Mr. Lew's Restaurant Review

Hello everyone!

This is Mr. Lew. It is an honor to be placing this entry on this board! Since I am not a poker expert, I will not be discussing poker.

On the RARE occasion in which I visit Las Vegas, I like to enjoy a good meal. Thus, I picked a restaurant and would like to offer up this review of “Nora’s Cuisine”. The following is the restaurant’s general information.

Nora’s Cuisine
6020 W. Flamingo Rd.
Las Vegas, NV 89103
www.norascuisine.com
702.873.8990

After finishing a session of poker at Caesar’s Palace, Mr. C, Mr. D, Mr. K and myself get into a rental car and start driving to Nora’s Cuisine. I have a map of its location and know it is near the corner of W. Flamingo Rd. and S. Jones Blvd. While driving west on Flamingo looking for it, we get to Jones. Based on the map, I know have past the restaurant. At this time, I give FAILING marks to Mr. C, Mr. D and Mr. K for navigation as well as back seat driving. Since I DO NOT visit this town very often, I cannot be expected to know where everything is. We find the restaurant in a strip mall and they appear to be busy. This is not a problem. I made reservations for 9:15 PM and we are on time.

I speak with the pretty hostess and she informs me that there will be a 20 minute wait for a table. Hmmm. That is ok. Everyone is working hard and the restaurant is very busy. Mr. C, Mr. D and Mr. K are informed of the delay. They don’t seem to care. They quickly return to their discussion regarding poker. Exploration time! First things first, I need sugar. I go to the bar and get a half orange juice / half cranberry juice with no ice. I do not drink, but Nora’s bar looks capable of mixing any drink one could think of. I did not see many bottles of wine though and did not look for it. Thus I cannot comment upon their wine selection. Looking around the room with the bar (there are two small rooms), There is one long table. I going to guess the table had about thirty people sitting on it. That is a long table. The bar itself has high chairs with some older looking Italian gentlemen who were by themselves were eating dinner. Heading back to the hostess station, there are a group of approximately sixteen young people waiting for dinner. I don’t remember anything about the guys. The young ladies were all in dressy casual attire. At this point, I have two words going through my head, Eye Candy. Life is good. Note that there were a few families at the restaurant. Nora’s is not a see and be seen type of restaurant, which is good because I hate those types. Near the hostess station, there was a young man making pizzas. The dough twirling was cool. I watched him for a little bit.

When we were seated, there was a basket of garlic bread. The bread was nothing to write home about, but is was buttery and hot. After six hours of poker, it seemed good at the time. I had four pieces. J

Looking at the pasta portion of the menu, I saw the words “tomato & basil” and felt in the mood. When the waitress came, I pointed at the menu where it said tomato & basil and probably said, do you have this kind of thing with chicken. I thought I was ordering spaghetti, but upon a later check of the menu, it said penne. When the dish came, I asked about it and after checking the menu, realized that it was my mistake. She was VERY nice to me about it, took the penne back and had the kitchen make it with spaghetti. For this, I will give Nora’s a B+ for service. Note that I would never give a restaurant any type of A unless the service is outstanding. This implies a dedicated waiter/waitress to each table or maybe to every two tables. Inexpensive restaurant cannot afford this…

Mr. C had the “Crazy” Alfredo. It is a fettucine Alfredo with chicken, sausage, shrimp, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes and jalapenos. He appeared to be happy with it. Mr. D had Chicken Carciofi. It is linguine with boneless chicken breast, tomato, artichokes and capers. He appears to be happy with it. Mr. K had gnocchi. It is a potato dumpling type pasta. I don’t know much about it, but he appeared to be happy with it.

Now, as stated above, I had a tomato & basil spaghetti. It is spaghetti with tomatoes and basil. Can we say duh? J I will rate it as just ok. It was not good or outstanding. It seemed like they made it appropriately, but I just felt like it was just ok. I have had the pasta at Angelini Osteria in Los Angeles and Valentino’s in Los Angeles and I thought their pasta was good. Here in Las Vegas, I have had pasta at the casual portion of Valentino’s in the Venetian and at the Pasta Shop on Tropicana near Eastern. Those two places had only ok pasta too. It seems like the best I can find in Las Vegas is just ok pasta. Oh well. I guess I will keep looking. I want a religious experience good when I eat a meal.

For desert, I pre-ordered a warm chocolate cake. It was made with Valrhona chocolate. Can we say chooocooolaaate? I like Valrhona! It came with some vanilla type sauce with pistachios in it. The cake itself was warm when I took my first bite. The outer parts of the cake was a little crusty from the baking and the cake seemed to be crumbly when cut into with a fork. I guess this adds texture, but I prefer just a touch less texture. Note that often, texture is good in a desert. When the cake was in my mouth, the flavor of the chocolate came through. It was not too strong, not over powering and not too weak. There was no sweet after taste to it, but it was sweet. Ok, I can’t explain that last statement. Maybe I mean it was not too sweet. The taste of the chocolate was good. As for the vanilla sauce with the pistachios, I felt this did not add anything to the desert in a positive way. In fact, it seemed like it distracted my attention away from the chocolate flavor of the cake. It think that this desert needs a better sauce complement. That or at least improve the sauce. Even with a complementing sauce that is lacking, I give the warm chocolate cake a thumbs up. It is good.

