HPT

Last night was first first HPT since June. I don't know why there was a 3 month break, something about kids and summer vacations. The fall season kicked off with a whopping 30 players committing resulting in 26 players actually showing up. That is a really nice turnout for a small town home game. Wwonka and Bdidde were in attendance, as were my friends Air Force Steve and Denise. 3 tables, T4000 chips, 20 minute blinds, and an 8 pm start time with hourly breaks made for a late night. It was nearly 2am when the action finally stopped.

I had the toughest starting table, and I know Wonka will agree with me. Around the table from my left were Phil who was wearing a "Players Tournament" jacket from some charity poker event, our host Mike, my boy ScottyDawg who took down one of the 11pm tourneys at Caesars in Vegas last spring, Air Force Steve, Joe the Vet, Ginger his Wife, and the eventual winner the other Mike who was wearing a "No Fold-em Hold-em" baseball cap.

ScottyDawg and Mike the Host were getting into it early on when the Dawg came over the top of Mikes preflop raises 3 times in a row. Mike was visibly annoyed to the point that he warned me about stealing his blind for the second time. I told him that it was his bad luck he was 2 seats to my left, and asked who else was I going to steal from? I was raising from every position anyway, I could have layed off his blind if I wanted to. They finally got it going when Mike raises 4x the BB, and Dawg min re-raises 2x his bet. Mike clearly has had enough and re-re-raises 6x Dawgs raise for a little less than half his stack. Dawg says he has to call, and everyone knows that someone is getting stacked or crippled here. The flop comes AKJ rainbow, Mike checks and Scott bets a minute 200 something like 5% of the pot. Mike check raises all in and is insta-called. Mike shows pocket kings for a set, and Dawg shows the Asian Jew for top and bottom pair. The thing about Dawg is he never thought that he might be behind in the hand. He had AJs, that is a monster right?

I played my normal home game style of alternating between stealing from the blinds and limpers preflop, and stealing orphan pots when nobody seemed interested. I would call weak flop bets then check raise on the turn when a scare card fell. I doubled up short stack Dawg a couple times before finally busting him. In the few times I did actually have a hand, I made sure to show it when people began to question my raises. In all it was a nice way to triple up.

When I moved over to the new table there was a monster stack sitting on 20K+ early on. He must have been responsible for all the busts at his table. I lose some ground and then double up with 99 vs 55 for virtually all his chips. I watch the chip leader bust his wife after he limped with QQ with 4 people to act and then call her all in from the BB. His QQ vs her KK was gold when he spiked a Q on the flop and sent her to get him a beer. I took a big pot from the BB when it was limped around and a board of TTA fell. Everyone checked the flop, so I bet the pot when an 8 comes on the turn. Weak-passive Phil min raises me and everyone else folds. I am holding T5o, and I know this guy is an Ace-rag player so I call. The river is a blank and I bet the pot, which nearly puts him all in. He goes into the tank and considers putting the rest in. At this point I am concerned that he might have a Ten, but I still have enough chips to make a pushdonkey-lucksack-comeback if I have to. He calls showing A8 for 3 pair, a hand that does not beat my trip tens. When we hit the final table I have about 18-19K.

Six of the Eight players from my starting table have made the final table. The other 4 are Wwonka, ultra-aggressor Big Joe O, Football Steve, and LuckSack Phil. When it was limped around to me with A7o in the small blind, I tried to steal Wonkas big blind putting 3000 on top. He re-raises all in for 4500 more and I let him have it. Score 1 for Wonka, I tell him that I am going to push blind anytime it is folded to me again.

My final hand was an all-in with 99 from the SB. The blinds were 800-1600, and action was limped and min-raised in front of me, which I took as a clear signal to come over the top with my pocket pair. I put 13,900 on top of the min raise from the button. Min raiser digs deep for a while, he has me covered by half a blind. He calls with 66. It looks good until he spikes a 6 on the river after calling out the card. I hit the rail in 6th place, 10 minutes too late to get in on the side game. I spend the rest of the night sweating Denise and Air Force Steve at the side game.

In all a disappointing end, but I was happy with my play. I did get to talk shop with Byron for a while, hopefully he can make it down to Foxwoods sometime soon. Go read about his Barry Greenstein Project.