Hands that can change your poker life forever....

[lil feller]

I have three, sort of.

First was about 7 years ago. B&M 4/8 (4 dollar drop and all...). I'd been playing hold'em for about 2 months and was, of course, the best player on the planet. I'm on the button with A4s. There's a couple limps, and I limp along.

The flop was A-K-9 rainbow. Checked to the last limper before me and he bets. I raise. Folded to him and he 3bets. I call.

Turn is a 7. He bets and I call. River pairs the 9 for an A-9-9-K-7. He bets and I call. He shows A8o, and I muck mumbling something about my kicker...it was in that moment that I realized I knew absolutely nothing about holdem, poker, or anything inbetween...

2nd was about 2 years after the first. B&M 10/20. I'm playing within my bankroll, but the game is much different than what i'm used to (meaning weak/tight, instead of loose/passive). I'm UTG+1 w/ A2s (always had a weakness for suited aces...). UTG limps (he's been pretty TAG) I limp. So do some other people that don't matter.

Flop is A-K-9 rainbow with one of my suit. UTG bets. I call. So does one other guy.

Turn pairs the 9. UTG bets...I raise. Folded to him and he mucks A4s face up...it was in that moment I learned that playing the other guys hand is far more important than playing your own...

Last one is a series of hands.

I live in WA state, never mind where, and WA state is big on bad beat jackpots. When my local cardbarn decided to start spreading redchip games (15/30 at the time) the players requested that the house not take a jackpot drop, saving us the dollar but making us ineligible for the BBJP. The house agreed.

I had, in 37 minutes, pocket aces flop top set and loose to running quad queens (A-x-x-Q-Q) twice. The jackpot pay out would have been a combined 67k and change. I lost 1500 that session, which remained my biggest loss ever even well into my 30/60 career.

At that moment I learned that poker isn't fair, and nobody cares.

lf

[brick]

[ QUOTE ]
When my local cardbarn decided to start spreading redchip games (15/30 at the time) the players requested that the house not take a jackpot drop, saving us the dollar but making us ineligible for the BBJP. The house agreed.

I had, in 37 minutes, pocket aces flop top set and loose to running quad queens (A-x-x-Q-Q) twice. The jackpot pay out would have been a combined 67k and change. I lost 1500 that session, which remained my biggest loss ever even well into my 30/60 career.

At that moment I learned that poker isn't fair, and nobody cares.

lf

[/ QUOTE ]

that sucks.

[andyfox]

Poker isn't important enough to me to have a "poker life," but I do remember several hands:

-First time I played hold 'em in Las Vegas. I don't remember exactly what I had but there was a point where everybody at the table knew my opponent had the nuts and I didn't have a clue. They were all laughing and joking and I was in the dark. (Sometimes I think I still am.)

-First time I played the "big" 15-30 draw game at Gardena. Probably 1976. The biggest game I had played to that point was 5-10. And this was draw with only two betting rounds.

It was jacks or better to open and the pot was passed around twice, so now we were playing 25-50. One guy opens, three guys call and I look down to a flush. I raised and they all call. Opener draws 3, next guy draws 3, next guy draws 3, next guy draws three. Wow, how long has this game been here. Check, check, check, I bet. Opener thinks and thinks and thinks and finally calls, the other two fold, MHIG, and I win by far the biggest pot I've ever won.

I had visions of winning thousands of dollars that day. I ended up a $3 winner. (BTW, the opener is now a very high stakes player at Commerce, which probably explains a bit how I ended up wining just the three bucks.)

-First time I knew I could do well in a public card room: A guy raised me on the end and I knew he had nothing. So I 3-bet him and he insta-mucked.

