Back to the Grind...And the Merciless Beat Downs!

For 3 days I've been back to my normal routine of working from 10 am to 7 pm (with a few breaks) playing 6 handed limit cash games and a handful of tournaments.

On Thursday I picked up right where I left off. I was ahead $1,000 before I knew it and was thinking "This is easy!" In fact I was $2,000 to the good at one point, but then I had a bad run playing $30/$60 and gave it all back plus another $1,300.

This is the first time in a few months that I've been super pissed at the end of my work day. To be perfectly honest I went on tilt and started playing bad once things started heading south. I was upset that I'd let myself get out of control and upset that I'd been winning all damn day and in the last hour let a good day get away from me.

But the next day I rectified things in a hurry. I was browsing the various games and found a $50/$100 game that was going four handed with two players who are regular substantial losers. I took the seat just to the left of both of them, made some big hands and won $1,700 in about 20 minutes! That was the complete end of any negative feelings I'd had about the day before and I went on to pick up another $700 over the course of my work day.

That was nice, but today is when I really laid the smack down! The $10/$20 games today were terrible (they were loaded with regulars and pros). I have no doubt it was the worst collection of games at those stakes I've ever seen on a weekend day. But the $15/$30 and $30/$60 games were pretty good. So that's what I played and things went really well.

At one point a game I was in broke and I needed to find a new game to replace it. I saw someone whose name I didn't recognize sitting alone with $1,200 at a 30/60. When I opened the table and saw that he was a silverstar player, I instantly sat down. I got his entire $1,200 stack in 7 minutes!

I won about $3,800 in the cash games today, but that's not all! I also had a nice finish in a 36 player, $215 buy in 8-game mixed tournament (it's the five HORSE games, plus triple draw lowball, no limit hold'em and pot limit Omaha).

When we'd been playing for a few hours I benefited from getting put at a table with a player who had no clue. I don't know what he was thinking playing in this tournament, but clearly he was out of his element. The first hand of razz (7 card stud where the lowest hand wins) he played it as if he thought the highest hand would win. On 4th street he was showing a king and a queen and raising two players who both hand two cards under 6 showing! Eventually he figured out what was going on when a hand with 7 cards below jack won the pot!

He also had some trouble with the triple draw and I was fortunate enough to take a huge pot off him playing that game. In triple draw every player is dealt 5 cards and the goal is to make the worst hand possible. Unlike some other games where a low hand is involved, in triple draw straights and flushes count against you and aces are high. The best possible hand is 2 3 4 5 7 which is why they called it "deuce to seven" triple draw. There are blinds and betting just like in limit hold'em, but instead of a flop, turn and river, there are three draws where you get to throw away cards from your hand and replace them with new ones.

We all started the tournament with 4,000 chips and blinds of 10/20. By the time the hand in question came up the blinds were 80/160 (stakes of 160/320) and we were playing triple draw for the third time having already played all 7 other games twice (the game changes every 6 minutes and the stakes change every 12 minutes). My opponent raised and I three bet him with 2 3 4 5 J. He capped it and we both took one card. I caught an 8 which made me the 5th best possible hand (the only hands better are 76542, 76532, 76432 and 75432). When my opponent bet of course I raised him. When he three bet me I thought maybe he'd made one of those 4 magic hands, but since I knew he was a goof I raised him again.

He called and again took one card. When he drew instead of standing pat that told me I had the best hand (a made 8-low is a huge favorite against any 1 card draw). After the second draw he fired out again, and I raised him, and he reraised me and I capped it. Again he took a card and again he bet out.

No one in their right mind would bet out here with anything but a 7-low. Of course no one in their right mind would go nuts with a draw against a pat hand with one draw left to go either. So after the final draw I raised him and he reraised me! ACK!

I was thinking "if this guy beat me on this last draw I am going to go bananas!" I considered putting in the last bet, but instead just called and my opponent turned over 2 3 4 5 6! He'd made a straight! Maybe he didn't know that's a bad thing in 2-7 lowball!

I'd taken out two people in the pot limit Omaha just before, and that pot put me up to 20,000 chips. The player in second place in the whole tournament only had 9,000.

I never dropped below 20,000 for the rest of the tournament, and for much of it I kept my stack at twice that of the player in second place. The tournament paid 6 places and as we approached the money I kept my foot on the gas and piled up a mountain of chips. My only stumble came when we were playing 3 handed and I ended up falling back to even with my two opponents.

But then we switched to no limit hold'em. In the 6 minutes of no limit playing with 500/1,000 blinds. I went from 50,000 chips to 100,000 chips without ever winning a hand at showdown. I just totally ran over my opposition. I raised almost every hand and when they reraised me I'd put them all in which would lead to three seconds of thinking follwed by a fold. It was great. I finished them off in the pot limit Omaha.

1st place in that tournament was $2,664 and took my days winnings to about $6,500. It's good to be home!