Oh well, Nora’s seems ok. Would I go back? I guess so. The prices seem good for the food that you get. The food seems ok. The service, while a little slow, was nice because I did screw up my order and they did not make me feel bad about it or charge it on the bill.

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Peanut Gallery Comments:

Love the sarcasm Mat! You definitely visit Vegas the LEAST! We felt good about the fact that this place was right next door to an Arbys. If this place sucks, the cheddar melt and curly fries are sinfully good. Mat, I have a question: There was eye candy walking about and you’re watching a guy twirling pizza? Was he cute? Oh and by the way, if the bread was so crappy why did you have FOUR pieces? It would have been more if Eric didn’t have 8!

Mr. Lew’s review: lukewarm thumbs almost up. The rest of us: Great atmosphere, nice “scenery” and good food. Good pick Mat. Manga, Manga, Eat, Eat!!

Jeff

There's a little black spot on the sun today

Hey all, Jeff here. It’s my turn to spin the story. So far the trip has been a blast. Of course that’s coming from a man who is up for the trip. I can’t say the same for Dave. Talk about rat bastards, he ran into his fair share at Caesars’. More about that later.

The day begun with a Wynn buffet run. Those people know how to put together a spread. The other 100 people in line thought so too. We spent our time wisely in line discussing our poker strategies for the day, hoping it would translate into higher profits for the night. After breakfast we went to the poker room at Caesars. I was shocked to see the place was packed at 3pm on a Friday. We all ended up sitting down at the same table. This was my first real no limit experience. So I adopted the patented Lew / King style of power poker. The table was tight and mostly business. Before long Eric was using his skills to build a fairly sizable stack. Mat was up and Dave and I were holding our own. Then the table slimmed down to all but the four of us and some poor schmo. The game quickly turned into a home game style of play. I’ll call you one time! Your ace is no good. You’re playing that junk, I raise! Eric’s stack saw the flaw in this style of play. Before we knew it four brass and aggressive players sat down and changed the table. They were having fun and playing like this was a penny ante game. Everyone got his game face on, waiting for a hand. Unfortunately I was the first to stand up to an aggressive raise. I had AJ in late position. One yahoo made his frequent raise, so I figured I have to be good. That was until the reraise for most of my stack came out. He hadn’t made a move like this before, he was always the initiator. I wanted to think I was good enough to put him on a bluff and call, but my greenness won out and I mucked. He flipped over JJ, whew! Thank you poker gods. Dave was the one that actually got big hands against these guys. Much to his demise, however. His AA got cracked by J9s, KK got cracked by AQ (99 also in the pot). Well played good sir, unfortunately the yahoos won this round.

Hand Of The Day
------------------

Okay actually this should be the hand of yesterday, but it’s the only entertaining analysis I can think of. This is the same 2/4 limit game Mr. C and Mr. L played in.

Pre Flop: Mr K. was playing good hands as always. Mr. C was in the big blind. Mr. K raises from early position with AJ. Mr. C has AK and before he calls looks up and smiles, you can’t steal my blind! Okay the interesting folly here is that no one ever tries to steal blinds at this low limit game and Mr. K wasn’t trying to do that, but it sets up the mood for the hand.

Flop: Kxx two diamonds
Mr. C bets 2, everyone calls.

Turn: A diamonds
This is where it gets interesting. Mr. C was getting his chips ready for a bet in the dark but in mid motion the Ace came out and Mr. C unwillingly hesitated before throwing the bet out. Mr. K took this as a sign of weakness, laughs and says: You didn’t like that card, raise! Mr. C reraises and Mr. Ks radar goes off and he calls.

River: Rag of diamonds
Now with four to the flush out there betting is scary when you don’t have one. Mr. C throws it out, Mr. K calls quickly. Uh oh! Mr. C says you got a diamond? Nope! Two pair wins it.

Mr. K later tells of the tell he saw. He was the unfortunate victim of masterful acting by Mr. C! (Actually Mr. C was lucky it was a diamond giving a possible flush to help give off the false tell)

This home game style of play is why I love playing low limit games.

May all your cards be live and your pots be monsters!

