Since my wife had plans with one of her freinds for the evening, I decided to check out DJ's for an evening session.
Of course it's quite a different crowd on weekend night, than it is during the regular daytime hours. But I recognized most of the faces for most of the night.
I was expecting the place to be jumping, but I got there around 6:30 hoping to catch the end of the tourney to start the cash game and they were just starting their 6:00 tourney with a seat still open to fill one table. I declined and hung out and waited for the cash game.
We got the cash game going around 7:15. There was a lot more of the "gotta cap every street" type of thinking and one Asian guy was just cleaning up. Raise with (relative) garbage, and the grbage truck would come and dump his hand on the board. I managed to hit a couple hands and get up about $70 despite not getting a lot to work with. The point of this story is this hand:
I get A6d in the BB, and limp it in (by now, the betting had slowed down a little). The flop comes 7A5 with 2 diamonds. Perfect:top pair and nut flush draw. I bet and the garbage guys raises. I just call - "could still be behind, but if catch my flush I'm gonna crush that lucky sucker". (Remember this thought.) Turn brings a 9h. Check, bet, call. ("come one river, come on river") River 9d. Check, bet, raise, raise, raise, raise.... when he reraised me I double checked th board to make sure he didn't have the straight flush: 579d on the board, I held the 6, so the SFl was covered. raise, raise, raise.... He says: "I think I got you beat man." "Let's rock" He stands up and says with a big nervous grin: "You wanna shove them all in?" I grinned and said "go for it" - He stepped back as if he just messed himself and then he leans over and shoves his chips in a big sloppy mess and I immediately call. I was SURE I had the nuts - there's no way I'm shoving $160 on one bet in a 3/6 game without the nuts. Everyone but myself and the "sucker" at the other end of the table was lining up at the white board to write my name on the high hand list with my straight flush. I was sure I was gonna make that little fool cry....
But I overlooked one little thing. Yeah, I had the nut flush, but not the nuts.
Where was Quads yelling "Board Pair, Danger Sign!" when I needed him? I completely missed the pair of nines on the board - unfortunately I had slipped on some fish goggles and got so focused on my hand that I missed a really important fact: Flush was not the nuts. In fact I had about the #9 nuts - I had the #1 nuts accounted for, but I completely neglected all the boat possibilities, not to mention quad 9s. My little "sucker" friend rolled over 77 for the boat. I saw 77 and started laughing for brief second before the dealer pushed the seven and 2 nines out of the board and I was just in shock.
I actually handled it pretty well, I laughed a little and genuinely congratulated him on his nice hand. I really wasn't steaming as bad as you (or I) would think, and I was pretty happy about that. I called for a rebuy and shook my head for about the next 2 hours. Of course I was steamed - but at myself. I completlely misread the board and forgot to replay back the hand backwards. Inside the Hagar mind: "He raised on the flop you dummy - what did you think he had? Err, um, I guess I really didn't think - hey I didn't see the pair, stop giving me grief."
I know this doesn't even come close to Quad's Bellagio story, but it's up there for a 3/6 game. I'm tellin you all this story hoping you can learn the lessons that I did with out losing $175 in one hand in a 3/6 game. I made 4 very critical mistakes:
1. I wanted to teach that kid a lesson: "You're gonna get broke playing like a maniac". Bad game thought- it clouds your judgement. A form of tilt.
2. I didn't read the board ALL THE WAY. My short term fish goggles didn't allow me to see everything, I just saw what I wanted to see. I put the blinders on and just focused on my hand.
3. I didn't replay the hand backwards. I forgot that he raised me on the flop. If I would have done that, I might have thaought about the possibility of him having a set or even A9 on the flop, either of which would have fit in with the way he played the hand. Mistake #1 got in the way of that: he hadn't been playing like he had any sense most of the night and I just figured he didn't have a clue.
4. I limited my read on his hand way too tight. Having misread the board, I put him squarely on a Kxd. I don't know why, but that's what I did. Again, mistake #1, which led to #3, contributed to mistake #4.
The fact is that he overplayed his hand: I could have easily had A9 or 97 the way I played my hand which of course were bigger hands than his. Everyoine else was talking about the straight flush which he chose to ignore even though I did have 4 legs of it.
So he got a little lucky, but there's no sour grapes on my end: I lost that money because of my mistakes, which is something I can't say very often. Hopefully lessons learned.
He bought drinks for the table on my money (which I was joking about) and the guys around me were enjoying the fact that I could laugh it off. I was a little annoyed that he got up and left with all my money about 20 minutes later and the table thinned out real fast. We ended up playing 6 handed or less the rest of the night, which I thought would kill my chances of getting back to even.
I hung around until about 1:00, playing 4 handed for about 3 hours (me, a house player, and a young couple that wandered in around 10:00, who both played pretty well) and I did manage to get back to about $15 ahead for the night. Talk about grinding.
I'm sure they'll be talking about that hand for some time. I'm actually gonna get a lot of talk around that place for last week, having landed a Royal Flush on Wed. Eddie ( the house guy) said he was sure that we were gonna see quad 9s, crushed by a straight flush, which was the general sentiment around the table.
