LIve Poker is Fun

I host a game at my house. There are no casinos in the sunny island of Barbados but we do get US television. The ESPN fuelled Moneymaker boom lead to an increased interest in poker here as well. However, with no casinos to sustain it and some banks restricting credit card payments, the games have subsided substantially over the last few years.

My game runs at least once a week when I am in the island. It has evolved into a mixed game. 5/10NLHE, 10/10PLO and 30/60 Stud Hi. We also play tournaments occasionally to send players to the WSOP etc. It is a mixture of a few average to good players and several degenerate gamblers who are there to have fun and feel the rush of the big bluff. The latter group will proudly tell you that you can’t learn to play poker from reading a book and so they never will.

I will tell stories about my game here in this blog.

It is the height of our carnival season here, many of the guys are more interested in going to the parties and feeling the gyrations of fit, young women’s bodies so its almost impossible to get the game to run on a weekend at this time. I am not so interested in what’s out there since I have much better at home. My wife is paisa (from Medellin, Colombia) and is a Pilates instructor. Nuff said. Last night we managed to get 6 guys. The game got short and we end up four handed when this hand came up.

Its the Hold em rotation. I am on the button with 66 and its folded to me so I raise to 30. The SB calls and the BB makes it 130. The BB is a loose passive player who hardly ever 3 bets pre. I immediately narrow his range to a AA,KK, maybe QQ and he is possibly raising JJ here as well. I start the hand with 1260 and he covers.

I, of course decide to magic a set from the deck and stack his ass.

As Mike Sexton would say, ‘Bingo Bango Bongo!’ right on the flop – Q 6 8 rainbow.
He checks and I bet 155. He calls.

10 on the turn for a complete Badugi board. he checks, I bet 365. He calls after studying the board for at least 3 minutes and declaring that he knows that ‘I aint got shit.’

J on the river. He shoves.

I am behind so many hinds at this point, QQ, JJ, 88, 1010 and AK. He NEVER has 79 in this spot.
I am beating AA, KK and a complete bluff.

I take AK out of his range based on the action. I also think JJ has folded by now and 88 is not being played so aggressively preflop by this particular villain.

I make the call expecting to see AA but knowing that I might see queens, or jacks.

He shows AK and I throw up in my mouth. I say, ‘Good hand. I would never have put you on AK. It was well disguised.’ and cash out the last few players and go upstairs to wake up my wife to whine to her.

Home games are the best. I go to sleep bewildered but content in the knowledge that our villain will continue to make those calls and bluff the river when he misses the next 92 out of 100 times.
And those times will continue to pay for my trips to Vegas.