Home Game Trip Report

I’ve posted once before about my home game, (but something’s wrong with my permalinks- gonna have to figure that out, stupid Blogger), so I’m going to skip a lot of that introductory material. If you haven’t seen that, you can search for it (it’s in the February archives or under the Personal label) or just try to keep up.

We’ve got a strong core of regular players but not quite enough to fill a game. So we’re constantly trying to bring in fresh blood, not so much because we’re looking to take their money but because we need the players in the game. As you can guess, though, the average unknown player is going to get eaten alive in this game, so what usually happens is that we play for a few hours until the newbs have gone broke and quit, and then we play some really exciting, tough, deep-stacked, and super aggressive short-handed poker where we pass their money around between us.

I don’t feel at all like we’re hustling them. We’re pretty up front and generally warn people ahead of time that it will be a tough game (but everyone thinks he’s good at poker). If anyone asks what I do, I tell them I’m a semi-professional poker player. We talk about the World Series (both Darren and I have played), the Aussie Millions (Darren has played), and eight-tabling mid-stakes no limit online.

On this particular night, the new players were three of Darren’s friends who had their own home game consisting mostly of $20 tournaments. One of them played a straight forward but tight aggressive game, but the other two were destined to go broke. They were just getting way too involved with bad hands and making it way too obvious when they didn’t have anything.

Justin

I ran a big bluff on Justin in one of my first hands of the night. MP opened for $1.50, the CO called, I called with 54o on the button, and Justin called out of the SB. The board was like J62hh or something that gave me a gut shot. The action checked to me, and I bet $4. Only Justin called. the turn was an off-suit A, and he checked and called about $12. The river was another A, he checked, and I overbet shoved for around $40.

Justin is the only good new player we’ve had in the game in a while. He makes good reads, is capable of making some moves, and in general plays cards well. But he doesn’t play nearly as often as the rest of us and consequently doesn’t have a poker bankroll. The result is that he’s sometimes hesitant to make a big call or bluff when he suspects it’s the right play because he can’t really afford to absorb the variance. I feel a little guilty for taking advantage of that, because even though he’s a student at Harvard Law School, his interest is in public service-type work, so he’s probably not going to be pulling down the absurd salaries that some of the other guys in this game will upon graduating.

But that’s the game, and I think he understands and expects that I’m going to exploit his weaknesses whatever they are. In my defense, he drinks a lot less than the rest of us, so by the end of the night he’s got the advantage of being more sober (though generally no one is more than buzzed). Anyway in this hand I was pretty sure he wouldn’t call with less than trips and wouldn’t check the river with trips or better. Sure enough, he folded after some suspicious chip shuffling.

I felt a lot less bad when a few orbits later I opened for $1.50 from the CO with AKo and he made it $6.50 from the button. Even though he often has a tight reraising range pre-flop, he knows I’m opening extremely wide from the CO, and I sort of expected him to make a play. More importantly, I didn’t think he was going to give up, since I knew he suspected me of bullying him out of our last pot. I made it $20, he shoved for $60 with, and I obviously called. By the river, his QTs had made a straight and was good.

Unh, Triple Up, Unh Unh!

I reload. Next big pot, Logan raises to $1.50 UTG, one of Darren’s pretty bad friends calls UTG+1, I call with KQo, a semi-regular named Jeremy calls on the button, and probably one of the blinds came along too. Flop AJTcc. Nice. Logan checks, UTG+1 bets $10, and I just call. This is an action board, and it’s likely someone will raise. If not, the bad player is very likely to lead the turn hard with a lot of hands he shouldn’t. Jeremy makes it $30 from the button, Logan cold shoves $60 from UTG, UTG+1 folds, I call, and Jeremy is priced in but not feeling good about his TT for bottom set. Logan shows AJ, which is nice because they are holding each other’s outs. In fact, it turns out that Logan’s two pair is way ahead of Jeremy’s set, as Jeremy can win only with a T or a running pair. My hand holds, and I triple up.

Logan’s call is obviously pretty questionable, but his reasoning almost makes sense. He said that he didn’t expect to see TT, KK, AK, or AA since there was no reraise preflop. KQ was really the only thing he was worried about, and I felt like AT and JT might be giving him action. Jeremy’s a tight enough player that with his raise, plus two others left to act, I think Logan needs to let the AJ go anyway, but I can see where he’s coming from. Logan generally makes very good reads and is not at all afraid to make a heroic, seemingly bad call based on them, which is definitely one of his strengths.

