Duece-Five Of Clubs

Good afternoon everyone.  I'll wait until Friday to gloat about my recent NCAA Tourney run.  You know, gloat about all of the money that I didn't win...  :)  I now have less than an hour to wait until I see how the first round of waivers turned out in my fantasy baseball league.  Chipper Jones was already injured, Bryce Harper is starting the season in the minors, and Andrew Bailey just got injured this week, so 'Coach' is making changes... Oh, and there is a televised, REAL baseball game tonight...  :)  In the meantime, let me tell you about the biggest pot that I have ever won in a limit hold 'em hand.

For those of you who haven't played a lot of poker and don't have much exposure other than what you've seen on t.v., no-limit hold 'em is what you see on t.v.  In no-limit, you have the ability to shove all of your chips into the middle at any time.  In limit hold 'em, the amount of chips that you may bet or raise is fixed for each betting round.  This particular hand occurred in a game the week after I moved to Las Vegas in May of 2005.  In sat down in a 4-8 limit game at the Rio.  At these limits, you may bet or raise in increments of 4 dollars before the flop and on the flop, and in increments of 8 dollars on the turn and the river.  I had recently been reading a lot about odds in the poker books that I owned, and that played a big part in me winning this hand, making a play that I wouldn't normally make.  I was sitting in the big blind (the blinds were 2 and 4 dollars in this 4-8 game) and I was dealt the deuce-five of clubs.  This was at a ten-player table.  By the time the action had got back to me, there had been one late raise to eight dollars.  I decided to call for only 4 more dollars because I was 1 of 7 players in the hand.  Well, after the action passed me, the people to my left went crazy, and by the time it was my turn to act again, the raises for the hand had been CAPPED AT 20.  With 5-high this might seem like an automatic fold, but I only needed to call 12 dollars to win the 128 dollars that was already out there.  That means that I was getting slightly better than 10-1 odds on my hand...  I decided to go ahead and call the twelve, armed with the knowledge of my recent poker reading.  The flop came out 3 4 x (x means that the card is irrelevant to the story, a 'blank' if you will).  There was no flush draw on the board, but our hero now had an open-end straight draw with his 2 3 4 5.  An ace or a six shows up and I'm doing backflips...  This hand took place almost 7 years ago, but I'm sure that there was at least a 4-dollar bet on the flop, and I believe that it was raised to 8, with pretty much everyone understandably going to the turn.  The turn card was a 6, a BEAUTIFUL SIX...  The turn put a flush draw out there that wasn't clubs.  I checked my straight when the action got to me, and was able to check-raise the predictable eight-dollar bet.  After I put in my raise to 16, only 2 players called me.  With the 140 in the pot preflop, the at least 28 (but more likely 56 on the flop), and the 62 (I believe) here on the turn, this was a pretty decent pot.  The river was a non-flush blank, and after I bet out eight, both remaining players called to see my turned straight, with the DEUCE-FIVE of clubs...  As I'm raking in this close to THREE HUNDRED DOLLAR pot, I could literally hear the murmers around the table...  "How could he call 20 preflop with FIVE TWO?!"  Well, you can imagine...  :)  I also have in my notes for that day (yes, I read a lot before I started playing poker, and have always kept a pretty good record of my results) that I went on to flop a flush with A 9 of hearts in that same game, and after playing for 1 hour and 23 minutes, I cashed out up $ 296.00.  I WISH that I had that hourly rate for my whole poker career...

I have decided that I definitely do have enough 'material' on Las Vegas and my 'poker career' to do a weekly Wednesday entry until I move back to the desert in August (if I can make that happen).  I hope that you enjoyed that, and I hope that you send me your karma for my fantasy baseball team as I already have players that are dropping like flies...  :)  Have a great day and I'll see you again on Friday.