We found two seats open on the $1-$2 No Limit table. I bought $200 worth of chips and told the waitress to bring me a Jack Daniels Manhattan with extra cherries. The idea was to just play tight, sip on my drink and relax. If I wanted to I could simply fold every hand, pay my $3 in blinds every ten hands, watch ESPN on the big screen behind the table and drink for free.
Yeah, right.
Instead of the nitty game with small pot after small pot being pushed, the betting was getting a little wild. A player, who introduced himself as Jerry, was making oversize bets at seemingly every pot he played. For example, he called a $7 raise. After the flop, he led out with a $30 bet (mind that the pot at this point is only $14). He got called, then after the Turn he bet $70. His opponent raises “All in” and Jerry calls.
Jerry is this big galoot with a bald head, an Amish style beard sans mustache, arms covered in tattoos and a kind of dopey demeanor which may have been related to the stuff he said he had been smoking up in his room.
After the “All in” call Jerry showed a flush draw against his opponent’s pocket pair. He missed his draw, shrugged his shoulders and counted $300 out to the dealer from a bankroll that looked like a stack of crisp new twenties three-quarters of an inch thick.
That betting sequence didn’t just happen once. Most hands that Jerry was involved in went like that. He won a lot of small pots when opponents just folded to his oversize bully bets, but when he was beat, his opponent would raise and if he had a pair or a draw, he would call it down to the river. In the meantime, I sat and sipped on my Jack Manhattan.
I raised before the flop with pocket eights and got a couple callers, but not from Jerry. The flop came out 6-8-K all different suits. Figuring someone probably had a king I led out about half the pot, which has become my standard “Continuation bet”. One player called. He led out after the turn card was dealt and I raised. A lot of money went into the pot and at the end, my three-of-a-kind eights held up.
I noticed that in this game, maybe because of Jerry’s maniacal play, my continuation bets weren’t getting any respect. I would have a “raising” hand like AK or AQ, raise it before the flop, miss the flop, lead out and invariably get called by one or two players acting as sheriff. I didn’t have to give up on too many of these hands to put a nice dent in my chip stack.
Then I looked down and found two lovely red Aces in my hand. I got one caller with a bigger than normal re-raise and a typical half-pot continuation bet. The board paired on the turn and a third spade showed up on the river. My opponent made a small “value” bet on the river and I called. He showed two pair, the queen in his hand matched one on the board. Then, with my best Al Pacino-as-Scarface Cuban accent showed my aces and said, “Say hello to my little friends.” No I didn’t. That would be really rude - to show someone up like that. At the Poker table I usually try to avoid angering my opponents. I don’t want them to resolve to play better against me.
A couple of hours of staying about even and I raised with AK. When after a call I flopped top two pair I slow-played, checking and calling the flop and the turn. My opponent had a shorter stack and he was pot committed by the river. He called my final bet with the last of his chips and I simply said, “Top two.” and turned over my ace and king. Resigned to his fate he slumped his shoulders, sighed and tossed his hand into the muck.
At this point I had built a stack of some $490. For me, this is a nice session of Poker. That is when I got into it with Jerry. He had changed seats and was now sitting on my immediate right. This was a good thing for me because it means that he must act first in almost every hand. Advantage Buz. It put me in a position where I could just fold to his oversize bets and lose the minimum while coming over the top of him to win a large bet when I felt I was ahead.
Jerry raised pre-flop and I called with a pocket pair of threes. It is a simple strategy: Call a raise with a small pocket pair and if you pick up a “set” (a hidden Three-of-a-kind) you can win big. Miss and you simply fold. No set, no bet. With two threes remaining in the deck my chances of spiking the set on the flop is about 12%.
Sure enough the flop came 3-9-8 and Jerry made an oversize bet of $30. I raised to $100 and without moving any chips and using a deep voice that came out like a bear growl Jerry responded, “All in.” He had close to $600 in front of him. He had me covered. There was a lot of ways I could lose this hand holding bottom set. I decided that it smelled like another big bluff and called. I flipped over my threes and he showed a ten and jack for a two way straight draw. Everything seemed to be going in slow motion. It may have been the situation but the Manhattans certainly contributed. The dealer put a queen on the turn and just as I was recognizing that it completed Jerry’s straight he put out another nine giving me the winning full house. Whew! Talk about your emotional roller coaster.
After that, I avoided getting involved in any big hands, lost about $50 and cashed out for $940. It was my biggest winning day ever in a poker game. :-)
