Losing Money in the Garage

by Luckbox

There's nothing like slinging chips with your friends. It'd been a long time since I played an old-fashioned home game. In fact, it had been weeks since I'd played any poker at all. That didn't stop me from buying into Otis' NLHE ring game.

(Quick aside... go read Wil Wheaton's poker tales part 1, part 2 and part 3. If you're a poker blog reader and not checking out wil's blog for potential poker tales, you're really missing out!)

Okay, back to the game... as you can tell by this post's title, I didn't walk away a winner, but I still had a great time!

We started with 8 players each buying in for the maximum of $30. We were playing .25/.50 NLHE with rebuys any time you busted out. We hit a maximum of 9 players at one point, but we generally had 7 or 8 at the table.

The Players (in no particular order):
Otis, Bad Blood, The Doctor (Otis' brother), G-Rob, The Kid, Team ScottSmith, Shep, The Lady, Tony B., and me.

Things got ugly awfully early as miracle rivers came faster than cops to the Krispy Kreme when the Hot, Now sign flashes. I remember when G-Rob spiked a King with just 6 outs available to bust Otis. And at that point, Otis was ready to go on tilt because just a few hands earlier, Bad Blood used a well timed-raise to force Otis to lay down the Hilton Sisters. Bad Blood dropped The Hammer and it was destined to be a long night.

At that point, I figured I would be better off playing from behind. I caught Cowboys pretty early and worked that into an okay pot, nothing special. My biggest hand of the night came when I got wired 7's. The flop did absolutely nothing for me, but a relatively small bet in front of me let me see the turn and I caught my set. The river filled my boat, and I took a lot of money from The Lady.

It was all down hill from there. I read The Doctor pretty well when he went all-in with a gutshot straight draw to my top pair after the flop. It was a pure bluff and I caught him. Unfortunately, the turn made that inside straight draw a double-gutter, and the river filled the straight. That one burned me.

I finally busted when my A9 off caught top pair on a flop of 9-x-x, two clubs. I pushed all-in and got called by QJ of clubs. Don't be fooled by the illusion of a bad beat. At this point, I was behind in the hand. Any Q, J or club gave Team ScottSmith the win, and I was reaching for my wallet before the turn even fell. It was a club, of course.

I wish I had more exciting hands to relate, but I didn't play many exciting hands. I lost $70 for the night, but I'm not sure I was really playing to win money. I know I got into hands I wouldn't normally play, but I was more interested in having a good time.

And the next time I'm in town, I'm itching to play again!

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