HOME TOURNEY

I hosted my first home game last night in the new house and I was just hoping that we could get 5 players to come, but I hit the jackpot and we had 8. With so many players we decided to play a tournament. Since it was the first time I didn't know what to expect. The play was pretty solid with players making the right bets and calls.

We played the blind structure pretty fast and I was lucky enough to get dealt pretty good hands in the first hour, but unlucky that they only sucked me into pots that cost me money.

On about the fourth hand, Ryan raised 4x under the gun and I decided to re-raise 2x with QQ to discourage limpers. Ryan called and the flop brought an A. Ryan bet out and folded the Queens. A few hands later I had AA in the blind and a bunch of limpers in front of me. I raised 3x hoping to get heads up and instead got 3 callers. The flop brought T9 and two spades. I decided to go all-in to get everyone off their draws and they all folded except for John that held a a straight flush draw . He hit the straight flush king high on the turn and I re-bought.

I didn't see any cards for quite a while and finally had to push in with K7s, got two callers and sucked out the flush to triple up. I exited when I failed to bet my top pair hard enough and John beat me with a flush. Steve finished third and Sean beat Ryan to win it.

7 of us played a second tourney and with no re-buys it went quickly. Having to make a move, I went all-in in late position with 66 and was unhappy to get two callers, but happier when they were steve with 44 and Mark with AK. I dodged the potholes until the river when Steve hit a 4 to knock us both out. Ryan wound up beating Steve to win the thing, meaning they finished in the money both times.

Sean was the first one out in tourney two after winning the first. Despite playing well, John finished one off the money both times.

My experience can be summed up in timeliness. Winning is the combination of the right hands in the right situations. Last night my QQ and AA didn't get the lovin. Today I played in a sattelite and I landed AA and TT before my chair was warm. Neither did me much good at the time and I didn't see a better hand than 66 for the next hour and 45 minutes. I still wound up finishing 40 of 130 despite the draught.

I notice that my luck online and in person seems to be about the same which suggests that the variance in my play is not luck but style, and yet I still got my money in with the best hand despite losing. I just love poker. So many fun things to think about.