Some Live 5/10 Hands

On Friday I played some 5/10 NL at the Rio with Tom (LearnedFromTV on 2+2). He took a seat to my immediate left, but didn’t give me much trouble and provided a welcome relief from the boredom of live cash play. No particularly interesting hands, but here, I think, were the best:

Very first hand of the game (we got seated all at once in a new game), UTG raises to $35, I have KK in MP2 and make it 120, he calls. Flop 734, he check-calls $200, turn 9, he check-folds to my all in for $680. I was pretty sure I wasn’t getting paid off on the first hand of the game, but what can I do?

Next orbit, it folds to the CO, who’s exactly the kind of guy you want to have at your live table: doofy-looking, middle-aged white guy in bad sunglasses, some sort of hometown hero who hates to fold and thinks he’s much better than he is. He min-raises to 20, I make it 70 with AKo on the button, and he calls. The flop comes down J64r, and he checks quickly, picking up a stack of chips as though to call my bet. Mike Caro tells me strong means weak, so I bet $100, exactly the amount he’s holding. He calls. Turn Q puts a flush draw on the board, he checks quickly and chambers some chips again, but folds to my $200 bet, flashing me a Jack. “He folded the best hand, didn’t he?” Tom whispers. I just nod.

A while later, the guy from the KK hand puts out a Mississippi straddle (same as a straddle, except you do it from the button, and SB has to act first), as he does everytime he’s on the button. I make it 70 with AJs in the SB, and action folds to the straddle, who calls. Flop Qs Jc 6c, he calls a bet of 120. The turn blanks, and I ask how much he has left. “A little over $600.” Tricky spot. I felt he could still have a pretty wide range here, including draws and worse J’s, and he’s probably going to bet almost all of it if I check. Maybe check-raise all in is best then? Anyway, I bet $240, figuring I could fold to a shove, but that it wouldn’t look like I was going to fold, and thus he wouldn’t shove worse hands. He just called again. With the drawy board, I can’t see him slowplaying two streets, especially when it looks so much like I’m going to call the turn, so I check a blank river and call his quick all in of like $430. He shows me Ac Qc. Damn, it all makes sense now.

There was no table limit, so I reloaded for $1500. I limped 8s 5s behind a limper and got a beautiful 6s 7c 9s flop. Action checks to me, I bet $35 into a $40 pot, BB (kind of a station) calls. Turn off-suit K, he checks and calls $120. River off-suit A, he checks again, I grab four hundred dollar bills (a little more than the size of the pot) and toss them impetuously into the pot. He calls and mucks when I show.

I finished the session stuck about $750, mostly from raising people who limped straddles, firing at the flop, and folding when they played back. Several times they showed me hands, though, so I still think I was probably making profitable plays.

Oh, one funny hand, there were like four limpers, and I check 54o on the BB. Flop TT5, I am of course giving up on this dog, but it checks around. Turn 5, I still don’t like my hand much, but we’ll see what happens. Checks again, river A, I might actually get some value out of this! I bet $25 into the $60 pot and get one call. “I got the low boat,” I tell him, turning up my hand. He shows me AT for the virtual nuts! Wowowow checks trips top kicker on the flop AND fails to raise the river when he is a lock AND can expect a huge raise to get paid off by the case T.

The guy was actually really fun though, he was probably in his late 60’s, said he was from Colorado, and seemed to know all the dealers. I called him the “wheelchair cowboy” because he wore a black leather jacket and ten-gallon hat while whizzing around in a motorized scooter. But he kept making wisecracks in a heavy Western accent that were especially funny coming from him. The one I remember, I had just lost a pot to the only woman at the table, and he stared me down and informed me, “You got beat by a girl.”

“I sure did.”

“That’s alrut. I useta lahk that sorta thang. Can be fun.”