Home Game Losing Streak Has Ended

Home game again. This time I’m back with a vengeance. OK, maybe not that dramatic, but I did win a nice score. $77 to be exact; that ain’t bad for .25/.50. I played tight for the most part. I was actually card dead for the most part, but I did get a few opportunities. I won 3 big hands and the rest were the slow grind. I had 1 beer.

Same old story: bad plays all night long. Basically if you could just get a hand you could take down some loot. I think I need to loosen up a little more. We had 10 people playing. Only 4 of us were the usual crew; the rest were friends, relatives, and acquaintances. Anyways, these guys were playing every hand. 6 or more limping to the flop. I just kept folding and weighting for starting hands. I’m telling you there is no protecting your hands with these guys. You raise PF and get 3 callers. Raise big on the flop and still get 2 callers.

So many bad plays. Ex: Chris limps along with 5 or more people with 97o. 997 flop. Raise before him. He raises it up and gets 2 callers. Turn is a paint card. Early guy doesn’t check to the aggressor and bets out again. Chris raises bigger. Both call. I am thinking trip-fight and it will be down to the kicker. Maybe over pair for the other caller or maybe 77. Imagine my befuddlement as a 9 hits the river board. I say that someone is lying their asses off. Phil leads out again and Chris pushes his last bit. Phil and another new kid call. Phil turns over 88 and I fell nauseous. The new guy shows down J7o or something horrible like that. Chris pulls in the pot of the night with quads. Terrible play.

Also I’ve noticed that there is a lot of regressive betting at our game. Often someone will bet $3 on the flop. and then bet $2 on the turn and river even though the pot is getting larger. No one follows the ½ pot and up rule. That is mainly the reason that I can chase down a possible and win a big pot once or twice a session usually, if the cards cooperate. Also the other thing that I noticed was that the majority of players were callers, not raisers. They would just check or call with prs, but would call if someone bet. There was a lot of this going on. I saw people only call down hands where they sat with monsters because they didn’t have the nuts. Makes it cheaper for me if I lose the hand, yet also makes it harder to know where you stand in the hand. If you got something bet. Oh yea, another thing is all the limping with almost everyone seeing the flop. I think this is because of how much they like to say what they would have hit if they wouldn’t have folded. They don’t realize that in the long run they would lose money playing that junk hand that just happened to hit that hand. This also makes it hard to know where you’re at on the flop. Lots of 2prs connect with that much action.

My 3 big hands. I get in SC’s and hit the Um-possible on the flop. I bet out a few bucks to try and take down the pot or at least build it up if I hit. I am raised double by a new guy. I call. He is very green and probably only played a few time somewhere else if at all. Put it this way, when we started we had to teach him the blind structure and how to burn a card when dealing. I watched him call down with 2nd-pr a few time up this point. The turn is a small card to the board. I check. He raises less than the last and I am obliged to call. River brings my flush money; it is smaller than the high card. I don’t have the nut flush though. But I don’t put him on the flush-draw. I don’t see him betting and raising to the flush. I put him on top pair. I check, hoping for the raise. He decides to bet big here. I push. He thinks about it a long time and then calls with top 2pr and then buys back in.

Hand 2 and 3 go and in hand. Chris’ brother was there and at this juncture pretty sloshed. As he was getting drunk, he won some nice pots. He had only around $50 at this time – double what he had bought in for. He was up a lot more at one point. He is a very cocky kid – nice but cocky. He got into an ego habit of doubling his buddy’s PF or flop bets. We started making a big deal about it, so he started doubling everyone’s bets early in hands. He called down his fiend often and showed nothing – not even a pr. But he was getting a lot of folds and pretty much was running the table because everyone was afraid to bet early on. I am just waiting and praying for a hand. His ego really kicked in as he got drunk and he started raising PF $5 every few hands. If he had anything he was throwing in that $5 chip on top of is fifty-cent chip at our .50 game. I get dealt ATo and limp. He only bets $2 above the blind this time and I call. A-small-small flop. I check , and he throws in that $5 chip. I make it $15. He calls. Turn x and I make it $10 to go. He calls again. I start second-guessing my move and check the innocuous looking river with the intention to call if he bets. He checks and shows A8o.

While the cards are being shuffled he is obviously tilting. He starts stacking his chips out in $1 piles and has around $20 left. I get dealt KK. I raise to $3.50. folds to him and he says I’m all-in and pushes the counted out stacks into the middle. Folds back to me and I call. He turns over 95s. His buddy calls him a dumbass and I take down the pot. He buys back in for like $18 and tilts that off to someone else in the next 10 min. or so. He then asks to borrow some money from his brother, who tells him to take his ass-whippin’ and walk home. He downs his Miller Lite and leaves saying good game.

I was the 2nd place finisher with $77 behind Chris’ $105. You could just see his ego swell. For some reason his cockiness is bothering me. He isn’t humble and likes to brag up his luck. He thinks it is all skill as of right now. He has been hitting his draws on some big hands and winning overall. He has yet to deal with Lady Variance. I just want him to stop being cocky, because I find myself playing more hands against him trying to humble his ass. That isn't good, because that means he kinda has me on tilt against him.