The Falstaff home game

It's a variable beast, and this week's edition was of the smaller variety. Only five brave souls ventured into the wilds of the Casa de Falstaff to join our hero in his quest for chips. Some were successful, some less so. Uncle Phil ventured back into the wilds after a savage reaming on his last trip to the felts. BG came out in a bad head space, but managed to get his poop in a group enough to recover and book a win for the night. Big Dan took a couple of rough beats at the hand of the host before getting felted early and heading home. New guy Ricky made his debut performance, which might end up being his farewell performance after dropping two buy-ins. And Special K ran colder than Cruella Deville's vagina to end the night with a suckout from the host sending him home chipless.

And our hero? Was he able to climb back on the horse after having his win streak snapped at 9 sessions? Yeah, he picked up a nice win cash-wise, but the play was impressive only in its atrociousness. I may have exhibited some of the worst play in the history of poker on my way to finishing +3 buy-ins on the night, but it all spends, no matter how ill-gotten.

I made New Guy Ricky my bitch on one big hand, where he raised preflop and I called with trash. I completely missed the 8-high flop, but looked him straight in the eye and said "There's no reasonable hand that you raised preflop with that hit that board" before I bet the flop. He called with his overcards and when another baby card hit the turn I pushed all in. He couldn't call, and I picked up another pot with crap cards. It was a night of playing hands blind and catching, and hitting bug draws at the right time.

I picked up two big open-ended straight draws in key moments, one to stack Dan and one to stack Special K. Special K's was a little more of a bad beat since he had flopped a straight and I rivered the higher end after he fired on every street. I thought all along that I would have been good catching the low end, but turns out that would have gotten expensive for me. When I rivered the nuts, I figured we were chopping, but it was not to be, so I picked up a big pot.

I'm not playing particularly well, but I feel like my reads are good. I made one good laydown to BG when he shoved on the turn and I had a gutshot with the nut flush draw, but I laid it down when I looked back at the board and saw that there was a higher straight already out there, lacking only a 6. So I thought that I could hit 4 of my outs and still not be good, so I laid it down. He was kind enough to tell me that I would have been good, and the 2d would have been the river, giving me the wheel. But I wasn't willing to pay $10 per out for my flush, and he took a big one. I also paid him off on one big hand where I rivered the 2nd-nut flush and talked Ricky out of betting his baby flush. But when BG fired a big bet after I've sat there talking about my big flush I wasn't good enough to fold to his obvious full house. BG is perfectly capable of making a move in that position, but only if he's on his A game. He was on his B- game due to personal issues Saturday night and I should have known that he either had the nut flush or the boat. As it was, I said "if you're full, I gotta pay you off." And did.

That's a huge leak in my game, making bad calls when I know I'm beat if I'm up a little for the night. I'm working on it, but not very hard. Frankly, I know I'm not playing very well right now, but I'm having a good time and it's currently profitable, so I'll take it.

Looking forward to seeing you degenerates in a few weeks!