My wild first experience at 10/20NL
Before one of my favorite tournaments on the strip last week, I tried a 10/20NL cash game to kill some time. There was a ton of action in the poker room and the sports book because of March Madness playoffs playing to the final four. I checked out the table before I sat down, and it looked relatively calm. Everyone had approximately 2K in front of them except for one huge stack of about 40K and a couple smallish stacks of 800, the minimum buy-in. I had never seen any of these players before, so I decided to sit opposite the huge stack and to the right of this older gentleman that looked to be playing kind of tight.
I only had an hour before the tournament, and I just didn’t want to sit there like a rock, in fear of losing my 2K, so I tried to get involved early and lose that image right away. Luckily for me, I got slapped in the face with the deck and took advantage of it. In one hour, I had AA, KK, TT twice each, QQ once, and an assortment of trapping hands like JQh, 78s, and such that I played in late position. It was fun to get involved and had already pushed my entire stack in 3 times against big raises. It was very nerve wracking, but fun at the same time. I was up about 5K at one point, when my AA went down in flames to a guy that cold called my 5x raise preflop, then pushed on a seamlessly harmless flop of Q93 rainbow. When I bet 600, and he pushed, I figured I was up against trips, but I couldn’t lay it down because it cost me only 1K more to call and it was worth it to me. He had pocket 9’s and I lost a bundle on that one.
The most interesting hand of the whole day occurred after I had been pounding at this older gentleman most of the time and had apparently gotten him frustrated by re-raising him numerous times when he didn’t bet enough on the flop. Every time he did this, it was apparent he was just trying to steal and it was very obvious he was starting to tilt. Anyway, I limped with TT on the button after 2 other players limped. The old guy raised the pot to 270. One of the other players called, and I called to see a flop of AQ6 rainbow. He, again, bet only 300 into a pot of 860, which signaled to me weakness, and after the other player folded, I raised to 1200. He started thinking for a bit, but called, which didn’t make me feel too good about my hand all of a sudden. He checked the turn when a 5 fell, and after that huge call after my raise, I decided to check behind him. The river brought a beautiful T, but it was a little problematic because now there was a straight and a flush on board. He checked again, so I decided that my trips were good and made a value bet of 600. He, surprisingly, re-raised all in, and now I had to take some time to think it through. After about 2 min of pondering what he could possibly have, I ended up putting him on KK and he was tilting. There is no way he would have checked a straight or flush on the river with the amount he was down already. So I called, and he didn’t want to show his cards at first. I pushed my stack in and said again “I call !”. His hesitation made me feel a lot better because I knew I had him beat now, but he was refusing to turn his hand over, so I just sat there with my protector over my cards waiting for him to do something. He said “I have Kings”. I said, “So, you are folding?”. Finally, he threw his hand face down towards the dealer and he mucked them. I picked up both my cards and showed him one ten (I know, kind of cheesy to do that, but he was acting like an ass for the whole hour). He flips out and grabs the cards our of my hand , then proceeds to throw them face up to everyone. I was flabbergasted, and didn’t even know how to react. I decided to just smirk and let it slide knowing that I had him really tilting now.
The tournament was starting, so I got up, but I think maybe I should have stayed a bit more since he came back with another pile of chips, just ready for someone to take away.