I was still stacking my chips when Darren opened for $2 UTG+1 and a loose player called next to act. I looked down at QQ and raised to $10. The action folded back to Darren, who quickly shoved $65 more. Loose player folded. As you’ll see, I’m willing to stack off for a lot more money with a lot less when the game gets wild later in the night. But here, we were 9-handed (we rarely play more than 7, so I know less about Darren’s full ring play), he had made a larger than standard raise from EP and a big shove against a fairly early position reraise. He didn’t have a lot of reason to think I was on a wide range except that I like to make squeeze plays. But he’s smart enough to realize this isn’t the best spot for it. I fold face up, and he shows me 88. Oh well. I try to convince myself that this fold made me money by encouraging Darren to make crazy bluffs on me later. Not that he really needs the encouragement.

Somewhere around here I took about $40 from one of Darren’s friends who limped behind some limpers and called a raise to $3.50. I had AQ and bet an AT8 flop and an 8 turn. She check-shoved the turn, and her T7o was no good. Her husband, who was the solid one, gave her $55 to reload.

Short-Handed

Finally, a tenth player shows up to save us from full ring hell. His name is Alfred, but he goes by Chief. He’s an alumnus of MIT, but Logan met him when he was dealing at a local poker club. Chief’s a pretty cool guy, with a great personality that makes him fun to play cards with. He’s also very smart, aggressive, and above all creative. He played with us once last year, and the pot that sticks out in my mind is one where he checked the river to me after I had bluff called the turn planning to represent the Ace. I figured him for a medium pocket pair, and was very surprised when he check-raised the river. I wasn’t going to 3-bet shove air, though, so I folded. He showed JJ and told me he thought I had the Ace but would fold it. Not likely, since I was reluctant to fold air!

So now I’m playing five-handed with Justin, Chief, the T7 girl, and there must have been someone else but I don’t remember who. Chief and I were definitely the most aggressive players at the table, but for whatever reason we didn’t end up clashing much. Instead, it was Justin who was playing back at me quite a bit. This was good to see, because in the past I’ve felt like the biggest impediment to his improving as a player (which isn’t to say he isn’t improving, but it was definitely slowing him down) was a reluctance to mix it up in marginal spots and make some questionable plays just for the sake of trying things out.

There was one pot where the girl opened for $2, I called with like 85s or something in the CO, and Justin called on the button. I flopped a flush draw on a KQ6 board and potted it when she checked to me. Justin called and she folded. The turn was a 4 to give me a gut shot. I potted again for $15, and Justin raised to $45 with around $100 behind. I really felt like he wasn’t going to be able to call a shove, but I just couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger and eventually folded. He showed K5, I told him I had a feeling I could push him off, and he admitted that he would have folded. I’m not sure I like the turn raise there if he’s going to fold to a shove, but it’s hard to say.

Soon we had another pot with similar preflop action. This time I called the girl’s raise with 9h6h and saw a Qd6s4s flop. We checked it through. The turn was the Jd, I bet $4.50, and Justin raised to $12. I thought for a long time and decided he would have bet any pair or flopped draw when it was checked to him the first time around. I’m not sure he raises a J here, either, though that is how he played the K5. I finally called intending to call any river except for a diamond and possibly an A. The river was a very safe offsuit 4, I checked, and Justin pretty quickly bet $25. I thought for a few seconds, but couldn’t see him on a value bet of any kind here. I called and waited for him to show me busted diamonds before revealing what I had called down with.

Welcome to the Jungle

That was my last big pot from the 5-handed table, as not long after two of Darren’s friends busted and we went back to one table. Stacks were getting pretty deep now, with the average probably well over $100, and most of us were a few beers in as well. This is when the game starts getting really fun. In the next hour, there were some wild pre-flop spots, largely between myself, Darren, Logan, and Chief, though Justin was mixing it up occasionally as well. There were probably two or three pots per orbit that saw four or more bets go in preflop. There was also a lot of straddling, re-straddling, and re-re-straddling going on. Just as an example, here’s a play I tried to set up:

Chief straddled for $1 UTG, and Logan put in $1.50 from the Button. I don’t think he would ever deliberately min-raise the straddle, so I assumed that he didn’t see it. Justin called $1.50 from the SB, and I made it $7.50 with 84o from the BB. My hope was that Logan would realize he had errantly min-raised, assume I was attacking him for that reason, and re-pop my squeeze. I was ready to 6-bet bluff all in for over $200, but Chief called cold from the straddle and ruined my plans. I ended up checking it all the way because I knew he was expecting me to stab at it post-flop and I had whiffed completely.

