A big score at the Salami Club

Whew. Vindication at last. I've never had a decent score at the Salami club. I've usually finished up but only by a little. $60 here, $85 there. Tonight, I played for two and a half hours and left at 3AM with a $435 profit. I know that isn't a lot for guys like Paul or Wendy, but it's an impressive number to me. The best part is that most of it came from a single hand.

I had dragged a couple of nice medium sized pots and was up about $150 when the big hand came. I was in the big blind with 44. A big stacked player, who had been mercilessly raising pots, came out with a weak $12 bet. Everyone folded except for the small blind and myself, who both called. The flop was a scary 3s4c5s. I had hit my set but there was a straight already on the board with a flush draw on top of it. The small blind checked and I bet $25 which knocked out the original raiser. The small blind called. The turn was 9c. He checked and I bet $50. He then re-reraised to $150. He only had about $85 more so I figured if I wanted to call than I needed to put him all in. There were a few hands that beat me but I had plenty of outs to improve with my set. The only thing I was truly worried about was 67, A2 or 55. I went all in and he sighed visibly saying "I'm behind right now". That made me MUCH happier. He was obviously on a draw of some sort. He was pot committed to the bet and called the remainder of his chips. The river was the Ten of Hearts which couldn't possibly have hit him. I showed my set of 4's and he flashed me a 5c. I didn't see his other card so I initially assumed he had top set of 5's but when he mucked I realized it must have been 5c6c, which he confirmed. He risked his whole stack on an open ended straight draw which turned a flush draw as well. So he fed nearly 50% of the pot on what turned out to be only a 30% shot. Cest La Vie. I happily raked in the biggest pot of my life and he left in disgust.

I stayed for a few more hands, even folding AK in the small blind into a big preflop raise, before taking off and pocketing my winnings. Winning is SO much nicer than losing. On a separate note, my winnings from tonight and last night at our league table make up for my loss in Atlantic City. Score one for the good guys!