Poker at the Mirage

Before getting into poker I just want to say that the last couple of days my computer has been acting like a bitch.
Yesterday, for the first time since I bought the bastard and first time with this particular OS, I got the blue screen of death.  Today it's been running slow and programs aren't doing what they should when they should.  It's getting agitating and I'm thinking about wiping the hard drive clean and just starting the fuck over again.
Golly I used to love those days :)

Anyways, the other day I decided to spend the evening playing poker and I jumped in my car to head out.
Usually the way it has been working for me lately is that I don't have my destination predetermined.  I have been just driving and if  I'm coming up on a spot that I like to play and the mood strikes me then that's where I go.  I have some regulars that I'll hit up more often than not, but it's just sorta where the mood takes me when I am out.  The other night the mood lead me to The Mirage.

When I arrive I get seated at a table where I get no cards and have no luck and was pretty much just kinda bored with the rest of the table.  It could have been that within 20 minutes of me sitting to play the guy with 900 left, then the 2nd biggest stack left, then evidently the table fish left as 3 others followed suit and I was left with a table of people with not much money.  
Combine this with the "new game" that was being called included none other than Apollo who I have played with multiple times before and also enjoy his ramblings on AVP and twitter. All around one of the few locals that I wouldn't mind playing with more often due to the fact that we enjoy making fun of the same people at the table.

That night, it was the 3 seat.  But that's getting ahead of myself ever so slightly.
It is at this point I should warn you that it feels like there are a lot of words about to come from my fingers based on several facts.
1 - I played an 8+ hour session and most of it was at my second table.
2 - I have a smattering of hands that I remember
3 - the 3 seat was a f'n moron.
I believe that 3 is enough reasons to qualify for "several."

Back to it.  The new table was called and once I saw that Apollo was on it I decided to request a table change. I was told I had to wait until the cards were in the air and 5 minutes later I was getting paged to move.

I immediately grabbed the open one seat in time for the 1st hand and proceeded to fold for a while.  Over the course of the 1st 6 hands at the table I believe the 3 seat won 4 or 5 of them and then proceeded to complain that the table was too tight.  Sure, he got AA, Ak and AA all in a span of 4 hands and only won about $35 total ($20 from me on the 2nd time he got AA) but he still was complaining right out of the gate.
I tried to explain to him that this is the plague of all new tables.  Everyone plays tight and they have to feel each other out and then randomly the table will no longer be so tight.  It always happens, don't bitch about it.
I had at least one other member of the table back me up on this legit line of logic!

Within a couple orbits the seat next to Apollo opens up and I grab it so that I can get some chatting in as well.  When I move over I immediately loosen up my range of hands in order to win some pots and loosen the table up a bit.  I raise 47diamonds and get a caller or two - I bet with a flopped bottom pair and when everyone folds I show it.
I raise with another random kinda junky hand and take it down with a flop bet as well and show it.

This is when seat 3 decides to pipe in that he appreciates what I'm trying to do but it's not going to work at this table.  I ask him what it is that I'm trying to do and he tells me that I'm trying to loosen it up by playing garbage.  This is where I tell him that I'm just a constant tourist in this city I love and I only play to have fun - folding is not fun and I think this is where he lost respect for me and decided that I was the big fish at the table.

Now, things after this point might no longer follow chronological order as I am writing this days after it happened and it was a long session (as I mentioned above).  However, all of these hands really happened even if I have some minor details wrong like bet amounts.  I did not take notes nor did I tweet about some of the hands as I was mostly in a sour mood and trying to stack the seat 3 tellbox!