Leave your fish goggles at home!
Of course it's quite a different crowd on weekend night, than it is during the regular daytime hours. But I recognized most of the faces for most of the night.
I was expecting the place to be jumping, but I got there around 6:30 hoping to catch the end of the tourney to start the cash game and they were just starting their 6:00 tourney with a seat still open to fill one table. I declined and hung out and waited for the cash game.
We got the cash game going around 7:15. There was a lot more of the "gotta cap every street" type of thinking and one Asian guy was just cleaning up. Raise with (relative) garbage, and the grbage truck would come and dump his hand on the board. I managed to hit a couple hands and get up about $70 despite not getting a lot to work with. The point of this story is this hand:
I get A6d in the BB, and limp it in (by now, the betting had slowed down a little). The flop comes 7A5 with 2 diamonds. Perfect:top pair and nut flush draw. I bet and the garbage guys raises. I just call - "could still be behind, but if catch my flush I'm gonna crush that lucky sucker". (Remember this thought.) Turn brings a 9h. Check, bet, call. ("come one river, come on river") River 9d. Check, bet, raise, raise, raise, raise.... when he reraised me I double checked th board to make sure he didn't have the straight flush: 579d on the board, I held the 6, so the SFl was covered. raise, raise, raise.... He says: "I think I got you beat man." "Let's rock" He stands up and says with a big nervous grin: "You wanna shove them all in?" I grinned and said "go for it" - He stepped back as if he just messed himself and then he leans over and shoves his chips in a big sloppy mess and I immediately call. I was SURE I had the nuts - there's no way I'm shoving $160 on one bet in a 3/6 game without the nuts. Everyone but myself and the "sucker" at the other end of the table was lining up at the white board to write my name on the high hand list with my straight flush. I was sure I was gonna make that little fool cry....
But I overlooked one little thing. Yeah, I had the nut flush, but not the nuts.
Where was Quads yelling "Board Pair, Danger Sign!" when I needed him? I completely missed the pair of nines on the board - unfortunately I had slipped on some fish goggles and got so focused on my hand that I missed a really important fact: Flush was not the nuts. In fact I had about the #9 nuts - I had the #1 nuts accounted for, but I completely neglected all the boat possibilities, not to mention quad 9s. My little "sucker" friend rolled over 77 for the boat. I saw 77 and started laughing for brief second before the dealer pushed the seven and 2 nines out of the board and I was just in shock.
I actually handled it pretty well, I laughed a little and genuinely congratulated him on his nice hand. I really wasn't steaming as bad as you (or I) would think, and I was pretty happy about that. I called for a rebuy and shook my head for about the next 2 hours. Of course I was steamed - but at myself. I completlely misread the board and forgot to replay back the hand backwards. Inside the Hagar mind: "He raised on the flop you dummy - what did you think he had? Err, um, I guess I really didn't think - hey I didn't see the pair, stop giving me grief."
I know this doesn't even come close to Quad's Bellagio story, but it's up there for a 3/6 game. I'm tellin you all this story hoping you can learn the lessons that I did with out losing $175 in one hand in a 3/6 game. I made 4 very critical mistakes:
1. I wanted to teach that kid a lesson: "You're gonna get broke playing like a maniac". Bad game thought- it clouds your judgement. A form of tilt.
2. I didn't read the board ALL THE WAY. My short term fish goggles didn't allow me to see everything, I just saw what I wanted to see. I put the blinders on and just focused on my hand.
3. I didn't replay the hand backwards. I forgot that he raised me on the flop. If I would have done that, I might have thaought about the possibility of him having a set or even A9 on the flop, either of which would have fit in with the way he played the hand. Mistake #1 got in the way of that: he hadn't been playing like he had any sense most of the night and I just figured he didn't have a clue.
4. I limited my read on his hand way too tight. Having misread the board, I put him squarely on a Kxd. I don't know why, but that's what I did. Again, mistake #1, which led to #3, contributed to mistake #4.
The fact is that he overplayed his hand: I could have easily had A9 or 97 the way I played my hand which of course were bigger hands than his. Everyoine else was talking about the straight flush which he chose to ignore even though I did have 4 legs of it.
So he got a little lucky, but there's no sour grapes on my end: I lost that money because of my mistakes, which is something I can't say very often. Hopefully lessons learned.
He bought drinks for the table on my money (which I was joking about) and the guys around me were enjoying the fact that I could laugh it off. I was a little annoyed that he got up and left with all my money about 20 minutes later and the table thinned out real fast. We ended up playing 6 handed or less the rest of the night, which I thought would kill my chances of getting back to even.
I hung around until about 1:00, playing 4 handed for about 3 hours (me, a house player, and a young couple that wandered in around 10:00, who both played pretty well) and I did manage to get back to about $15 ahead for the night. Talk about grinding.
I'm sure they'll be talking about that hand for some time. I'm actually gonna get a lot of talk around that place for last week, having landed a Royal Flush on Wed. Eddie ( the house guy) said he was sure that we were gonna see quad 9s, crushed by a straight flush, which was the general sentiment around the table.
Leave your fish goggles at home!