I Met a Man, He Was a Good Man

Hey everybody. This is Dave. As some of you know, I am a man of few words (sarcasm intended), so I'll make this brief. Mat, Jeff, and I arrived last night around 11:00, chatted with Eric a bit, failed to convince him to go out, and then headed over to the MGM for some poker. We had to wait for about half an hour. Mat's pre-play preparation was truly amazing. His concentration was so deep, that if I didn't know any better, I'd think he was actually sleeping. Oh wait, he was sleeping. On to the poker: Jeff and I played a $60 buy-in stop-n-go tournament. 10 players, quick blind structure, first place gets $300, second place $200. Very similar to our Friday games but with an even quicker blind structure. I loved it. Didn't do very well, but very entertaining. I think what's great about this kind of structure is that about after 20-30 minutes, the table gets to see all-in confrontations all the time. It's fun to ooh and ahh after after the flop, turn, and river when you know what the players have. Lots of crazy bad beats. Jeff and I were in the final five and everybody had about the same size stack. I went all in with A9 offsuit (blinds were huge at this point), eventual winner calls with AT, and Jeff calls with K-8. Jeff is gone after the hand and I'm essentially gone.

All in all, a very fun night. I played 2 of these stop-n-go tourneys, losting $120, but won about $150 at 2-4 limit with lots of good cards coming my way. Jeff did a little better, playing one tourney, losing $60 there, and then winning $150 at limit. Mat is down $160 with a lot of it coming after Jeff through him beyond tilt (see HOTD). Eric says he's up $300 due to staying in. He thanks us for getting in so late.

Eric - you are the good man referred to in the title. I had this really bad feeling when we got back to Eric's apartment at 5am that my next sight was going to be Eric's ugly mug glaring down at me at 8:00 with a cheesy grin yelling "Get up Loser! Ha!" Eric, however, was a total stud, letting us sleep til after ten. He probably was just sleeping, but I'll give him the credit anyways.

Without further ado:

Hand Of The Day
------------------

There will be no educational talk here as I'm not a very good poker player. This was just a fun hand to watch.

2-4 Limit
Mr. C under the gun has AA, Mr. L is two to the left and has KK.

Pre-Flop: Mr. C slow plays and smooth calls. Mr. L follows suit and does the same. Great minds obviously think alike. 3 or 4 players are in.

Flop: K 9 2 rainbow
Mr. C bets ($2), Mr. L eyes are bulging, but he sticks with his strategy and cintinues to slow play, simply calling again with his set (very smooth).

Turn: A
This is where it gets fun. I think at this time there was maybe one other player but I am completely ignoring him. I'm hoping something good is going to happen. Mr. C bets, Mr. L decides no more slow playing, so he raises in typical Mr. L. fashion with 8 chips flying through the air. Other guy is long gone. Re-raise, re-raise, re-raise. At this point, I feel this blast of air come out of Mr. L who is directly to my right. He is defeated literally and figuratively. He mutters some obscenity I won't repeat here, glares at his friend, and calls. He is now a broken man.

River has nothing.
Mr. C bets, Mr. L calls. They show their cards. All Mr. C can do is give a sheepish smile and say "Sorry about the Mat". I try to soothe him by saying it would have been a lot worse if this were no limit. As you can probably guess, that didn't seem to help much.

It is now morning, and Mat is still not happy with Jeff. He offers this quote: "Jeff, Damn you, you rat bastard". Jeff apologizes again. It is one happy family here.

The Lord does give, the Lord does take

Today's theme is "punishment".

Last night, I got told, for the third time this trip, that I looked like Thomas Jane, star of the 2004 movie "The Punisher". Frankly, I don't see it (click the thumbnail):



Even if someone could squint their eyes and scrunch up their nose and see a vague resemblance, there is no truth to the idea that I am punishing anyone. Quite the opposite, in fact.

However, if cookies were dollars, I think I'd actually be ahead on this trip! A couple of days ago Mary Kate asked me if I'd received a package from her and Joe. I hadn't, since it had been sent through regular mail and I don't have access to the mailbox for this apartment. So today my landlady got it for me, and lo and behold, it is chock full of Oreos, other cookies, crackers, and a bunch of little games. Very, very nice of you two - thanks so much! I'm looking forward to the little football game and am hatching a top-secret plan to slip the "magic card deck" into the next lunchtime tournament.

I was doubly surprised to find another care package from my sister Becky, filled with oodles of homemade Spritz butter cookies. Those of you who have been to my Christmas Cookie Party may remember these as the ones that get squeezed out of the cookie press, into little shapes. Well, this Spritz were in the shapes of hearts, spades, and diamonds. I didn't see any clubs in there, but I ate 5 spades. Aces to aces, flush to flush. Thanks sis - you're awesome!

Speaking of aces...

HAND OF THE DAY:
------------------------

Spoiler: It's not like this is original or anything.