-And, finally, a real embarrassing one. Again, draw: I open with just a pair of jacks and I get called by a player who had passed the first time around. He draws one. I suspect he has two pair because he wouldn't play a draw head-up. So I draw one (and don't improve) and bet out as a bluff, confident he'll fold if he doesn't fill up. He calls. Uh-oh. I say "two pair," hoping he'll show his two pair and I can muck,feigning a smaller two pair, without having to show I only have a pair of jacks. He doesn't respond. I say, "two SMALL pair," with added emphasis on the SMALL. Nothing. Finally, I say, "threes and deuces with a four."

Now he says, "Chop it up," and turns over three and deuces with a four.

[STLantny]

[ QUOTE ]


-And, finally, a real embarrassing one. Again, draw: I open with just a pair of jacks and I get called by a player who had passed the first time around. He draws one. I suspect he has two pair because he wouldn't play a draw head-up. So I draw one (and don't improve) and bet out as a bluff, confident he'll fold if he doesn't fill up. He calls. Uh-oh. I say "two pair," hoping he'll show his two pair and I can muck,feigning a smaller two pair, without having to show I only have a pair of jacks. He doesn't respond. I say, "two SMALL pair," with added emphasis on the SMALL. Nothing. Finally, I say, "threes and deuces with a four."

Now he says, "Chop it up," and turns over three and deuces with a four.

[/ QUOTE ]


You: "See! thats what I thought you had" and then muck.

[SA125]

[ QUOTE ]
-And, finally, a real embarrassing one. Again, draw: I open with just a pair of jacks and I get called by a player who had passed the first time around. He draws one. I suspect he has two pair because he wouldn't play a draw head-up. So I draw one (and don't improve) and bet out as a bluff, confident he'll fold if he doesn't fill up. He calls. Uh-oh. I say "two pair," hoping he'll show his two pair and I can muck,feigning a smaller two pair, without having to show I only have a pair of jacks. He doesn't respond. I say, "two SMALL pair," with added emphasis on the SMALL. Nothing. Finally, I say, "threes and deuces with a four."

Now he says, "Chop it up," and turns over three and deuces with a four.

[/ QUOTE ]

That was funny. Has to be one of the best poker stories ever. That was really funny.

[jba]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
-And, finally, a real embarrassing one. Again, draw: I open with just a pair of jacks and I get called by a player who had passed the first time around. He draws one. I suspect he has two pair because he wouldn't play a draw head-up. So I draw one (and don't improve) and bet out as a bluff, confident he'll fold if he doesn't fill up. He calls. Uh-oh. I say "two pair," hoping he'll show his two pair and I can muck,feigning a smaller two pair, without having to show I only have a pair of jacks. He doesn't respond. I say, "two SMALL pair," with added emphasis on the SMALL. Nothing. Finally, I say, "threes and deuces with a four."

Now he says, "Chop it up," and turns over three and deuces with a four.

[/ QUOTE ]

That was funny. Has to be one of the best poker stories ever. That was really funny.

[/ QUOTE ]

nh sir

[sweetjazz]

Not the world's greatest story, but I have a couple. First one is at the end of the first night I played HE. It's a $0.10/$0.20 game with some friends, six-handed IIRC. I'm dealt Kh Js in early position. I raise and am called by my buddy in one of the blinds. Flop comes 8c 6c 2c. He leads out, I raise, and he 3-bets.

I honestly didn't know what to do. My flop raise was done with the thinking in mind that I had shown down only good hands so far and I wanted to know if I could use that to push my friend off of a weak hand.

I deliberated for a while and then folded. But that is not what made the hand memorable. I thought about the hand afterwards and decided that I should post it on 2+2. I had been browsing the forums a bit trying to learn about HE, but it was so different having an actual hand to talk about. I think I ended up posting in the Home Poker forum, not knowing where to post (given that there wasn't a forum with $0.10/$0.20 hands posted at this point -- don't even remember if there was a Microlimits forum at the time). And I got a few interesting replies, with some division whether I should call or fold at this point.

