A Gift From the Poker Gods

So after my small victory at Chumash on Tuesday night, I decided that my Thursday night would be more fun if I played more cards, again. I didn't stay long the previous time, and I figured that I might not stay too long this time either, if I won enough to keep me content for the weekend.

This time I got there at about 7:30, since there is a tournament every night at 7, and usually around an hour after the tournament starts there's about a half hour wait for the list. I showed up and found an open seat at the 2/5 NL, and boy what a meaty table it was. I sat in seat 6, bought in for the $200 max, and watched a few hands before I went to work and started chopping away at the table. There was not much money at this particular table, but I wasn't too worried about it since I figured I was there to take it all anyways :). Plus there was more rebuys flying around at this table then I'd seen in a while. The rebuys were usually for $100, but there were plenty of them, so that was fine by me.

There was no strong players, and there was only one regular at my table. He was one of those loose, asian players (not to disrespect anyone, as I'm 1/8th Japanese myself) and I knew his style, so I wasn't too worried about him anyways. Other than him there was a full table of donkey-ish or weak players. I started out right away by taking about $150 off of a rebuying machine that was in seat 9. After about half an hour he left, and the loose asian guy was the big stack at the table, sitting with about $800. I had about $350, and I don't think I was covered by anyone at that point, that's how weak and small this table was. Just as I was thinking about how I was going to get everyone's money, the poker gods sent me a gift in the form of two young kids who had a lot of talk and no game.

As soon as the two kids sat down they started talking about how they usually played in this game and that, and how they'd been playing for a long time, although they both appeared to be about 16. They started critiquing others play, and making bad critiques at that. These kids were clearly TV players and had absolutely no idea what they were doing. Not only were they loud, but they were hassling the drink girls too, so they were jerks on top of everything else. They sat to my left, and all I could do was look to the sky and thank the poker gods for what they had given me.

Now if any of you know me, you know that I will speak at the poker table, and I will not be afraid to say whatever I want. Therefore, I was instantly tempted to jaw back at these idiots. But I let them go for a little bit at first, but I knew that I would take money from them, and mostly likely all of whatever they had in front of them. First I started by taking one of the kids first buy-ins. I raised AK from the cutoff and he called from the SB. I flopped an ace and checked behind him. He bet the turn and I put him all in. He called with AQ and that was that. He rebought and now it was time to pummel the other one, who I'll call Kid2.

By this point they had been in the game for about 45 minutes and I already had a dead read on both of them, especially Kid2. He wasn't playing well at all, and I had been keeping an extra close eye on him. He had called off his first buy-in earlier to the loose asian guy with a 3-heart flop, with the asian guy flopping the flush and Kid2 not even having any outs after the flop. He had gotten his first buy back by sucking out on the same asian guy. A little after he doubled back up I was in a hand with him and had an easy chance to buy it, but I figured I'd let it go and I told myself I'd catch him later.

About 4 hands after I was thinking this, the greatest thing in the world happened. I had about $500 in front of me and posted my BB. Kid2 raised to $25 from UTG+1, and the loose asian guy called. It folded back to me and I looked down at none other than pocket AA. I figured that I could reraise the loose asian guy out of the pot and go heads up with Kid2, since I knew that he would at least see a flop with me since he didn't particularly know how to let go of hands preflop. The only problem I saw with that was that if I reraised and he didn't hit the flop, then he would probably let go on the flop when I led out. So I decided to flat call, and either outplay Kid2 or let it go if I felt like the flop hit either of them hard.

I flat called the $25 and the three of us saw a flop of Q-Q-7 rainbow. I wasn't too worried about this flop, as I knew how both of the players played. I decided to check and let Kid2 come after me, as I was more than prepared to trap him, unless the asian guy called in which I would have to reevaluate. Almost immediately after I checked Kid2 bet out $35, at which point the other guy folded. I "knew" that he didn't have a Q or 77, because he would have definitely checked that flop if had either of those, so I flat called. The turn was a 2 and I checked again. Without fail Kid2 bet out $75. I figured that if I check-raised him here he would put me on a pretty big hand, but if I called instead and bet the river, it might confuse him into calling a decent sized bet. I called once again, without either haste nor hesitation. The river blanked a big 5, and I thought for a second. I thought back and tried to think about the bets that he was calling. At this point he had $270 in front of him, and I figured I could get at least $150 out of him without having him push the rest of his stack. If he had pushed I would have most likely called, as I was pretty sure of my read, but at the same time I didn't want to have to make that decision.

I counted down my stack and bet out $150. Kid2 squirmed and huffed for a little bit before finally calling. I flipped over my AA and he smacked the table as he slammed down his KK. The dealer pushed the $600 pot my way and I'm pretty sure I had a big smile on my face as I looked over at the steaming 16-year old. His friend just shook his head and mumbled under his breath. I stacked up the chips and just laughed to myself. I knew that these kids were money and boy was I right. That got my stack to a little over $800 and I played for a little more.

I hit the $1100 mark ($900 profit) and decided that that was enough for 2 and a half hours of work. Kid2 tried doing the whole "Awww where are you going?" thing to me as I was racking up. At this point I laughed at him, stared him in the eyes and said "Dude, you will never get your money back from me no matter how hard and how many times you try." The whole table busted up as Kid2's face lit up bright red, and the dealer shot me a big smile as he announced "Seat open table 7!" I headed over to the cage and cashed out, happy with my play once again.

I hadn't been there long this time, just like I hadn't on Tuesday night, but both times I was very happy with my play. The players at the 2/5NL at Chumash aren't the greatest, but it still feels good to know that you owned them.

One thing that I've noticed myself doing recently is trusting my reads and not backing down. That was a big problem with my game before, but I'm finally trusting them and it's paying off now. I think I'm finally in my zone, although I've only played for 5 hours total split over 2 sessions, so it might be a bit premature to say. Only time will tell, and until then.......