KFAN poker lounge, $0.25/$0.50 cash game

For the past few weeks, one of the local Minneapolis radio stations has put on a Poker talk show on Monday nights. It's called the KFAN Poker Lounge and the 3 guys talk poker strategy, they talk about some of the games they've played, some of the hands, hands they've seen on TV, some of the big stories in the poker world, and they make fun of each other. The show is pretty good. I think it could be better because I really don't care about people bad beats and I am trying to not talk about my bad beats anymore, but none the less, I listen to the podcasts on Tuesday mornings.

They also have a poker chat room where local players can talk about the same stuff and I have actually read some pretty good posts. So recently, a poker chat (or rube chat as they call it) member decided to get a private tournament setup on Full Tilt.com and have players join in. The game happened last night. The buy-in was $5 + $.50 and we had 7 players. Not the best turn out, but it was fun. Here's some highlights:

- I started off early, firing fast and trying to take down some pots. Wanted to play aggressive early and get that loose image across the table. I think it worked actually. I was raising a lot preflop and narrowing the field down. I was about 50/50 in taking down pots after the flop.

- Due to my aggression, chips started dwindling away so I slowed down and concentrated more. From this point, I started limping preflop then firing post flop. This strategy was actually working a lot better and I was able to get back up to my original starting stack quickly.

- Then I got some hands. All while this was going on, the other players were playing pretty tight. Each hand was 2 or 3 handed and it would be a raise preflop, then a continuation bet or a reraise would usually take the pot down. Didn't see many showdowns.

- 2nd biggest hand of the night was against Ralvek (Andy) where I woke up with 2 beautiful ladies in my hand. I raised 3x and had 1 caller, Andy. Flop was all low, no draw, just dead. I bet about 2/3 of the pot I believe and Andy reraised me. There was now about 1K in the pot and I had around 750 left so I pushed all in and after some thinking, Andy folded. Good fold son.

- Biggest hand of the night was against PMAC. He is one of the KFAN Poker Lounge hosts and he talks a lot of talk. Just go here and you will see what I mean - http://www.kfan.com/pages/Poker.html. He is "Mackey" in the blogs.

Anyways, I'm in early position, and I wake up with the bullets. I have about 1100 in chips and I make it 300 to go, the standard 3x raise which a lot of people don't like. PMAC raises all-in to a total of about 800. I figure he has a pair or AK and I think he is putting me on either a middle pair, AQ, KQ, or a total bluff and steal attempt. I instacall and it's just him and I, heads up. AA vs KK. I love it. He laughs and I take the pot down. PMAC is quiet now and my goal of taking him out is complete.

Now I'm not saying I'm a great poker player because of this but the following factors did help me because he pushed when some would just call (though I was always ahead) :

- I bet 3x the BB. As I said, a lot of people think this is too low, while some people think this is standard. Since people think this is standard, a lot of people will put someone on Ax when they make this kind of move, making any pocket pair a monster.

- I played loose all night and kept the same betting patterns for all of my hands.

- No one can get away from KK, not even me, not even PMAC, when you are preflop and don't even have 10 BB's left in your chip stack.

So basically this hand just worked out in my favor this time. It bites me hard later.

Back to the game - I ended up finishing 4th when Andy got the last laugh and took me out with my so called "favorite hand" in poker, the Q2. I was SB, Andy on the button, blinds 60/120, here we go....

Andy calls the 120, I call with J10 offsuit. BB checks and we see a flop of Q J x rainbow. I'm first to act so I make about a 2/3 pot sized bet. BB folds and Andy reraises. Now I'm in the tank and I'm thinking of all the hands Andy could have. I come to the conclussion that he has a Q, but I can go over the top of him and either push him off his hand if he doesn't have AQ or hit 1 of my MANY outs and get lucky (50% of poker is luck right? RIGHT?). With this process, I push all in and Andy thinks for about 2 seconds before calling and flipping up Q2o. Q2o. Say it with me, Q2 offsuit. So Andy takes down the pot, I'm out of the game and a little annoyed because Andy tells me "I had to play it".

Why did you have to play it Andy, because you had a paint card in a 4 handed poker game and thought it would hold up against the 2 other players after you just smooth called preflop? No that's not why.

It's because I won a hand once with Q2 where I hit quads on the river and knocked a guy out of a game because the guy was drunk and stupid. From there, I joked that Q2 was my favorite hand and I would always play it, I even named a blog after Q2. However, I never play this hand unless I am in a small or big blind and stealing a pot at which point I would be raising preflop. And even if I did hit and someone went over the top of my reraise with All-in, I would call maybe 1% of the time because Q3 and every other kicker beats me. But Andy was the chip leader and could afford to lose 1000 chips to me if I did have AQ so he called my all-in anyways.

I'm not complaining, I'm just telling you about the hand that took me out and the reasoning behind the hand. You make your own judgement.

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$0.25/$0.50 cash game

Moving on to my cash game later that night. I sat down at the 25/50 cent table on Full Tilt with $50 to my name and started off hot. I was raising a lot preflop, reraising continuation bets and taking down some pots, playing really good poker I thought. I was up about $15 when I woke up with KK in late/middle position. The pot has already been raised to $2.25 so I reraised to $5. The SB reraises to $13. I think 1 thing and 1 thing only, he has aces. I even say it outloud. And then I push all my chips in to the middle and he calls. This is now a $90 pot and I have $20 left in my stack. My call was right and he has AA to my KK and he takes it down. What can you do there? Do you fold KK when you get reraised preflop? Maybe, maybe not. This guy had played a lot of hands already so I was thinking he could have anything but I knew he had a pair or AK. It was a race because at any point a K could have hit the table, but it didn't.

I accepted, and added more chips to bring me back to $50. About 20 minutes later, I had something like A8 and raised. BB called and the flop came down giving me the A, but there were 4 spades on the table. So the process was, I bet $2 into a $3.50 pot on the flop with an instacall from the BB. Check/ check on the turn and check/check on the river. My hand was good, but I was upset because I should have made a potsize bet on the river after he checked the flush draw on the table. I was upset because I didn't get the best value out of my hand. Then 10 minutes later, I had another chance with the same guy.

This time I have pocket 10's and I raise to $2. Same guy calls me, I think his name was WhiteClrRedNeck or something. We will him Joe. So the flop comes 10 4 5 with 2 spades again. I am first to act and I bet 2/3 the pot, instacall. I'm on to something here.

Turn is an 8s. Flush draw on the table, I have a set, I bet the pot to see where I am, $10 into it. Instacall. He doesn't have a flush or he would have reraised me and if he is slow playing, good for me because I could pair the board and dominate him. River is an 8c. I have my boat, he has maybe a flush, maybe 2 pair, maybe a smaller boat. I bet the pot, $25 and put him all in. He calls and I take the $90 pot down. He had A10o the whole time and though his kicker was good. He probably peed a little when he got 2 pair with top kicker.

So with this hand, that put me actually $10 ahead of my original starting point, so my lose earlier with KK to AA was nullified and I was happy. I played a little more and finally walked away with $71, $8 down. Not a bad night. And I had fun.

See you at the tables..