My 1st real hand at the table came in a 6 way limped pot with myself in late position and the key player in very early position.  I, your hero, has an awesome pair of 3's in his hand and the villain has no fucking poker sense but wins some pots because he's bad at the game.
The flop comes out 8d 6d 3x  (future reference, 8d means 8 of diamonds.  h would mean hearts, c would mean clubs and s would mean spades.  x means it doesn't fucking matter and plays no significance in this story).
Villain bets out $7 and gets a caller and I immediately raise to $25.  not enough to push everyone away but enough to make people pay if they have a flush draw.
The turn is a beautiful 6x which gives me a boat and at this point I know I'm good.
Villain checks it to me and I bet out $50 which he thinks about for a few moments and calls.
Important Note - At this point if Villain does anything other than call he 100% stacks me every g'damned time.
River is the ugliest card in the deck - another 6 putting the board at 8d6d3x6x6x
No flush hit but that's unimportant at this point.
What is important is that Villain looked at the dealer and timidly said "I'm All In" meaning he bet the rest of his chips which was over $200 if I remember correctly.

I truly think that in poker, I have a black could of luck floating over my head and a hand like this just goes towards my mental proof.
Right now any minor overpair beats me... shit, any pocket 4's or higher beats me.
If he called down with 1 ace he wins.  The only way I win this hand is if he has exactly 22 or a complete bluff and no pair at all.  I can tie if he has the last 3 in the deck.  I think none of that is possible and I muck my hand face up for him to see.
This is where he proudly shows K6 for the rivered Quads.  Ugh, fml. wtf.

I get involved in a hand where I raise pre-flop with JJ and the old man to my right calls.
The flop comes out 9 high with 2 clubs on it. he bets and I raise him a good amount, he calls.
The turn comes a 3rd club and he bets out a large portion of his remaining stack and I tell him that my Jacks are no longer good and muck my hand.  He smiles at me and says "nope, they sure weren't" as he flashes me A3 of clubs for the nut flush.

A little bit later the old man raise to $12 which I call and so does one or two other people.
Flop again comes 9 high (why do I have to keep having an over pair with Jacks?). with a 6 and a 4 on the flop.
He bets and I raise him, he calls.  The turn is another 4.  Old man checks to me and I fire out a half pot bet, which he calls.
The river is a 3rd four and he bets $25.
Mind you, the pot is about $150-$175 without his $25 bet.  $25 is fucking ridiculous.
$25 says "I just want to get a small amount of value out of you or I want you to be stupid and try to raise me out of the pot so I can get all your chips asshole."
I grab my $25 and tell him that I KNOW he has me beat but it's impossible to not call the $25 because of the pot. I call and show my Jacks and he shows his AA which of course is good and of course takes down a big pot and of course I curse myself and my luck.
However, this is now twice where I could have lost significantly more than i did had I not made a good read on my opponent.

After taking a few pots down, after adding more money to my stack, after winning with some bets on the flop that weren't called down I get QQ and I raise to $12 in late position.
Folds to a guy who makes it $42 total and I'm drooling about putting the rest of my chips into the middle of the pot when the next guy to act decides to go "all-in" and snap me out of my dream like trance.
All-in?  Seriously?  For like $200 give or take?  This was supposed to be my pot.  I've been playing loose and getting no action.  I finally got the action I wanted and of course I got more than I bargained for.
I flash my QQ to Apollo and announce that while I feel like this is a bad fold and I might be ahead of both players I just can't bring myself to call.
$42-guy calls and I at least get to see the hands.
The guy who raised to $42 had JJ and it confirmed that I was right that I was ahead there and would have won a good sized pot.
Guy who pushed had AK suited and once again I was right that I was ahead but really wasn't in the mood to flip as this is cash, not a tourney!
An Ace on the flop confirmed my fears that my money would have gone to someone else and I was saved again.

