A Beautiful Struggle.

What a crazy grind tonight was. From 530pm-830pm I was all over the place on my first buy-in. Down to $75, up to $200, down to $75. Then my buddy Ash came to play and he had a terrible night, always second best, so he lost his buy-in quick. We decided to go eat since it was just ugly for him and I grinded back to $175 thanks to the amazing 34 off suit. WOOOoooo!

Went and ate some not so great pizza at the food court then Ash split and I went back to the tables at about 9:15pm. Holy crap my new table had LOADS of money on it. I was excited to be at this table. About my tenth hand in I got dealt pocket Queens! The other table and the last time I played I didn't see anything over pocket Tens so this was a good feeling. I am in MP1 and I raise to $12 preflop. A guy with about $75 more than my $175 start to the table reraised me the minimum to $25. I immediately knew his exact hand just didn't know if it was suited or not. AK, I smooth call hoping to just get a good check raise in on the flop. Here comes the flop! QsKd5c, OH BABY!! I play my hand tricky since I know he is oozing with confidence his top pair top kicker is winning and I fire a "defensive bet" of $20 into the pot of I think it was $55 total. He raises me back like I figured to $65 and I think for about 10 seconds before just shipping it in the middle. This guy can not fold AK and he doesn't! AUTO CALL! He flips his AK after I flip my QQ and as we do this the turn card is flipped, Ac, uh oh dont do it to me dealer! Then, out of nowhere a magician appears out of nowhere and poops in my mouth as the dealer rolls over a rivered Ks. This hand hurt me deep. To make matters worse the guy with AK lost all my money plus his about fifteen hands later with 65, !@@#!%@#%^@!$@#%@#%@#%!

I rebuy back for $200 and if I lose this I am done for the night. Let the roller coaster ride continue!

Bang bang! First couple hands I play I get back about $60 of what I had lost so far in the night and now am tabling about $260. Then I am dealt pocket Kings! Raise to $12 preflop with three callers. Flop Q 8 7. Looks beautiful, I fire $25 into the pot. The nicest Asian business man you will ever meet directly to my left calls me. This man has literally already lost close to one grand since I sat down at 9. Turn is a 2, I fire $60, he calls. He is insanely predictable and easy to read, he has a Q I just don't know what his kicker is. I'm sure it is around the T J or K range. River is a freaking Q, sad face. I immediately see him reach for his $100 stack of chips and he always shows his hand so I just fold my KK face up. He flips over QT :( I'm back to grinding again to get back to even.

If I had a graph for my $ tonight it would be all over the place with the ups and downs. Can I get back on track?

Dealt pocket Aces about 30 minutes later. Raise again to my normal any raise raise of $12. The guy who cracked my QQ earlier did rebuy and he is my caller. TIME FOR REVENGE!!!!!!! Flop T 8 7. I fire $20 into the pot he thinks and raises me $30 more. I think about it for a minute and I see only a couple things he would raise me with here. There were two clubs on the flop so he could be drawing but my guess is he has some really crappy pair with maybe a gut shot redraw. Something like JT. I reraise him $90 more and I have about $130 left on the table at this point. He thinks and thinks about it and then he starts staring at my BET not my stack. That is a huge tell to me. He is looking at my bet because he cant move past it with the two cards he is holding. Therefore my AA right now is in fact winning by a good margin. He finally folds it and I'm happy to get $60+ profit back off him.

Asian gentlemen keeps taking my money! He is losing $ to everybody else except vs me! DAMN HIM!! I have KJ of diamonds. Raise to $12 Asian gent and another crazy guy, our KING SHIT of the night, who hates me because I raise so often calls. Flop is J 9 3 I bet out $20 and the Asian gent calls me. Turn is a Q, why does that card hate me so bad tonight? I bet out $45 hoping he is just playing the dumb 9 because he has made a million calls vs other people with second or third pair. NOPE! He auto calls me and I am checking the river already. River is a 6 and he bets $60. I fold and he shows me Q9 lol, god make him stop!

Asian gent finally gives some back! I have K9 on the button and I call a raise of $7 total preflop with about 4 other players in. Flop is K J 4, I call a bet of $15 and so does the Asian gent! Turn K. Same guy bets $15 so I am about 99% sure my K is good so the only card I dont want to see on the river is an Ace incase one of these two is playing QT. Asian gent calls again! River is a brick 7 and they check to me and I bet a generously small $40 bucks. Asian gent calls me finally with second pair! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo!!!!!!! He shows J8 and says before he even flips it over I know you got the king buddy but I cant fold! Gotta love this guy!

I win a bunch of small pots of about $30 profit each and I am now back up to $350 ish on the table. My final good hand of the night, Ace Queen of diamonds. Just the two guys I want to call me do, Asian gent and King Shit. King Shit really has it out for me because I just won a few of those small pots in the last 5 hands and most of it is his $. Flop is Q 8 7, familiar flop? I bet out $20 and only King Shit calls me. I am golden. I decide immediately that he is going to check the turn and I will behind him so it turns that King Shit switch on in his head that he can fire at the river and hand me free lunch. Turn is a beautiful 5. He checks like planned and I do as well behind. Admiral Ackbar should have popped out and told him "It's a trap!" Turn is a T. Zero flushes on board, a goofy straight of J9 or 96 is possible. In all actuality only have one pair so Ill just call whatever he bets and most likely take it down. He bets $50! Oh baby that is why I love this guy. I call immediately and am expecting QJ or something to that nature to be shown from him but he flips over 99. FREE LUNCH! To quote a great movie, Dumb and Dumber, I will replace the name Lloyd with Queen. "You know Queen, just when I think you couldn't be any dumber, you go and do something like this... AND TOTALLY REDEEM YOURSELF!"

So that was my night for an amazingly good learning experience and a 7 hour ish total off my quota. Not anything like I want profit wise but I am happy with the results for this session:

5:30pm-8:30pm; 9:15pm-1:00am @ the MGM - $400 Buy-in $1/2 NLHE - Profit: $55

Hand of the night: 54 off suit. Somebody raises to $7 total and 5 people call before it comes to me so I call for the amazing pot odds. Flop is K 3 7, two clubs. Turn is the 6 of clubs, this is when King Shit first sat down, he bets $20 into the pot and I immediately play this hand like a dumby and just flat call. River is another 3 and he bets $50. I should fold, definately fold. There is one person behind me still plus I don't know much about King Shit yet at all. I call, ASFJSDFJKSDKF, other guy calls with worse than my straight. King Shit does a mental fist pump and shows a flush and I start talking to myself about how bad I was for how I played the entire hand out. So pretty much if you are going to play poker, DON'T JUST CALL! It isn't profitable because you are not gaining any information. I would have lost that hand every time but I should have lost it for less $.

Back to the felt for me Wednesday!