Moonshine On You Crazy Diamond

And we’ll bask in the shadow of yesterday’s triumph.....

More home game lunacy from the bowels of G-Vegas took place last night. The location: Casa de G-Rob. The players: An unruly cast of characters making a name for themselves via the glorious recounting of events by desperate-for-attention bloggers.

Let's go 'round the table for some brief introductions:

Seat 1: G-Rob. Zodiac sign is The Aggressor, born in Year of the Raise.
Seat 2: The Rocket. When he's not trading verbal barbs with his nemesis DeBaggio, he's quite a solid player.
Seat 3: The Cleaner. Entices the table with sordid tales of hot, young dim-witted co-workers willing to pour beer for us, but never do.
Seat 4: Tatwood. One of G-Vegas' finest poker playing ladies. Brings a touch of class to the table. Unfortunately, that's not hard to do.
Seat 5: The Rankster. "I'd like to see a flop."
Seat 6: MattyC. rrrrrrrrrrrrrrebuy.
Seat 7: BadBlood. A finer taste in music just cannot be found anywhere.
Seat 8: The Mark. Fresh off his BadBlood Invitational win, his intent is to provide fits to all those who limp.
Seat 9: The Axeman. Unfortunately for the rest of the crew, The Axeman is developing into a very solid player. His raises and especially his smooth calls scare the daylights out of those who actually pay attention.
Seat 10: Kevin. Generally solid player.

Things got off to an excellent start for yours truly. On the second hand of the night, The Rankster paid off my pocket K's with his pocket 9's. Glad the Q and the J on the board didn't scare him away. As has been pointed out to me many times, my live play has become rather predictable by the general G-Vegas population. In the last few home games, some of the aggressive players have intrigued me with their play, so I decided to open up the starting hand conditions a bit and try on that style for a change.

It seems to have worked a bit. I was able to get people to laydown some pots after they showed the slightest sign of weakness. My A4o took down a pot from MattyC who held AJo on a Q-high board. He actually put me on a set of Queens. Doh! I stole a pot away from The Rocket and Tatwood when I made a pot sized bet on the river when a scare card fell. Then after showing my garbage, I was paid off in spades when a hand actually hit. Tatwood's pocket 7's paid off my AQs after I re-raised pre-flop and bet the A-high flop aggressively. She said she thought I may be bluffing.

For a recap of "Hand. Of. The. Night." go take a peek at G-Rob's post. I could blame calling bets with that hand on the Moonshine. I could blame it on the God of Pot Odds. Perhaps it was those crazy diamonds calling my name. Whatever it was, that 4 of diamonds on the river was the best card I'd seen in quite a while.

Lest I wear out my welcome with random precision, I'll recap one futher big hand that was more to do with redemption than poker. I found pocket K's again in late position. One min-raise in front of me and a couple of callers. I can't be having any of that, so I bump it to $12. The Mark sitting directly to my left has called almost every raise I've made all night. This hand was no exception. Thankfully, everyone else folded to my bet. The flop came 4,6,7. I bet out $20 and The Mark came over the top all-in for about $40 more. My first thought was "Great, he hit a set on me." But after reviewing some more hands I've seen him play in the past, I know he likes to call raises with connectors as well. I also know he likes betting draws real hard. I could assign to him hands like 89s and even pocket 5's. With my stack, I had to call.

He flipped up those pocket 5's and thankfully didn't improve. I had busted The Mark. For me, that was no small accomplishment as The Mark is a fearless player used to pretty big stakes. It had seemed that my timing was always off with him and I was paying him off in an inordinately high frequency. One small step for Blood-kind....

Until next time - keep your eyes peeled here for more G-Vegas action.