Harrahs 1-2 NL Poker Action Post Saints Preseason game vs. Texans cont.

Brian told me he had a number of winning Texas Holdem sessions at Harrahs but had gone into bankroll rebuilding mode and would pull up when he was far enough ahead. Then eat and come back for the minimum buy-in. Third night he did it a dealer he didn’t even have that night told him he had to put all his chips from his first session on the table if he wanted to play.

So, after dinner, Brian left a winner, again, I guess he's not just an expert in online poker strategy, he's pretty good live too, and I rejoined our old table. I then ran into Mr. Luckbox. Irony is I heard a big stack at the other side of the table lamenting about how lucky the guy was and I thought to myself, that’s poker get over it, somebody is always getting all the cards. Yeah. Then I proceded to get the dealer down from hell.

Yeah. So, I sit down and take a look at Mr. Luckbox’s chips and think I’m going to double through him and maybe follow Brian’s lead and head to the exit a solid winner. He raised from early position, was called by the guy that played KQ vs me, and then I see 67 suited (diamonds). I’m not normally the type to play that but why not in this spot—I dumbly ask myself. I can’t get too hurt with this one right? We get two more callers and the pot has swollen preflop.

Flop comes 5410 (54 of diamonds I have a straight flush draw). I look up at the bad beat jackpot at just under 150k and I’m trying to will the dealer to peel off 8 diamonds and another 10. The first guy fires out a protective bet. Doesn’t have the set of tens must have an overpair. The guy in between calls for the rest of his chips.

Hmm… I decide that the first guy has jacks or queens hence he betted so much to protect his hand. The guy in the middle could have anything. There is actually already a side pot just from the initial raiser and I see one of the callers after me itching to throw his short stack to the middle.

Perhaps somebody has my outs with an Ace high flush draw. Oh well, hope not. let’s see if I can get the first guy off his hand. I shove it. 99% of the time I’m rock solid here with the best possible hand.

The short stack contributes to the pot and then action on the first guy who I’m trying to get to fold and just win his bet, basically freerolling me on the rest of the pot. He stews for a while and then calls. Turn and river are bricks. He shows kings. The guy in between us mucks , so do I, and then the guy to my left shows A10 of diamonds. The pocket kings included the king of diamonds.

Maybe if I had a bigger stack or if it was a different guy I could pick up the pot right there, but not to be. Now, I’m trying to rebuild. I run pocket queens into his hand with all the right betting, except I might have missed the correct bet size on the turn. He hit a gutterball on me. Then I had pocket jacks. Made it stiff on the flop with a three bet. It came all babies and I put in 75% of my stack. He called. On the turn I put in the remaining 60 or so dollars and he called again. The river was an 8, he said, “I think I just got lucky again.” He called me with 86 o/s. “Nailed” second pair on the flop and rivered an 8. Fun.

I picked up then sat down at another table where thankfully maybe the worst most passive poker I’ve seen in months was played, did I mention I went to the Saints game that night and so apparently did this entire table. I just opened up the throttle on a table full of short-stacks and reclaimed my money. Let one guy shove on me when I turned the nuts and bet them, had to double check they were in fact the nuts before calling. It went from one of the worst dealer downs I’ve ever had to a pretty decent night afterall.