Office Poker

We had an office poker game on Thursday. Since our regular monthly game is in its three or four month long summer hiatus a bunch of us at the office couldn't take the withdrawal symptoms anymore. So we had a small home game.

There were ten of us playing, with a rather wide variety of skills/experience. We had our good players which consisted of, in no particular order Archie, myself, Noah, Jason and Aaron. And by no particular order I mean best to worst. Then we have Jason and C-Bass who are your typical play too many hands too aggressively type players. They will occasionally amass a huge chip stack due to there sheer aggression, and a few big hands, but ultimately their style is their downfall and they get eliminated fairly early. Then we have Tracie, Jullian and Richard who have either never played before, or have not played in years. They all had cheat sheets and we spent an hour before the game playing some practice hands as we were waiting for everyone to arrive.

The game itself was a lot of fun, but it was more because of the people in attendance and the conversation/banter than the actual card play. The card play was horrible.

I think I played four hands the entire tournament, and won only one of those. I think just about every hand I had contained a four and either a six or an eight. If I was really lucky maybe I would get T4o or maybe even J4.

Somewhere in the second blind level ($T10/$T20 - we started with $T75) I get my first remotely playable hand ATo but I'm out of position UTG. I decide to play it anyway and pop it to $T50. Julian is the only one who calls. Since this is more or less her first time playing I figure I have a pretty good shot of being ahead, and bet another $T50. She calls. So much for bluffing. Now I move into check to the river and hope I hit a card mode. I don't improve by the river and she turns over big slick. Oops.

The blinds go up a few more levels and I get my next playable hand. Good ole 72o. Noah, my arch nemesis is in the big blind as I raise it 3.5xBB to $T125. Noah's short stacked after losing a large amount of chips to Julian when her nut flush beat his not so nut flush. He thinks about calling for quite a while saying that he is either going all in or folding, but he can't decide which. Eventually he gives up and folds. I show my cards and smile.

Now, playing the hammer is sooo two years ago, but the implied odds are phenomenal. I'm fairly certain that the next time Noah's in the blinds and I have aces, and make the same raise, he's going to go all in without a second thought. Or maybe I'm just trying to set him up for another hammer bluff knowing that he reads this here blog on occasion.

Noah gets his revenge later on though. I have JJ in late position with $T30/$T60 blinds There are three limpers ahead of him, and he min raises. It folds to me and I push all in for my remaining $T575. The limpers fold and Noah calls with JhTh. The flop gives him two more hearts and the turn an inside straight draw which he his on the river to take a size able chunk out of my chipstack.

I held on for a little longer after that before pushing all in with pocket fives and getting four callers, one of which fopped a pair of tens to put me out of my misery.

I missed the final results because Guitar Hero was calling my name but I think Archie ended up winning with Aaron in second and Jason in third. Other than the crappy cards I had it was quite a fun night and hopefully we can turn it into a more regular thing.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com