Mashin and All-Nighter Are Now Official!!

I am now officially adding two new words to my mental dictionary: all-nighter, and Mashin. I use these words enough where they can now be officially added to my library of literary uses.

Last Saturday Darsky decided to come to Chumash to hang an all-nighter with me. He called me on Friday to let me know what time he'd be up, and about an hour later I got a call from our other poker buddy Kirk. He told me he was lookin to go Mashin on Saturday as well. I let him know that Darsky was already planning on coming and told him to meet us in Santa Barbara so we could all hit the road to Chumash together.

Dar showed up in SB at around 5PM on Saturday and we decided to grab some food before we headed out. We had our usual poker conversation as we ate and Kirk showed up as we were finishing. Kirk decided he was going to drive up there separately, since apparently he wasn't up to stay until 5PM the next day. A quick stop at the pad and off we went.

The ride up there in Dar's Bullitt is always nice, and coming off of two weeks in the red it felt good to take the walk from the parking structure to the casino entrance. I was really feelin like I was going to play solid and take some cash home at the end of this session. I sat in an open 100/200 buy-in NL game, and was shortly switched over to the 300/500 buy-in when a seat opened up. There was a couple regulars in the game already.

Sam is an older, tan-skinned gentleman with a middle-eastern accent. He has this air about him like he doesn't have to work because he has enough money, but at the same time he respects money and enjoys the game, even for the low-limit stakes. He likes to gamble, but overall gambles in the right spots and can usually be seen with $1,000+ in front of him in the 300/500 game. If there was a bigger game at the Mash he'd probably be playing in that. We both respect each other and like to have friendly rivalry at the table.

Larry is an older, pudgy, nerdy-looking white guy with thick-framed glasses. He's the kind of guy that you always love to see at a table, because whenever he has all of his money in it's usually when he's drawing dead. I love to walk in and see him a the 300/500 buy-in. He's a nice enough guy, but a horrible card player. But as long as he's got money to spend, we'll all be there for him. He goes there with his buddy John H., who's a middle-aged, overweight guy with glasses, who is barely better than Larry, but has enough cash to blow. I see them dump at least $2,000 a week, and that's only for the days that I'm up there. I have no idea why they keep going, but more power to him. This night John was playing the 100/200 though. I don't respect either of these two with regards to poker playing ability, but we're all very friendly with each other and constantly have friendly conversation at the table.

I took a seat in the 7s, which is, of course, my preferred seat, along with the 2s, 3s, and 8s. I bought in for $400, and started assessing the table. We had Sam in the 1s, Larry in the 3s, and a bunch of unknowns. There was an idiot kid to my immediate right who I'd sat with at the 100/200 buy-in just previous to my table-switch, and a gambling biker to my immediate left. It looked like an easy enough table, but I kept running into terrible, tough-decision situations. I had to lay down 99 to a board of 2-2-5 after dumping $120 into the pot. Then this hand came up:

I'm sittin on a little under $500, and the idiot kid to my right open-raised for $20. I'd seen him make stupid raises all night and was comfortable playing him post-flop. I saw Kh10h, and called off the raise on the button. Sam had limped and noe came in for the raise as well. The board came up K-K-J, putting me in pretty decent position. Although as soon as the flop came I saw Sam make this weird motion and immediately put him on KJ. He checked it, and the kid almost immediately bet out $50. I was strongly feeling that he had aces, yet I still thought Sam had KJ and was thoroughly confused about the hand at this point. Knowing I had position on the kid to the turn, I decided to flat call the $50 and see what Sam did. If Sam raised I was definitely going to fold, knowing that he wouldn't make that raise without having K10 crushed. I definitely didn't put him on JJ because he would have most certainly reraised that preflop, as Sam would have hated taking JJ against two players to the flop. But no raise came as Sam called as well.

The turn now came off a Jack, giving me Kings full and completely voiding out Sam's KJ, should that have been what he had. He checked again and the kid now insta-bet out another $70. I decided to bump it up to $180, knowing that if the kid had Aces, he was way dumb enough to stick around with them and give me some more money. Sam flat-called, as did the kid.

The river was now another Jack, making the board K-K-J-J-J. As soon as the river hit, I instantly felt sick to my stomach. Sam checked again, and now the kid bet out again!! He made it $100 to go, and now with $850 in the pot I was not laying down to this frickin kid. I relunctantly called off and now Sam decided to raise it to $250 when it got back to him and I was in a world of hurt!! I only had about $190 left now, and there was no way I was calling off $150. But at the same time there was no way I was going to put my whole stack in after I had put Sam on KJ the whole way down. After the raise the kid thought about it for like 10 seconds and then flipped over his AA as he threw it into the muck. The rest of the table yelled at him since I was still in the hand. I called for time and went back and forth from convincing myself that he didn't have the Jack to pleading with myself to follow my original read.

I was dead on about the kid having AA, and now this was a huge pot. If I were to commit the rest of my stack to this hand, the pot would be $1,390. I apologized to the table for the wait and sat for about an entire two and a half minutes before finally mucking. Sam smiled and flipped over KJ. There was a couple of regulars who had come over to watch the hand unfold, and they all gasped. Sam asked if I had the King, and I bunched my lip and nodded. He told me that it was a good lay-down, and I told him nice hand.

I took a minute to go for a walk and release the stress of that whole situation. I was 50/50 on whether or not I played that hand well, and would appreciate any feedback in the comment box. I thought I had played it right and I was happy that I trusted my reads, but I was confused on the flop and on the river, which isn't good. I thought and rethought the hand for a bit, and then headed back to the table. Shortly after that, Larry went bust drawing dead to Sam (as usual), and then Sam took out the idiot kid who had left himself with $150 after that hand with his AA.

I busted out about another hour later after a cold run and 50/50 gamble with my remaining $150. I have a part II to this story as well, which I'll try to write this weekend.

Until next time.