patience, patience and more patience
I have made my return to live poker after 2 solid months off.. My first session back was not so good. Had my Aces cracked by a 5-7 when my opponent rivered 2 pair. Very painful and I even joked with him that I was going to beat him up in the parking lot.. (but really, for that, I should have). Well the other night I decided to play at Commerce – there definitely was craziness with the LAPC wrapping up later this week. It was very loud in there.
My goal was to just be patient and wait for good spots. I wanted to take my time. I had someone meeting me there later in the evening. I showed up right from work.. waited for a seat and then began.. fold, fold, fold, fold.. Ok, this is getting a little crazy. How many times can I really be dealt 8-2? No, really, my cards are unplayable. Seriously.. Just be patient. I had a bit of a unpredictable table anyway. Big pots right away. Players rebuying after almost every pot.. so it seemed. I finally pick up an A-J off in early position. I make the decision not to raise. I hate this hand and with this table I don’t know if they’ll all fold or all call. So a few limpers enter the pot. Flop brings a J high board. A min bet is thrown out and I just call. One other caller hangs on. Turn pairs the board with another 4. Original better throws out a bet 2/3rds the pot. I call and other guy folds. River is a small useless card and original better bets the min again. I decide to keep it small and just call.. we show down and I think I had it anyway with my top pair top kicker.. but he shows QQ. Huh, Interesting.. Guess I could have reraised on the turn or river if I really wanted the pot? Not sure really.. I was new to the table and that was my first hand played.
I find myself fighting a short stack because of this hand and some other worthless pots I decided to jump in. I begin to push with hands like 9h7h in the BB with 2 other raisers. Why? Because I know they have big cards, there’s money in the pot, and I like my drawing hand.. so just maybe.. well yes, yes indeed. I flop a straight and take that pot.
So after 3 hours I find myself only up a monsterous $10. Wow.. big night. ha. Suddenly I look down at AA.. Alright let’s make something happen. I put out my standard raise. I get 2 callers and then a reraise. He bumps it up to $30. That’s 4x my raise. Ok.. well, I know what I have.. So I reraise all in. That’s a little more than $80 total. Guy to my left calls all in for less… but before he can even do that there’s an insta call coming from one seat down- the original re-raiser. Interesting.. well I know what i have. This leaves a pot of the 3 of us.. I show my AA right away.. Flop brings Q-x-x low cards w/ no draws. Turn J. River.. blank… OK, I’m thinking.. who has the QQ or JJ? No? No one? Insta-freak shows KK.. and crazy guy on my left flashes Q-10 and then tries lying to the other side of the table that he had A-Q… either way. i take down a little more than $200 pot. Finallly. ah…
Well.. that worked out nicely but when I picked up AA again.. the fella to my right decided he wanted to gamble on a gut shot and I paid him off. Luckily it wasn’t for too much of my chip stack. But still.. buy a lotto ticket.. I mean really.
Anyway, overall it was a good night. Patience worked out well for me. By the time my gentlemen friend arrived I was ready to cash out and record a winning session for the evening.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Sometimes being patient in games like that isn’t such a good idea. People can narrow your hand range down so much that they have equity to call with a large variety of hands since they will have a pretty good idea where you’re at post flop. I’m not the best hold’em cash game player by any means, but I’ve had some success with playing loose/passive preflop in games like that. I especially try to see a lot of pots that are limped or just have one raise early on and show some wacky stuff, so that my opponents have to put me on a wider range, and then maybe I’ll tighten up.
Basically, I try to think like a tiger waiting in the bush instead of looking like streaker running across the football field with a target on my back, which is what I tend to feel like when I’ve waited two hours to finally raise a good hand only to inevitably pick up four callers and get busted by 5 4.