Two Hands With Pete

April started off well for me. I actually woke up "early" (at least by my standards) and was seated in a game at Bay 101 at 10:30. That's AM. I managed to play an 8.5 hour day, thanks mostly to the fact that Pete sat in my game for the first half of the day, giving me someone to bullshit with and keeping my mind focused on something other than the idiocy going on around me. I had a few rough patches:

I raise 99. Only the blind calls.

AK6

He bets. I raise cause he's full of shit. He 3-bets cause I'm full of shit. I fold cause I mean shit....

He tables T8o and there is a general bruh-haha at the table. It think a lot of the regulars like it when somebody takes a stand against me and kicks my ass because they secretly wish they did it themselves more often. Anyway. Our first hand is pretty funny, and also short and sweet. Pete open limps from the Low-Jack. For a quick review of position.....

We have here a 10 handed table (the ones I play at seat only 9). Alice and Bob are the blinds, and Carol is UTG (under the gun). As far as I'm concerned, only 4 other positions have names. Jim is OTB (on the button, or just the button), David is in the CO (cutoff), Sally is in the HJ (high jack), and Ted is the LJ (lo-jack). Generally speaking other positions can just be named by their number of spots left of UTG (UTG+1, +2, etc). So anyway Pete open limps where Ted is. This is something I never do. I will open limp only from the very early seats. Once I get within smelling distance of the button, if nobody has entered the pot, I'm coming in for a raise only. The possibility of stealing the blinds, or at least getting heads up with one of them, is just too compelling. Pete doesn't quite buy this hook, line and sinker, so sometimes he limps the low jack (and maybe even the hi jack). Anyway, to Pete's horror the 3 players behind him fold, the small blind folds, and little old me gets a free look at the flop in the big blind. I happen to be holding J5 offsuit, a hand I'd muck in a second had Pete raised. And then....

JJ5

I flop the stone cold nuts. Pete says, as the dealer is burning, "Just check and get it over with". I look at the flop, check, then raise after he bets. Sadly he calls only and folds on the turn. I show my hand, and once again there is a (smaller) bru-haha.



A while later these two awful fish limp and I elect the raise A9 offsuit in the high-jack. Pete calls in the big blind, and the flop comes down:

Q93 rainbow

Pete donks. He donks more than I do, which means he donks in places I don't think he should. So I put on my Pete cap and try to figure it out. I don't say anything yet, but about the only hands I personally would donk here would be JT and 33 (99 if he can have that, but a 3-bet preflop would be likely). Both the fish calls, thus eliminating the possibility of them having a single pair of queens, and I raise. Pete calls, and they both call. All of a sudden this pot is kind of large (8 big bets), and all I've got is position and second pair. Pete calling, by the way, is awesome, as it basically rules out him having anything that could possibly be beating me (the reason for donking with a set would be to get raised and then 3-bet).

Q93-K with a flush draw now

Pete re-donks, or as I often say double donks. Both the fish now fold (or maybe one of them folded the last street, I don't remember) and I actually say out loud "Man, he's got Jack-Ten." Pete, showman that he is, keeps a straight face and quietly waits. I decide I basically can't fold cause he always bluffs me off the best hand (I'm not sure how much of this I've written about on this blog vs two plus two vs just in emails to my friends, but Pete's gotten me to lay down a couple of winners in the last few weeks in some sizable pots) so I call. And then....

Q93-K-A

Ai Yah! I do believe I've got it! Unless he has Jack-Ten of course. Pete checks, and in the 3 seconds that follow I run through a hand from last week where I 3-bet Pete's CO open with 99. The board ran out:

652-4-7

And because I hate money I bet the river (you'll note I have the worst pocket pair at this point. Every other pocket pair beats me) and Pete check/raised my ass and because he always bluffs me off the best hand I called like a donkey and got shown 88. So anyway, back to the hand in question....

I check. Aces up, in position, on the river, and I check. Pete sheepishly tables Jack-Ten. I feel better about myself, at least for a while :)