Monday Mixed Game Madness |
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Posted Tue Mar 28, 2006 1:40 am GMT by xDiamond_CutteRx
I had a nice "little" six-hour session today out in Davis at the Mixed Game over at my the "Poker Lounge" as we've come to call it (actually a crappy apartment). It was another day of fun times, and today we got everyone to agree to punch the limit stakes up to $2/$4. We spent an hour each on a rotation of 7 games: Limit Hold'em, Omaha 8, Stud, Razz, Stud 8, Pot-Limit Omaha with a $75 cap, and then No-Limit Hold'em with no cap. I elected not to play the NL game because there were a few players who didn't want to play the early mixed games but who wanted to come back later. Since there were only 2 tables, I figured I could bow out after six hours and let someone who wanted to play NL so badly take the seat.
Limit Hold'em was pretty boring. All the players there understand the theory of Limit Hold'em pretty well, and so play was fairly tight and straight-forward. I raked only one pot at showdown when I flopped top pair with KQ and was called down by KJ. Toward the end, I stole a pot or two by betting aggressively, but I couldn't go super-aggressive because those guys catch on too quick. Bad news was money was mostly just traded around the table. Good news was I didn't lose any pots. 
Omaha 8 was more promising. A couple guys still didn't quite understand the theory of playing only GOOD lows, and so I was able to bet my A2 and A3 hands in a fairly aggressive manner. I won the high end of one pot with a flush, and the low end of another sizable pot with a wheel (two guys got caught in the middle, one with second best high and another with second best low). Again, no pots lost.
Then we moved on to Stud, which excited me. A lot of players there consider me the best Stud player in our group, so I was anxious to exploit my image. I got a lot of credit when I would raise 3rd or 4th street with an Ace in the door, but I didn't play as aggressively as I would have if there had been an ante (there was just a $1 bring-in for the low card, which actually loosened many people up, surprisingly). I finally lost a pot here when I missed a big draw on the river, but I won a pretty big 3-way pot when I caught the river flush against trips and a smaller flush.
Razz is a great game with that group, because for some reason, no one in the game believed that bluffing was possible. So long as my door card was good and I caught better than my opponent on 4th, I was welcome to take any pot I wanted. I collected a lot of small pots, but I think only 1 or 2 hands in the whole session went to showdown. No complaints for me though, as my chip stack was still steadily growing.
Stud Eight-or-Better provided some more good opportunities, but regrettably, by cards turned cold for most of the session. I did, however, end up scooping one pot with a VERY well-concealed wheel that made an A-high flush for high on the river. I beat out a perfect six for low and a K-high straight for high (I only had 2 hearts showing, so no one put me on a flush). I was frustrated briefly when I had the bring-in 5 pots in a row, but $5 was a small price to pay given the size of the scoop I made.
After a short break, we moved on to the Pot-Limit Omaha game. We had a policy of only one blind of $1, which once again loosened people up (contrary to good Poker theory). Again, I didn't get much in a way of hands, but we did get some excitement. In LP, I get dealt A  10 9  8 (just the type of Omaha hand I love). A player in EP had raised it up to $4, and two people called in front of me, so I dutifully called. The button and blind called as well and it was on to the flop, which came a beautiful J 10  6 . I'd made a great wrap with the nut flush draw, so i wasn't going anywhere. The blind checked, and the pre-flop raiser bet the pot ($24), putting $48 in the pot. One guy in MP folded, and the other re-raised to the $75 cap (raising $47 more). With my hand, a big pot developing, and great odds, I was more than happy to put in the cap. The blind folded, and the EP bettor grimaced and turned over AA62 (which is why you don't raise with naked Aces in EP and don't continuation bet so high on crappy flops). The guy in MP (Brett is his name) turned over a set of Jacks with another two Kings in the hole (KKJJ was his starting hand). Classic situation in Omaha: big hand vs. a monster draw. The turn came a 7  , giving me a straight, and the board didn't pair on the end, so I raked a big pot early on. Poor Brett remarked "I only made $16 in the first five hours only to go in the hole on one hand." The other interesting hand came when I had another monster hand in the blind A A J 10 . A guy in MP raised it to $4, and the button called, putting $9 in the pot. I raised the pot, calling $3 and raising $12 on top. The initial raiser decided to re-raise the pot, and the button folded. I knew by now that we were going to go for all 5 cards, so I capped it up at $75. The other guy agreed to run it twice in the pot of $154. He showed K K Q Q , so we had a pretty close running since neither of us shared any suits (I had basically killed his straight possibilities though). The first board was remarkable in that neither of us ended up with anything, so my Aces beat his kings. On the second board, I spiked an Ace on the flop along with a club flush draw, essentially ending the other guy's (John's) hopes. I raked another big pot, which turned out to be the last hand of the night.
With a nice profit of around $230, I bid everyone farewell and stopped off at In-n-Out on my way home for a most nutritious and delicious Double-Double dinner. I got home just in time for High Stakes Poker, which was great. Poker = good today. 8)
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Posted Tue Mar 28, 2006 3:01 am GMT by groton
man this is great.
To bad the guys i play with only want to play NL Holdem.
I would kill them in Stud and Omaha 
Posted Tue Mar 28, 2006 12:20 pm GMT by Gunslinger
I love these posts, Diamond, very cool stuff, great reads.
| xDiamond_CutteRx wrote: | | The other guy agreed to run it twice in the pot of $154. |
This is fascinating. Do you split the pot in two, and run two different sets of board cards for each pot?
Posted Tue Mar 28, 2006 4:03 pm GMT by xDiamond_CutteRx
| Gunslinger wrote: | I love these posts, Diamond, very cool stuff, great reads.
| xDiamond_CutteRx wrote: | | The other guy agreed to run it twice in the pot of $154. |
This is fascinating. Do you split the pot in two, and run two different sets of board cards for each pot? |
Yes, that's correct. In our particular game, we re-shuffled the deck after we ran the first board, but I'm not sure how they handle it in casinos.
Posted Tue Mar 28, 2006 4:10 pm GMT by UrAteUp
I agree with Gunslinger. Your posts are always cool Diamond and usually filled with some good insight. Keep on posting.
Posted Tue Mar 28, 2006 8:21 pm GMT by Johny
| xDiamond_CutteRx wrote: | | Gunslinger wrote: | | xDiamond_CutteRx wrote: | | The other guy agreed to run it twice in the pot of $154. |
This is fascinating. Do you split the pot in two, and run two different sets of board cards for each pot? |
Yes, that's correct. In our particular game, we re-shuffled the deck after we ran the first board, but I'm not sure how they handle it in casinos. |
I'm fairly sure that in casinos they don't re-shuffle the deck when running it more than once.
Posted Tue Mar 28, 2006 10:11 pm GMT by supafrey
casinos def don't reshuffle.
Posted Wed Mar 29, 2006 4:15 am GMT by xDiamond_CutteRx
| supafrey wrote: | | casinos def don't reshuffle. |
So noted... I will alert the other players in my game of this fact.
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