Sox and SoxLover Rebound

One of my favorite pictures of all time. I probably wouldn't have posted it, but the Rooster has been peppering me all day with e-mails about last night's game.

Ah, but my boys pasted one on the Evil Empire tonight. At one point I was thinking the Yanks were simply letting runners on to tire them out for the rest of the series.

Well Sox and SoxLover bounced back today.

I was feeling rather depressed about the way I played those trip nines last night, but after reading FTrain's comment, I actually perked up. I played a hand quite badly, but I think learned from it so maybe in the long run the $200 I lost above what I should have is really plus EV.

Anyway, I have a bunch of moving to do this weekend as Mrs. SoxLover, two cats and I are relocating while we have our place renovated for the next few months. So I figured I better get my play in while I could; even e-mail access is going to be sporadic until I get my temporary DSL kit at the new place in two weeks.

I ran very hot at just the right time as there were some real donkeys at the club tonight. Third hand in the game had just started short-handed when I flopped was JJ8 with 300 behind and I held QJo. Donkey bet 20 into a 21 pot and I raised him to 60. He called and another 75 on a K that fell on the turn and an all-in bet on the river rag, showing 10-8 cause he "really thought I was bluffing". This genius move got Alex's--an owner of the club--attention and we had the lines in the water as the fish immediately rebought. Unfortunately for Alex, he sucked on him and Alex tilted a bit, which was fortunate for me as I started a run of good pairs (TT twice and JJ once in about 20 hands still 5 handed) and Alex kept paying me off. Before I knew it, I had moved my 300 buy in to 1300.

The table filled up with some new faces and a couple of old ones, including Scott, an aggressive young Asian player who is solid and can both make moves and lay down hands. I got into some confrontations and came out mostly ahead as my stack continued to grow, hitting an apogee of about 1750 after 3 hours of play. Scott survived a few run ins with me, making a very good lay down which gave me 200 but could have cost him far more.

Scott, however, was successful against other players and at one point built up a stack roughly equal to my 1600. Third biggest stack at that table at that time was about 700, so my thinking was that as long as he and I avoided mixing it up, we were in good shape.

On the button I looked down at AK diamonds. Scott had limped UTG and it had folded around to me. I bet 15 and the small blind, who pretty much was calling all of my preflop bets, called. Scott made it 40 to go. Normally, I suspect a very high pair here but I was thinking that Scott put me on a button raise since it had folded around, so I made it 100 to let him know I was serious, frankly expecting a fold. If he reraised again, I was done. SB folded and Scott called. Crap what now?

Flop came 3 hearts jack high. I think we were both nervous given the stack sizes. Scott checked and I bet another 100, again to see what Scott had. He called, which put me in I'm check folding mode. But on the turn came an Ace of clubs. Scott checked to me. Now what to do?

I made a mistake here by checking through. At this point I have Scott on 99 or TT, maybe QQ. I'm thinking that if any card but a heart falls, he'll make another good bet, but probably won't go all-in with anything short of a very high flush so I see this as a value check. River came a fourth heart and Scott checked again. I was not going to bet here as the only hands that could call me had me destroyed. Imagine my shock when he flipped over ducks, including a deuce of hearts to take down the 415 pot? Thoughts on how else I might have played this hand at any or all stages are welcome.

Well, I was getting chipped down and was back down to just under 1300 when a push came. Seemed like as good a time as any to get up. Funny how winning just under a G didn't feel that good since I was up so much more, but I guess I'm very happy to have last night's buy-in back plus another one. Serious volatility for me so far this month at the club, but pretty decent over all for the last 4 sessions:

01Jul05, 3.5 hours, -380
09Jul05, 5 hours, 890
14Jul05, 2.25 hours, -507 (I actually won 7 in a hour at a 10-20L game I sat down at until they got the NL spread--a very good result for me at 10-20L make no mistake)
15Jul05, 4.5 hours, 990