Habs trio take on Gutshot

Went to Gutshot with Tony and Howard yesterday to play in the happy hour £5 tournament. Howard was going to go back to York University, but decided to come along with me. After playing some suicide chess we registered and bought in. Howard’s seat was next to mine and Tony was on a separate table. I bought £10, so began with 1000 chips. The tournament started with blinds 25-25, and there was little action in the 1st couple of hands.

The 3rd hand proved to be an interesting one. After I folded, Howard called the big blind but at the same time put his 2 cards into the pile of mucked cards which were quite close to him. So he called and folded at the same time? He asked where his cards had gone, so he WAS looking to play after the flop. Another player explained a Gutshot rule that no matter if you call or raise, if your cards touch the mucked pile they are automatically folded. Does this apply at other places? What if you went all in? Later, Howard said his ‘folded’ cards were pocket aces!!

However that didn’t matter, as we both built up a good chip stack. Howard won a big hand with trip kings and I managed to bluff a player with my K high; T and H called him a nerd (not to his face of course). Then, as the blinds increased, Howard’s inexperience began to show and his stack went down, flat calling when he should’ve raised or folded. I then suffered 2 big losses; the 1st was a bad beat on the river. The 2nd, I had J/J, Howard went all in with K/4 and another player went all in, his hand beating both of us and eliminating Howard.

My chip stack of 3500 with 50-100 blinds was reduced to 1400 with 150-300. With T and H out (Tony got beat by a full house), it was down to me to salvage some pride for the Habs crew. I went all-in with K/J and action passed to Nerd who called, revealing K/10. Flop was 9, K, J. Two pair for me and an inside straight draw (sound familiar?) for him. Turn was a 5. The river was a ……….Q. So Nerd got his own back after I bluffed him out of big pots twice. That’s the 2nd time in a row I’ve been eliminated in hold’em by a straight on the river.

At least my luck online is better. Even though I’m playing less online nowadays, I’m winning more and quitting when I should stop. That’s the way it should be done.

I'm playing in another concert, this time its Imperial's turn to steal the limelight from GKT. Ramiya told me the date is 24th Jan which is a Tuesday; I'll have to double check that.