Chaos, confusion and me

Yesterday I played my first game of Texas hold’em and it was quite fun. I usually have this rule never to play a game for money but decided to try it out never the less. Since there was a fixed buy-in I didn’t have to worry about loosing more money than the buy-in.

We played two games the first one as a tournament with a buy-in of 100kr to get us rookies into the game without scaring us away. After a few hands I managed to get pocket aces followed by an ace on the flop and the fourth ace on the turn. I managed somehow to keep a straight poker face and get some respectable betting going so in the end my quad aces gave me quite a nice stack of chips. After that it went downhill. First hand played after my win was a typical “rookie thinks he can win this because of one lucky hand” play. After that I played very tight but later on after a couple of hours I sat with pocket kings and tried my luck again. After the river I still had my pocket kings and nothing more. As we showed our cards it turns out that the other guy sat with pocket aces. Darn! I lasted a while longer playing tight as the blinds went up but in the end I was eliminated and placed fifth.

The plan was to play a second tournament but since the first one had lasted nearly four hours and it was now ten o’clock we opted for a cash game instead making it possible for people to leave at any time. This time around I got another reminder of how quickly chips change owners. I had a fairly good betting going on on a mediocre pair which turned into a three-of-a-kind on the river which tripled my chips. I kept on playing tight (I’m starting to get good at playing tight) and then recieved a good hand which I decided to push forward with. Yet again the pot was awesome and I was commited. This time the pot wasn’t mine though. Turns up the other guy got a full house on the river. I played for another hour then I went all-in with a really short stack on weak pair. Turns out the other guy was bluffing but was saved by the river who gave him a pair slightly stronger than mine. Oh well, that’s life.

Playing poker was fun and I picked up some hints and tips along the way. Let’s hope I remember them and maybe I’ll play another game of poker sometime.

Posted by Edward on Sunday, September 24th, 2006 at 11:04:37.