The next big pot is explainable by what I call the ‘broken brain’ theorem. Basically this happens when a by the book player sees a lot of unconventional plays and doesn’t have a deep enough understanding of poker to figure out what is going on. He just sees all these pots getting 4- and 5-bet pre-flop with air but doesn’t know how to identify spots where a bluff is likely and those where hands need to be strong. He gets tired of sitting around waiting for monsters and decides to get in on the action by making some uncharacteristic play.

The player in question is the only one of Darren’s friends left. He’s worked his initial $60 up to around $140 while playing like one pot per hour. Out of nowhere, he open raises for $3 and gets called in three spots, largely because people assume he will have a big pair and want to crack him. The flop comes out JT5r, and he quickly fires out $15. I and pretty much everyone at the table assume he has QQ+.

Darren raises to $50, and I sort of sigh to myself. I know that Darren should know better than to raise here without two pair or better, but I also know he doesn’t have that kind of discipline.

His friend shrugs. “I’m all in.”

“Dammit,” Darren says. We all laugh at him, knowing he’s gotten himself into a spot with something marginal.

“I hope you at least have KQ,” I tell him.

“Guess I have to call,” he says, turning over KQs. His friend doesn’t flip, but the turn and river come a Q and a K. Darren waits with kind of an apologetic look on his face, and his friend finally turns over J8o. Not what any of us were expecting to see, and a hand that justifies Darren’s play. Perhaps because he’s so attuned to the maniac vibe, Darren seems to have a 6th sense for when people are up to some crazy shit.

His friend is clearly disappointed, but he takes it well, recognizing that it was a coinflip. These are higher stakes than he usually plays, though, and it makes me remember that losing $150 in a hand of poker is not something that the average person is mentally prepared to do. He takes off, and now we’re more short-handed than ever.

After he leaves, we talk about the play. “Jack 8? Where the hell did that come from?”

“What do you think about his flop play? Darren really ought to have better most of the time.”

“Maybe he put Darren on a draw?”

“Meh, I think he just said, ‘Fuck it, it’s Darren and I have top pair,'” I concluded.

[b]Fuck It, It’s Logan and I have AQ[/b]

Now we’re even more short-handed, and the action gets more intense, as mostly just the maniacs are left. Darren raises UTG to $2, Logan called on the button, I make it $10 from the SB with AQo, Darren calls, and Logan reaches for chips.

Darren: Go ahead, squeeze it.

Logan: I think I’m going to.

Darren: I was hoping you would.

Logan: It really sounds like you don’t want me to.

Logan pushes out a stack and a half of blues, worth $75 in our game. “There’s some crazy metagame shit going on right now,” Darren comments. This is true. When we were in Vegas a few weeks ago, we were making fun of some of the blatant ‘weak means strong’ verbal tells that bad live players will give off, stuff like “Guess I’ll get a lot of sight seeing done” as they shove the nuts on the river. Logan has been talking for a long time about wanting to give off a reverse one of these tells sooner or later. But then again, he knows that we know that. Etc.

The action is back to me, and I have about $250 in my stack. I have to think quickly, because too much delay is going to make me look weak. I don’t think Logan flat calls AK the first time. Maybe QQ+ hoping to see a squeeze behind, but he’s certainly reraising those a lot of the time. Still, I don’t think he’s on complete air. It seems to me, in part based on the size of his raise, that he’s got a hand he thinks is best, which certainly does not have to be QQ+. A mid pocket pair would make sense.

Darren could have a monster, but he screws around enough pre-flop that I’m prepared to say, “God bless him if he’s got it.” With Logan left to act behind him, he’ll need an even tighter calling range. So I shove with my AQ. Darren thinks for a little bit, and I know he’s got something laughable but wants to make a heroic call. “Go ahead, 66 is good. You know you want to make the hero call.”

“I do,” he laughs and folds. I’m not really trying to bait him into calling, especially not with a small pair, but I think baiting him will make me look stronger to Logan.

