Here's a recap I posted on my students-only forum where me and two of my friends/students from the KC area went to play some live low stakes nl hold'em at the KC casinos (2/5nl $500 buy-in). This was from last thursday night. Yes I suck at updating my blog:

i had this whole big thing typed out and my comp crashed so blah...

here are some highlights i remember

there were 2 games, one "main" game and one "feeder" game... both were ridiculously soft. no one had any idea what was going on.

so I sit down, stack my chips, and whip out my card protecting duck (sorry for shitty image quality - if you cant tell it has the DeucesCracked logo on the front):





and we ordered up plenty of this:



and this



so the night was off to a plenty good start.

jason was destroying everyone making hands, winning flips, and taking pots down w/o contest including some massive preflop raises... but i dont i saw him show down a losing hands once? was pretty awesome. he was the big winner of night... pulling almost $1800 out of that game.

I had 2 goals for the night... show a big bluff and challenge someone to a HU match. I sorta failed on both goals... but you be the judge

some highlights i remember, hopefully in roughly chronological order:

I raise anything reasonable and never make a pair and check/fold a bunch.

i pick up 68o after folding forever (20 mins?) and raise it up after a limper, this guy who is the spitting image of joey knish



calls me out of the small blind, and older guy in an orange shit who is clearly terrible (but probably wealthy) calls in the big blind, limper folds.

flop is 6c 4c 3c, check check, i bet 60 into 80 or so, knish calls, other guy folds.

turn is a Jc or similar, he stares at the board and checks, so i'm like "might as well bluff," so i bet like 100 into 200 and he thinks for like 20 seconds and mucks. i show the 68o and he claims to have had a bare 5 lol... i don't really believe him, but maybe ?? but because he claims that i had the best hand, i didnt count it for my bluff

so a bit later i get moved to the main game, where most of the players aren't aware of how i was playing at the other table. so the first hand i get is the good ol' 72o, so i raise and get 3bet by a quiet asian kid so i muck face up.

then like a half hour of folding later i pick up A9o on the button, few limps, guy who was playing sort of aggressive (at least for a live game) raises in the CO to 35. at this point i only got like 350 in my stack because i never reloaded to 500, so i decide to either steal this pot or go reload. so i make a small 3bet to $100 and it folds back to him where he thinks for like 30-45 seconds before deciding to make the call. At this point I didn't think he was really acting so i felt like he had a tough decision, something like 99-QQ which is definitely tough when facinig a $100 bet (i mean, $100 can buy a lot of big macs yo!) but he makes the call. So at this point i decide i'lll bluff any Q or K high board and probably play an A high board a little slower to induce action. I get a great flop, K 7 4r, he thinks and checks, i announce i'm all in for my last 250 into a 200 pot and he goes into the tank for probably 4-5 minutes before finally stacking up his chips and putting them in the middle. JJ good. hahaha... owned.

so i go reload and from then on whenever i'm in the pot the action is fast and furious. whenever i raise i get minimum 3 callers and often times 5-8 callers, so it was great, now time to make a hand. By this time jared and jason have made it to the main game. joey knish has been trying to play pots with me and get back for my "non-bluff, bluff" earlier (i still think he folded the best hand btw) so he's been going after me. i think i probably showed a few bluffs before this hand comes up, but i'm not sure exactly. Oh yea I remember. 7 way limped pot, i've got 8s6s in the bb and check (weak tight, i know) i flop huge with the 8h Js 4s, so i lead out for like 30, fold fold fold fold then quiet kid makes it $80, and only has like 200 more behind so i'm like i got the nuts i'm all in. he snap calls and shows J8o so i'm not in nearly as good of shape as i thought hahaha. I didn't show my hand (cant remember why? maybe we were ordering more beer?) and jared's like "spade draw good", turn blanks, river Qs and jared says "spades win" and of course I show and scoop. holla

i'm like 700-800 deep at this point i can't remember. I had folded a few hands so i look down at a monstrous 65o and raise after a few limpers to "thirty-five u.s. dollars" which i think in and of itself was making people tilt using the phrase "u.s. dollars", anyway so i get like 3 way action and the flop is 9 7 4r. so right away i decide no matter what i'm winning this pot either by 3 barreling or just hitting. checks to me i bet like $75, knish calls, other guy folds. turn is a beautiful offsuit 3. (run hot much?) knish stares me down and checks, so i laugh as i bet $150 us dollars. he thinks for like i dunno 20 seconds and makes the call. river is an 8. he INSTA-INSTA-shoves and I snap call obv and say straight and he quietly mucks lol... he claims he "flopped 2 pair" (does he think i was born yesterday?) but in reality i think he had T8 and was bluffing, or he might have had 78 or 98 and rivered 2pair and was value betting. but i'm leading towards bluff because of how fast he did it. pretty funny.

so a bit after that i think we get the 72 game going, wherein anyone who wins with 72 in any way, we all pay him $20. We had 5 or 6 people participating, but i think jared was the only participant to actually win the game (only one other guy even got dealt 72, a medical student named ben who was a super nice guy) except he had it when it was like 6 way action preflop so he couldnt do anything.

only other hand i can remember goes like this. non-72-participant and guy who called jared an "internet donk" raised pf utg and got like 3 callers and 2 barreled a ragged board and showed K2o. so the very next hand I get dealt K2o and obviously must try to one up the guy. I think I was on about my 6th beer at that point. anyway so it's a straddled pot (utg posts a $10 blind and now becomes last to act pre) so there's a limper and I make it 55 us dollars with K2o and I get 5 way action (lol). Keep in mind the average chip stack is probably around $600 at the table. so with like 280 in the pot the flop comes 9h 6h 4x, check check i announce 200 us dollars and get a couple quick folds, the button thinks for maybe 15 seconds and opts to fold, then the rest fold and of course i show K2o and hear some pissed off grumbles coming from the other end of the table... hahaha

2:30am rolls around and it's last call. I think jason packed up as he had to get up for work in a few hours, so jared and i put in an order for a pizza and the running joke for the next hour is "where the hell is our pizza?" since it's taking so damn long. we finally get it and it's cold and the dough is tough, so as i'm trying to rip a bite off this pizza like a lion ripping flesh off a dead gazelle, jared gives me the "lol card-board-aments" and we have a good laugh.

so after the pizza was gone we played a couple more orbits and packed it in at like 4am.

good times, good times.