Wow!

I just can’t believe what happened last night. Not too much is going on here in Seward and I am not getting many sub jobs, so I am trying to find ways to keep busy.
I decided to head to Council Bluffs at around 9pm last night to play some poker. Before tonight, I believe I have been to the Horseshoe Casino around ten times and I cannot remember ever having a losing session. One day I remember only making $35, but just like Vegas, I don’t think I have ever left with less than I came with. I have definitely had losing sessions in MT though live. Anyway, each time I drive to CB, I tell myself that this could be the day where I take a brutal bad beat or I get coolered. I am bound to have a losing session. I just prepare myself mentally so that when it happens, I will react better to it. Well, a losing session didn’t happen last night for me. In fact, I had the best session I have ever had, and arguably, the best session anyone has ever had playing 1/3 NL at CB!

So I get to the poker room and there are two games of 1/3 going on. One of the tables had mostly old people and the other table had mostly young people. I obviously wanted to play at the old person one. Both the tables were full though and I was the 10th person on the waiting list, so they decided to start another table. As I sit down, all of the people look like they know the game of poker fairly well as it is a similar people to the young table already going on. Oh well. Then, right as the dealer sat down, I saw that a guy just left the old person table. I immediately took my $200 in red chips over to that table to play. This was the decision that made it all happen.

The night started off bad as I soon found out that I was playing with nine of the nittiest postflop players I have ever seen. I was bummed from the start when I had 77 on like my 3rd hand. Everyone limped and saw a flop of T72 rainbow. I bet half pot and everyone folds! This just doesn’t ever happen! I’m thinking to myself that I am never going to get paid off. And really, the rest of the night I didn’t get paid off with a lot of my monsters. A few hours later, a guy raised pf and I called with 78. The flop came A88. He bet, I raised and he autofolds AK face up! What the heck! These guys can’t possibly have a read on my like this can they? I started taking advantage of this tight play and built my stack up to $500 really quick. Another fun hand is when I get have AQ in the bb. Another guy raises pf and I call. Flop comes AQ7. I check, he bets, I raise, and he folds AK face up! What is with these guys? PS. I was hitting cards like crazy tonight.

Here are my three favorite hands of the night:

It’s about 1am (a few hours into the session). A trucker guy in his 50’s has like $600 that I have been eyeing and I have about $500. By the way, I am the only person at the table that raises without AA or KK. Okay, so said guy raises to $22 in mp. I call on the button with K4hh. Flop comes Ah Qs 5h. He bets out $50. I know he is huge so I was going to call and not raise. I took a long time to call hoping he would not think that I am on a flush draw. Turn 7h giving me the nuts. He bets $120. I finally decide on moving all in. He thinks for only a few minutes. He says that he knows I have a flush! Honestly though, these players just hate putting money into the pot. Eventually, he folds AA face up! Wow! I am not too disappointed with the fold. I’ll take the pot right there if he has top set. I wanted him to go with AQ, but I was sure he had AA or QQ. Anyways, first huge pot of the night for me was nice.

Next hand was maybe one of my favorites. As you might have noticed, I almost never fold to a preflop raiser if they have a lot of chips behind because I feel like I can outplay them or get paid if I hit a monster. So this hand came around 3pm and my image is starting to loosen up even though they still keep folding to my continuation bets and bluff raises. A guy limps in early and I limp in middle with 84off, another guy limps and the sb makes it $25. He had a lot of chips and I knew the others were calling, so I got in on that action. Sb is noticeably disgusted with the three callers. Flop comes JT5. The sb who raised pf open folds! He then says that J5 is going to win this hand. Early limper checks and I bet $26. Both guys fold and I show my 84off to ship the nice pot. The sb starts to lose it after that. He is so mad at me for calling his pf raise with 84off. Oh well though.

Finally this last hand came up around 4am. We are 5 handed with the said trucker guy is back up to around $600 and I am around $1000. Everyone else is at $200 or under. He is the only reason I have stayed there because I thought I could get all of his chips. He starts racking up his chips and keeps playing though he is clearly going to leave at any minute. He raises utg to $22 and I call on the button with K2off. Once again, he has never raised all night without AA or KK. So I was pretty sure what he had even though he could have had a bigger range with this being the end of his night. Flop comes KcQc2c. He bets $25 and I make it $100. He double checks his cards and calls. I am confident he has the Ac now. Turn comes a gross 10c. Luckily he checks, and I check behind. River comes my gin card in the Kh. Trucker bets out $100. I think and push all in. He eventually calls while saying, “you can have the rest of my chips, show me your boat.” I flip over K2 for the full house. He mucks AcAh and I ship the around $1200 pot.

