It took one rebuy and the UIEGA had no bearing

We had the best turnout so far for out new Friday homegame location just last night. Two uncles and a cousin. Wesley is a bull riding beach volleyball star. One hardened big time gambler named Jack. Two cops and yours truly. There was a yummy spread of pepperoni, cheese, crackers and Pony Miller.

The night started off with just me and my uncle Tony who owns the place getting in a few hands heads up before the rest of the crew decided to show up. Since he is an action junkie poker pigeon I figured it'd be a good spot to pick up some extra chips if I could pounce on one of his frequent bluffs. I won three or four straight pots and then Tony decided to bluff at a big pot on the river with a large overbet. He knows me as a guy who will lay down a hand to a big bet but in this case I had made Kings up. I just decided to call him down because there was a possible straight made on the river but I felt my two pair were the nuts. Tony proudly turned over his King for an actual real hand, but it was a loser. I shoulda raised.

The rest of the crew arrived and got seated late because the Bull Riders gal totaled her car only minutes before the scheduled shuffle up. He told her to ice her head and take some Tylenol and then proceeded to the game with a clear conscious. I admire his true dedication to the game and her understanding.


Gamblin Big Time Jack sat on my left to try and punish me all night but I stayed away from him and let him bust players for me while I picked up small pots and check called my way through the minefield. I made one all-in bet to wake everyone up when I picked up AKs in the BB and shoved against a table full of limpers and picked up enough dead money for a half hour of blinds. Pocket tens doubled me up against K10 on a flop of 2 7 10. I was check calling til the river then I pushed and got called by one of the uncles. I had the big stack early on and I ran into cousin BJs trip deuces. I felt like he was leading me down the primrose path the whole hand but two pair is a seductive mistress sometimes. Turns out my two pair consisted of my King, one on the board and two deuces on the board. Unfortunately, he had pockets deuces and he had rivered quads. Ouch. Not broke, but hurt bad. I never could recover from this blow and in 30 minutes I was broke and rebuying. Speaking of rebuys, Tony said his shoulder was sore from reaching into his back pocket. BJ suggested him moving his wallet to his front pockets for easy access. Turns out it would have been a good move b/c the rebuy bee stung him like Lionel Ritchie. All night long.

It wasn't long before the cops showed up..........bought in........and sat down. I love this country. Cops can't play card for shit you know and winning their money is a sweet joy. Just as quickly as the game got filled, it started to thin out. Finally the cops bring some good luck. I pick up Aces in the BB and it is limped around to me so I throw in a 3.5x BB raise and it folds around to Tony who calls and then Uncle Bil who re-raises. A great spot to be in for sure, but who wants two people drawing against your aces? Well, Tony never folds and Bill didn't have to call much more so it was three way action. Tony had Tens and Bill had Jacks and I had the winner when the board came all babies and a queen. Whoo hoo. I'm back in the saddle again. BJs chips had been dwindling since he was cursed with quads. Wesley, the Bull Rider had been up and down. You have to watch Wes cause he will call your ass with the ace high if he thinks its good.

This post is taking too long to finish and I have not had a comment on this site in nearly two years so I wonder if it's just sitting out here dying. How bad can it be if you are linked to Paulys site? Anyhow.... Bill did not recover and ended up getting busted by me with top two vs his top pair. BJ slowly died and disappeared. It wasn't long before the men in blue were deep in the red. I think Wesley open folded 5-6 hands during the evening so you can guess where he ended up. Jack the Big Time Hollywood gambler had busted twice already and was given directions to the Food Lion so he could get a pack of gum with his debit card and get cash back. That's an ATM here in the country we say. Hard to blame him though b/c the kitty had grown into a Lion with three hours of rebuys, booze and smoke. With a healthy double buyin price of $40 we had pumped it up to nearly 8 Hundy by Midnight.

Jack came back and started pounding away recklessly and soon had taken over the chip lead with some real power poker play. I had built back up to second place and about now Jack started asking me if I wanted to split it is it came down to us. He was offering $200 for me to go away. I had $80 invested and I turned him down countless times over the next hour. And then there were two. Jack and I have been heads up before and I think I have the advantage against him. At a full table he has the ability to pick up chips and avoid trouble but heads up I have his number and I kept telling him so. "$200 is an insult and I'm going to get all your chips and take the whole thing!"

WHAM! BAM! and a few hands later we played a big one and I won a pot equivalent to 5 buyins. After I raked in these chips it looked like my stack had taken over the lead and along came the request to split it 50-50. I felt like I was dialed in and was going to win if we kept playing but it was after 1am and everyone else had left so I agreed to the split with one exception. I wanted to take $100 and sit it aside for us to play for so we could have a real winner. We each got 10 chips and played a turbo SNG for the $100. The first hand Jack limped in and I pushed with K3 and he folded. Next hand I had A3 and pushed again on the button after calling and he folded again. Now I had 14 chips to his 6 and on the third hand I got the rest with one little pair. Giggidty.
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If you are bored this week, why not go out and watch the Space Station fly over with the Space Shuttle in tow? You can see it with your naked eyes even if you have clothes on.



Maybe you actually like Poker? Then go read from Grubby a bit.


thanks for reading

Winter means two things, firewood and poker

Winter brings us the dreary darkness that hits you when you open the office door at 5pm to see dusk approaching. The though of getting home in the dark and making dinner and doing the kids homework and cleaning up and its already dark already. What gives with that anyways? I say Kill Daylight Savings Time There. It's not natural and people hate it. I took a scientific poll today and the mail carrier agrees. It sucks. But with the darkness comes the inevitable onslaught of cabin feverized wallet spillage to the felt. Let's just say that Fridays nights are heating up in more ways than one. Hunting and Football can only sustain a mans attention to a degree. And for those reading here, perhaps you are the same as I and could gladly do without both. Give me some chips and the tallest chair with a 12pk of bottles and it's cards in the air. But if you want to have a poker game with a broad spectrum of guests you can anticipate 40% of them are still smokers so what do you do? Hey, if you smoke in your house then it probably already stinks to high heaven so let the boys have at it. But that's not good for anyone I know. Therefore some take to the garage or the basement even. Others have ungodly sized storage buildings rivaling most single family homes with two dance floors and a bar. But whether you have 50sq ft or 1000, I'd says that it's the year of the wood fired winter. Energy prices are up and the enconomy is in the shitter. I say fight back with free firewood and supplement your income with some tight aggressive play in the months to come.

I've never cut so many trees or chopped so much wood or stacked so much of it so high before in my life. It's great exercise and I'm sore from it. Have you ever split logs wearing crocs? Well, then you're an idiot. My old man is supposed to be designing and building me a small wood stove from some sorta pipe so I can keep my workshop warm this winter. He's a kickass welder and im sure it will be one of a kind and innovative. I'll post pics if it ever gets built. But I was thinking of having a poker game of my own in the workshop a time or two this season if I can swing enough willing attendees. I need to clean out a ton of junk too, but I digress.

That's a post. Bout time. Thanks for sticking with me folks.


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