Foxwoods Recap

The characters:

Seat 1 - Executive chef at a well known private country club
Seat 2 - Former investment banker
Seat 3 - Seafood cook for a decent restaurant
Seat 4 - Former 5/10 uncapped NL player who had to drop stakes
Seat 5 - Me
Seat 6 - Former president of a manufacturing company who is now self-employed. Amateur chef.
Seat 7 - Drunk tourist
Seat 8 - Young spewtard
Seat 9 - Quiet rock
Seat 10 - Younger, good player

This was my table for the better part of 12 hours. The conversations covered the best wine and restaurants in the world, investment banking, the best online poker site for cash games, the WSOP, China, and the fact that I managed to leave a 1-2 NL table with $1800.

I sat with $300 and basically folded for three or four orbits. Prior to the seafood cook taking seat 3 there was a guy in a Yankees cap who was hammering every single pot and it was working for him. No one at the table, except possibly me, was an aggressive caller and so they were laying down hand after hand to him. Then it happened.

I picked up AQ suited when he was UTG. He made it $13 and I flatted. Obviously it's a raise under most circumstances but I had a plan for the hand.

Everyone else folded, fortunately.

The flop came A 4 8 rainbow. He bet $30 and I flatted. The turn brought another 4 so at this point I was 99.8888% sure I was good. He bet $75 and I jammed over the top for about $160 more. He took a very long time and at that point I was 100% sure I was good. Finally he called and turned over AJ so I won a nice pot there.

I managed to win another pot of about $200 when I flopped top set versus a shorter stack's bottom two pair.

My biggest hand came when I had 55 on the button. There were three limpers ahead of me and I limped the button. Small blind completed and big blind checked his option.

The flop came J 3 5 with two hearts. The small blind led out for pot. Big blind called as did seat 3, the seafood cook. Seat 3 was a pretty aggressive caller who knew how to float in position and take a stab on the turn, but this was a multi-way pot and so I put him on a pretty big heart draw. I thought the SB probably had some sort of Jack in his hand and the BB probably had a Jack or a heart draw.

Obviously I needed to raise here. I made it $75 more on top and the Small Blind thought for a bit before pushing all-in for about $110. The big blind immediately shoved for about $130. Seat 3, his name was Paco, thought really long. We'd been chatting and he knew I was a good player.

Paco: I know that no matter what I do your next action is all-in and so I am doing a pre-emptive all-in. Good luck to us.

Me: You're right. I'm all-in. Let's do this.

Paco had about $340 behind when he shoved so this had turned into a really large pot. The Turn brought a Jack giving me fives full and the river was a 7 or 8. I immediately turned over my boat and the dealer began looking at everyone else.

The small blind turned over J2 of diamonds (wtf?). The BB turned over KT of hearts and even though Paco didn't have to show he sighed and showed me A7 of hearts. Wow. Just wow.

Paco gave me a fist bump and the guy to my immediate right, the former high stakes player, patted me on the back.

Seat 4: It's been a long time since I saw someone with this much money at a 1/2 table. Congratulations. You've definitely played well enough to deserve it.

As I stacked my chips I looked up to realize a couple nearby tables had come over to watch the action because a commotion had been building while we were all taking our action on the flop. I'd been so in the zone that I didn't even realize any of this until the hand was over.

It took 4 racks to go to the cage and I basically had everyone in the 1-2 section looking at me as I took the long walk over there. I could get used to that.