DUBLIN BELLYBUSTERS

Today was my last Sunday before I return to Ireland. As I sat, drinking my Dunkin's Caramel French Vanilla Iced latte (God, I miss real coffee!), watching Max's Little League Baseball Game (God, I miss cricket!), I started reminiscing about a recent live poker experience that wasn't loathsome. Well, initially I started reminiscing about the highlights of my cricket career (Yes, 'highlights' plural - fuck you all! There has been more than one!) but Michelle threatened to take her own life.

As you may recall from an earlier blog, the poker game at the Skyline Bar/Restaurant in Windsor Locks has a great structure, a heated venue and for the most part, a friendly bunch of regulars. (There was the 'chip-dumping-from-the-hoody-pocket-gate' scandal and another time when I got into up in a verbal contre-tente with a weird-looking red-neck who seemed to get his fashion and personal grooming tips from Hulk Hogan circa 1988.) I normally do everything in my powers to avoid a live poker game with strangers but two reasons compelled me to play:

1. This is a good game, expertly run by a genuine and friendly poker enthusiast by the name of Bob (a Mohegan Sun cash game regular).
2. Michelle loves live poker a little bit more than I hate it.

Michelle and I arrived fashionably late to discover that the game had been moved from to the bar due to a 'Sweet 16' Birthday party in the hall. Little did we know at the time but this meant that about two hours later, we would be made to suffer the Saturday Night Karaoke from ear-achingly close proximity. We took our seats and I immediately began pillaging my table, building my starting stack of 1500 to over 7K in the first hour. One bad call cost me a quarter of my stack and a disgusting beat cost me another quarter so when we finally got down to 3 tables, I was grinding an average stack.

It was around this time that Michelle got knocked out. She sat behind me for 20 minutes or so before a cash-game got started and I allowed her a peak at my hole cards. On the first hand she saw, I treated her to a devilishly good/reckless squeeze play when I shipped my 5K  stack with A5 suited after a raise to 600 from early position and two callers put 2100 out there to be thieved. As the final table approached (the tournament of 55 paid out all 9 final tablers) and we were short-handed on two tables, I began opening every pot that got to me unopened and re-raising those that had been. My stack went from 9K to 13K during these two orbits of indiscriminate aggression.

Disaster struck on the final table as I ran my AK into Aces with 7 players remaining. I lost and was left with just 2K in chips or one big blind. I waited two hands before shoving King-10 which was called by two players before the player in the Small Blind isolated with an over-shove. The other two players folded and the Small Blind tabled 88, giving me a coin-flip to more than quadruple up. A King came in the window and I held, taking down a 9K pot. I shoved 3 of the next 4 hands to hammer my way back to a top 3 stack. At this point the blinds doubled to 2K/4K and unsurprisingly, this spelled the end of the three short stacks in quick succession.

Four-handed and with 6K just sitting out there each hand, I went into jam-bot mode. The 4th place finisher blinded himself out, refusing to pick a spot until he was all-in for his big blind. Three-handed action lasted about 5 minutes before the other two players got it in with A8 and JJ. The Big-Stack's JJ held and he went Heads-up with me with a 2:1 advantage.  With the blinds were 4K/8K, we each took turns shoving before I got too clever for my own good and min-raised with Q3. Figuring he would miss 67% of flops, my plan was to shove on any flop and most likely win a bigger pot. The flop came 578 and he insta-called me with an ugly 83. It held and I picked up $550 for 2nd place. In retrospect, I should have just shoved pre-flop but c'est la vie!

Meanwhile on the cash table, Michelle was into her 2nd buy-in, her first having been bad-beated off her in a pot that she played perfectly, trapping her wild opponents by slow-playing her AQ only for JQ to river her after all the money was already in. She had also had a fight with a player at her table after he mucked his hand after the player in the side-pot with him folded. He forgot that Michelle was still in the hand - she had gone all-in preflop. Regardless of the fact that he had the better hand, his cards were in the muck, an error that should have cost him the entire main pot. He raked in the pot and refused to give it up. She gave him a trademark ear-bashing and they reached a compromise, electing to split the main pot.

Michelle was in no mood to leave so I ordered a quesadilla. Ten minutes later, she got into a hand with the other lady at the table. Michelle raised to $21 UTG (there was a $4 straddle) and she re-raised, making it $43 to go. Michelle called and the flop came all babies. She fired out a bet of $37 and Michelle shoved for a little over $150. She insta-called and showed AK. Michelle proudly tabled her hooks. Boom came the Ace on the turn and she was insta-fisted, drawing dead to a Jack which didn't come. I took my quesadilla to go and we headed to the exit, conducting the obligatory post-mortem, agreeing that the call with AK was pretty atrocious. She played great all night and lost $250. "I hate live poker!", she said. I couldn't resist a rye smile.

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