I went down to Long Island to visit my family this past weekend, and I got some time to hang out with my buddies as well. Just like we always do, we got together for a card game. I was very excited, especially since I'd won the last two that I'd played in with them and they wanted to up the buy-in from $5 to $10. The seven of us made up a $70 pot, $50/$20 split to the top two. Nice chunk of change.
Naturally, I start out card dead for almost the first two trips around the table. I don't think I got a card higher than a nice during the first orbit. I didn't even play a hand until after the blinds went up after the first 20 minutes! I was itching to play, though, because my friends were playing limp-happy. I seriously could not believe that I used to be intimidated when playing with these guys. I used to get nervous raising QQ preflop and actually playing a hand, and now I can't catch cards fast enough!
I can always count on my friends to make a wrong assumption about my playing style. After folding a crap hand from the SB after three of my friends had limped, my friend Tom says, "I know you, you're not going to play a hand unless you've got something really premium!" Lo and behold, the very next hand I'm on the button and it folds around to me. I'm know I'm raising before I even see my cards, but I at least have to put on a show. So I check my cards and I see 7h4d. I raise to 3xBB, both blinds fold, and I win the pot uncontested. Tom then says, "See? They believe you when you raise because you only do it with your big cards."
"Hey, I gotta try to get some sort of value with my big hands, right?" I answer.
They have me pegged.
Later on, I completed from the SB with 9d5d, hit a straight on the river, and got a decent payoff because (of course) nobody expects me to be playing baby cards.
My friends are so easily manipulated.
We play with hyper-accelerating blinds; for some reason, they prefer to double the blinds every level instead of taking steps in between. So 50/100 turns into 100/200, then 200/400, then the big jump to 400/800.... pretty soon the blinds are 1k/3k and effective stacks are miniscule. I'm okay with this, because I have a pretty good shove/fold game, but my friend still want to "see a flop." Although it's easy to take their money when I catch cards, it's not so easy to push them out of a hand with a shove if I don't. So I still gotta play carefully.
I end up getting heads up with my friend Andrew, who had been getting lucky very frequently lately - he doubled up twice through Tom when he was chip leader, first catching runner-runner for a straight flush and second going all in K8>KT with an 8 on the flop. He's got me covered, but not by much. I've probably got about 13BB's left. I get Ad8c as the dealer/SB, so I raise it to 2.3BBs (I probably should have just shoved outright, but we can discuss that in the comments). Andrew calls, and the flop comes out 8d7h4h. I think for a moment - top pair is strong heads up, but it's a weak top pair. Andrew is aggressive, but not often trappy - I think he pushes me all in pre with 99+. The flop is drawy, so I don't want him chasing. I put the rest of my stack in, and Andrew confidently calls.
"Crap," I say to myself, "he's got a freakin' overpair." But no... Andrew flips over 9d6d and proclaims, "I've got a straight and a flush draw!" Not quite a flush draw (maybe backdoor, but I doubt that's what he meant). So now he's looking for his OESD, calling for a 5 or a 10...
(The thing I find hilarious about this is that he nearly misreads his hand, and then he still completely misses the fact that a nine also gets him the lead)
...a ten drops on the turn, and I'm drawing dead.
I pocket my twenty dollars, give Andrew a "good game" handshake, and catch a ride home with Tom (who can't stop whining about his two bad beats).
I, on the other hand, am very pleased with how I played. I somehow fought through a mess of rags, tiptoed my way through the high-blind bubble period, and cashed in 2nd all without getting a hand better than pocket tens. Aside from shoving pre, I think I played as best as I could have. And I can't wait to play against them next time!
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