HPT

A good friend of mine began playing in a regular game while I was in Iraq, and hosts a nice home game every month or two. The players are mostly from the town he lives in, a few play online or visit local card rooms on a regular basis. Some are solid players, some not so good; it is an average Joe garden variety home game.

On Friday night the game was a 2 table tourney, 17 players T6000 and 20 minute blinds starting at 25-25. A nice slow structure that lets everyone play for a few hours before becoming beer delivery agents. Wwonka drove out with me, and as usual those of us with the longest drive are the only ones on time and ready to play.

I started at the small table with 8 players, lucky for me two of the better players are to my right. I have played with most of the crowd before, and have a reputation of being Tight Aggressive so I intend to capitalize on it and mix up my play. The general play at my table is weak tight, and I know who to lookout for, so I open up to a large range of starting hands and begin stealing from the limpers. I know they are limping with junk, any ace, two face, so pot sized raises are stealing chips from the passive players.

The table seems to know that I am raising with junk, but I continue to build my stack as they miss their draws and I keep chipping up. Then I wake up with AA in the BB. The action is min-raised to me with 1 other caller. I decide to play passively and smooth call. Yes of course this is dangerous, I check call their min bets all the way down and bet half the pot on the river and get paid off showing my pocket AA.

Flopping a straight with Q9 from the SB on the next hand out adds more chips to my stack, and allows me to continue making moves, nobody wants to play a hand with me. I have more than doubled up only showing down 2 hands.

Once the players says that she knows I am bluffing and asks me to show a bluff so I promise I will show my next bluff. What a better hand to accomplish this than the hammer! I raise from the button with 72o and drive out everyone except my soon to be bluffed friend. A pot sized bet on the flop gets her to fold and I show my hammer. Everyone at the table is pissed but I have a monster stack and nobody can stand in my way.

Air Force Steve limps from the SB and I check my option with 83o. He is a solid player, but like everyone capable of making a mistake. The flop comes 832 rainbow, great news for me! He checks, and I check behind. The Turn is another rag, he bets 1000, and I raise to 3000. He pushes all-in and I call, cracking his pocket jacks JJ with my rags and sending him to the rail. He wanted to get some value for his JJ, and it turned out to be a disaster. I am the overall big stack as we consolidate to one table.

The final table has 6 small to average stacks destined for trouble with the ever increasing blinds and 3 big stacks. The big stacks begin pushing the small stacks around while trying to stay out of each others way.

With the blinds at 500-1000, I raise to 3000 from MP with TT, and a short stack goes all in for 6ooo, Bigstack3 calls a quarter of her stack from the SB, and I call after getting a chip count. The flop is J8T rainbow, the action is checked all the way down. Blank on the turn and another Jack on the river. I value bet 3000 with my boat Bigstack2 calls with QQ. Bigstack3 is now known as Smallstack3 and I have a monster lead. I learn the the guy I knocked out was last weeks winner, and there was a nice bounty that I collected.

The remaining short stacks all get knocked out by Biggestron, and now our stacks are nearly equal as we enter heads up play. Heads up vs Biggestron only takes about 10 minutes. We are close in chips, the plays are raise-fold, raise-all-in-fold, etc. until we both get it all in with my AT vs his KQ. I double up and he has about 8000 left. A few hands later my King-rag spikes the flop to beat his Ace-poop and the game is over.