Playing the home game

Played in a home game on Friday night. Got an invite from Bob about a co-worker who runs a tourney every once in a while. Cor had won the last one and said it was a good place to go fishing. So I thought it would be worth the $35 and got signed up. Now, if I could learn to be patient, I could have done well. Instead, I came in 10th out of 17.

The competition here wasn't that good. That is why I ended up being disappointed in my finish. We drew randowm tables which put me at the short table. Funny how the 4 women ended up at one table. My table was good though. There was the guy running it who for some reason kept a towel on his lap, some big meathead next to him who was easy to bluff on, a very aggressive guy, two not-so-good players, a really young kids and one of the more annoying people I have sat at a table with in a long time. Apparently this was the guy's father-in-law. I tell you, if Mike Sexton said it on TV, he said it at the table. Somehow it was Gus Hansen this or Gus Hansen that. I wanted to put a sock in his mouth. He was driving me nuts. He even created this little cardboard cutout to help him keep track of his chips and to tell him the difference between the small blind and big blind.

The game started out fast for me. Got Big Slick on the second or third hand. It was raised to me so I re-raised it up. Flop came A Q x. I made a pot size bet and was called. Turn was another Q. He checked again and I made a half pot bet. He called. River was a rag so I bet again feeling confident he did not have a Q. He called and showed A 10. I chipped up nicely to start. Had A K again a couple hands later but got nothing out of it. The Kid had A K pay off nicely for him when he flopped a full house. But he played the hand wrong and drove the players out. He could have taken a number of chips of the annoying FIL. But he made huge bet on the turn. Annoying FIL had raised his small bet on the flop. I told him if he checked it, the annoying one would have called and he could have gotten more chips out of him.

My stack was going up and down. I started to play some hands that I shouldn't have. But I also ran some good bluffs along the way. I bluffed meathead out of two good pots. Watching him play, I notice he would play a lot of draws and wasn't confident about his cards. Twice he folded two pair on the river because he was scared someone had trips. He would put a lot of chips out there but couldn't finish it. So on two busted straight draws I moved on him. Took down two good pots too. On the second one, I moved all in on him with just K high. He laid down his pairs again. This time I showed him the bluff, knowing I could piss him off and put him on tilt. Worked perfectly. His next words were that he was getting mad. Later he would wonder how people could bluff like that.

I gave some chips away on a bad read. Towel man, the organizer, pushed all in on a K 10 x flop. It was only 70 some chips and I called with A 10. He had checked raised me on the flop. I was sure if he had the K that he would have bet it out. Thus, I called. He had the K and then the pot. Bad read.

That would start my downfall. I was in good shape at the first break with about 50% more chips than I started. One of the chicks at the other table was running over people. We had lost 3 people at our table, and the aggressive guy was starting to take over. And take my chips. I played some loose hands here and there and before I knew it, I was short stacked. Then I made a mistake (possibly) by not pushing all in preflop with A J suited. Flop came K high and I was done when I pushed at that point.

The play was pretty wild at times with people calling down with second and third pair. Annoying FIL kept yapping away during the whole game. Funny as when I left, he was smoking. He told me that I was a much better player than he and I just didn't catch some cards. That was about the only intelligent thing he said all night.