Free Poker

While my wife is out of town, I decided to go out yesterday and this evening to play some free poker. There are no locations close to me that are part of the Amateur Poker League, so yesterday, I drove a pretty good distance. Tonight, I went somehwere that was sort of on the way home.

Sunday's sessions weren't that bad. In the 6pm tournament, I started slow, but picked up after the first break. I caught one lucky set of community cards when we were down to about 14 players. I was short stacked and forced all in on the blind. I think I had suited cards, but they weren't worth much. The Board hit with an Ace High straight. We wound up with a three-way split of the pot. I was still pretty short-stacked, but I managed to make it to the final table of 8. Went out first for an 8th place finish.

In the 9pm session, I hit two big hands early and rode it to the final table again. I was second in chips, but because of the turbo-style blind structure, I still wasn't in great shape. I played a hand I shouldn't have, which left me with a medium stack (by comparison to the table—it was a short stack in relation to the blinds). I decided to take a stab at it before being forced all-in on a blind, but I couldn't hit the cards I needed. Slightly better this time with a 6th place.

Monday night, the location was thankfully snoke-free, but much more crowded. the guy to my left busted out another player early, so he had a pretty good sized stack. I was dealt A-10 in the big blind for $40, big stack raised to $100, and I re-raised to $300 when it came around to me. He called. The flop came A-J-10, so I had two pair. I bet out $300 and big stack raised to $1000. I immediately re-raised all-in. He called and turned over A-Q suited. At this point there were only 7 cards that would kill me—the 3 other Queens and the 4 Kings. The turn was a King. I still had 7 outs on the River. And Ace or 10 would give me a winning full house, and a Queen would result in a split pot. No such luck, and I got to leave early. In fact, they should be finishing up just about now.

I wasn't happy to be eliminated, but I told myself that you can't beat yourself up when you play it right and it just doesn't work.

CORRECTION: It dawned on me this morning that the other player actually had 10 outs. If another Jack had come up, we would both have had 2 pair (Aces & Jacks) and his Queen would play over my 10. Now, I'm not as sure I made the right play.