Poker and Liquor

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Happy BBSOP 2006

The BBSOP 2006 New Years Event went off without a hitch. The 40 minute structure allowed for lots of real poker. The players were ready to play (even though a few were hungover from the previous eve.) Three tables were set up. I had Mimosas poured and Guinness for later. MsBlood's Famous cookies were coming out of the oven. It promised to be a great touney.

If your name wasn't Smith.

I could've seen some cards. I saw the hiltons once. They were my only pair of the tourney. They bought the blinds. The blinds were very low. I saw KJo four times, and never saw the turn with them. My only pot at all was early, when a TJ suited spiked a T high flop, and I bet out to NeighborGreg who tanked for a while and folded. This gave me the preflop bets (enough to bring my back up to within one chip of my starting stack of T200. Outside of those six hands, over a period of two hours I never saw a pair, suited connector, or anything over a 9 high, yet managed to also never see The Hammer.

I was losing very slowly. Late in the third level (about 2 hours in) I finally saw something that resembled a hand, AJo, and pushed. The Mark called me with a baby pocket pair and I was the 5th person out.

The first out was my brother Shep Tiltstein, and the second was his son, Wolverine. Bad tourney for Smiths.

Congrats to a great player, Falstaff, for the win. And to a great suckout artist and general luckbox for the second place position.

*****Bitch bitch bitch. I know. Well, lets turn that around. CASH GAME TIME!

I used up all my -EV Variance in Vegas and at the Tourney. It was finally gone for a bit. +EV Variance was there for me in the cash game. I saw all the cards I had been looking for in the Tourney. Even my crappy cards would see a limped around flop and hit two pair. Cash game good.

The highlight of the cash game was with myself and G-Rob (brain fuzzy on exact details). I bet out a standard 5XBB raise (blinds were small) with pocket 9's, and he calls. Flop comes something like 367 rainbow. I bet $5. G-Rob raises $15. I reraise $15 more. G-Rob pushes all-in for about $12 more. I call.

G-Rob says "Well I'm ahead" and turns over a 47 showing top pair.

I show pocket 9's and he says "Well, maybe not. I got outs!"

The whole table says in unison "He needs a 5!" The Turn comes a 5 for the suckout inside straight for G-Rob.

That's when I channeled CJ. CJ and I both said in unison "and an 8" as the river turned over with the 8, giving me the inside straight re-suckout. The table erupts! "Did that just happen??"


All in all, a great day of Poker, and a fantastic way to start the new year. The Bloods were outstanding hosts as usual. BadBlood was great at setting up a very professional tourney and busting out, leaving the Tourney Director job to CJ when he moved to the cash game. This has become the standard MO for Blood and CJ.