1/14/05 - pokernight

the original pokernight was down to only three of its founders(me, jj, and ryanne). yveypants was MIA and missed. a curious night, as we started off with a table of 9 at about 10pm and were down to 4-5 of us by midnight. such a vast change makes for some tricky dynamics. further, we had two all-new players, neither of whom were new to the game. jason's brother and newguy shawn. newguy shawn eventually cleaned most of us out. he played smart but also got insane cards (4 straights in a night?!) i played tight won a few good hands, made some mistakes, usually with impatience or not paying enough attention. we were about to call it a night where i would've been up about $3. just me, gabi, and shawn left. gabi called out for one more game.

i get dealt AQs. my bet and i bet pretty heavy pre-flop. scared out gabi. flop comes 9Q3 (i think the last was 3, it was a low-card that didn't mean a lot. no real straight draw showing). i bet heavy, got a small raise and some talk about the queen from him. the turn brings a 4 with similar action. the river brought a king. i really didn't think he had that straight, despite all the others. ( i can't remember how much the chance of a flush played in, but i felt sure he didn't have it). at this point i'd been betting hard with queens, suited ace kicker. he'd been meeting, but really at the same pace. he bets me all-in. i went. i thought he'd show me Q9 and deserve my money. nope. much worse. he had the 94 (unsuited). pure evil. but still a good hand, and i liked the new fellow as he was a gracious player who still didn't mind some playful insults, curses, and punches in the face.

so my moral is: always pay attention to WHO you are playing with. not just cards and chances and whatnots. it's seemingly obvious and completely critical. basically, i didn't have enough information about him to stay all-in on that hand. it looked like he'd been playing solid tight-aggressive, but he'd also been getting lots of nice draws chasing straights that he got. i thought he was MAYBE betting on the Q9, but more likely betting on Q with a medium kicker. after the hand he said to me,"i knew i could get you all-in because it was the last hand." which goes to show he didn't have enough information about me, either. i went all-in where i thought i had a good chance. but there aren't a lot of occasions when i do go all-in (yet), and i certainly wouldn't have if i didn't think i had a chance. he followed me in with cards that would have turned out 9 out of 10 times to be garbage. but my not having enough info should have been enough reason to fold when called all-in there.

that's poker, annnnd i love it.
lovemarty