So we sat there after 4am and I have over $1800 in front of me and the other 3 guys have no more than $400 combined. We play a few more orbits and I call it a night. The dealers said that they have never seen anyone leave the 1/3 game with more than two racks ($1000). Also, I only bought in for $200 and never had to rebuy.

So it turned out to be an epic night with some guys that were extremely tight. There is no doubt that I hit a lot of huge hands tonight, but I also took down a lot of pots with nothing. Honestly, I can’t remember even being put to a tough decision all night. I was always the one putting the pressure on and keeping it on. It was a dream table that I will never forget and probably never be able to enjoy something like that (pokerwise) again.

I am leaving for Denver tomorrow. It should be a fun vacation!

Another day at the poker room

So yesterday I went to the poker room at the Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluffs and had another good day to say the least. I got there around 11:30 again and played 1/3 NL until the 2pm tourney. I only really remember two big pots I won so I’ll describe those. I make sure before I sit down that there are fish. There usually are at this time because the people bust out of the 10am tourney on Sundays go and play cash games and they aren’t good. I also like to make sure there are fish with a lot of chips. This helps me decide which table I want to sit at as I usually have a few options. Sure enough, this table had a lot of old people and one woman in her 30’s with a lot of chips. I bought in for the maximum $200 and got up to $300 really quick. Now I was at the point where I want to get involved in pots with the woman in hope that I can double up. She doesn’t raise without a good hand, so every time she raised, I would call with the hope of hitting something and double up through her. I knew she would pay me off. This hand came up that I was pretty fortunate on. She raised utg her standard $13. One guy called, and I called in late position with K2hh. The flop comes 852 with the 5 of hearts. She bet $20. Other guy folded and I called. Turn was a Qd. She bet $20 again. I thought she looked really weak, so I raised to $60. She beat me into the pot with a call. I knew she was extremely strong now and I was done. River 2! She checked to me and I knew she would call almost anything. I decided on betting $100. She snap called, I showed, and she mucked in disgust. I probably could have gotten more out of her, but I wanted a call for sure.

The next hand was is without a doubt my most memorable live hand I have ever played. I have about $500 in my stack to start the hand. I have QTdd utg. I limp. Other people limp and we see a flop 6 handed. Flop comes Jd 8d 7c. Checked to me and I bet $10. The guy right after me quickly calls and the guy after him makes it $25. Others fold and I call. The guy after me then pushes all in for $97 total (he bought in for $100 a few hands earlier). The flop raiser is disgusted and thinks about it for two minutes before finally calling the $72 with about $215 behind him. I then pushed all in with the thought that this guy was going to fold and even if he didn’t, I had a lot of outs (I thought he KJ, AJ, or maybe even QJ or JT). After I pushed, the guy goes into the tank. He starts talking how he knows one of us has T9. I am sitting over thinking why he is taking so long to fold. Finally after over 5 minutes, he calls and flop over 77 for bottom set. The other guy, to my delight, then flips up J7 for two pair. So I have all of my outs plus the board will have trouble pairing if I hit. Before I could even think about how much money was in the pot, the dealer turns over the fabulous 9d to give me the straight flush. The river was an uneventful King. I shipped the over $700 pot. Also, I won a high hand jackpot that they have for all 4 of a kinds and straight flushes. My Q high diamond straight flush was good for $245. Some of the jackpots are low, for example, the Q high diamond jackpot went to $0 after I hit and, and some of the jackpots are high (the Ten high diamond straight flush is at $2200 because no one has hit it in a long time). So I was in cloud nine after that pot, which was only 15 minutes before the tourney started.

I entered the tourney and built a huge stack early again winning most of the pots. Then in the middle levels after the first break, I lost some pots, lost some flips, and had to push with 6 bbs with 98hh. I was called by A10 and A9. Flop came 976, but I missed my draw and was eliminated. Nothing could ruin the day though! After that I found at seat at a 1/3 table with an old fish that had $900 in front of him. I decided to sit down. The other players there were pretty solid, but I had to stay with the fish. He left after one orbit and I decided to leave a $15 winner in the game and a $850 winner on the day. Woohoo!

I went home to watch Duke take down the ACC championship and selection Sunday. What a day! This week I am going to pick up my sister at the Denver airport when she gets back from visiting our brother in Pensacola. I’ll then hang out with her at CSU in Fort Collins for a few days before going back down to Denver to see Leah and other friends for a few more days. It will be nice to take a little vacation! I filled out my bracket. Duke won’t win it, but I still have them going all the way haha. We’ll see.

