I'm down with the sickness

Sickness of some of the beats I've laid on people in the last two weeks, that is. Saturday night was the most recent edition of the Falstaff home game, and we welcomed Dr. Steve into the fray for his first visit with us. I did my best to welcome him in my typical fashion - by playing trash and catching, but it wasn't until the night was well into the waning that I was able to crush his soul with a 2-outer.

I did lay a trash-hand special on Jim, calling his preflop raise with 4-2 off suit and flopping trip deuces. He got away from the river raise when I filled up, even though he'd made his nut flush. I was pretty impressed with Jim for that, because he's very seldom one to lay down a nut flush. I thought I played it like a flush draw, but with holding the As-9s, he wasn't gonna believe I was on the same flush draw he was, so he made a good read and saved himself $72 on the river. I got it out of him about 20 minutes later when I went all in over the top of him again and he made the call. I had top and bottom pair, and Jim had misread his hand. He thought he had top two instead of top pair, middle kicker. My hand held up and Jim reloaded.

Then I had finally gotten to even after dropping $200 into the game early, so I called Dr. Steve down on every street with 77 on a board of 4-4-8-x until I caught my 7 on the river to bust him. Hope I played badly enough to get him to come back.

It was a night of huge hands, though, with Nate making Quad Aces, Quad Tens, I made Quad 5s and Suzy picked up 3-4 full houses in the 2 hours she played. But the pot of the night came late in the evening once we'd gotten into No Limit Omaha Hi-Lo. I know, ridiculously large pot in O8s never happen, but this was stupid even for our game.

We all limped in, me with J-J-A-2 with the AJ of spades, and the flop came down 5-6-x with one spade. So I flopped a nut low draw and a backdoor nut flush draw. So I toss out a couple bucks, and find a bunch of callers. Turn brings a 4 and my nut low is made, so I plan to toss in a couple more bucks, but it gets silly before it even gets to me, and I call the $30 that Nate bet and Jim and BG both called. Phil went all in over the top for another $12, and all I could think was "fuck I'm glad his raise isn't enough to reopen the betting." Nate called, Jim called and I think Brian got out of the way at that point, muttering about his earlier bad calls. I called, thinking I'm quartered, but with 4 people I can break even at quartered. River brings a Jack, and I think there's a sliver of a chance my set might take the high.

You know, the same kind of sliver that Ron Paul supporters still have. About that much. Just saying.

Nate fires $80 into a dry side pot, Jim insta-calls, and I groan and make the crying call with a set and the nut low. Jim turns over 7-8 for the nut straight for the high, and I table my nut low. I wait for Nate to table his A-2, but he also turns over 7-8 for the nut high. Waitaminit!?!? My low is good and the HIGH is getting quartered? Sweeeet! The low half of the side pot is $120, so I'm friggin' thrilled.

Phil responds with a muttered "sonufafucknbitch" and table 7-8 for the nut high as well, and I'm good for half the main as well for about another $90. So I raked in a $200+ pot with just the nut low, and the high hand got sixthed for their part of the pot. I'll take it.

Other than dishing out the vicious two-outer on Dr. Steve (and rivering a flush on him for his first buy-in, but he gave me odds to make that the correct call, so that doesn't count as a bad beat) and flopping trips against Jim with 4-2, I didn't dish out too many bad beats, and even took a rough one from T when she rivered a 4-outer to fill up against my bigger two pair in a big pot. Good thing for me she still hasn't learned to bet enough or I could have gotten hurt. Our game is so loose, if you've got the 2nd or 3rd nuts you've gotta bet it hard, because most of the time you're gonna get paid off. Most of us have a real hard time folding, which is good for patient players. Wish I was one. Note - I'm sure there were plenty of questionable or even downright poor plays on my part, but those were the only real bad beats I can recall. Feel free to remind me of them in comments, but also remember that if it takes two hands to count your outs, then it wasn't really a bad beat. And you owe me a dollar.

So I've had some decent success over the past couple of weeks, which doesn't speak well for my chances going down to Bad Blood's this weekend to celebrate his senility. I am not taking my whole roll with me, because I refuse to go broke in G-Vegas. Again.