A new job means I haven't been able to play much at my local casino over the last few months (have one 20 minutes from where I live). So last Saturday night after watching the Fedor / Henderson fight at a friends, and still wide awake, I figured I'd head down to the local casino and play the "last call" rounds at the table.
It was just shy of 1am when I got there and by the time I got chips and was sat it was 1:15 and the waitresses were doing last call for 2am cutoff. The next 35 minutes of poker turned out to be great for me, but was called an idiot by several players at the table before I racked up and left. Here's what happened.
I sit down in the 6 seat and look around the table, 1 has about $450 in front of him and a girl sitting behind him, they are both in the mid-late 20's and he has a stack of 7-8 beer cups in his cup holder, with the waitress bringing him another that he proudly stacks into his growing mound. 4 seat has $650 and just as many beer cups stacked, and is friends with 1 and the chick sitting behind him. The rest of the table was sitting between 350-400, two players had under $125, I bought in for $200.
More than an orbit and I haven't even found anything to limp with, but when a raise is made it usually has 3-5 callers, so the pots are nicely sized. I call a $11 pre-flop raise with JT off, button to my left, button folds. Flop comes A48 rainbow with 3 callers plus me, it's checked to me, I make it $18 to go and the table folds. Two hands later I'm dealt 77, pre-flop raise was made in early position to $11, the flop comes 663 with 3 players and me. First to act makes it $15, second folds (seat 1 drunk guy), third to act (seat 4 drunk guy) makes it $35. By my math, I'm at around $190-220 and both players who have raised and re-raised have me covered. I push all-in figuring it's my only play because I can't have another card come if someone is sitting on AK, KQ, etc. etc. I figured my re-raise would kill the first to act and really let seat 4 know I didn't want to see the turn. 3, maybe 4 minutes go buy and seat 4 drunk guy is obviously pissed... But by the math, I only raised by about $100, as there was already $94 in the pot, my $35 to match his raise and another $100 on top. He picks his cards up and to his chest height and I don't move my head but can see paint on both of them, he tilts one to show the guy in seat 3 then mucks them. He's disgusted and pushes the pot to me. Seat 5, the guy sitting between us, leans over and whispers that I got him to fold QQ. At this point, I'm figuring I dodged a bullet, but up until this point, no one has seen any of my cards because I haven't gone to showdown and have only been sitting for about 25-30 minutes.
The very next hand puts me in about middle position and I look down at 66. Two callers throw $2 in, drunk guy in seat 4, sits straight up and announces $77 with authority and without waiting 2 seconds after seat 3 threw in his $2, doesn't count his chips out and just puts 3/4 of a stack in front of him. Seat 5 insta-folds and I look over at him, he's furious and say, "are you on tilt bro?" to which he responds quickly, "yeah."
I had two stacks in front of me, not organized so I'm not 100% sure how much, but drunk guy in seat 4 still had me more than covered. I instantly grab them and push them in front of my cards. The rest of the table folds and the dealer starts to announce action on seat 4 and he says, "oh no, I call," pushes his chips in, stands up and throws his AA down with authority, very proud of himself.
Flop is 963, as the burn card is mucked and the turn card starts to be flipped over, I flip my hand over to show my set of 6's. The turn and river come as blank blank and my set holds up. Seat 4 drunk guy was now ghost white. The dealer counted off the chips he owed me, between the two hands came to be roughly half his stacks, I tell him I had pocket 7's the previous hand, and by the time the dealer pushed all the chips to me, seat 4 was all but racked up and out.
Seat 1 drunk guy, his friend, looked at me and says, "what ya gonna do, it happens." Seat 3, who had just seen this hand from post-flop as he was new to the table also over-heard my 77's comment, and asked about the previous hand. I told him what happened and he called me an idiot for pushing, and the guy folding QQ a bigger idiot. He then asked for clarification on what just happened this hand and again, called me a total idiot, to which I responded, "the guy was on tilt, I asked him if he was and I believe he honestly told me that, I was prepared to push with any 2 cards figuring he was raging. Who raises pre-flop to $77 in a 1/2 game?" Seat 3 new guy tilts his head and tries to understand what I just saw but obviously isn't getting it.
In the first hand against drunk guy in seat 4 I dodged a bullet, that's without a doubt. Either buy a stupid play on my part or a bad read on his part. Second hand was a pure ****-show luck-fest, no doubt. 66 I'm calling middle position any pre-flop raise to about $15 at a 1-2 game, I'm not calling a re-raise or anything above that. Had drunk guy seat 4 only made his raise the standard $7-12, I would have made less money and he wouldn't be so pissed when his aces were cracked. In that second hand I purely played off his emotions and my read on his state of mind at the time, I got lucky and it paid off.
I sat for another full orbit and racked up. Seat 3 asks why I'm leaving, I tell him, "I best get out of here before I make any more dumb plays," to which he again calls me an idiot for how I played. I let him know that I didn't take any money from anyone left sitting at the table albeit a few bucks at most, and wished everyone at the table a good night.
35 minutes, nearly tripled my buy-in, but were they idiotic moves or smart plays?
Last edited by Mike Panic; 08-05-2011 at 11:11 PM.