So, I haven't mentioned the old man who already beat me out of two nice sized pots so lets bring his ass up again as he seems to have a knack for taking money from me.
I know this hand is WAY out of order as it happened near the end of the evening(morning) but if fits better right here than elsewhere I guess.
I raise JJ to $12 in mid/late position and am called 3 or 4 ways including the old man to my immediate right.  Flop comes out KQx and everyone chickens out and checks.
The turn brings a 9 giving me a gut shot.  Someone puts out bet in the $15-$20 range which the old man calls and so do I.  I plan on folding to most bets on the river unless the Ten comes to give me a straight or the bet is really small.
However, unexpectedly, the worst card in the deck comes out for me - A Jack.
I get trips but anyone with a naked ten now beats me.
The old man bets $2f5.
Twenty fucking five dollars.
I'm not sure if I have mentioned that I hate this old man.
It's a large pot and I beat pretty much anything but a ten.  He could have a badly played AA. He could have flopped top 2 and took it slow.  Shit, he could have bottom two or he could have 9J or KJ or a multitude of any other cards so I make the call and let him know that was the worst damned card in the deck for me to see on the river.
He shows his T3 off-suit and I show him my Jacks and he grimaces knowing that he has my number tonight.

Thankfully a 2nd familiar face comes to the table in Alaskagal.
I make sure to let her know that i expect my luck to turn around now that she is sitting at the table and dealing cards to us and would appreciate not loosing with another set and her not pushing my chips in some other direction. She does the non-biased dealer smile and implies she has no control over the forces of evil!

A few hands into her down I make another couple raise to $7 or $12 and get a few callers each time and take down an uncontested pot on the flop or the turn and start adding chips to my stack.
At this point I have a $100 bill and about $140 in reds with $30-$40 in blues as well.
I'm kinda sorta in late position and there is a raise to $11 before me in mid.  The old guy calls and I see my cards are suited garbage - 2h3h and I make the call hoping to continue my hot streak and steal the pot from the raiser on the flop or turn.  There are one or two others that enter including the 3 seat.

The flop comes out a gorgeous KhJhXh giving me a flush (granted, the smallest flush possible).
There is a $25 bet from early position which is called once then raised to $50 by the guy who originally raised pre.  Folds to me and I make it $150.
Folds to the OG who thinks about it and looks at his cards a few times.
Great, he didn't flop the flush but I have effectively narrowed his hand down to AK off suit with the Ace of hearts or Aces with the Ace of hearts and more leaning towards AA.
He finally pushes all in which I call and he turns over AA with the A of hearts as I expected.  I show my hand and the 3seat tellbox starts talking out loud about how bad of a player I am because I had that hand and called a raise, etc.
The turn and the river are blanks and i double up and get a nice big pot pushed towards me.
Seat 3 talks about how I got really really lucky in that hand and should have lost.
At first I thought he meant lucky to flop the flush but after listening to him he thinks I got lucky because my hand held up.
He says the guy with the Ace of hearts got unlucky that another heart didn't come.  I was lucky that a heart didn't come.
I tell seat 3 that it kinda sorta makes up for me losing to the 1 seat who got running 6's to get quads and beat my set/boat.
The 3 seat responds that when I play as bad as I do I'm going to get unlucky.  When I asked him what he meant he told me that I play too many hands.  Because I play as many hands as I do I'm going to get unlucky more often than the next person.

A short while later I'm in late position again and see QQ. There is a $7 raise ahead of me and a caller or two and i re-raise it to $25 on the button.  Apollo, in a small blind calls my $25 as do 3 other players including the 3 seat.

The Flop makes me smile when I see 6d7dQx for top set, but it is a very draw heavy board.
The 3 seat leads out for $25 and a guy in mid position calls the bet.
I can't decide how to approach this and what amount to raise so I end up just putting a $100 bill in the middle and cutting out an additional $75 in chips.  Originally I had intended just to make it $125 but the pot already had $175 in it.
Apollo folded and the 3 seat folded without much thought, but the next guy started to think a lot.
I didn't put him on a set because I felt that he would have insta pushed.
Two pair was a small possibility but more and more I started to put him on a flush draw and probably the nut flush draw.
Eventually he pushed and called whatever else I needed to.
he showed TdJd for a flush draw and I turned over my QQ for top set.
The 3 seat was standing up to find out what the hell I had because he truly believed that I bluffed all the time and he wanted to see me getting caught with my hands in the cookie Jar.
My Queens held up and now I was finally showing a profit.
All Hail AKgal!!!

