I Can Dodge Bullets

First of all, I want to post this hand that I played online just a few minutes ago. It was important to me because I was actually happy after it ended, which means I was focusing on having made the correct decision, not getting my aces cracked.

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 Limit Hold'em - 6 players

Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is BTN with A A
1 fold, MP raises, CO 3-bets, Hero caps!, 2 folds, MP calls, CO calls

Flop: (13.5 SB) 3 J T (3 players)
MP checks, CO bets, Hero raises, MP calls, CO 3-bets, Hero calls, MP calls

Turn: (11.25 BB) J (3 players)
MP checks, CO bets, Hero calls, MP raises, CO 3-bets, Hero folds, MP caps!, CO calls

River: (20.25 BB) J (2 players)
MP bets, CO calls

Final Pot: 22.25 BB
MP shows J 8 (four of a kind, Jacks)
CO mucks Q A
MP wins 21.5 BB
(Rake: $3.00)

My original plan was to raise a safe turn and call down from there, but things obviously changed when the top board card paired. Maybe I just got lucky, maybe I'm a ninja, or maybe I was just feeling over confident from a hand I played last night....here we go.

Sunday night propping has been a big fat fail two weeks in a row. Last night I played seven (7) hands of 20/40 the entire night, with another prop getting put into the game, getting herself mega-stuck and therefore getting re-inserted before me later in the evening. I could have gotten myself into the 40/80 game at about 1am, but opted to wait since I figured I'd be in the game within an hour anyway. Turns out I didn't get called in until 4:30 and the game broke at 5:15, so that goes to show what I know. I also witnessed a green chip prop intentionally break an 8/16 game by sitting out to eat his chicken wings when one of only 3 customers left at the game was already complaining vehemently about having to play "short", where short was 6 handed (this guy was hilarious....He was the villain from my previous post and literally played every hand for an hour. Then he mucked the first two hands we played 5 handed). I am starting to understand why customers don't like the props; a lot of them do things that are pretty disrespectful, like taking advantage of being treated as broken game players (the female prop was asked to leave the 6/12, played all the way to her blind, then picked up, and 45 minutes later insisted on having broken game privileges in the 20/40 game), or lobbying for three entire orbits of a full game to eat dinner when up $1500 at 4:30 in the morning, or just in general treating the customers poorly. But anyway, I digress.....on to the hand.

So as I'm sitting in the 6/12 game wishing I was in the 20/40 game, I pick up 77 on the button. Like 4-5 players or more limp to me and I just call along. The pot was probably multiway enough to raise, and kit cloud kicker would bitch slap me for not doing it, but whatever. The small blind, a nitty looking old man, raises, the big blind calls, and somebody up front back-raises it to 3-bets. Almost everyone else calls (another prop folds what he later claims was 66...I don't know if I believe him or not, and he made a big deal standing up to talk about it on the river where everyone could here...another reason people don't like props) and I call. The small blind caps it {AA, KK} and everybody calls. We're 7 ways to the flop, I think, of:

As 7s 6c

Aye. Yah. SB leads and a bunch of people call. The back-raiser, humorously, mucks for a single bet. I raise it one time in hopes of the SB getting a disgusted look on his face and just calling down with KK, but he 3-bets instead. Two other players call and I call, my brain trying to come up with some justification of how I have more than a single out (as an aside, if I do have only one out, I'm getting the right price to draw, since if I hit it I stand to win like 10 more big bets and the pot is currently laying me like 40 : 1).

As 7s 6c-9h

The small blinds leads out, the big blind (who is actually the table fish) now raises and makes a speech. A poor sap calls two cold and I'm put to it. There are something like 25 big bets in the pot, and a crowd has gathered behind my end of the table (with another prop who's actually a nice guy watching, and some guy waiting for his 3-100 seat). I call time and literally tank for like a minute at a live 6/12 game. I look at the SB and he seems extremely unconcerned. Like "I'm gonna 3-bet" level unconcerned. I pick up my cards for the on lookers to see (at this point 2 players and the 2 spectators...I was in seat 3, so doing this was actually very easy) and muck the hand. For the first time in my limit holdem life I muck a set on the turn. The small blind 3-bets, the big blind caps it, the hapless player on a flush draw calls 2 more, and we see a river of.

As 7s 6c-9h-6s

The small blind leads out, the big blind tanks for what feels like 2 minutes before calling (this is where the other prop starts claiming he folded 66), and the 3rd player raises! The small blind 3-bets, the big blind finally mucks his straight face up, and the other player just calls and fastrolls T3ss for a useless flush. The small blind proudly displays his AA, for aces full, and I get fist bumps from 3 of my 4 onlookers. I can dodge bullets, baby.