The second hand occurred during my second session of live play at a casino. I was playing 4/8 at Foxwoods. I had been there about 3 hours and folded just about everything in sight. I am completely card dead and despite a little run recently am still down about $50. (Which seemed a lot at the time, especially since I could see how badly everyone else around me was playing.) I am dealt 8d 7d in the BB. (And BTW, I have just run back from the bathroom to get dealt into this hand and made it back by about 5 seconds.) A bunch of limpers and a raise from LMP. Easy call for me getting like 13-1 or something ridiculous. Flop is Kd Jd 9d. I don't remember the flop action, but I either bet out looking to 3-bet or checked looking to raise. Anyway, several bets go in and we're three way to the turn. Turn is the Td, making me my first straight flush ever (and only one to date in live play). I lead out, loose passive calls, loose passive raises. I think to myself that this guy must have a high diamond, and of course there are only two left and I only beat one of them. I think he might raise with the Ad here, so I call. All of a sudden the other LP raises and then it's 4-bet back to me. I feel sick as I know that one of them has the Ad and the other the Qd. I am almost positive the guy on my left has the Qd, as he has raised like never even with strong hands before; I don't think he'd raise without the nuts. There's just no way I am good here and I know I might be facing four bets on the river. I ask the dealer if there is any kind of bad beat jackpot (since I honestly don't know), but when I find out there is none, I toss my hand into the muck. I am so incredulous that I don't even process the river action at all. But when the cards are turned up, I find that the call-3 bettor did have the Qd (and another Q -- I told you he was passive!) while the other guy had Ad and some other crap card. He exclaims that he didn't even realize that a straight flush was possible.

Last hand that really stands out is at Party 5/10 (6 max), when I was first starting at the limit. I had played less than 1K hands so far. I've made a couple of bad folds against a guy who has turned out to be more maniacal than I think is possible. He likes to show his bluffs when he has absolute air, and I have so far folded twice in decent sized pots with the best hand. I pick up K9s UTG+1 and open raise. He 3-bets in the BB and I call. Before the flop is dealt, I come up with this idea that I am going to keep raising no matter what comes and force him to fold. I proceed to spew chip after chip on the flop and turn, only to watch both streets get capped. The flop had two hearts and the flush draw is completed on the turn. He is the one who caps the turn (having started things off by checking) and I frustratingly call down at this point hoping that he is on an outrageous bluff. No, he has Kh Qh for the turned second nuts. I spew chip after chip drawing to two outs (vulnerable to redraws) on the flop and dead after that. First time I went on major tilt. I got it together after that hand, but left the session shortly afterward because I couldn't figure out what I was thinking. It was truly humbling to have played a hand so badly. (There's also another hand I played around the same time that was so bad it got posted here under the title "What does this 2+2er have here?" and suffice to say that my hand didn't come anywhere near the range of hands that warranted the action I gave.)

I left out a few other hands that I remember vividly. My first live hand...Ad 5d in the BB when I called a late position raise getting like 11-to-1 caused I was playing the Foxwoods 4/8 and I would soon learn that such looseness was par for the course. And then I check-folded a completely blank flop. And the first pot I won...an unimproved AJo on a TT383 board where I bet/called the river against an absolute maniac. He showed down Qxo, which of course he had 3-bet preflop as he had about 7 of the other 10 hands I had seen him play at this point.

Actually, there's lots of hands that I remember to varying degrees of specificity. But to some extent, I hope that almost all the hands I have played have taught me something. I try to think about the game and understand proper strategy whenever I am playing, whether I am in the hand or not. No hand, to this point, has made or broke me. I have made tough folds, tough calls, tough raises. I have made bad folds, bad calls, and bad raises (see the tilt hand). I have tilted (badly on probably a dozen hands, subtlely on probably hundreds or more). I have made moves based on reads that made me feel like a genius. I have made moves that didn't work out where I still felt that way. I have made other plays that I hated as soon as I made them.

Through it all, I still love thinking about poker and trying to play well. The constant enjoyment of the challenge of this game, much more so than any particular hands, has shaped my poker life to this point.