A Little Live Play with Friends

I played a little bit of live poker with my friends this weekend. Not anything BIG or exciting, but basically intended to be fun, while practice at the same time. We played two turbo-SNG-esque tournaments back to back. I felt like "overall" I played VERY well... unfortunately I spent all of my time "playing well" on the short stack... ugh! I must admit, I am a GREAT short stack player, and its not really from me constantly being on a short stack in tournaments, because thats just not true... especially the way I play. Its mainly due to the fact that A LOT of my tournament experience is online, where you hardly ever have chips to play with... you're almost always low on chips compared to the blinds. So, you get the point.

Set-up:
6 People
10k in chips
15 minute levels

Not the structure we usually use, but based on the low turnout of people I decided to just play two turbo-tourneys rather than one long well structured one (which I would have preferred).

-Game 1-

I was playing just how I wanted to, seeing flops cheaply with "fun hands" and keeping the pots small/stealing orphan pots. Everything was going well and then...

With the blinds at 50-100, a semi-loose limper just limped in up front for 100. Two people limped behind him in position, SB folded and I was in the BB with Qh-Qd. In my opinion, raising here is wrong.
A) The blinds are low enough that, if I put in a raise devised to "take down the pot right now", it will have to be fairly big, like 800-900, maybe even 1k. Which is far to much to be raising with the stacks as deep as they are.
B) I'm going to be out of position the whole hand if just ONE of them calls the raise, which is kind of likely since there are three of them... I mean realistically ONE of them will probably try to see a flop if I raise.
C) Much like above, it is realistic to believe that I will be seeing a flop anyway, so why not just try and keep the pot small, all the while disguising the strength of my hand in case one of them does hit weakly (like they have 9-8 and flop a weak top pair on a 9-5-2 flop, etc.) I'll get payed off.

So I did, what I felt was the best play, and checked.

The flop was junk:
10-7-5, rainbow
(Pot: 450)

I led at the pot for 350. The semi-loose gy from up front min-raised to 700, and everyone else folded around to me. Well, it certainly looks like an information raise with a Kinda-Strong-Ten. He wants to find out if his J-10 or Q-10 is good based on what I do. Now I know evrything there is to know about info-raises (even though I don't even use them that much), so if I re-raise he's gonna put me on some goofy BB hand for 2-pair and if I flat call he'll feel like his Ten is probably good. So I flat called, let him think his Ten is good, that way he'll keep leading at the pot [with the worst hand] for me.

Turn:
Ks
(Pot: 1850)

I check, to keep in line with the story of the info-raise flat call of "I'm weak, you keep betting your Ten and I'll just pay you off." He checks. Which I kind of expected him to do on that turn if he had like J-10 or Q-10.

River:
Ad
(Pot: 1850)

I felt that I had the best hand, even with the two overs, so I value bet it hoping he'd make a bad call with a Ten. I bet small small hoping he could call it, 500. He makes it 2500 total! Wow! There isn't a hand I can beat, so I guess he got lucky with A-10 or K-10, I fold. He shows me Qs-Qc... LOL! Haha, give him credit for the raise... it is semi-dumb/stupid/risky and everything else, but it worked. Nice Hand, sir.

I kinda floated around even as I couldn't really get anything going, but boy oh boy could Mr. Qs-Qc, he might have won EVERY pot he played. NO JOKE. I know sometimes poker players say, "Dude, that guy won every pot." But I'm fairly sure that he actually won about every pot he played... it wasn't funny. He was buildning a huge stack after he busted 2 players in the same in what I thought was a VERY VERY loose call of 2 all-ins with A-K off. I mean there was just NO WAY A-K was good there, but of course he cracked 10-10 and Q-Q when he flopped a King.

With the blinds at 200-400 and about 9k in chips and 4-handed. I got Q-Q in the SB, made it 1200 to go. Got 1 caller (The guy who's running really hot)

Flop:
10-9-2 rainbow
(Pot: 2800)

I contiune with a lead for 2000, he calls.

Turn:
4d (puts 2 diamonds on the board)
(Pot: 6800)

I only have about 6200 and I'm 100% sure he has a Ten or worse. The pot is big enough for me to move in, so I do so. I was shocked when he made the call with Jd-8d... only a draw (albeit a good one, but not one you'd call off 1/3 of your chips with and only one card to come). Of course...

The river came a:
7c

I'm out. :(

The card rack went on to win, and at the end of the tournament he had eliminated all of his 5 opponents... wow!

-Game 2-

I don't remeber much of how it happened, but I was short stacked the whole time during this one. I don't mean I had like 5-6k after 3 levels. I mean I bluffed off like 9k in the first level... hahaha. They were really well orchastrated but people were just making dumb calls against me with weak hands that are almost never good. Anyway, while on the shortstack I just kept chopping and chopping but it was only keeping me afloat, it wasn't getting me anywhere. I think the most I got my chips up to was like 5k, and that was with high blinds (so the chips were easier to get a hold of as there were more of them being anted and posted). I ended up going broke during the 600-1200 (w/ 200 ante) level with 8-5 os vs. K-4 os. He flopped a King and I was all but out...

Not a good showing, but I can honestly say that I didn't play very well in the second one and I knew that as I was playing in it. I wasn't focused, or applied... probably based on the stakes of play but still I'm mad I didn't put foward my best effort. I should of tried harder and layed off of the bluffs but I was just trying to have a good time with my friends... haha.

Thats all for now, I should have another one up soon...