-205 @ The Commerce Casino

Wow! I'm still reeling and, as you might expect, not in the mood to relate this miserable night. It will happen soon though. Promise.

Ok. It has been a little while since the night and I'm able to look at it a little more objectively. It started out fine with some good playable hands in the first couple hours: A9 suited, A7 unsuited, pocket 4, K10 suited. Not much happened though and I got my first pot after an hour with pocket K and a flop of 8.8,Q. Everyone folded when I bet. Another interesting hand that made me some money was A,J suited and a board of 10,10,5,10,_. The flop was checked to me. I bet and got a couple callers. The turn was also checked to me and I bet it. Fold, Fold and a time. Well, that told me she didn't have a 10 and probably didn't have a 5. She folded eventually. Both of those hands could have turned out badly, but I was lucky.

After another hour of some small losses and gains I was down a total of $15. Then a maniac joined the table and everything changed. He was betting anything and everything; raising blind, capping pre-flop. He loved all his hands. "Great news!" I thought after watching him call for another rack of chips after just 15 minutes. But the only problem is that even when you have a good hand but one capable of being out-drawn you couldn't get him out. That's why when I had a set of fours and made it three bets on the flop he stayed around with his inside straight draw. Which me made of course. When I had A,Q suited I got the nut flush draw on the flop. He's raising like crazy and a few of us are coming along. None of us hit our hands and he takes it with his pocket 3s. I know that I should have been tighter, but when all the pots become as huge as they are, it is hard to stay out with those pot odds.

The most amazing hand of the night was when I had K of clubs, J of diamonds in late position. 8 of us were involved with capping the pot! The flop came 3 clubs: J,6,7. The table goes wild and the pot is capped again. Why was I in this one? Well, the K looked pretty good and I had top pair with a great kicker. The next car was a 3 of clubs. That made my K high flush, but I'm in danger of the A being in play, and with all those people, it seems likely. One guy goes all in by making it three bets. The rest of us call. The next card is a Q of clubs. So there's a flush on the table, a possible straight flush and I have the K. I'm feeling pretty good in general. I bet the river and get no callers. I turn over my king and nobody says anything about an A. Instead, all eyes are fixed on the fellow who went all in. He had 4,5 of clubs for a straight flush. He took the largest $3-$6 pot I had ever seen.

As an experiment, I kept track of the number of hands that I payed for by calling or raising pre-flop. This includes putting money in when I was the small blind, but didn't include the large blind. The button passed me 11 times before I stopped keeping count and I paid for 20 hands. So that means I was in 20/99 = 20% of the hands. I think that's too many.