Monday Night Madness at Dino's

MLK Day was meant to be a busy day at work, but somehow I was able to get out of the office in time to make my weekly poker game at Dino's the other night. Looking sharp, as always, this time in my orange shirt, black and orange tie...always good for a few compliments from the ladies there.

We had 20-22 players this week, including Jeanette (friend/acquaintance of Andy from World Tavern Poker), who's quite the talkative one at the tables...but a welcome addition to the game.

Opening table was (left to right) me, Jim (Wayne-O's brother), Harry (in a rare appearance due to having night off due to government holiday), Jeanette, and Volcano Ron. Picked up a couple of pots early to go from 2400 to 3000 by end of 25/50 level, including outflopping Harry's big ace with 8-7 (2 pair)...I believe that hand led to me getting my first knockout of the night soon after the 50/100 level started.

Harry limped under the gun, and folded to me in SB and looking at QQ. I did my standard raise of 3BB to 300, and I think Harry was just frustrated with me pushing the table around, and felt he was card-dead...so he reraised to 1000. I figured at worst that I was in a coin-flip when we got it in the middle, I min-raised him all-in, which got a call with....A-9....what? Knowing that Harry usually plays pretty solid, this surprised me. Hit my set on the flop, avoided the runner-runner suckout for the straight, and I'm up to 5500 chips early on.

Pretty much held steady with my chip threw his chips at me after I showed trips, pissed at the suckout...this is why you don't let me get free cards, yo! At some level all of this amused me, but at a bigger level it was annoying...remember, win with class, lose with class!

Got to final table, and I'm sitting at a comfortable 7500 chips - didn't need to get involved in too many hands requiring thought until I was 4-handed...where I decided to call off half my chips to Dan with my pair 3s to his flush, thanks to another stellar read by me . Some days your reads are right, some days, errrr, not so much...and today was one of them.

Shove K-Q into Cheryl's A-Q and hit my king on the flop to double up....then after losing a couple of blinds I doubled through Dan when my 8's flopped a set, then boated on the turn. Soon after, I took Cheryl out when my suited Brunson flopped a flush...which made for an easy call when Cheryl shoved with bottom-pair and a flush draw that was, alas, only a 9-high draw. 9-high flush draws are usually useless when someone already holds a 10-high made flush, heh.

Dan and I finally got Jovan-Donk to "see the light" after about 20 minutes of discussion re: betting into dry side pots - I maintain there are times when it's advantageous to bet into it as a semi-bluff or even a bluff...but usually it's a dumb idea to do it unless you have a big hand. Soon after the light was seen, Jovan's night was done when my K-high took him out one hand after Dan crippled him.

Dan's arguably the best player in this game, so I knew it was going to be tough beating him. Unfortunately, I didn't help myself by making a couple bad calls/plays when he had big hands...I think Dan mentioning I had a couple of tells threw me off a lot there, but that would be making excuses for his good play/my bad play.

Final hand ended as a result of a brain-fart. Dan flopped a boat (10s over 6's), and played it beautifully. I called Dan's shove on the river thinking that I had made a flush...until I realized that, OOOOOOPS, there's only 3 clubs out there, not 4 like I had thought. Obviously, even if I have the flush I am done here - but if I realized that I had, what, only 2 pair, I can get away from the hand.

Without telling me exactly what my main tell is, Dan pretty much told me afterwards what my tell is (Thanks, sir!) - something to work on in future weeks here. I'll gladly take 2nd and another bottle of wine that I won't drink - let's bring on the final, already!