A Tale of Two Sets

I started today by getting my ass kicked just about every way you can imagine. In fact there was one pot that I won, but it felt like I'd lost about $120 on the hand. I'm sure you're all thinking "How can that be?!?! Dave must have hit the Grand Mariner before writing this post!"

Let me explain. I was playing four $10/$20 games this morning and one of them was a spectacular game (especially for a Thursday morning). There were these two goofs in the game who were playing all kinds of garbage hands and going nuts with them. And they were both killing me. Whenever I was in it seemed like they were nailing their hands. Then the following hand came up. Goof 1 raised from the button, goof 2 three bet from the small blinds, I called from the big blind with 88 and goof 1 capped it.

I wasn't really sure where I stood, but when the flop came down 8 4 3 I started to drool. "Ah ha!" I thought triumphantly. "Now these goofs are going to pay! I'll cut them to pieces with my mighty set of eights!" Then to my total shock and horror goof 2 (who was first to act after the flop) timed out and folded (In the games I play in you have 14 seconds to act on your hand or you're out - it's kind of a brutal format, but it keeps the games moving quickly)! I couldn't believe it. I was thinking I would get AT LEAST $70 from him no matter what he had and instead I got zero.

After goof 2 folded I bet, the flop, turn and river and goof 1 folded to my river bet meaning I only made $30 after the flop. While I was trying to convince myself that maybe I wouldn't have gotten that much out of goof 2 he typed in the chat box "Thank God! I had KK and was so pissed that I folded!" BASTARDS! I'm guessing I would have gotten $30 or $40 from both players on the flop, $60 or $80 on the turn from goof 2 and $20 on the river. Even though I won the pot that hand sucked.

Now on to a much better hand. I was losing $2,200 by lunch today (I was just thinking to myself this morning how it had been a long time since I'd had a really big loss - now why would I tempt the universe by thinking that?) which also sucked. After lunch I thought I might play a little $15/$30 along with my normal $10/$20 games in an attempt to get some of my money back, but the games were loaded with regulars and pros.

Just for fun I decided to see who was playing $30/$60 even though I wasn't going to play. A few of the games looked OK, but one looked great. There was no one I recognized except for one guy who is a big loser at the $10/$20 games. I decided to take a chance and bought in for $3,000 (I was also in for $1,000 in each of three $10/$20 games). After about 18 seconds I was down to $2,500 in the $30/$60, not doing great in the other games and stuck about $3,000 for the day. SHIT!

But then I picked up AK three times in about 20 hands and won with all three. I was back to about $3,400 and I'd determined that the game was even better than I'd hoped. There were three guys who were constantly just calling before the flop which is a sign of real suckers in a short handed game.

Then I picked up TT on the button. Sure enough the first player to act just called $30 another player called behind him and I raised as I was thinking how great the game was. The big blind called and the original caller made it $90 to go. This made the alarm bells go off big time (ALERT! ALERT! We might have pocket aces!). The vast majority of the time people just call before the flop and then reraise it's AA in their hand. I called as did the other players and we took the flop 4 way.

While I was thinking about how sure I was that that one player had AA the flop came down T 3 3 and all of a sudden I was desperately hoping I was right! I almost couldn't believe it. I had to slow play a little here so I checked. To my insane delight the big blind and the original caller went to war with a bet, a raise, a reraise and a cap while I just called along! I thought to myself "Holy shit! I've flopped tens full against pocket aces and trip threes in an F-ing $30/$60 game! Yeah Baby!"

The turn was a Q which wasn't a great card, but I was pretty sure anything but an ace or a three was safe. I checked, the big blind bet $60, the other player just called and I raised to $120. Now the big blind went all in for a total of $175 which was great because it got the money in, but if he'd had more there's a chance the other player would have folded. Since it wasn't a full bet I couldn't raise again, but I did bet the river and got called. Sure enough I was up against AA and 7 3! I'd like to give the guy with 73 a little shout out and thank him for not folding before the flop (and for the $385 that he donated to me)! That pot was about $1,300 when it got pushed into my stack and I left the $30/$60 with a $1,400 profit in that game.

While I was done in the $30/$60 (the busted player and one other softy left and were replaced with some real players) I kept playing my other games and managed to cut my days losses all the way back down to about -$450. While I started the day with a win that felt like a loss with the set of 8's I finished they day with a net loss that feels almost like a win.