GutShot

The anticipated home game unraveled due to constituents' laziness and schedule conflicts, which drove CC and I to hit up GutShot for some cash games instead.

The night started rough for me. The game was 1/1 pot limit, which proved to be calling stations' dream. Finding KK, QQ, QQ, AK, AQ, I raised the pot everytime and got 3-7 callers. Everytime, I was met with post-flop calls/raises and either threw hands away or called down bettors to find they had hit hands. In one case, the flop came 9K7 rainbow while I held AK. I had raised to 13 pre-flop and bet 40 after the flop, getting called. The seemingly harmless 5 on the turn gave me confidence to re-raise a lead-out bet of 40, only to see my opponent move all-in with her 95 off-suit two pair proving victorious.

I was quickly down 250-275 and licking my wounds. Thankfully, the game loosened up even more and I tightened up, playing only premium drawing hands pre-flop and getting all the chips in when I hit. For example, KsTs from the button, I called a pre-flop pot bet of 11 to see KdTd9c. With a continuation bet of 50 and one caller, I re-raised to 200 and got called by a flush draw, which failed to hit.

Then, similarly hit the second-nut with KcTc after calling a 23 pre-flop bet and slow-playing to get the aggressive/loose player to commit all his chips to win a pot of 200+.

After 2am, the game turned into a testosterone battle with an average of 100-150 committed to the pot pre-flop. Post-flop, there was incredibly loose calls with middle pairs winning. There were three of us playing "good poker" and 5 maniacs. Good players were raising and pushing hard with AA/KK hands pre-flop, or flopping the nuts and getting all the money in from the maniacs. One memorable hand saw "good player 1" deliberate for 2 minutes, even having time called on him as he faced a 3x raise from a maniac pre-flop. His acting job was just too obvious (to me, at least) to be anything but AA. So, when he 4x raised all-in for an additional 400, I thought even the maniac would lay down his hand. But, NO! He calls with 73 suited and hits a straight when the board comes 6654K. SICK STUFF.

Unfortuantely, I caught very few cards and ended the night +250. With even normal cards, should have left GutShot with +600-1000, like my good playing counterparts did. A wins a win, as they say, but could have been much better.