How It Is That I Won Six Racks

My last two nights of propping have been nothing short of fantastic in all regards. First of all, from a completely objective point of view I got to play in the exact game I prefer, 20/40, for almost the entirety of both shifts (in 14 hours I think I logged 13.25 hours of 20/40 play). Second of all, the games that I found myself in were fantastic (more on that in a bit obviously). This is important when evaluating the success of this prop position, as I know that in general I could opt to play in some pretty soft 20/40 games during the day, and if the graveyard 20/40 games simply aren't as good I'm taking a slight hit that while manageable is something I should be aware of. Third of all, I had a blast and ran like Jesus on a scooter. That's pretty obvious, because no matter how good a game is you can't expect to win 6 racks in 6 hours.

The actual game Tuesday night was the stuff that legends are made of. We had three players taking almost any two cards to the turn. A lot of the hands were a blur, but some gems:

SB calls nit-props raise with T2hh and takes two to the face on a board of AJ4 with one of her suit. Obviously she runs down a wheel (she did flop not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 runner-runner draws to two pair or better) and responds with "I was the big blind!". Nit-prop promptly berates here in Chinese with Mr. Wong for the next ten minutes, and while my Mandarin is non-existent, I was able to make out "Ten Two!" the 5 or 6 times it came up. Nit-prop should know better than to do this. It was obvious that he was berating her in Chinese to anyone with 14 or more functioning brain cells. But 20/40 does not have the 14 brain cell requirement, just the $200 one, so who knows, maybe he was safer than I thought.

A while later nit-prop raises again and the button (let us call him the gentle giant) takes two to the face. The flop is Q84 and the gentle giant calls again. The turn is a 7, and now the gentle giant raises. The river pairs the 7, and he bets and collects a call from nit-props AA. What does he have? K7o. Nit-prop is beside himself. Even I have to admit that what we just saw was truly special. It is one thing to be a maniac; as WTK has shown rampant aggression, if somewhat well-placed, can be used to one's advantage. But to raise the turn with 3rd pair no draw when nit-prop has bet into 3 people is suicide. I thought about it for a while, and I decided that there is no clear answer to the question "which street did he play the worst?" It simply is an unknowable quantity.

There were more gems like this spattered all over the night. To give you an idea of how loose this game was, four of us had overs buttons and we didn't have a chance to use them for 75 minutes. That's right, four of the nine players in the game had overs, and for the next hour and fifteen minutes not a single situation occurred in which only those players were in the pot for the start of a post-flop street. Think about that...all it takes is one river to be HU or even 3-way amongst just the overs players. Didn't happen. Eventually I turned mine in on the premise of "what's the point" and my comrades had to agree.

Then there was me. I moved to the table at about 12:30am (actually I moved specifically to take a break so I could call Danielle to say goodnight) and at the time was stuck about a rack. I lost a little more, and added on for all the chips I had taken out of my box, putting me into the game for about 4 racks. From that moment forward, I could do no wrong. 6 way pot raised from the CO? I'll call with KJs in the SB and flop a king. And it'll hold up the whole way down. Pocket fours? I'll flop a set. Twice. In 10 minutes. KTo in a 7 way raised pot? Board will run out QJ4cc-2s-9c and I will donk the river and get called in two spots of the 3 remaining hands and nobody will have a flush. You have AJs? My JT will crush you. It simply did not matter. Even when I lost things went well.

6 way pot and I have black kings on the button. The flop is:

762 with two clubs

I bet and like 4 of them call.

762-A with 3 clubs now

The SB checks, and the BB donks. Everyone else mucks and I call with my nut flush draw. The SB just calls.

762-A-2

The SB donks and the BB raises. I muck and the SB calls. He has A7 for top two, which he didn't see fit to raise on the turn. She has 62s for the full house, which she decided to check/call on the flop and donk on the turn. I was up against 4 pairs on the turn and got away with putting in one bet when I was drawing live at 9 outs. Just wow.

As the clock struck 6am nit-prop nit-quit the game once again (this is a new term of mine, nit-quit, to quit a game in such a nitty fashion that it is hard to believe the person who just did it had the courage to sit in the game in the first place) by stating that since my shift was over and that left the game with 2 props and 3 players they should just make the other game 10 handed (it had two seats). He of course did this right after I paid my big blind and he raised it from UTG with no doubt like pocket queens. But it didn't matter. I organized my 10 racks of chips and waddled to the cage, trying to take the time to remember how it feels to run that good.