The fete of the season! We had 77 players from the social club and otherwise, and it was fun to recognize so many faces from all the other games I've had a chance to see these folks at.
I dealt at the first table I played at, and only had one misdeal in 4 levels (80 minutes) of play with an upturned card, and I didn't expose a card before the betting was finished once, so I think my dealing skill is getting better. I also dealt myself quad kings for the high hand of the evening, so that's a pretty good feeling. That hand went a little like this:
P1: Raise to all-in
Me: (KK) Raise to all-in also, with 30% more chips than P1
folds to P3: who calls with a smaller stack also
Exposed all-in cards: ATos, KK, A8s
At this point, I really like having two aces in the battle, and cardplayer calls the odds as 16.9%, 68.1% and 15.0% respectively. The flop ends all discussion when it hits KKx, and I let out a blood-curdling whoop, second only to Jeezus' reactions to the Giants game on the big screen.
That was my first big pot of the evening (almost a triple-up), after playing super-tight for 3 rounds. I had bought one pot, and failed to buy another, and seen one flop for free from the big blind, where me and four limpers failed to catch a single pair with the board!
After that, I continued to play conservatively for many levels, occasionally buying a pot, often laying down decent holdings in tricky situations. When froggy went all-in UTG with half my stack, and I was second to act with KQos, I let it go, only to see him turn over QJos when the big blind called with Axs. My KQ would have beat the QJ with the board, although Ax did catch the flush, so if I hadn't chased out with an all-in re-raise, I was toast. I also let a lot of secondary holdings in early position go, including 98s, which is one of my faves when I have a big enough stack to take a chance with it.
At that table, I had one particularly nice suck out, where I raised with AKs, and got an all-in re-raise from a larger stack. I called, and found myself facing KK. The odds calculator puts me at 34.1%, and KK at 65.9%, so it wasn't a ridiculous suck-out when I caught the Ace.
I took out the host at the final table as BB when he went all-in with less than 2BB in his stack, and I called blind. When I flipped the cards, we were all surprised to see AKs under there, which beat his A8 when neither of us caught.
When we got to the final three, I was the short stack, with maybe 8M left, and I had a hand I couldn't get away from. I was the BB, and the button had raised into me. I caught 66, and after a moment's consideration, I decided not to come over the top, as he had 5 or six times my stack, and I figured if I hated the flop, I'd still have enough chips to pick another all-in hand in the next five or six deals and take my chances there. I told myself that if there was no paint on the flop, I would go all-in regardless of my opponents actions.
The flop came T, 8, 2 two-suited, and I checked without looking at the flop. My big stack opponent bet into it, and I went all-in at that point, which was a dicey call, but based on his earlier patters, I though Ax was a likely candidate for his initial raise, and that he might like to steal the pot if I was passive on the flop. He called immediately, and his ATos survived the turn and river to put me out.
Great evening of card play with a lot of worthy opponents!
