Home Game Insanity

I have a regular home game that I play with a few friends, which is always a great time. We usually do tournament style no-limit Hold ‘em. (Technically, it’s dealer’s choice, but it’s rare for a different game to be played even once in the course of the evening.)

A couple of crazy things happened during our home game Friday night: First, someone called Omaha 8, but since we were tournamet style, the dealer couldn’t change the game’s betting structure… so it was no-limit Omaha 8.

I flopped top set, although there was a possible strait (but no flush) on the board. The strait would require a 5/3 to be in the player’s hands, so I felt it was at least a little unlikely, even in Omaha. Even if someone HAD the strait, I had a decent shot at a redraw, as well as a solid 8 low hand. I made a pot-sized bet, and one person called, another raised. I studied the board and the relative chip positions (I had a SIGNIFICANT chip lead on the raiser– more than 3:1, but only a relatively small lead on the caller.) I pushed all-in, trying to protect my set. I got three callers!

Here’s the crazy thing: 3 people had the nut strait, and the board didn’t pair. One of the players had a 6-low in addition to his strait, which was the nut high and the nut low on the board. It took us literally 10 minutes to figure out how many chips each player got with 4 players all-in with varying stack sizes, and one player taking a split of the low. I was down to almost no chips, and forced to do a re-buy.

A couple hours later, I had built back up to a respectable stack (I was in 2nd chip position) when I flopped a king-high flush. I slowplayed it a bit because I was headas up… it went check-check on the flop. I made a small feeler bet on the turn, and got raised pretty significantly. Thinking that my opponent had just hit two pair or a set, I thought that an all-in raise might get a call, and I was right. At least I was right about the call… however, I was dead wrong about my opponent’s hand. He turned over an ace-high flush to my king-high flush, and half my stack was down the tubes, along with any real chances of winning.

In the end, it was the 3rd time in the history of our little poker night that I finished out of the money. (I finished 4th in a tourny that paid out to third.)