Badger Poker...Time for a hiatus?

A dreary Monday night brought us to the Bay View Bowl to kick off another week of Badger Poker. Crowd was bigger than it had been in the past as 7 tables were set up. Lots of new faces were in the crowd. Didn't know quite how things were going to go but hey, when do I ever?

There was no assigned seating so I took whatever spot was available. Was only familiar with one person at the table. One that I respected quite a bit. I knew Chris could push at any point and of course he would. Guy on my left has played a number of these events. I just didn't want him to miss his dip cup and spit on the table by accident. On my right was someone who looked like he just came from work. He had rolled up his sleeves but was still wearing the tie. Another dude had these stupid looking glitter glasses. Did wonders for his game! On the far side of the table were the aggressive boys. Raise Everything and Re-raise. They were going to set the pace and make it interesting. Or frustrating. It was pretty much both. There was a talker who didn't care for my sweatshirt and a quiet guy in the middle of it all.

The first couple of pots were taken down by Raise Everything. If I am not mistaken, he played every hand except for 2 or 3 in the first hour. And in those hands, he raised it preflop on every one of them or he called the raise. If the bet was to him, he then bet the flop. And his raises weren't cheap. At the 100/200 level, he started with 500 raises. But he then bumped it to 1000 when the table started to fold. Well, Re-raise wasn't going to have that and started to re-raise every time Raise Everything played his hand. Sure enough, RE would fold. I noticed this and couldn't wait to catch something to play on these guys. Unfortunately, we weren't seeing too many show down and we weren't seeing what they were playing. My guess is RE was going nuts with any two face cards and any ace (which was the case as he liked to show his laydowns. Yeah, you are that good to show us your laydowns just about every time). Raise Everything took out the talker early when they both played their aces aggressively. Why do you go all in with A 4? Stupid. Chris was taken down when his cowboys got busted.

I didn't play much in the first round. Got K J and raised it up. Raise Everything and Tie came for the ride. Flop missed me with A 10 x, but I had a chance on the gutshot. Tie though reached for chips and bet out 2000, roughly a pot size bet. That sucked. I would call 1000 but the 2000 was too much too early for a gutshot. Next playable hand came with A J suited that I raised pre flop. Again, RE and Tie went to see a flop. Flop was a bunch of rags. I fired a bullet and Tie called. Turn was no help. Tie checked as did I. I thought about firing the second bullet but couldn't pull the trigger. On the river, Tie bet and I had to fold. Going in to the first break I was down a about 2k and not going anywhere.

I caught Big Slick early in the second session. I raised the bet up to 2500 and the quiet guy called. Both blinds folded. Flop came Q high with 2 clubs. Before the flop was fully revealed I went all in with my remaining 3k. Thankfully, the quiet guy folded and I was close to where I started. They broke our table up after than I headed over to table 1. I had played with just about everyone at this table. When I sat down, I had the great fortune to post the small blind. The one unknow went all in and had 4 callers at 2400 each. State Visor ended up winning the hand with a pair of 6s. He called the 2400 bet with Q 6 suited? I was amazed by that one. I didn't stay in the game much longer after that. Towel Guy raised the bet to 1800 from early position. I was on the button and called with K J. Flop came J 8 3. He bet 1600 and I pushed. He quickly called. I knew what he had and asked if he had A J. Sure enough. No king hits the board and I was done. Don't think I could have done much else with that. Short stacked and a need to take some chips down. Maybe next time I need to just read a bit quicker.