Live - Back at Phillberto's

Friday night poker eventually happened after much shenanigans. With Spice opting for a more stress-free night in the pub, Peter letting having a son the day before distract him and Moocher having a tooth removed and pleading sore gums as his match excuse we eventually got under way 4 handed expecting Sham and some fresh blood in Canadian Steve. In the end Steve couldn't make it so 5 handed it was.

Jim got off to an aggressive start betting into an AQx flop in a multi-way and then hitting a trip queens on the river but not getting any action.

I clashed with Don first calling his pre-flop raise with AKs in position. The flop came A9x giving me not only Top pair top kicker but also the nut flush draw. Facing an aggressive bet on the flop I considered just shoving then but decided to give Don some rope to hang himself given my likely lock on the hand. The turn brought a spade to give me the nut flush. Don virtually bet his entire stack then called the remainder of his stack off drawing dead with a 9 and second pair.

Don was also to cross swords with Bigshot in a big pre-flop play. With a lot of money in pre-flop Bigshot let Don make a sizeable bet into a low flop. He then pushed all-in over the top and Don called. It looked like a battle of over-pairs but Big-shot showed AK for a brave bluff. I suspect I would have let my pocket Tens go there but Don called the bet. A solid favourite to recoup his losses Don watched with horror as one of Mark's six outs hit and he lost to Barry Greenstein's favourite 'An Ace on the River'.

With a big stack I checked with A9 on the big-blind and was happy to see a flop of A96. Some money went in on the flop and I just called. Turn brought a K. I then re-raised Jim's bet to $60 expecting to take the pot down or get a call but instead faced a re-raise all-in.. With top and middle pair I was facing a tough decision. I could well have laid the hand down in certain circumstances. It was just over a pot sized bet I had to call so thought I would take my almost even odds. Jim turned over AT and I held up. It was certainly a bet that would fold any hands I beat so was a medium hand turned into a bluff.

For once I managed to build a decent stack early.

Jim managed to lose another couple of stacks but I'll need some reminders on how these happened. I think one was against Sham where Sham's hand held up.

My one clash with Bigshot came in a raised pot pre-flop that was played multi-way. Out of position I opted to take a flop with 79o and connected with Top 2 on the flop. Bigshot bet out and I called planning to reraise on the turn. The turn brought a card that would have made a straight if had been betting an open-ended draw so with big stacks at stake I was no longer comfortable my two pair was good. The river brought I think a Queen and I faced a river bet of around $100.

I now suspected I was up against at least Top-Pair and very possibly trips or a straight. I decided to err on the side of caution and folded my top pair - showing my hand. Bigshot showed Pocket Kings and seemed to be somewhat surprised I had laid it down. I just thought his bet was a tad large for an overpair and thought he would have started to become worried by my two flat-calls. Once again Bigshot gets the edge on me in a crunch hand and ensures he finishes as the big winner.

So with Jim, three buy-ins down calling it a night all four of us had started to assemble reasonable stacks.

With the crazy last fifteen minutes bell rung Sham and Bigshot clashed. A raise from Bigshot saw a call on all three streets. KTxxx board with all the money going in to give a pot in the region of $700. Mark showed flopped trip tens and bet his made hand the whole way through while Sham called him down with KJ losing his hard earned stack in one fell-swoop.

With the now traditional end of the night lottery won by Bigshot to round off spare chips into a lucky lottery won to save splitting hundreds we wound our weary way home at a rather civilized end time of shortly after midnight.