O/8 - Feels Great!

Last night marked my return to the 5-10 Omaha Hi-Lo game at the Fresh Fish club. It's been a long time since I played organized poker. In my unemployment phase (hopefully past tense forever), I did a lot of card slinging, but not so much peeking in the hole. So it was with great pleasure that I finished band practice a little early and hopped on over to Chelsea for some Omaha action.

On a small side note, the band I was practicing with was not the legendary Negative Ken, but a band called The Botz. My bassist, Bayard Russell, formed The Botz as a side project for some of his other songs which don't fit into Negative Ken's Brat-Rock music. Their drummer moved to California and I've been asked to sit in for a gig, tomorrow July 17th, 2009 at 10pm at Underscore (1733 1st Avenue, near 90th street), underneath Bar East. What's that you say? You didn't know I could play drums? Well now you know.

Back to our story...

When I got to the club at 8:40p, there were two games in full swing. The normal 2-5 NLHE game was full with a small list and the Omaha game had 8 players. It was great to see all the regulars there and I got a lot of "Hey Jamie! I haven't seen *you* in a while!" from them. I took my seat at the Omaha game and got right down to it.

For the first 60 minutes, I got nothing but playable hands, with no pots save one small one where everyone folded to my bet on the flop. I mean, I whiffed everything! My worst whiff was 9h-Th-Jc-Qs. Flop was 8h-9s-Ts. I had flopped the world. Top two for a boat draw, running flush draw, and the nut straight. I bet and got 5 callers. Turn was 7h. I had a boat draw, a straight flush draw and I was still sitting on the nut straight. This time, someone bet out before me and I raised, getting 5 callers again. The river (oh, the river) was the 7s. Man, the worst card ever. Not only did it complete a flush but it also paired the board! There was a bet in front of me and then a raise in front of me! With no low on board, I can only assume I was beat and I did the prudent thing by letting it go. The winner was 8's full of 7's. Grrrr.

It was at this point that I commented that the board only seems to pair for other people, god forbid it should pair when *you* need it to. I was met with knowing grunts of acknowledgement. This wouldn't work out so well for W though, who flopped middle set with QQxx and a board of Q-A-5. Turn was a 9 and river was an Ace. The 'golden Amazon' (my nickname for a very tall blonde woman seated next to me), took the pot down with A9xx in her hand. Baby boats suck.

I was down $200 in the first hour, and not catching a damned thing. I rebought for another $200 and stayed patient. Things started to turn my way after a while, but only after some ridiculous luck. If called a raise PF with 9-9-K-2, double suited, only because I was already in the BB and there were 8 callers and the PF raiser was a loosey goosey older Asian guy (about 35-45, to distinguish him from the crazian youngsters). Flop was 9-7-7. Disco! I'd flopped the second nuts. I checked it in early position and the Asian guy (I'll call him Goose), bet. The insane chess master (I'll call him Bobby Fischer), called and I called. I figured if there were a lot of callers, I could check-raise on the turn, but only one other caller meant I had to milk it for as much as possible. Turn was a King, which given one in my hand meant that there probably wasn't a KK waiting to kill me. I checked. Goose bets, Bobby Fischer calls and I call. River is an 8, putting a flush on board. I bet out, Goose and Bobby call and I show the winning hand for the scoop. Scoopy McWeinstein!

That hand got me on a roll. I scooped a nice pot later on with As-4c-8s-Kc when I made the nut flush and second nut low by the river. It was a $150 pot of profit, which put me near to even for the night. Towards the end of my run, I got insanely lucky. I has 2d-3h-4h-6d. Some wheel cards and small double suited cards. Eh, I'll see a flop. Goose raise PF (what else) and the golden Amazon re-raised. Goose called. If there weren't 7 other players in the hand, I definitely wouldn't have been in. But everyone called for a monster PF pot. Flop was so-so. 4d-5s-8d. I had a wheel draw, along with a so-so flush draw and a so-so straight draw (to the 8, if a 7 fell). Plus I has a so-so low. I really shouldn't have been in this pot, but the PF pot was so big and NO ONE folded, that I decided to be stupid and come along for the rise. Betting got capped on the flop and the turn was a 6, pairing the board. This time, only Goose bet out and got 5 callers, including myself who should have known that his high draws (suspect as they already were), were now dead. River was a miracle Ace, giving me the nut low. I bet out, Golden Amazon raised, Goose re-raised and one other person called. I capped and everyone called. Amazon showed AAxx for the rivered high boat! She also had the nut diamond draw, which means I was really drawing to just about nothing the whole way. Goose, not having a good session, angrily much his smaller boat. The other caller tabled 62xx for the second nut low and I took half of the biggest pot I'd seen that night! I was now +75 for the session, but having so much fun that I decided to stay another 30 minutes, making 2:30am my absolute cut-off time. By the time the clock ran out on my deadline, I had ground my profit down to $4, but it was a moral victory. To come from behind and make my money back to even was a great night. And when you consider I was playing for 6 hours (it felt like 1 hour) and paid about $85 in rake+tips, I actually did pretty well!

Atlantic City this weekend with much of the core crew (W, Viv, Darko, Chris C., Walnuts). Looking forward to it!