Meeting an old friend for poker
This Saturday, I met up with an old friend from high school, Mike Gonzales. We were only together in school for our last two years in high school but we hung out quite a bit and even worked at the Red Robin in downtown Vancouver. We re-united through Facebook.
We headed out to St. Pat’s high school in Vancouver to check out the Alumni basketball tournament. Apparently, the organizer was going to have a poker thing happening after the tournament. Well, the tournament ended and nothing was happening so Mikey and I left. We went to go to the Starlight Casino in New Westminster instead.
We quickly found the poker room and put our names on the list for $1/$2 No Limit Texas Holdem with a minimum $100 buy-in. After a beer at the bar and a half-hour later, our pager started vibrating to notify us that seats have opened up for us. I bought in for $140. The very first hand, 2 player limped and I raised 5xBB (to $10) in middle position with AsJs (Ace and Jack of spades). Everyone folded to the second limper who called. The flop came 3 low cards and Buddy checked the flop. I thought he had an Ace. But I also thought that he thought that I had a decent pocket pair (really good players can think to even deeper levels). I made a continuation bet of around the size of the pot and Buddy folded. I played really tight just to get a feel for the table. It was very loose with 6 players on the flop a common occurrence.
My big hand came with me on the big blind with Jd4d. The flop was 9TQ with 2 diamonds. I had a monster open-ended straight draw with a flush draw. Some aggressive betting by “Buddy” and Mikey who was to my right on the small blind with 2 pair and decided to chase his Full House knowing a straight and flush were possible on the board. At this point there was a lot of money in the pot. The turn was an 8 giving me the straight. I checked and Buddy goes all in. He had more chips than me and Mike forcing us to go all in to make the call. Mike called with his 2 pair hoping to hit his Full House. In the end, I decided to call with all my chips knowing I had a straight and a possible flush draw. I was hoping for any diamond but the river was the Qc. Buddy and I showed our J. Buddy didn’t have a K or a Q. Mikey mucked his hand (he told me later that he had 2 pair of 9 and Ten). So Buddy and I split the pot essentially giving me half of Mikey’s chips. That put me up to $260 – $120 more than my initial buy-in of $140.
So with this new found fortune I decided to loosen up a bit. The table was really loose; one lady busted out playing 3T offsuit from the cutoff and everyone was quietly saying….WTF? And she was talking like she knew all the rules and stuff. So I decided to call with cards like A9 and 67 suited but to no avail; the average raise was 5xBB with usually one or two callers. The big blind was coming around and after the hand where I was under the gun, I called it quits. So with $242 in chips, I cashed out. I was up $102. Not too bad for just over an hour’s play.
