Monday, July 19, 2010

My Foolproof Plan For Winning Poker: Flop Quads

So as regular readers of the blog know, I play poker fairly often -- about 25 to 30 times a year. It's always in real life, as online is a Pandora's Box of time and moneysuck that I dare not venture down, and my favorite games are house games with no rake. The payouts aren't as good, but so long as you choose your people well, it's almost a guaranteed good time, win or lose. And life is too short to play cards with Eh, Holes. (Ah, the lengths I go to prevent my pristine search engine ranking, and the delicate sensisibilities of the blog's advertisers.)

Anyhoo, I got to play twice last weekend, and It Went Very Well. How well? Well, when you have a 10-minute tournament stretch when you flop quads and get bet into, then get a pair of aces before the flop against an all-in pair of queens bet (and yes, the aces didn't crack)... well, you are running very hot indeed. I chopped for first, held my own in the subsequent play until 5am in the BS and cash session, and breathed a small note of relief, because the bankbook is really tight enough that a two-table tournament win makes a big difference right about now.

The next night, one of my regular players was running his own game, about a 45-minute drive away. He's a solid friend from way back, so two of us made the drive. He had a bunch of guys from his office who are relatively new to the game, and they are looking at the experienced players as if we were televised pros. When I got to the final table, one of them had some terrible plays paid off in all-out bets, and of course the immense stack is to my right. I wind up surviving a couple of races, then won a 40-60 flop agains the 3rd highest stack to get to the final two. It was a battle, but for once, I had more experience than the other guy, which was a pretty novel experience. As a 2-to-1 dog, I took a chop, then treaded water in the cash game and headed home.

So the weekend was a double win, with payouts of 3X and 4X of my buy-in, and my family is eating freeroll groceries for the week... and there's no more boring or irritating poker post possible, is there? I played well and got lucky and it happened twice in a row, which means that the next time I sit down at a table, it's going to go as well as rectal surgery without anesthesia. Because the Poker Gods are an awful lot like the Golf Gods, which is to say that their sense of humor is redundant, predictable, and you fall for the joke every time anyway. This game is easy! I'm getting better at it!

In a couple more weeks, I'll try a casino tournament again (so far, I'm 0 for 7 to cash, but have been slowly but surely getting a little more comfortable), and see if I can finally pop that cherry. My guess is that I'll be card dead for the entire time, or go out with cracked aces, since the luck has been with me this last weekend. And if not? Well, I've never had an interest in playing a World Series of Poker event before, but now, I'm starting to wonder. Especially if I keep flopping quads.

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