I Popped My NL Cherry!

You know one thing that will really make a woman mad? Just run up and kick her in the butt. (P.S. This also works with men.) –Jack Handey

Though I’ve played plenty of tournament NL, I’ve never found myself at a NL cash game. Last night Zengy called me up around 9 and we met up at the Bike. Usually he goes to the NL area and I head down to the smaller limit games. That night I decided to draw upon the wisdom of Booger in Risky Business “Sometimes you just have to say ‘What the f*ck.”

I bought in for $100 and sat down. I tried to play a tad tighter than I normally do and I looked like I was to be rewarded when I limped in with pocket fours and the flop came TT4. I called a bet on the flop and when the turn came a blank I bet $60. I wanted the action from the T out there and the guy with the mountain of $5 chips at the end of the table was my sucker. He looked over his Mt. Everest of chips and asked how much I had left. It was about $40 and so he put me all in. As he pushed his chips in he said “Ok, show me the other ten,” to which I replied “I don’t have a ten, I have a boat.” He flipped up T3 and I was clearing a little space for my new stack of chips when the dealer tore off a 3 to give him tens over threes against my fours over tens. REBUY!!!

Shortly after that our table busted and Zengy and I ended up on the same table again. There was one guy who was obviously dominating the table. It was like watching a shark gobble up fish. A couple of the guys at the table looked absolutely demolished. One guy reminded me of the Nick Nolte booking photo.

I wasn’t born stupid (that happened later) so I tried to keep clear of Mr. Big Stack most of the game. Fortunately he was sitting to my immediate right so I had a chance to see the train coming. I did mix it up with him on one hand though. I had AQ, I raised and got a few of callers including Mr. Big Stack. When the flop brought and AK I lost all of the callers except Mr. Big Stack who I put on a straight draw. I just kept betting out $20 at a pop trying to lose him but he went to the river with me and missed his draw. He said something like “Well, if you’re only going to bet $20, I had to keep drawing.” I replied back “Dude, even if I pushed in $100, against your stack there’s no way for me to protect my hand.” He sort of chuckled because he knew he was right. If I had gone all in, he probably would have called me and if he got that lucky break he would have busted yet another player.

That put me up nicely but I was still stung a little bit from my first all-in and so when I got AKs UTG and bet $50 I was happy to get a caller but he didn’t just call, he went all-in. I hesitated about one one-millionth of a second and pushed all-in. He flipped up 99. Flop was a bust, turn was a bust, and the river . . . yes that beautiful river that had robbed me of my entire stack earlier that night was a sweet, sweet ace.

Around 1am Zengy and I took our chips and wandered home. Z was up a couple hundred and I think I cleared $35. All in all, despite only being up $35 I think it was a good session. I felt good. In fact, I was quite surprised at how weak some of the competition at the table was. Even at $100 NL, these guys are playing total junk hands. I think I’ll be back.