Meh

R’s new night for his home game was a bit of a dud, and I could tell he was disappointed with the turnout. We started the 20-20-20 tourney with 9 players. I didn’t know a few of the people. JJ had brought his wife, Maria. There was a younger guy who was quite nice and had a wit, and a couple mouth-breathers, one with long hair and the other with a crew cut. I had played with JJ a number of times, and just once with the guy with the big mustache. JJ is fearless and the other fellow is a TAG. I had both of them to my immediate left, which I liked. R and Phil were to my left. R is a pretty easy read and Phil gets looser with each beer.

Right off the bat R is raising big and taking down small pots. I limp a couple times, to no avail. JJ is also raising a lot, bigger raises than R. Maria is having a hard time with remembering the chip denominations, chatting instead of playing, and, of course, calling down with draws that hit. There’s frustration and anger in the air. I add to it with a suckout.

Three levels have gone by and I’ve played about three hands total, Finally, AdJc in the cut-off looks good enough to raise. The BB calls, as does JJ after he limped. No surpirise that JJ called, but I wasn’t sure about the BB. The flop comes with a K and two diamonds. I have a gutshot. The BB leads out and JJ folds. I’ve whiffed and I know that the BB has a K. I decide that if a diamond comes on the turn, I’m going to raise him all-in. The diamond does come and he goes all-in for about the pot. With a rebuy still to come, I call. Diamond. He is pissed buy holds back. I admit I sucked out, which I figure is enough of an apology. He rebuys, jams the next hand on the flop against JJ’s quad 8s.

JJ raises 8 x BB from UTG and gets four callers, and takes it down. The very next hand I get Aces UTG, make the same bet and everyone folds. The contrast is obvious and I decide to use this to my advantage. And when I do get called, I have the best of it and take out two more players (Phil and the wit). Bubble time.

The mouth breather with short hair says, “Someone’s gonna hang you out to dry if you keep doing that.” I shrug my shoulders, smile and look down at AJ off four-handed. With about 8 M, I raise it 2.5 x BB from UTG. JJ calls from the BB. He has me covered. The flop comes low and I c-bet 1/2 the pot. JJ calls. I decide that if a big card comes on the turn, I’m jamming. A king. He checks and I jam. He insta-calls with K3d, no help and bye-bye.

Hindsight being what it is, I know I played the hand wrong. I should have either jammed preflop or on the flop. What bothers me more than anything, however, is that I should have outlasted Maria with her much smaller stack. Oh well, there’s always the cash game that follows.

We started four-handed, and, this is a first, played $1/$2. I won a small pot with Jacks in the hole, R busted out with trips to a full house and announced that he’s done for the night. Phil has stayed to play cash, so he turns to the tourney players and asks if they are staying to play cash. No answer. They’re too busy yapping it up. He asks again. Still no answer. “Fuck it, I’m going home.”
I say, “Well then, I might as well go too.” The tourney ends and everyone heads for the door.

I’d venture to say that I will be looking for a new home game in the not-too-distant future.