Adding cushion to the Lead!

Last night we played 7 card Stud and had 17 players. It was a small buyin, but most of the players are just trying to accumulate points to make it into the Final 9. I'm playing for the bonus money as I am pretty much set for the Final 9 but can get $200 extra if I stay on top the leaderboards. The structure was pretty tough because it wasn't really fast paced, but you started with 50 big bets and if you played too many hands and didn't win many, chances are you were going to get eliminated quickly. So being selective is very important. I was happy with my play pretty much the whole night picking spots to be aggressive and though its not my best game I was familiar with it and was confident. That Confidence turned into a second place finish as we did a chip count chop at the end and the CL had a 3:1 chip lead advantage on me knocking out 3rd and 4th place simultaneously.

I have to give props to my boy Mike Silvas for pretty much Folding his way to the money as he was dealt shit cards all night but stayed patient enough to get 4th as the top 5 got paid. This poor guy seemed to have had to bring in almost every hand, it was sick. There was a streak where he posted the bring-in atleast 6 or 7 times in a row. As bad as I felt for him, it was pretty freaking funny. Towards the end of the tourney I was waking up with monsters in my bring-in, with Buried pairs, 3 card flushes and 3 card straights. Like I said before, I was feeling confident but then the words cash games was fluttering in the air and I wanted to jump in the action rather than fight for an Extra $20 for first. So I took $100 and the winner won $120 in a Chip Count Chop and we started a 7 handed .25 .50 cash game.

There were three guys already playing around and one guy just crushed the other two and as the new cash game started he was sitting with about $60-70 while everyone else bought in for $20-35. I had the 3 crazies to my right and the 3 solid Tight players to my left so I liked my spot at the table. It was also a bunch of my league players so we all pretty much have ideas of how we play so it makes it an even better game. The guy with $60-70 was up to his normal shit, 3betting, shoving on dry boards, He is a pretty good cash game player but has a wide open range so its really hard to place him on a hand, its either monster or air. well tonight it was air apparently as the Tilt monster got a hold of him after a couple of beats and he just couldn't catch up for the rest of the night. I made a hero call against the guy that I chopped heads up with and of course get rewarded by him catching one of his 6 outs on the turn.

I was in mid late position with 6c 5c and player in early position raised to 1.50 got a caller then a re-raise to $4 I am next to act and call knowing there will be atleast 2 more callers and I have $21 left behind. If I hit my hand it is well disguised and I can win a huge pot. Well the Button calls and the original Raiser and caller also call the $4 and there is $20 in the pot. Flop comes 6s 3d 3h and I am pretty sure I'm the only person to connect on that flop and the action is checked to the 3bettor who goes all in and has almost everyone covered. He has been playing pretty crazy loose and saying how he wanted to go and showing loose hands after scooping pots so I don't put him on much, but also give the possibility for 77-1010. But then he starts talking. Almost too much...Like he didn't want anyone to call. So then I started feeling more confident in my hand again. I figured he has 2 overs at best and just trying to take the pot down so if I hold I can win this knowing no one else will call as they were showing no interest and getting ready to fold their hands or not paying much attention to his actions. (I use alot of psychology in my reads and it usually helps. There is so much information a person's body gives off it's ridiculous) I call and show my hand and the villain flips over Ah Js. Before I can even Congratulate myself on making a good call, I burn then Turn, and the Jh appears to laugh at my face and stack me.

When I go back to watch them play I see The original villain has already lost the chips that I gave to him and working on losing the rest. I'm thinking to myself, "Man why did I have to lose that pot lol." It also made me want to jump back into the game because the money was flying and the action was good. I scrapped up another $20 and said OK last one. I started out pretty good winning a couple small pots then bluff off a portion of my stack when I just knew I messed up against an opponent that also makes good reads. I was chewing gum and while I was playing, I was chewing kind of fast and talking being relaxed, but in this hand I felt my jaw chewing a little bit slower and I think he picked up on this since I barreled 3 times for him to just smooth call with top pair weak kicker. It was my mistake and I don't normally chew gum but it was delicious and my breath was reeking so I had to freshen it up a bit heh. Well a few hands later I get locked up in a pot against the same player who made a good read on me. With the standard raise at about 3-4x preflop, he bets out 7x, for some reason this just yelled small pocket pair to me and he didn't want to play it. I look down at 10 8 suited and wanted to represent a bigger hand. I have $14 left and opt to shove all in. Everyone folds to him and he is the type of player to know he is behind but call to suck out and it is amazing how often this happens. Well he calls and shows 4 4 so my 10 8 suited is in good shape to draw out. Another player utters, "I had 10 9" and the flop falls J 10 9....Thank GOD! I hate when people say they have some of my outs but oh well BOOOOOM thanks for folding haha. the 4s don't catch up and it bumps me back up. I go on to make a small $25 profit in this game as the 5 players that stayed in the early AM all cashed out a profit which doesn't happen too often.

It was a good night of poker, KK AA and other big hands all held up leaving very little room for complaint. Hopefully I can keep this up and keep my confidence strong going into Biloxi, MS because I am due for a huge score!

Matt Stroud