one of those hands I made a mistake too. I had 8 8. The blinds were 1000/2000. I limped in. Surf dude limped as well but one guy then pushed all in for 10k. I had him covered but folded. I should have called because he did not look confident. I read him for maybe have an A or just two top cards, no pair. He turned over K J and won with the K high (there was an ace on the board but neither guy paired up) beating surf dude's 6 9. A couple hands later I tried to limp in with J 10 and that cost me 4000 when someone else raised to 8000. I had made two mistakes that may have led to my demise. I got blinded down to 5000 and was in the cutoff with A J. My all in only raised it 1000. Two players were in. Though I caught a J on the turn, the big blind had J 8 for two pair and I was done. If I had not limped on the other hands, my 11000 push may have caused him to fold.
One other thing to note at that last table was the loud guy going all in preflop. Apparently he is a poor post flop player. Twice with blinds just 1000/2000 he went all in with about 20k. WTF? I hope to get against him tonight as he doesn't understand the risk he takes. On two of his pushes he had 9 9 and A Q, both beatable hands. He values some mediocre hands a little too highly. Hopefully I can take some chips off of him when he makes that move tonight.