Can You Hear Me Now?

With the sole intent on giving my newly built poker table reason for being, I hosted another No-limit Hold 'em ring game on Saturday night. During the course of setting up the game during the week, I had ten people confirm their attendence and relegated two others to the alternate list.

When Friday rolled around, two confirmed people and one alternate cancelled out. The second alternate elevated to confirmed and I was planning on having nine.

Only six showed up.

In today's modern world, it's not very difficult to use a phone. They have buttons you can push, you can even program someone's number so that you only have to push one button to call them. Apparently, three people could not accomplish the above in order to tell me they wouldn't be showing up. Kind of rude, right there.

Undeterred, the following six people graced my table with their presence:

BadBlood
Otis
G-Rob
Steve B.
Team Scott Smith
Randy R.

House rules: .25/.50 blinds, $30 max buy-in. Cash downs to $30 allowed.

The play began relatively tight as new players Randy and Steve were relative unknowns. Team Scott Smith had the unfortunate role of multiple buy-in man. Yours truly busted Team Scott twice, once with a set of 10's vs. his TPTK and again with A,T suited vs. 3,3. It must have been the seat, as Otis occupied the same one two weeks ago.

G-Rob was his usual aggressive self, but had to re-buy at least once before his playing style began to build his chip stack. Later in the evening, G-Rob and I traded multiple all-ins against each other. I lost a pretty staggering pot by playing the hammer. You'd think with a flop of 2,7,8 that the hammer had a chance. I was wary of the board pairing and counterfeiting my bottom two pair, but it never happened. What did happen is that G-Rob flopped top two pair with 7,8 and ended up putting me all in after a raise and re-raise. That pot knocked my stack down from about $85 to $15. Ugh.

Otis rebounded from the buy-in fest of two weeks ago and had his share of cards to help him build his stack. He had his share of K,K hands - but had to lay them down twice to flopped A's and betting indicative of him being behind. His hand of the night was A,K vs. Steve's Q,9 suited. The flop came all hearts, A-high which gave Steve 2nd nut flush and Otis top-pair top-kicker. Otis called a big bet from Steve and saw the turn bring another A. Steve properly went all-in and Otis went in the tank. Otis put Steve on a weaker A and called, not realizing he had only 10 outs. The river paired the board, giving Otis the full house and Steve was a bit shattered by the loss. Steve never really recovered and after losing two buy-ins left the game.

Randy, a fellow co-worker of mine, played solid tight poker for much of the evening. It was his first ever cash ring game and I think he played pretty well considering the atmosphere and other players. Randy was up for most of the night, but faltered in the late stages and lost his only buy-in. As Team Scott had busted out of cash earlier, Randy's exit marked the end of the game at about 1am.

I managed to double up a couple of times late in the game and finished up about $89. Otis was most likely the big winner cashing out for $130. I think G-Rob was a winner as well, with Team Scott Smith, Steve B. and Randy R. filling out the loser's bracket.

As I've wanted to do, I'm hoping to make this a regular game, but apparently I need to expand my player list. I'd prefer to have 8 or 9, six is a bit short-handed for my liking. It actually got to the point where I gave Mrs. Blood $20 to sit down and play. Alas, she dropped her buy-in relatively quickly, mainly to me. She can play some limit Hold 'em, but No limit is just not her game.