Players in attendance: Hitmanhead,Jeenoi,Top_Jimmy, The_Conge, Pokerhontasz.
With 5 players around the table, a well paced blind structure and a hot night I predicted explosive action from the first in a new season of our home games. Jennoi arrived early to bone up on the basics as she had not played much before. Jennoi was focussed and a quick study: she had already memorized hand rankings and was asking questions about more abstract concepts such as how the value of hands goes up as the number of players decreases. I told her that if she could raise her good hands, call her medium strength and fold her worst, then she would be playing better than most recreational players. Pokerhontasz also schooled Jennoi in betting procedures and some of the subtleties of the game and she listened and nodded with the intensity of someone who had come to play poker the strategy game, not poker the fun gambling game. Hitmanhead is a new player to our games as well, although not new to poker as he plays limit holdem online. As the only player around the table not quenching their thirst with bargain booze, Hitmanhead would likely gain more of an edge as the night went on. The table draw put The_Conge to my left which meant I had to raise any unopened small blind, lest I be slapped in the face with one of his trademark pot sized raises. I realised after a while though, that Conge had brought his uber tight-aggressive ‘A’ game as he was giving up these blinds, but punishing the rest of the table in easier spots to quickly amass an early chip lead.
In the early levels Pokerhontasz quickly combatted Conge’s stealing antics and in a classic battle of the blinds set her stall out with a call; call; turn lead (to Conge fold) on a K853 board. Pokerhontasz also bizarrely soft played Jennoi on a 79J94 board, checking the river out of position after a bet-call on the turn, and then tabling trip nines holding A9 to beat Jennoi’s checked-down 66. I am not sure if this was a message of gender solidarity or if Pokerhontasz was taking pity on her new poker student, but I am confident the best way to teach the game in that situation would be a big fat value bet on the river! Our first decent sized pot was between The-Conge and Hitmanhead: Pre flop, Hitman raised; Jennoi called; and Conge called the small blind with a speech (”sigh…lets see a flop then!”) On a board of K,10,2 (rainbow) Conge led, Hitman called and Jennoi called. The turn card was Qc and after another bet –call, time stood still whilst Jennoi wanted to ask me an important question about hand rankings! This was no Phil Gordon style needle though, as she was genuinely confused and so passed me a note with a question on it. After two back and forth note passes between us Jennoi was still none the wiser and as the table could be quite confident she was not strong, a fold was inevitable! On a meaningless river card of 6h The_Conge led for 400 into 600 and Hitmanhead made an anguished fold. Later on Conge claimed he held top two pair and I think I heard Hitman claiming A10.
In the next blind level Pokerhontasz accidentally spilled beer on our Subbuteo felt table top and wrecked my new WSOP branded Bicycle cards in one fell swoop! The Subbuteo set was given to me on long loan from my Uncle and he is going to be super tilted now the felt is mucky (not to mention all the players I’ve knelt on over the years!) My own tilt over the precious Bicycle cards passed as a new deck gifted me some incredible luck, prompting cries of ‘cold deck’ from the rest of the table later on. Beer intake was probably also responsible for Pokerhontasz missing a blind raise and performing an accidental (and disgusting) min-raise preflop, to which Jennoi called and a board of 4c8d5c came down. The flop and turn card of 3s were both checked and Jennoi bet half pot on a Qh river goading Pokerhontasz with a “See me” speech! In response, she revealed her tight (and honest) steak by folding 99 face up on the table. Jennoi, a quick learner did not of course show her hand. Jennoi was demonstrating that she had come to play and would not be easily bullied out of pots. She limp called my raise preflop and called a C-bet on a board of KK5 holding AQ . I of course checked the hand down as I only held A10 and she took it down with a better ace high hand. I was very surprised to see her not paired up, but upon reflection it was a good board to have checked the flop on. I had showdown value against weak aces, and really only bloated the pot for the times when I was behind by a little or a lot. Hitmanhead had a brief period of action, click raising me on a paired board and three-betting The_Conge preflop, both times picking up the pot with a combination of squeaky-tight table image and measured aggression.
At the 100/200 level everyone was still left in the game and Hitmanhead continued to use his water tight status to pick up pots, in one hand click raising The_Conge preflop, but leaving 2.5 big blinds behind in his stack. For those who do not play poker online a ‘click-raise’ is one button click that raises any bet by the same amount again. In this instance The_Conge read the raise as pure strength and folded , putting himself in short stack mode, along with myself and Pokerhontasz who also trailed behind. By this point in the night I had consumed too much beer to accurately relate hand details, but I managed to double through Pokerhontasz holding pocket tens, and (almost) triple-through her and The_Conge holding JQ which made top pair on the flop and held to beat both The_Conge’s K9 and Pokerhontasz’ last ditch napkins. This chip up was handy, but fell short of The_Conge’s mythological ‘octuple-through’ which I needed to realistically challenge Jennoi’s leading stack. I did not realize it at the time but I was winding the table up continually asking for chip counts at the shove/fold stage, but the problem I was having is that I was too drunk to store any information in my head for longer than about 10 secs. I was also terrified of making a dumb power play with Jennnoi in the big blind and so I nitted up for a while until Hitmanhead was knocked out , even folding 22 at one point to his all-in. Heads up against Jennoi I had some unspeakable luck in all in pots. I forget the hand that turned the tide, but once I had the chip lead I cheerfully put Jennoi all in holding 67s and she turbo called with pocket queens! The board ran out 45362 and my flopped nut straight sealed the deal.
In the post game analysis everyone was very impressed with Jennoi’s debut, she played a tight but aggressive game when it mattered the most, especially in the later blind levels when she raised frequently. She received a small profit on her stake and a thrown in VHS tape of ‘An American Werewolf in Paris’ courtesy of Pokerhontasz! Hitmanhead was very unlucky to miss out on the 2 money spots as he played disciplined poker and eventually got it all in good with A9 only to see Jennoi table a better AQ, which is pretty much a cooler three handed. Even a flopped 9 could not stop Jennoi rivering a straight to knock out the Hitman. Pokerhontasz has also been very unlucky in the shove/fold stage of our home games and an early shove with a marginal King hand did not pay off on this occasion. Given Pokerhontasz’ tight table image, it is this sort of high-blind aggressive play that should, in theory lead to good long term results. The_Conge proved he is probably the strongest tournament player of our circle, and was incredibly unlucky to get knocked out early. He stole pots frequently, avoided getting stranded out of position and value bet big when he held the best hand. I myself played o.k but I had to dance between the raindrops with regards to lucky cards and at one stage I blinded down to down to 6.5 bb. I also disgraced myself by getting drunk and being annoying later on in the game so once again I am sorry everyone.
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