Lately, I've been pulling back on the online play. It's probably because: a. I'm not very good and b. I can't put in the kind of volume needed to find out if I'm correct about "a.". So I've been spending some time playing locally, both in limit/spread limit cash as well as the new tourneys they've unveiled at Bay and GC. Good times. I've been on a nice run at the GC tournaments, although...they are more like 45 man SnG's as they don't often crack the 50 player mark. I've cashed a few times over there recently, min cashing in 8th place, taking 3rd and then chopping another 5 ways for 1k (which officially put me in 3rd). Even though I think I had an edge the pay scale escalated as such that it would have been disaster to come in 5th rather than chop for better than 3rd place money. That's how I saw it anyway.
Well, after a nice run last weekend I jumped back into a 3/100 spread game last night where variance was on my side once again. The SB was good to me as I took 100, ran it down to 75 and then looked down at KK. There was an open to 6 and the button makes it like 45...such a massive overbet. Well, I just stick my 75 in there and get a complete, of course, from the button. The flop runs out K88 so I'm feeling pretty good with my flopped boat. But just in case the button made a play with p8's, the river came K giving me quads on my all in and doubling me up, plus a little more. Not horrible. :)
There was a casino employee playing and he was pretty much killing the table, I was staying out of his way as he seemed to be hitting every flop with every hand. He got up to leave and he began to rack his chips. He waived off the dealer for the hand but she delivered it to him anyway. He looks down, laughs and says "OK, one more hand..." and then open limps for $3. Just about the rest of the table calls and then, once again in the SB, I look down and see AA looking back at me. Some quick calculations, 7 players each in for 3...let's make it 18 to go. The BB calls to my surprise and then back to the casino employee who insta makes it +100 to go. Folds back to me and I don't make a big deal of it, just grab my stack...totaling about 130 left, and shove it in the middle. The BB then hems and haws, wanting to play (he's sitting on AKcc he later revealed) but folds and my opponent says "oh man, I should have just left...I call". No bad beat story here, I double up when my Aces hold vs. his JJ on a dry board. He leaves about 150 lighter than he would have had he left 2 minutes earlier and I leave an hour later +440 and in good spirits.
Not that anyone will read this and if they did, they probably wouldn't be in the Bay Area but if so...check out Garden City's new daily tournaments. I think there's a ton of value there. 5/6k starting stack, 20 min levels and frankly...some horrible play. I'm no poker genius by my own admission but I have yet to find myself outplayed in one of these. Outflopped, sure..outkicked, ok...sucked out on, usually...but outplayed, not yet. These guys are either maniacs, novices or supernits so if you have the wherewithall to be reading P5, you probably have an edge. Aside from that, they are well run and pretty fun!
Sometimes it's nice when things go your way.