Home Game - Rock 'n Roll

Hosted the last home game of 2007 last night. We had 9 people playing with some new faces and sans our resident Pro, Karl.

It was a loose game with lots of crazy pre-flop raises, calls, and action flops. One notable hand was as follows: CC, Jonny, and myself out-lasted the rest and were playing past 3am. Blinds were raised to 50/100p and from the button I raised my AcJc to 3 pounds, getting called by both CC and Jonny. Flop came QsJs9c. CC led out with 6, Jonny calls, and I re-raised to 25. CC pushes all-in for about 40, Jonny contemplates and moves all-in for 60 and now priced-in, I call. CC has the AhQd, Jonny has the nut flush draw As3s. The cards wasted no time turning the flush with 4s and Jonny took down a nice 125GBp pot.

The night ended in positive territory with both Jonny and myself cashing back in for ~300-350. I was net +260 after I donk'd off about 150 in the last hour of beer-induced risk-taking. CC and I went head to head no less than a dozen times in 50GBp+ pots, and I was catching cards on the turn regularly, making 2-pair, flushes, and straights. Alternatively, CC was getting some strong starting hands but missing the flops, which ended up antagonizing him, I think, and inducing some steal attempts that he doesn't usually make. We both agreed the "home games" take on a life of their own and play is not exactly the high quality we'd like to be practicing to hone the skills for the Tuesday Empire game.

Online update: I played $3,000 worth of tourneys last week and had a very poor run of cards, putting me on TILT. I feel a bit frustrated with my response, and need to handle the inevitable reality of "bad beats". The most frustrating of last week was the $1,000,000 guaranty FULL TILT tourney that attracted over 2,000 runners ($500 buy-in). I was rolling, playing very well and had tripled-up my starting stack of 5,000 chips to 15,000 when I found AA UTG. I raised the pot 2.5x to 900 chips. Middle position raised to 2700 (12,000 behind) and late position calls (25,000 behind). I have no choice but to push all-in here, happily and see middle position fold and late position call with KK. The turn kills me when a K hits and knocks me out. This was the start of my downward spiral.

Played four $500 9-seat sit 'n go's. Was knocked out of all four, no cashes. Two of them I was eliminated with AA (KK again and AQ) and a third I ran my KK into AA. These were all pre-flop all-ins and was out-drawn (or out-played in the KK situation). The final exit was a mistake on my part when I called a big raise out of position with QcJc. The flop of KcTc2s gave me the up 'n down straight flush draw. I checked to the raiser and he led-out 75% of the pot to which I min-raised with 1/3 of my stack (this was a weak move to which I solicit any comments) and he re-min-raises me back, which I call. The turn is a blank, and I lead-out with 1/3 the pot bet again (as both of out stacks are dwindling) and he pushes all-in to which I have to call now, getting paid 7:1 and 30% chance to hit my hand. I miss the river and see I was up against AhAd. Other than this last hand, I can't blame anything but bad luck for this week's drain on the bankroll. COMMENTS WELCOMED.

Online bankroll: $7,800