For work this past week I was traveling to a small town a couple hours north of Toronto, Ontario, called Bracebridge. My flight was leaving Monday morning at 7:25am. When I woke and looked at the clock I was very surprised to see that it was 6:35am. I think my exact words were "Son of a .....!!". I'm pretty good about getting up for early flights. In five years of traveling for work this was the first time I had ever woke up late for a flight, and on that Monday, it was going to take a small miracle for me to make that flight in 50 minutes. I live about 15-20 minutes from the airport, so I quickly brushed my teeth, threw my luggage in my vehicle, and started to make my way there. I called the airline, and of course, the flight is right on time! I can't tell you the number of times I've had my Monday morning flights delayed, and the one time I actually need to have it be delayed it's going off right on schedule. Awesome!
I could waste the whole blog post detailing how I made the flight, but I won't do that. I made the flight (Woo Hoo!) and I was off to Toronto. After landing I picked up my rental and started driving north. I was able to get the facility where I'd be working set up with the help of one of the participants and I was relaxing at my hotel when I decided that maybe I should try and see what the poker room was like at the casino that was about 50 kilometers south of Bracebridge.
The poker room at Casino Rama has 14 tables, and 7 of them were in use. There were two $1/$2 No Limit Texas Hold 'em games, and three $2/$5 No Limit Texas Hold 'em games. The other two tables were being used for Limit Texas Hold 'em. I was able to lock up one of the seats at the $1/$2 game, and I went to the window to convert some U.S. Dollars to Canadian Dollars and then purchase casino chips. They gave me $224 Canadian for the $200 I wanted to exchange, and told me that I had 12 hours, but if I wanted to I could purchase the $200 US back at the same rate, which I thought was nice.
I sat down at the 11-handed table, and found myself at a table where it seemed like no less than 4 players were seeing a flop. When the table is that loose, I often find myself tightening things up and just waiting for decent hands, and then trying to force the action in to a heads up scenario. The plan was working, and within an hour I had worked my stack up from the $200 buy-in to about $350. It was at this point that a very interesting hand came up that involved two of the larger stacks at the table. The one player was two seats to my right, and had a little over $800 in chips. She appeared to be a regular, and from the play I had seen to that point was also pretty decent, getting her chips in to the middle with the goods. The other player was three seats to my left. He had about $550 in chips, and had hardly played any hands while I was there. I don't recall all the preflop action since I had folded, but there was a raise and at least the one call. The flop was:
Kx - Jh - 7h
The woman on my right led out with a less-than-pot-sized bet, and the player on my left made a minimum raise, which was called by the woman on my right. The turn was:
Kx (I only put 'x' because I don't recall the suit, and it didn't matter for the purposes of retelling this story)
Both players checked the turn, which I thought was odd, unless one of them had made a huge hand with that turn card. The river was:
9h
At this point, the woman on my right led out for about 1/3 of the pot. The other player made a slightly-larger-than-minimum raise, and the woman made a minimum raise after that. The player to my left didn't think long and moved all in, which was immediately called by the woman to my right. Before the cards were turned over I knew that at least one full house was in play (I thought the hands were going to be K-J and J-J given the way the action had occurred). In fact, the player on my left had K-J for the top full house. The woman turned over the Th-8h for a rivered straight flush!! Zowie! Talk about your bad spots to be in with the 2nd nuts! It really sucked for the K-J, since he knew that quads weren't in play because he held one King. To be perfectly honest, had I been in that player's shoes I lose all my chips there, too. I'm sure he checked the turn figuring that he had a lock on the hand (as I would have guessed, too). It was just a horrible river card for that guy. I was just glad to see those chips moving to my right, as I hoped to get a shot at them later (which I did). The action all makes sense if you look at it. The losing player flops top two pair, so he makes a minimum raise, but the player who won had both the straight and flush draw along with the straight flush draw, so the min-raise is an easy call on the flop. With the turn going check-check, it was just unfortunate, or fortunate depending on your point of view, that the river brought the card it brought. Oh, well...that's poker.
A short while later, I managed to pick off a decent pot against that woman. It was appearing as though she was using her stack to bully players at the table. I found myself holding As-4s and I limped for $2, and then called her raise to $12 with the hand. The flop was:
Ks-9x-4x
She led out with a bet, and although I'm not a big fan of playing bottom pair I did think that this bet could have been anything, including just a standard continuation bet so I decided to call the $21. The turn card was an Ace, giving me top and bottom pair. She led out for $40, which I flat called. The river was an apparent blank, so when she led out for $75 on the river I also just flat called. You might ask why I didn't raise, and what it boiled down to was the fact that she hadn't shown down a bad hand yet, and if I raise the river and she then sets me all in, I don't know if I could have called with top and bottom pair on a full board. Her image was such that I would have to respect her shown down hands, and she had enough chips to set me in without it being much damage to her own stack. My hand was good as it turned out because of the turned Ace. She had flopped the King and I sucked out on her.
I grabbed a bite to eat at the sports bar at the casino, and after coming back I requested to get moved to the $2/$5 game. I had just under $600, and was informed when I got moved over that I could only buy in for $500, so I had to pocket a couple chips. Things weren't going so well for me over at the new game as I was one of the shorter stacks, but after losing a couple pots early and then flopping a flush with Ah-Qh(and getting bet at on the river) to recover some of what I had lost, a new player sat down which was going to turn out to be the guy who I wanted to play against. The player was very aggressive, attempting to take down pots with pure aggression. His stack jumped early, and was able to bully a player or two, and while he was doing this he was showing his trash hands that were missing the board. I got involved in one pot with him with A-8suited, flopped the top pair (the 8), but the board was all hearts, and I was eventually pushed off my hand at the turn. He didn't show that hand, but that was OK with me. I almost didn't want to know.
My second, and last, pot with him started with me being dealt Kh-Jh. The aggressive player had raised to $25, and I called with my speculative hand. The flop was pretty decent for my hand:
Jx-8d-4d (two diamonds)
He led out for $40, and I raised to $100, figuring if he had air he would just let it go. He called, so I guessed he had some piece of the board. The turn card was under the Jack and not a diamond. He checked and I, wanting to control the pot a little bit, also checked. If I made my standard bet here of somewhere between 1/2 the pot and the pot, I thought he would call anyway, and then the pot would be so large by the river I could be very easily looking at betting or calling my whole stack. This player had made that play on the river against two other players in pots and shown bluffs when they folded, so I wanted to keep the pot manageable so I could call a decent river bet if it wasn't an over bet. I had already made the decision that I was going to call the river no matter what if it wasn't an Ace or diamond. Well, the river was the Jack of diamonds, giving me trips, but putting the flush in play. My opponent led out for $175, which was a sizeable bet, but it was small enough for me to call with my trips. I did think about it for a minute, and I was thankful that I hadn't bet the turn, since if I did and he had called there, I knew that he would have been betting my whole stack here instead of the $175. I called and waited for him to show his hand, and he turned over the Tx-7x for a missed gutshot straight draw. It was a healthy pot to rake in! That player busted shortly thereafter (on a complete bluff), and left to get some more cash. I was informed by some regulars at the table that he was a local fireman that had won a million dollars in a lottery/contest. I guess he just likes to play poker. Good for him!
I waited for him to come back for about half an hour, but he didn't return, and it was starting to approach midnight, and I had about a 30-minute drive back to Bracebridge, so I called it a night. I exchanged $224 of my Canadian money for my $200 US dollars, and still had $555 Canadian to cashout. Pretty nice considering I'm trying to build the bankroll for the 2009 World Series of Poker in a little over a week!
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