ok, well sitting at my tournament table, after a few orbits I had one guy pegged as decent, another as competent (but still bad) and the rest just plain fish. I started off with a really bad mistake
bluffing into a calling station (which as stated, pretty much all were). I made a good read that he didn't have that great of a hand, but he couldn't let top pair no kicker go with a pair on the board and 3 to a flush. I just didn't pick up a hand until near the end, AQ flopped an A and called a shove from 88 to double up. Finally the blinds got to the point where I had I think 12 big blinds. I shoved AT and had JJ call me and it held.
So anyway, while it's a mistake to stack with
hands like top pair no kicker in a tournament, it's not as bad when stacks get smaller. In a cash game, it is. These same players were playing in the side cash game. So after I took a short break, I came back and asked about sitting in on the cash game. Some people had bought in short but one other had bought in for $50 and I did as well. I think I was kind of on mini-tilt from the tournament, tried to lag it up a bit, and obviously that's bad against calling stations. I learned a new rule, that a $3 raise on top of a $4 bet in a cash game is legal. While I knew this wasn't true I wasn't going to argue for people who were going to give me action again without having to even put in min. As bad as a minraise is, a less than min raise is even worse.
Anyway, I lost $20 early, added on another $20, just put the cash in front of me, first time I've ever played in a cash game with real cash on the table. I decide I'm going to play exactly as I talked about in that other thread here on weak games (it's about the Stars micros, but it pretty much applies to all of them). See a lot of flops with suited connectors, low pocket pairs, etc. for cheap and raise my good hands a lot. No need to mix it up or get fancy. First, lady who had about $25 in front I think stacked off on the turn with a flush draw. She didn't hit and just said "well that's poker I guess, if I'd folded and the club had hit I'd have been pissed". I just smiled and nodded. So I folded hand after hand seeing how horrible the play was but not even getting a playable hand and wishing I could multitable this game. When a guy sits in, buys some chips, and a few hands in complains "these pots aren't big enough, $3 in the dark". So I make the only move you can make against players like that. I look at my cards, and say "make it $9.50". I have K3. Without looking, he calls. Flop comes Ax3, I bet out $12, he looks, then flat calls. Turn is another 3, I'm thinking jackpot. Now I check, hoping he'll take that as weakness and try to buy it. Surprisingly he checks behind. River is one of the worst cards in the deck, another A. Now an A has me. I check, he asks me to count my chips, and I have like $40 behind at this point. He bets $20. I go into the tank a bit, decide that although he takes this exact line with an A, he also seems as if he'd do it with any other hand too, and the ATC range has many more hands without one of the remaining 2 aces than with them. So I call, he mucks, and I pick up the pot.
Then I got to check 45 in the BB, flop came A23. I was up against 23 and 33, one guy stacked the turn and I shoved the river. My river bet was $57 into an already humongous pot (that was not an overbet). 33 called it, I showed my 45 and picked up a huge pot.
Then a little later I have AQs, raise to $2, other guy makes it $7. I'm in position, and this guy's been a bit aggressively lately, although I've yet to see him 3-bet, so I'm prepared to let it go if I hit top pair and he shows extreme strength. Luckily I hit better than top pair. I flop a royal flush. KJTs flops, I bet, he calls. Turn=K, I bet, he shoves, I call, he had AK and complains about his luck and how he can't get away from trips. And of course the entire table goes crazy when I show the royal. But I was the one who dealt the royal and they already knew I was from Maryland and were joking about me deciding to come to "kick some West Virginia ass". They were all pretty friendly but that one was a little perfect, and I hadn't even offered a cut because the last few times I had the guy on my right had said "no" and started looking annoyed that I even asked anymore. Luckily even as a joke no one ever suggested that I was cheating, and of course I wasn't, that one just seemed a bit too perfect lol although I still think him stacking there with TPTK on an action board like that with deep stacks (I think around 150 BBs) was pretty bad, but hey it's fine with me
.
Anyway, whenever anyone wanted chips, they just bought them from me, until I had almost $200 just in cash on top of all the chips at the table. When all was said and done, I had about $350 from my original $70 and when you count the $40 tourney entry fee, I netted ~$240. All in all it was enjoyable though. Other people were nice, even though it seemed they were all the definition of hick lol. A ton of pickups in the parking lot, seemed everyone smoked (luckily they all did it outside), and they all had the really heavy southern accent. It seemed pretty much everyone else knew everyone else, so I felt a bit awkward at first, but once the cards started coming I was in my zone anyway. One guy at the cash game actually asked how I knew [WVHillbilly's real name]. I wasn't sure how to respond but one asked "the internet?" and I just said yeah. Had a lot of fun, and there was plenty of dead money flying around. Don't want to invite anyone to someone else's game but it seems like it was pretty much open to new members and if you're in the area I'd recommend trying to make it next month.
