Working for a Living

I have my first job interview tomorrow for a reporting job in South Carolina. I guess I'm glad that I'm finally getting back to work, but it's yet another signal that this easy life is going to end before long. It's been nice quitting my job, living in Santiago, traveling and playing poker for a living. I can't do it forever though. It's a fun life, but poker isn't everything.

That said, poker still rules.

Tunica was a lot of fun, even though I lost a little money. I won about $200 in limit play and lost $140 on blackjack and $360 on no limit hold em. The no limit game was almost very profitable, if not for a couple of bad beats. On both of them, I made good reads preflop and pushed all in. Unfortunately, my pocket 9s and AT didn't hold up against KJo and 87s. Oh well. I'd do it again!

The most interesting hand of the trip came at a table at the Horseshoe in a 4/8 limit hold em game. Daniel and I were sitting at the table, and he recounts some of the excellent table talk in this post.

Going into the hand, two of the players were known quantities. There was Old Sham in the small blind, who called most hands preflop and only bet postflop with a very strong hand. Then there was a guy in late position who played every hand to the river and hardly ever folded.

I had pocket queens from middle position. Early position raised, I reraised, and eventually I capped the betting at five bets. Five people saw the flop with 25 small bets in the pot.

The flop brought 457 (or something similar to that). It was three bet on the flop, and four people saw the turn with me leading the betting. There were about 19 big bets when the turn card came.

It was a 6 to put four to a straight on the board. Old Sham, the rock, bets. Early position folds and I fold, knowing that my pocket pair is either drawing dead or nearly dead. The late position calling station calls.

The river brings a 3 to put a straight on the board. Old Sham and the late position player split the pot. Old Sham had the 3 in his hand already and had made the straight on the turn.

Should I have folded?

Daniel and I did the math, and it comes out to a pretty close call. I would have been drawing to a three-way split pot with not more than six outs (as many as three 8s and three 3s). A three-way split pot of 20 big bets is 6.67. If I had six outs, I was getting about 6.7:1 on my call. And I know I was way behind and drawing to a split pot.

It's a very very close call. The pot was enormous. There was no way I could scoop the pot. But for one more bet, I think I should have seen the river. It was too large to fold. Oh well.

It was a good trip all-around though. The play was loose and passive, just like last time I was in Tunica. Sometimes, you can't make the cards do what you want though. Even then, I was almost a winner if not for those no limit hands.

Back to casino bonuses and the new Party Poker bonus!

Here's the link for the Party bonus: BONUSAUG