Back To The Felt

One thing that you haven't been missing in my long hiatus is the poker updates. Not that you weren't wanting them, just that there haven't been any. Seemed like just about every regularly scheduled game wound up conflicting with something else, and so I hadn't been back out to The Shed since September, until last night.

It was good to be back out with the guys for a while. There were nine of us playing. Well, at least sitting around the table. I don't think Kevin was actually playing, since he kept sending his cards back on a regular basis.

I didn't have a spectacular night, but at least I was able to linger around until around 11:30, even if I was the third one out. At least once I won a nice bluff. All but a six for a straight was on the board, so I played like I had the six. Which meant my actual top pair wound up beating the folded two pair of Craig.

Still, though, I wasn't able to really win much of anything, just lingering around. I pushed all in with Buffalo Joe once, but we both had Queen-Jack, so we wound up splitting the pot. Finally, Craig went all in. I looked down at pocket 8s, realized it was around 11 and I had to get up to do the annual inventory at the local lumber company, and figured I might as well go for it. He had me covered by just a bit, so all my chips were on the line.

However, an eight came out on the flop and the trips held, so I wound up doubling up. Looking around the table, that seemed to put me in good position. Kevin was already out, Craig was down to four chips, Jeff, Russell and Ben all also were quite short. It looked like it was reasonable to believe that I could be at least in the top four.

Which means, of course, that it wasn't going to happen. Soon after the double-up, Ben went all in when I was in the big blind. It was less than double what I already had out there and I looked at King-10, so I tried for it. It didn't work. Soon after, he pushed again and I had Ace-eight. I called. Again, no luck.

So suddenly instead of having a comfortable stack, I'm not even twice the big blind when they were raised. A few hands later I had Ace-seven. I had 19K, with the next hand bringing the 10K big blind to me and the next the 5K small blind. So it was pretty much go now or go in a few and I went all in. Buffalo Joe called me with a pair of sevens and they held up.

It wasn't a memorable night at the felt by any means, but it was good to get out there again. They are playing next week, but since that's my 10th anniversary, I'd say I won't be out there. I look forward to joining them in the new year, though!