And that will essentially end my stories for the night.
There are other hands - I lost to 5 total turned or rivered flushes in decent sized pots.
I also lost with 3 total sets though I can't seem to remember where the 3rd one fell or what set it actually was though I *think* it might have been tens.

Myself and Apollo stayed at the table trying to get the seat 3 to stack off to us as we could put him on every hand that he had.  He played straight forward and when he had a monster you knew it because he was too stupid to shut up and just play the hand.
I had 3 opportunities to get significant chips off of him but something bailed him out each and every time.
The most significant of those was the last hand I'm going to describe.

Late position I raise 85 offsuit and the 3 seat comes along and another guy between us as well.
Raise was to $12.
$36 in the pot pre-flop.
Flop comes 4s 6x 7s giving me the flopped nuts but a flush draw out there.
seat 3 bets out $15 or $20 and middle position calls, I make it $65 to go and both players come along.
Turn is a spade putting the flush on the board.  Seat 3 checks and middle position kid decides to bet out $100.  I fold and seat 3 folds and the pot gets pushed the wrong direction again.
Seat 3 complains about his luck because he flopped 2 pair on that board and silently I am sad because that was the hand where I would have nailed him hard.  Oh well.

Ps - I lied - one more hand, one more beautiful hand.
Another hand that I played, showed my cards to Apollo and admitted to the table what I had and multiple people, including seat 3, told me I was an idiot.

Late position i raise to $12 with KK, there is a caller or two and then the guy in the small blind grabs a large stack of chips and starts cutting them out to raise.
During this process I notice his hands are very very shaky and the last stack he has he just completely knocks over with nerves.  he quickly pulls his hands back and says "whatever is in there, that is my bet."
dealer counts it up and says the bet is $90.
I show Apollo my hand and insta-muck again.  Apollo actually says that he felt it was the wrong move at the time.
seat 3 mucks and kid takes it down and racks in the pot.
Seat 3 asks him what he had but he doesn't say.  I tell him that he had aces and it was obvious.  So obvious that I folded KK.
The kids eyes bulge out of his head (another clue that I was right) and tells me that I made a bad fold - claims he had AK.
Seat 3 then decides to lecture me on how bad I am because there is no way in hell he ever folds KK there.
There was no way the kid had AA there and that's why it was a bad fold.  The kid bet so big because he didn't want action.  No one with AA ever bets that big, they'll bet smaller to get you to come along with them.
He harps on that for quite a while and I end up telling him that i just wasn't willing to risk the money because i wanted to leave with a profit and he eventually accepts that.

After I left the table and was driving home the Kid who raised to $90 admitted that he had Aces in that hand (and to me, I say Fucking-DUH).  Apollo informed me of this confession and told me "nice fold."

I didn't expect him to ever admit it, but in my mind I knew it was true and that's why I folded.
If I thought he had anything other than AA I probably push all my chips in the middle and just pray an Ace doesn't fall (or whatever card it takes to give him a set for that matter).

Either way, played a long session and showed a profit thanks to patience, good reads, good plays and "being a fish and getting very lucky" if you believe a fat obnoxious guy who sat in the 3 seat all night long.

It was long and frustrating because all my good hands found a way to lose until Alaskagal decided to start dealing me some winners that held up.

There are a lot of words above this sentence, I am not proof reading and I am not going to look back and make sure anything I typed made sense.
If it looks like there is an error feel free to point it out and I will edit it.
I'm f'n tired and I must get some sleep immediately.

Hopefully Stripper story tomorrow and either tomorrow night or Saturday morning a special guest post from someone other than myself.

May seat 3 contract herpes from the next prostitute that he pays to touch his Cheetos stained tally-whacker!