King, Jack, Yahtzee

Poker Diary Time. Big time today. You can either swim with the jargon or take a pass, but at this point, you are expecting this kind of thing from me, right?

Harrah's has opened a new poker room in Chester, PA, a much easier ride than Atlantic City for me, and right next to a state correctional facility, so they've got plenty of entertainment options for the Serious Player. So one of the regulars at my home game and I decided to make a ride of it. It's a nice place -- lots of land, a horse race track attached that adds to the ambiance when people start hyperventilating over the ends of races, free parking and more daylight than the usual sucker house. It really feels more like a new mall than a casino. You can also make a nice clean vault over the guard rails and hurt yourself nicely on your trip back to the parking lot if the cards run bad. Helpful, really.

Anyway... you can pretty much stick a fork in our runs to AC from this, if for no other reason than the 90 minutes of saved driving is just all to the good. They need to expand the room before they start offering tournaments, sadly, and there won't be that much reason to go there when they open up table games in Bensalem, but that's all gravy for players. Plus, it gives me the bonus of stopping at Tony's Place in NEast Philly, a fantastic tomato pie place that once burned to the ground as I tried to tip the waitress. They still make a fine pie, and hey, I didn't die in the event, so we're all good.

I buy in for $200 at a $1/$2 NL game. My very first hand at the table is King-Jack suited in late position, so I call a pre-flop raise and make top pair on the flop. I minimum bet the flop and get one caller. The turn appears to change nothing, so I fire again. Another call. I'm putting him on a draw that I'm not pricing him out of, King with a weak kicker, or less happily, Ace-King and I'm making him far too happy by betting his hand for him. The river comes and I decide to fire one last time, hoping the draw missed him. He calls -- boo! -- but then shows King-Ten, and my Jack outkicks him. Phew. In two minutes, I'm up over $100. This game is... not easy. But fun when you win.

So I'm free rolling nice and easy from the start, the table is giving me serious props for the play, and I chip up over the next few hours to a stack that's twice my buy-in. Continuation bet/bluffs are working, I'm getting playable cards, the table isn't too maniacal despite some very deep stacks, and there is no very big hand that hurts me. Life is good. I get up to $420 at one point, then drop $50 when the guy to my left and my ride take me off two pair with a flush and straight draw on the board. Ah well. You have to fold the best hand sometimes, right?

As it's getting late in the day, and as I'm an hour from home and want to put my kids to bed, I give my ride the 15 minutes signal. I'll cash out for a nice little profit, we'll think highly of this new non-AC option, and that will be that.

So on what will be, and is planned to be, my last hand of the night, I'm dealt K-J again, this time off-suited, on the button. Not really what I wanted to see, but the Gods of Poker do not smile kindly on outside forces dictating your decisions, young Jedi, so let's at least try to limp with it. Limps and low-priced family pots have been happening with some frequency for most of the last two hours... but not recently.

The guy to my left, who has made most of the pre-flop raises and bluffed me out of the two-pair pot with air, makes it $17 total. Gahhh. He gets one other caller at the full price, and the blinds fold. It's $15 to see a flop. Well, what the hell. If I miss, it won't kill me, and $350 is still a nice cash. Call.

The flop comes out King, Jack, Jack. Full freaking house. Yahtzee.

Normally in a moment like this, having flopped a stone cold monster, I'll think hard about checking, especially if I've got a Mr. Aggro to the left of me. But my read is that the guy has a pair of something, and that he's going to read any bet I make as theft. Besides, there's $50 in the pot, and a pot-sized bet is a nice raise that might still look like stealing. So let's look like a thief. $50.

He sees the $50 and makes it $50 more. Mission one accomplished.

If I re-raise small, does it look like the nuts or just small minded thievery? There's one hand in the entire deck that can beat me, and that hand is a pair of kings, which I can't put him on. Nothing else. He can't have quad jacks, since I've got one of those.

Does he have the pair of kings? No... because he would have just called my raise and let me try to make a bigger hand. Even if he's put me on trip jacks, letting me see one or two more cards for the chance at the rest of my chips is the right play.

So let's not get too tricky. I'll shove. Make it look like I'm just going for the jittery overbet. The raise comes to a nice round $200 to him. I'm just a stone cold thief, sir. Prove my ballsy but reckless play wrong. But to be honest, I can't be that good of an actor, and he can't make that bad of a misread. Right?

He's surprised by the move, but unable to get off his initial read of weakness on me. After only about 30 seconds of thinking about it, he calls and flips over his pocket aces. I more or less forget all decorum and throw down my boat like it's thunder from Olympus. He's got two outs, and two outs only... and the turn and river don't improve anyone.

I find two empty chip trays -- two chip trays! -- and nearly sprint to the window, which is, I suppose, another crushing failure of poker decorum. I cash for $749 total, and four hours later as I write this, I'm still kind of stunned.

First off, that he didn't turn over kings. Second off, that he'd call with just a pair of aces there; even trip jacks would have had him crushed. Third, that I'd hit a miracle flop in perfect position, against a player that had the stack to double me, and the perfect misread at the perfect time. I've played live poker something like 50 times in the last 20 months, and this kind of thing has never -- never -- happened. At least, not for those kinds of stakes, and with that kind of drama. Finally, that I was able to hit the hand and run. That's just bad form. And something I've always kind of felt like doing whenever I win a monster pot...

Anyway, I think I have a new favorite hand. And, for the moment at least, a more lucrative hobby than blogging.