After a year of renovations and delays, the Palace poker room at West Edmonton Mall is finally open. After all that fuss and "bally-hoo", all they could produce is a tiny 5 table little room. They are now unique in Edmonton (and Alberta I believe) as being non-smoking and also 24 hours. The room is pleasant except for the duct tape covering the all too reflective crome siding. So far the dealers and houseman have been excellent.


After approximately 5 hours of playing $3-6 I'm stuck about a hundred. Not getting a lot of hands to play, and a few suckouts too, but I'm feeling great (thank you Zen and the Art of Poker).


And so, this hand occurs...


Player B limps UTG, and a couple of players limp after him. A middle position player raises, and there are a few cold-callers. BB calls, as does the rest of the players yet to act. There are 6 players and 12 sb in the pot.


I am the poor little BB squeezing pocket 8's, and I've made a mental note of Player B limping UTG as it is Shaw.


Shaw announces he's thinking of a flop, and I say "Me too" and...


The flop comes 8 7 3 with two hearts.


I announce "Ahhh, that's my flop" and wager 3 betting units. Shaw does the old head tilt and calls.


The late-position preflop raiser is tilting so I expect him to raise the flop here and the pot will become nice and LARGE. A bunch call to him and he sparks it up on schedule. I now smooth call to represent hearts (thereby inducing mistakes by opponents) and also planning on dropping the hammer on the turn as I expect the tilting flop raiser will bet if a blank falls.


To my surprise I hear the booming "RERAISE!" from my left neighbor, Shaw, and I think to myself "I've got him, mwhahahaha." Rattle those bushes a little and Dave Shaw can't resist but to come out. I am now fairly certain that Dave has a set of 7's. Everybody calls to me and I put the table on "The Plan" of four easy payments of $3 to see the turn card. Everybody calls my reraise.


The turn is not to my liking, the King of hearts, but I of course bet out. Since I am also representing high hearts I believe low hearts will only call here anyways, if indeed anybody even has a flush. The pot is big so I have to bet in case somebody folds the only small heart (BTW I did not have the 8h).


Again I am surprised to hear the thunderous "RAAAISE!!" from Shaw. Being of the extreme low-variance school of thought I did not think Shaw would jam the flop with a flush draw but perhaps I was wrong. Everybody folds to me and I of course call. Shaw being an intelligent opponent and the pot being large I plan on calling the river as well.


Ah haa! The river fills me up with the 7. I bet out since it is obvious that I have a full house (I noticed myself hesitating) and Shaw will have to call me anyways, and if he has hearts he probably won't bet.


For the third time he surprises me with a loud "TWELVE!" shot. Aw sh!t, I say to myself. Back to the original read of 7's and I can now only call with my almost nut full house As expected, he shows me quad 7's. And now you know... the rest... of the story...


P.S. #1: I almost enjoy losing to quads. I mean, it sucks to lose a pot and all, but I'm going to have to lose a pot (and get badly beated) some time, so it might as well be exciting and two very good hands.


P.S. #2: I managed to keep playing well and get some good hands after and managed to dig myself out of the hole for a modest win, less than my win rate but still a good night (thank you Zen .


P.S. #3: Interesting statistic: after many many hours of playing together that is the first time I've ever lost a showdown to Dave Shaw. In fact, I think we've had only two showdowns where the river was bet and the other called, and I won both with a hidden set. This is due to the fact that Shaw is of the ultra-tight school and I am of the ultra-don't-put-in-chips-if-Shaw-is-betting school of thought Also he tends to avoid me as well.


Jim Roy jimroy@powersurfr.com