This week, despite the freeing temperature and subsequent Christmas-card levels of snow everywhere, there was a slightly improved turnout of 6 players. The holiday mood had waned and all the players seemed to be in serious mode, although there was no shortage of rebuys. I didn’t have one myself, largely due to overly tight play restricting much change to my chipstack, but then I did need an add-on.
Sean, on the other hand, avoided all the extra buying options by winning most of the big hands on his way to a very healthy chip lead at the break. Most notably a three-way all in with Rusty and Robert, after flopping trip Ks (7 kicker). His opponents were both looking for the same flush, and after the turn Rusty had a gutshot for a straight, but none of those possibilities materialised. All very cool for Sean.
Robert’s luck was about to change a little later though. He called with his pocket deuces, before I made a decent raise with pocket Ks, only for Rusty to shove with QQ. Tom dwelled quite a while with pocket 4s before folding, then Robert and I both called. Obviously there was a 2 on the flop and no reprieve for Rusty or myself.
After the break, Rod was the first out. Pocket Qs busted again, this time by Rusty’s big slick catching one of his 6 outs – a bullet on the turn. Rusty then performed a similar trick with only a 3-outer (AQ vs pocket Ks) to knock Tom out. Yes, that’s poker, but it was cold.
The next decisive hand was my turn to challenge Rusty. Everyone else had folded and I called with 34d to see what Mr Aggressive would do from the big blind. He had 93o, so he checked. The flop was A83, and 2 of them were diamonds. I made a modest bet, which brought a big raise from Rusty. When I shoved all-in, it led to Rusty doing his usual impersonation of a quiz-master. Eventually he called, and we all saw that he was out-kicking me, but I had the flush draw. There were no more diamonds on the turn or river, just another 4 to give me 2 pairs, and a final 3 for my boat.
With 3 of us left, and despite that win, my new, healthy stack was soon diminished again and this time I only had myself to blame. I’d bet large after flopping second pair with JKo (QJ rag on board) only for Sean (now massive chip leader) to smooth call. The turn was an innocuous 5 and I made a continuation bet, which was also called. When I checked the river out of fear that he had a monster hand, Sean did a great impersonation of an ice-man, and put me all-in.
To my shame, I folded, showing my JKo. Sean offered to show me one card, which he was holding in his hand. So I asked to see the other card, which he flatly refused, showing only the 5 he’d been holding. The other could have been anything, but my guess is a bullet. Whatever, it was too late, and my remaining chips (5x the blinds) were in search of any hand I could shove with. When I got it, Sean mopped up the rest of my stack with a medium pocket pair.
That left Sean and Robert to battle it out for the points. Robert (lowstack by a comfortable margin) began by declaring that the best 2 players had made it to the heads-up. Obviously calling an all-in and hitting your 2 outer with deuces does qualify you as a “2” player. But despite Robert’s bravado, Sean had played almost the entire game in front, and he soon steered his snow plough of chips to sweep Robert aside. A very cool game, Sean.