Ker-Ching

Live poker-wise, tomorrow I am planning to go to Chingford (the Slick poker club, which is frequented by a good few gutshotters) to play in a £250 2/5 PLH game.

Last week, the game was £500 £5/5 PLH. That is much bigger than I normally play but I was persuaded to go and decided I would play a patient game.

Well, when I arrived the game started and we were 5-handed (hence why it hadn't started prior to my arrival). The FIRST HAND I got dealt AK on the big blind. Fold/fold to the button who made it £15. Well, patience is one thing, but I did not want to get tricky so I raised to £60 which the button called.

Flop: KK6. Bingo ! 2 hearts unfortunately but I think heads-up it is unlikely the one other player has 2 hearts as well, so I checked hoping to check-raise.

However, the button quickly checked and the turn brought the 5 of hearts. I bet £50, which was raised to £150. I may be up against the made flush but there are other possibilities and maybe he has a small flush that he can lay down to a big bet etc. etc. If he does have a flush then I can re-draw to the full house. I raise all-in.

After some pause, my opponent calls and shows A3-hearts for the nut flush. A blank on the river means that after one hand, I am down £500 !

After that, things did improve and when the game broke in spectacular style, I has reduced by losses to a little over £100.

A few words on the game-ending pot. We were 6-handed (having been 7 handed for much of the night) when a flop of 974 (2 diamonds) in a raised pot led to fireworks. 3 players saw the flop.

A tight player opened for £100, raised to £300 by next-to-act (a strong, imaginative player). The third player (a good player, but playing very loose tonight) moved in for £650. The first-to-act quickly pushed all his chips in (£950) and it was with some apparent pain that our third player eventually called for most of his chips. The pot contained about £2,700.

The first all-in player showed 56 for up/down with no flush. The original flop bettor showed KK with the King of diamonds. The other player did not show but later claimed to have black Aces.

Jd and 2d were the turn and river: runner/runner flush for the Kings.

With 2 players busted and not willing to pull up again, there was no game left. It was however still too early, really, to finish so the remaining 4 of us drove over to Clerkenwell and started a £2/5 game there which was still running on Saturday, apparently.

I doubled up early there with Q4 in the big blind: I hit top two-pair on the flop and managed to get £500 in by the turn. My 2pair was good.

2pair was the hand of the night, really, as I lost a £1400 pot with 56 - flopped top 2pair on the 456 board (two hearts). I put my opponent on a big pair but when we managed to get £700 each in on the flop, he turned out to have 74 of the wrong suit - however, an eight on the turn was enough for him. That knocked me back but I still managed to finish with enough of a win to see the whole night as a profit.

I'm hoping to make a better start tomorrow !