ANOTHER SHIRT

I've been playing a lot of HORSE lately, both cash games and tournaments. It's easy to play while multitasking since it is a limit game. I can pay bills online and set my fantasy football lineup all while earning steadily. I've found that if I just fold most hands and play the good ones then the game will prove profitable. I've played enough now that I have a good idea of what type of cards to play in each game.

Today was Sunday and I was watching football and playing the big NLHE events. I bought into a $75 satellite for the weekly $216 HORSE event and earned my way in. So the HORSE event kicked off with 141 players in attendance. I was seated at the same table as Karina Jett and another red ink pro. I've played plenty with Karina and have found her fairly beatable so I was thinking about the $200 bounty on her head. I had knocked Lynette Chan out of a NLHE event over the summer and Full Tilt sent me a tee shirt to mark the occasion. The nice thing about having two pros at a HORSE table is that they can get battered down by the table at large but the bounty goes to the guy who finishes the job.

Well, Karina was getting short stacked but I couldn't do anything about it and then the table broke. Somebody else had the pleasure of earning her bounty. I was reseated with her husband Chip, but he is not so easy to bust. Sixteen players made the money and when we were down to that, I was to the left of Paul Sexton, son of Keith, and Full Tilt red ink pro, complete with bounty. Last week, I played a few sit and gos with the Sextons and I put a nice beat on Paul which I'm sure made his notes.

So, we are playing seven card stud in the HORSE tourney, having already made the money, and Paul has a queen in his door and raises preflop into my seven. There were two players left to act but they both had baby cards and it is fairly standard to see the queen raise in this spot regardless of his hole cards. Well, I had jacks in the pocket and more chips than Paul so I slow-played it and let him bet into me a couple of times before I put him to the decision. He was getting trash card after trash card and even if he did have the hidden queen, I doubted he had two pair and thought he might fold to my raise. He made the call on fifth street and again the check-call on sixth street. On seventh street, I caught a seven for two pair and after he checked, I bet it. He made the crying call with his pair of queens and earned me $200 and another tee shirt.

As luck would have it, I played the next four hands to the river, losing all of them and busting out two spots after Sexton. Twice I had split aces that were trumped by eventual two pairs, once I had pocket eights and the short stack with sixes rivered a second pair. The only hand that didn't result in a malicious suckout was when I started with four high clubs and could only manage a pair of eights by the end. So, four hands after earning a shirt, I was out. At least the bounty paid for one of the NLHE events on the day.

I busted out early in the Stars event. I got involved in a multiway limp with AJ. The flop came KJJ and the big blind check-raised me. All I know is two things: early in this event there are bound to be many players who will commit all their chips in this spot with any jack, and this guy was comped into the pot from the big blind. I just couldn't put him on the KJ, but that's what he had and I was gone. I don't feel bad about that play. I lasted quite a bit longer in the Full Tilt, nearing the money but ultimately falling short.