i thought i should post about friday’s cinco de mayo fiesta while some of it is still fresh in my mind.

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i will be brutally honest, i don’t want to do a bunch of posting about specific hands, for a couple reasons. one, if i give detail about how/why i played a hand, anyone reading here will know exactly how i play. not that i’m THAT serious about it all, but you gotta keep a little mystery, right? i don’t play casino poker much, so these home games are all i’ve got. the second reason, is that in the same vein as reason one, i don’t feel right about just calling out all my observations on other players. not only do i not want to give up someone else’s tell for their benefit, it also benefits me to keep quiet the things i’ve figured out on certain people.

so. that sounds so serious, doesn’t it, just for a home game? i’m really not as crazy as that. i will say this– the CdMPF (Cinco de Mayo Poker Fiesta… i’m tired of typing that out) established something of a table image for me. i played good solid poker. i only misplayed a couple hands, and only one of them required me to actually show my cards and admit to my misplay. i’m not sure how i feel about my current table image, but i’ll work on it.

i did a whole heckuvalot of folding for the first hour, including some aces with weak kickers, lots of suited cards, and a couple connectors. i only played pocket pairs, and even then very carefully. played a few hands out of the big blinds that gained me some chips, but mostly i watched the table play. finally, just before the tables combined, got into a hand with scott (last month’s winner), where i was playing A9h against his KQh. The flop and turn collectively brought 2 hearts, which gave us 4 to the flush. had he moved in on me at the turn, i would have likely bailed on the draw, because he also had top pair. the river brought the flush, his was king high, mine was the nuts. he moved in, of course i insta-called. this was the hand that set me up for the rest of the night.

i went back into turtle mode for a while, the tables combined, i watched the short stacks drop, lost some chips calling with my ace high when an ace came on the river to give me top pair, knowing my opponent probably had a Q to complete the straight. he actually had two, so i was beat at every step, and totally failed to read him properly. that was my last misstep of the night. from there, it was bully time. things tightened up, and there was some good play, had i screwed up at all i probably would have bled off my chips quickly and taken second, but as it was i took it down 5 hours after it started.

thanks to everyone that played, it really was a fun time. it would have been even had i not won… but i have to admit, it was nice to not just finally cash in a tourney, but to push hard and take it down.

stay tuned for details on the next game. we’re thinking about memorial day still…