Monday, March 17, 2008

Some Poker While At the State Bowling Tournament

Every year right around mid March my bowling team goes to bowl in the State Bowling tournament. They rotate the location of the tournament through different cities, and this year the State Bowling Tournament was in the Fox Valley area. One bowling alley was in Appleton, and the other was in Neenah. Since Appleton is only about 30 minutes from Green Bay a couple of my teammates and I thought it would be a good idea to stay at the Oneida casino and hotel in Green Bay.

I had no problem with this since I knew I would get the opportunity to play poker in the poker room there. The weekend had a theme going for me…win at poker, lose at blackjack...win at poker, lose at craps…win at poker, lose at blackjack…win at poker, bowl horrible. I think you get the idea. All in all I finished about $200 up including the cost of the room, meals, and side pots at bowling. Sounds good, right? The only problem was that I had won $700 in my first poker session and $500 in my second poker session. That tells you what kind of weekend I was having with everything else.

I did have an entertaining poker session in my second session, and I wanted to share some of that with you. The session began with me taking a beat when I pushed with a flush draw, hit it, but my opponent had a set that turned in to a full house. Then, after rebuying, I got my chips in with Jacks on a 7-high board against someone with AK. The river brought a King, and now I was rebuying again. Sometimes it just doesn’t come easy. I spent the next three hours getting myself to within a hundred dollars of even, and I caught a rush of cards. It started innocently enough, with me getting AA, reraising someone’s raise, and taking down a pot. On the following hand I was dealt AK, raised, and took down a small pot again when all the limpers folded. I was dealt TT on the next hand, reraised another player, got called, and took down the pot with a bet on the flop. So now I thought I should play the rush. I was dealt 7s-4s and called when there was a raise and a caller in front of me. The flop was: 5s-6s-Th. This gave me an open-ended straight draw, a flush draw, and a straight flush draw. This is a huge flop for me. It was checked to me so I led out and bet. The player behind me raised, and I moved all in. They folded saying they had T-7, so they had top pair, weak kicker. My hand was a favorite, and I raked a nice pot. I still hadn’t shown down a hand, so I knew that my table image had to appear as though I was just shoving chips like a maniac. Well, on the very next hand, I got KK. I raised preflop to $35 and got a caller. It happened to be the same player from when I had TT, and I was getting the feeling that he (and the rest of the table) was getting sick of me pushing them around with my chips. The flop was: J-8-4 (two hearts). I bet, this guy raised, and I called. I happened to have the Kh. The turn was the Ah. Now, if a player is drawing to a flush, a lot of times they are drawing with the Ah, so I didn’t think they had a flush. That made me think that betting was still correct, so I did. My opponent slowed down and just called. The river was another heart giving me the nuts. I bet again, and my opponent gave me a disgusting look. You could tell that he was thinking I was pushing again. He asked me “I suppose you made your flush this time?” as he called my bet. Normally, I would have just told him yes and showed him the cards, but I was trying to put the table on tilt, so I responded “Duhh!!” and flamboyantly turned my cards over. I won the pot, and more importantly, I got every player at the table thinking one thing…get this guy!! Now, I’m sort of used to that from one of the poker leagues I play in, so I adjusted my play.

Over the next two hours, I played five hands. All five times they were premium hands and on four of those five my hand held up. I think I garnered more action than I normally would get because of my actions earlier. As I stated earlier in this post I finished this session up about $500, which was really good considering the way it started.

I just wish I could say my bowling that weekend was good. I shot absolutely awful, with only one game out of nine being above my average. I guess there’s always next year. The State tournament is in Green Bay next year, so I think I’ll get another shot at the tables at Oneida then!

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