When the action gets back to Logan and he doesn’t snap call, I know I’m OK. I may end up racing him, but he doesn’t have me crushed. I wouldn’t expect him to think about QQ+ or AK here. “Ugh, why did I raise so much? I’m getting 2:1. Darren your big mouth is going to cost me $200.” Finally he says, “I’m priced in,” and calls with 99.

“It’s a good call,” I tell him, and indeed it is, as his 99 holds up to win a 1000 BB coin flip.

Gotta Get My Stack Back

At this point in the night, I’m allowed to buy in for $100, but that’s still nothing compared to the stacks that some people have at the table. If I want to enjoy the super deep stacked phase of the game, I need to gamble. I overcall a raise preflop with K6s, flop the nut draw, and shove with virtually no fold equity against Justin’s lead on an A high flop. He’s got an easy call with AQ, and I’m reloading again.

A few hands later there’s a raise to $2, Darren calls, Justin calls on the button, and I call with 76o in the SB. The flop is 89K, I check, Darren bets $8, and Justin quickly raises to $20. Having seen him do something similar with K5 a while ago, I feel like he’s not going to show up with a monster here all that often. K9 and K8 aren’t really the kinds of hands he plays in this spot, and I don’t think he plays a set so fast (which isn’t to say he shouldn’t). But we would have at least some Hollywood from him if he had those. I shove for $100, Darren folds quick, and Justin folds angrily. I show.

“Same hand,” he says, annoyed.

“Yeah, I didn’t think you’d call without a set.”

He’s starting to steam now and gets snapped off a few times when bluffing the river, something he rarely does. That only serves to tilt him more. It’s a shame, because this kind of creative play is the kind of stuff I think he needs to be doing more often both to improve his game and to make himself tougher to play against. Sometimes you’re going to make the right play and be unlucky enough to run into a big hand, sometimes you’re going to make a bad move and lose, but you’ve got to be willing to take the lumps. It’s not a reason to get discouraged and stop trying.

Justin open limps the button (kind of weird, not something he often does), and I make it $3 from the SB with QQ. He calls pretty quickly. Flop AK5r, not what I was hoping to see. We check it through. Turn K, I check, he bets $6. Normally, I wouldn’t expect him to do this with an A, but given how little respect he’s gotten of late, I think he could have that or a K here. But given how I’ve played the hand, I can’t fold yet. I call. The river is a blank, and I check again. I know he knows he’s been snapped off a lot lately, and I don’t think he would expect me to fold an A. So I’m ready to fold if he bets again. He checks angrily, and I show him the QQ. He mutters something about having the worst timing, but I actually think that was good tilt control by him. Although I would have folded QQ, I’m going to be checking an A or a K there a lot of the time, so I don’t think in general it’s a profitable spot to bluff. I called because I figured he was good enough to realize that, and he did. Cheers.

The River Sexy

Now with some ammo at my disposal, I call Logan’s button raise with 44 on my BB. Flop Kh Th 4s BINGO! I check, because if I lead here he’s going to float all kinds of stuff, and there are plenty of cards I don’t want to see on the turn. Also, I don’t think a check-raise is going to freeze him at all, and could even induce a 3-bet bluff. Alas, he checks behind.

T on the turn DOUBLE BINGO! I lead for $3, he makes it $12, I call. He could have trips, a draw, maybe even a K or air. The thing is, I’ve been caught on a few river check-raise bluffs in the last few months, and have been looking for a spot to check-raise for value. This seems ideal.

River something irrelevant, I check, he bets $30, I shove for about $100 more. He calls pretty quickly with what he says was AT.

It’s going on 3AM, and the game’s winding down. I’m finally up for the night, though only by about $20. I open for $2 with Kh Js on the button, and Darren makes it $10 from the BB. Arguably I should just fold here, but that’s not what this game is about. Flop Th 6h 4h. He checks, I bet $15, and he makes it $45. Hmmm. I don’t think he does this with a flush. But, especially given how I’ve been playing tonight, I don’t think he expects me to 3-bet a flush here either. It may not be evident from the hands I’ve posted here, but I’d been doing a lot of calling, especially in position, with weak and strong hands. If I 3-bet, he’s going to put me on exactly what I have. I call (we have $200+ behind).

The turn is another rag heart. He checks, I consider betting but decide he may not give me two streets worth of value and check behind. The river blanks he checks again. I bet $75, and he shoves. Fuck it, it’s Darren and I have the second nuts. I call, and his Ah Qs is good for a 1200 BB pot. He covers me with a few dollars to spare. Heart the homegame.