Basketball Season Over, Poker, and Applying for Jobs

We made a push to go to the national tournament when we won our first two games on the conference tournament. Our second game was without a doubt the craziest game I have ever been a part of when we beat Briar Cliff University in OT. We started the game down 26-5. We took a 6 point second half lead and a 4 point lead with 16 seconds. Then they tied it up with a shot that was clearly after the buzzer. We went to OT and got a 4 point lead 29 seconds left! After a layup, a turnover, and a layup, they tied the game with 8 seconds left. We got the ball out of the net and pushed the ball. Our freshman backup point guard, who had the game of his life (26 points, 6-6 from three) drove to the hole and threw it up. It missed, but our other freshman Kendal Bender was there for the tip in. It was a crazy game to say the least! We then got crushed next game L

So Leah left for her 2nd 8 weeks of student teaching in Denver on Friday. The weekend was as good as it could get without her around. Saturday I slept in and then played in some tourneys. I was unsuccessful in all the tourneys but one. It was a regular $10 buy-in with 400 entrants on full tilt. I went into the bubble with an average stack, had three different people call me a moron because I was not checking down with a player all in, and left the bubble with 2X the average stack. I picked up some big hands and ended up going to the final table with 250,000 of the total 600,000 chips. 2nd place had 100,000 chips. So I was in good shape. Though I had some resistance from the guy on my left, who liked to go over the top of me a lot (for good reason), I eventually shipped the tourney for 1K. So that was nice.

Sunday, I decided to go to the Horseshoe casino in Council Bluffs. They have two $40 buy-in tourneys every Sunday at 10am and 2pm. I slept through the first and showed up at 11:30 so I could register for the 2pm tourney at noon when they open registration. While I was waiting for the tourney to start, I played some 1-3 NL. I have never had a losing session playing NL there in around 5 times. Once again, I had a nice +$350 session. I just love live poker. I love how much easier it is to read people. Also, the competition is much softer than the internet. Live is just so much more profitable for me even with the higher rakes. I don’t even play cash games on the internet anymore.

So I went into the 2pm tourney with a lot of confidence. I ended up winning the first 4 hands of the tourney without a showdown and 6 of the first 8 when this hand came up. Keep in mind my already crazy image. One guy in seat 6 just lost a pot for basically all his chips to a lady in seat 9, so he put his last 50 chips (one bb) in blind in mp. So here is how the hand went. I am the bb in seat 10. Seat 2 makes it 300 (25/50) of his roughly 2500 starting stack. Seat 5 calls. Seat 6 is all in for 50. Seat 7 calls. I squeeze KK in the bb. I make it 1200. Seat 2 could not get all his chips in fast enough. Seat 5 then goes all in. Seat 7 (the lady who is only person who can knock me out) calls! I go all in. The lady tanks before finally calling with AKhh. Seat 3 has JJ, Seat 5 has 88, and seat 6, who I don’t care about if he beats me, has my last King with K6. The flop comes 579 rainbow. Turn 9. River 10 to ship me the 12000 chip pot and knock out 3 players. Getting lots of chips early in this tourney is vital as they raise the blinds every 20 minutes and it only last about 4 hours total. From there, I was a part of at least 1 out of every 3 hands, if not more, until I busted. I got to the final table (10 paid out of 60, which is a joke) as still the chip leader in the tournament. Eventually with 4 left the blinds were at 4000/8000. I had like 65000, guy on my left had 55000, next guy had 12000, and the next guy had 27000. The guy on my right folded, I have KQdd on the button and push. SB makes a questionable call with A10 because he is almost guaranteed a 2nd place finish with the two short stacks having to go through the blinds next. Anyways, he calls and the bb folds even though he has 4000 left. He said he had KQ as well. So I’m in trouble. The dealer teased me with a flop of Ad 10d 4c. I blanked out to put me down to 10000 chips. The next hand, the sb survived and I was all in the following hand in the bb. I had KQ and lost to the sb’s 65 on a 78T85 board. So I was out in 4th place for a $151 payout. I was bummed that I missed out on the $550 first place, but I did leave the casino up $470. It was a good little excursion for me.

Enough poker…I have been applying for a bunch of jobs lately. The middle school health teaching position is open here in Seward and I am confident I am one of the top candidates since I already know most of the school’s faculty and think I am well liked. However, there is not a coaching position to come along with it, so that is a downside. The Grand Island High School head coach just resigned and he is also a PE/Health teacher, so I am in the process of submitting an application. This job would be unbelievable if I got it because it is a big school and a great fit for me. Though I do not believe a school of 2200 students would hire a 23 year old to coach their boys’ basketball team, all I want is an interview. Also, there are some PE/Health and coaching jobs open in Colorado, but I cannot even apply for them until I get a Colorado teaching license, so I am working on filling out an application for a license.

I have tomorrow and Wednesday lined up to sub this week. Then Thursday, Friday, and Saturday is the boys’ state basketball tournament in Lincoln where I will be recruiting. We have not signed any recruits yet, so things need to start getting done!