The Good Look club gets me

So I went with Darko tonight to get our money back. Once we identified our table/seat and how much we had in chips, we got the money back in cash without an issue. Of course we chipped up with it.

Darko and I sat at the same table next to each other along with a few faces we saw from the night before. I had my familiar $160 in front of me. It was slow going for me all night. For two hours in a row, I broke even by winning a few tiny pots and folding big hands when I knew I was beat. I was making good reads and I *always* made the right fold against monsters, but I was only earning Sklansky dollars. The real dollars would be harder to come by. Darko, meanwhile, got lucky when he called a pre-flop raise to $12 in early position with 23o. He flashed it to me, as if to say "one time", and the flop came 222. Quads! It checked around and a K came on the turn. A perfect card as it turned out. Seat 1 bet out and Darko did a bunch of Hollywood before finally calling. The river was a J, I believe. Again, seat 1 bet out after Darko checked and a third player, who had called the K, called. Darko promptly moved all in for another $80 or so. Seat 1 agonized but finally called while seat 6 folded. Darko yelled "Quads!" and Seat 1 showed a King, mucking in disgust. Seat 1 went on complete tilt after that, losing hand after hand until he was down to next to nothing. I would benefit from this later...

Meanwhile, Wendy showed up and sat at our table. My only good hand of the night had come previously when I was able to squeeze two big bets off of a loose player when i turned the second nut boat with AQ. But it wasn't a monster pot, just a smallish one. Still, I was keeping afloat. Finally, the big hand came. I looked down at KK. The UTG player raised to $15. Another player called. The action at the tale had been fierce, so I decided to call and hope to see a non-dangerous flop. Wendy called on the button and the flop came 9h7h2c. That was about as non-threatening as it gets. The original UTG raiser made it $35 to go. The middle seat called and I popped it, $60 on top. Wendy squirmed but flashed her cards to her seatmate asking for advice and then called! Now I was nervous. If Wendy was asking for advice and didn't raise, she must be on a flush draw. Then UTG guy goes all in! His preflop raise tells me he has a pocket pair. But I've been waiting hours for this, so if he flopped a set, so be it. I moved all in. Wendy, now pot committed, called. The turn comes with a heart and Wendy excitedly shows AhKh. UTG shows TT and the middle seat folded to all the big action. The river is useless, though it *does* complete a straight for TT, which makes my hand the third best! Ouch. I can't blame Wendy for this though since she was getting proper pot odds for her flush draw. She might have even thought she had two overs as well, which makes it a no brainer. I'm convinced that all the money would have gone in regardless of what I did. So I give kudos to Wendy. We were essentially even in odds going into the turn, while we had the TT crushed, so it could have gone either way.

I buy back in for $160 and two hands later I get AQ again. I raise preflop and get three callers. The flop is A23 rainbow. Mr. Aggressive in seat 3, who's been stealing quite a few pots, bets out $30. I raise to $90 and he moves all in. I have about $40 behind, so of course I call. He shows A2 and I don't improve. Boom! Just like that, I'm down $450 total (I had bought some chips from Darko earlier). But Darko hands me another hundred and I promply donk of half of it. I had called a small preflop raise with 78 and flopped the OESD. I moved all in and got one caller who had top pair. I offered to do business and he took me up on it. Too bad too, because I won the first run, but lost the other two. So now I was down to my last 50. And then the wierdest hand happened....

I had KQo. There was a straddle and Darko raised to $10 UTG+1. I moved all in with $50. The middle seat called, and Darko called! Mr. Aggressive at the end of the table asked me to flash the cards to him for good luck, so I did. Darko and the middle seat were still in the hand though. The flop came AA8 with two spades and I got up from the table, figuring I was done. Darko made a big bet, and the middle seat folded 99. But Darko turned his cards and just had KsJs! He flopped the nut flush draw but I was ahead! Amazingly, it stood up and I tripled up just like that. Sometime around this time, Darko was about to leave with Wendy to go to the Queens game and Darko got a loose girl at the end of the table to bluff allin vs. Darko's KK. He's good like that. The flop comes 884 and she turns over 8h9h! Darko's Kings get busted but he still leaves the club up a bunch.

For my part, I stuck around with my $160 and I got Ad8d. I had called a preflop raise to $17 on the button along with 4 other players (a loose table). The flop came 3d5d6s. I had the nut flush draw and two overs. I checked, intending to come over the top, but the raiser in Seat 1 bet $101 to go all in. It folded to me and I quickly called. Seat 1 had been moving all in with flush draws all night so I thought he might have KdQd or something like that. Instead, he had AA. I did't make my diamond, but I DID go runner runner to make the straight. W00t! I left soon afterwards after having won a big chunk of my money back. I am now only stuck $225 for the night after doing quite miserably. There will be other times, I'm sure...