Greetings from the road

I got a hall pass to go play poker on Friday and cleaned up at a $1/$2 S.H.O.E. game.  SHOE is a mixed game, where we played one round of 7 card stud, one round of Texas Hold’em, one round of Omaha hi-lo, and one round of 7 Card Stud hi-lo.

I bought in for $50 and worked it up to $131.50 before I turned into a pumpkin and had to cash out.  There was a palpable amount of grumbling when I did so, but I had 6 hours of driving ahead of me the next morning.  If I had stayed I was more likely to take more money than to give back.

I played many hands very well, but I also got pretty lucky.  In a Hold’em round I overplayed a pair of kings up against two pair, but sucked out and hit a runner runner straight to win.  My best hand was during an Omaha hi/lo round when I was dealt A2s28.  I played the hand and saw the flop with two other guys, one playing for a hi with a second best hand, and the other guy with a hi and a second best lo.

If you can detect this situation, you can make a lot of money trapping one guy in the middle.  Omaha is confusing enough that new players are just trying to keep up with their hands and don’t detect this situation.

However this is exactly the kind of situation I’ve been practicing, and so I really jammed the pot, raising on every round and trapping the player with the second best hand for two bets every street.  I figured I had the low nearly locked, and therefore the hi player and I were just splitting up his money and taking back our own.  Every street the hi player would bet, and the man in the middle would call.  Then I’d raise, and they’d both call.  Along with the preflop money I made a small bundle on that hand.

My other best hand was little of my own doing.  I played Ace-Three of hearts only to find the flop come all hearts.  That didn’t take any skill, frankly, and had the player to my right not been dealt the king hi flush, I wouldn’t have made a dime.

But he had, and he was too inexperienced to lay it down, even raising me on the river.  I reraised, he capped, and I showed him my bad news.

For most of the night because of these plays and others, I rarely had to show my cards.  A well-timed raise and then an aggressive bet let me take down the pot, sometimes with good cards, and sometimes not.  My evening was the perfect mix of aggressive play and lucky cards that make people afraid to play a pot with you.

When it was all over I put my $81 of profit in my pocket and rode the motorcycle home, getting lost in curvy small roads of Rock Creek Park.  (Not a bad thing)