From Bad to Worse

Well, it was my second night of poker (No Limit Texas Hold 'Em) with the Red Hot Poker Tour and I fared a lot worse than my first night. I guess that's to be expected every now and then, especially since the gent (Ross is his name) who eliminated me the first night with the two 6's took the seat on my left (the worst place I could have him sit) and bowed out after 25 minutes of play.

It was nice to see, but his replacement was a wild and loose player who intimidated the table as soon as he sat down. We noticed he bluffed a lot and some people tried to take advantage of this, but inevitably he'd catch a card on the river to complete his hand. He'd use his impressive chip stack to just stay in until all cards were showing.

So, this quickly became my demise. Again, I was complimented with NO bleeding cards all night. In fact Ross and I were joking at one point that I was consistently getting dealt 6-4, while he quickly replied he was getting 5-3 dealt to him. Next hand we both folded ... me with a 6-4 and he with a 5-3!! That's the way it goes sometimes.

Anyways, back to the aggressor. I was getting low on chips (yet again) and was in the BB (Big Blind - the larger of 2 forced bets immediately after the dealer) with a Q-8 offsuit (one was a club, the other a heart). Buddy was first to act and called the BB (my forced bet). Everyone folded and I checked.

The flop (the first 3 community cards turned up on the table) was K-Q-8. I had flopped two pair. I was first to bet and bet 1/2 the pot. Buddy quickly raised to 3 times my bet. Now, this was a pattern for him and I'd seen him do this on hands he won having the worst hand ... he won the hands by getting the others to fold because he'd bet big money and they weren't willing to sacrifice that much.

So, I figured at best he has a pair of Kings. I called. The turn card (the 4th community card) was a 2. No straight or flush possibilities, so my 2 pair looked great. I once again bet the pot and he immediately forced me all-in (making me bet the remainder of my chips IF I wanted to call his hand). Again, he'd done this previously on pathetic hands. That really said to me he had at best a pair of Kings ... if anything. He was trying to bully me.

I called. Damn, if he doesn't flip up a King and a Queen!!! Bastard. He actually HAD a hand. So, I needed an 8 on the river (the last community card). My odds of getting one of the remaining two 8's was 6.25% ...

A 7 came up on the river. Bye Bye!

Although I left earlier than the previous week, I feel I had played well. I played that last hand correctly in my eye. I could have maybe put him on two pairs, but he'd played similar to other times when he'd had lousy hands, so my thinking was correct. Where it all went wrong was in the fact that Buddy played it EXCEPTIONALLY well. Hat's off to him.

It was time to shake his hand and head home.

Hell, Rock Star: Supernova was on! Go Dilana!! Go Toby!!!