Presto is not gold - presto hates me

I sat back down to the felt on Tuesday night exercising my weekly hall pass to get out of the house unchaperoned by the Mrs and kids. I was still feeling the pain of having played poorly at state and decided before the first hand was dealt, I was going to play a bit unorthodox, well, at least for me. I really just wanted to get my gambool on.

I did just that and I have to tell you, shoving K8o into JJ is a lot of fun, especially when that beautiful king in the door shows it's face.

Normally, at league, I play a very tight and conservative game. I think my record is not playing a single hand in the first hour and a half. Most of the time, this strategy works. The loose/passive play gets into serious trouble when I still have most of my starting stack and double through the likes of Q4h, but I the take away I'm taking from Saturday is I need to be able to switch gears and play a different style when the need arises.

I've been really enjoying the Yahoo Messenger app on the iPhone. Chatting with other donkeys while playing poker can be very rewarding. Waffles was playing online and chatting telling me the stories of being sucked out again for the billionth time that night, all the while, I was shoving 10 3s into a paired board with two spades on it. It was so fun to hit that 5th spade on the turn. The dude that called my all-in flopped two pair with his 10 9. I had to ask, why would you call an all in with pair of 9s and a 10 kicker? He figured I was on a draw, which I was, but failed to realize that while yes, I was drawing to a flush, and a back door straight and had an over card, it's damn near a coin flip and I was getting my gambool on. Cha ching.

By some miracle, I made my way to the final table. I was basically freerolling and enjoying a night away from the grind of tight/aggression. I figured I made it this far, I might as well play good poker now. Chipping up a little more, we whittled the table down to 5 people.

From under the gun, I did a standard 3X raise with the hand of the devil. I know, final table I should just muck AQo, it can't possibly win. The big blind calls. The flop comes J76 rainbow. Looking at the dude, he missed it completely but shoves all in. Me, being pulled by the devil to misplay this hand, knew that since he missed this flop, I must be good...he couldn't have a medium pair...

Unlike Fuel55 (posting soon?), presto was not gold for me but it was, however, gold for the dude holding it across the table from me. Friggin' donkey.