Live game

We had a new live game last Friday. David C, (another New York Giants Fan in Texas), hosted a game with some new friends (new to me). David H and Tonja attended from my normal game.

The stakes were a bit higher than usual for live play with friends, $100 buy-in freezeout tournament, followed by a $100 buy-in 1-2NL cash game.

We expected 2 tables of play, but we kicked off the touney seven handed. It sounds small, but that's $700 in play! Payout was initially set for 1st - 500, and 200 for second. The action was pretty loose and fast early. David H was the first knocked out when his all-in pre-flop bluff with J6 was picked off by an equally dodgy Kx (meaning king with low kicker).

In this game the deal rotates, which is normal for most home games. In this hand, the dealer was a younger novice player. At the turn, there was no pair for either player, so the K high still lead. The dealer flips a Jack (giving a pair of Jacks fro David H) and myself and one other player (both not in the hand, of course) noticed that the dealer never BURNED the final card. Of course, this was hotly debated, but the best course of action was to actually play the hand as intended and the Jack was mucked as the burn card. Understandably, David was furious, but there was no other way to play the hand. You could not award the pot to David based on the wrong card played, you could not replay the hand since no betting took place to affect the order or cards or participation in the hand, and the hand could indeed be played correctly, with the cards falling as if the jack was never exposed. It sucks, but it's fair.

The psychology involved is terrible in this situation. You are all-in and you see your winning card exposed, although incorrectly. Burning a card is a practice used to discourage working a card to the top of the deck (i.e. cheating). Now cheating isn't likely in a friendly game, but when playing where everyone doesn't know each other, this proper procedure is necessary to keep the game honest.

We didn't have immediate access to Roberts Rules of Poker (available online for free), which is a great resource for procedures for live and tournament play. Give it a look.

Down to 3-handed Tonja, the new guy, and I were down to determine who was in the money. New guy was way in the lead (deck hit him in the face tghat night) and I was in second place. Tonja was near the felt. I offered to cut a deal where we take $100 of the 1st place prize and give a 3rd place which returns their buy-in back. They easily agreed and now the payouts were 400-200-100.

On nearly the next hand, Tonja was all-in with QQ against my 77 and doubled up. I survived another 20 minutes or more and was out in 3rd. Tonja, whittled down new-guy's (wait, his name was Ahmed) stack and won the tourney. Congrats Tonja!

I fared quite well in the cash game (my quad kings holding KK on a strightened board was nice) winning a few hundy. Andrea showed up later when the game was low on play and we swithced to $3/6 for an hour or so more.

Great job hosting David C....hope to do it again.