I went back to the MGM last night to play $1-$2. I decided I would buy in only once, for $200. So I did, and then proceeded to be rather card-dead for the next 2.5 hours. I think I voluntarily played 3 hands during that stretch, winning only one when I turned a pair and rivered two pair with JT suited. Finally I flopped a straight with 84 off in the big blind, and doubled up my remaining $150 through someone who had flopped two pair. All we need is patience, right?

Since I was playing so few hands, my table image was once again super-duper tight, and just in case anyone hadn't noticed, there was a loudmouth at the other end of the table that kept spouting off about it every time I did enter a pot. And there were a couple of gentlmen from some European country that really liked to put people on the spot by going all in whenever a scare card appeared on the turn or river. Whenever they sensed weakness, they would do this, and it was working for them. One of them pushed me off KK and a 9-high flop when he called my initial bet, then raised me when a second 9 came that also put three to a flush on the board. So I was hoping at some point to use this against them.

Finally, I get AA when I'm UTG. No one at this table would ever call an UTG raise from me, so I limped, and got lucky when the guy right behind me raised to $6 - that silly, annoying, pointless raise - and 5 other people called. So it's back to me, and I make it $30. Loudmouth calls, as does my previous nemesis, Euroboy.

Flop is 972 with two spades. I'm first to act, and there's now around $120 in the pot. I'm not worried about Loudmouth at all, because he was totally and 100% afraid of me. Not only did he keep saying this, ad nauseum, but he had previously checked and folded JJ to me on a T-high flop when I bet (I had 66). I pretty much knew he would fold anything other than a set. So I wanted to throw out a little bit of bait for Euroboy.

I settled on $50. This would make a spade draw slightly unprofitable, but at the same time it would look kind of weak into a $120 pot. Loudmouth hemmed and hawed, talking about how good his draw was, and then folded. Then Euroboy, with a grand flourish, shoved all of his chips into the pot.

Trust me, my chips almost beat his into the center of the table. I immediately flipped over my aces, and saw by my opponent's Euroface that he was beaten. I'd gotten him to do exactly what I wanted him to do. The turn and the river were a K and a J, and I was getting ready to rake in the pot when my opponent flipped over T8 clubs for the straight. Egads! He didn't even have a flush draw. From his talk afterwards, he had put me on AK and thought I wouldn't call.

This around 0030. I had $5 remaining, so I cashed out and left. As I walked back to my car, I felt mostly like I have after my Hustler beats - OK with the fact that I'd gotten all my money in the pot with the best hand and being a strong favorite to win, and gotten drawn out on. I set the guy up perfectly, and he went for it. There's little else I can do.

I guess my sisters aren't reading the blog, because I'm pretty sure they would have gotten yesterday's lyrics from "Rootin' Tootin' Cowboy". This was a song from a piano lesson book that we all three played as children, and my dad loved this song.

Play well, everyone.

Got myself a Stetson, and a fancy vest

I didn't play yesterday. But I realized that I basically need to cowboy up, get back out there, and try to spank a few people.

Chuy, nice try on the NIN song, but the title is "Self Destruction, Part Two". Today's song title would very likely be only guessed by either of my sisters, or my dad. The author is not necessary, since I don't know it myself.

While we're on the subject of old music and cowboys, I thought I'd share with you all a wonderful resource for downloading what the website authors are calling "Roots Music". It's a boatload of free MP3s of various styles, mostly from the 1920s-1930s. Good stuff if you're interested in music from that era: http://juneberry78s.com/sounds/index.htm

I have no HOTD of my own, so I will address one that I got via email, from someone who requested my opinion.

HAND OF THE DAY:
------------------------

A woman sat down on my immediate right, and this was maybe her second hand. She had taken down a decent pot in her first hand, so I had no information on her except that maybe she was feeling pretty confident having won her first hand without much of a fight. She had maybe $250 and I had maybe $325.

She was in seat 7; I was in seat 8 (only 9 players fit at the table instead of 10). I think seat 2 or 3 was small blind ($3) and seat 3 or 4 was big blind ($5).

I think she had bet only one previous hand, but I don't remember anything about it. However, she did make a sizable bet in order to scare away her contender on the first hand, which allowed her to take down about $50 profit to her on the hand.

On the hand in question, I don't think there was any meaningful previous betting. There were the blinds, and maybe one person called the big blind. There was no more than $13 or 18 in the pot by the time it got to her. As far as prior betting at the table before she arrived at the table, most big pre-flop bets by some of the people were running around $35.

The cards get dealt and I have AK unsuited. Woman bets $75. With $5 big blind, this seems like way too high a pre-flop bet, but then again I don't know whether she knows what an appropriate pre-flop bet is. I put her on a pocket pair, but given that I have AK I put her on a pair of tens, jacks or queens. I also know that if I call, I'll see her post-flop bet before having to commit to anything or reveal anything about my hand. So be honest... was I nuts to call? You won't hurt my feelings if you say yes.

Nuts to call? I don't know about that, but you pretty much need the pre-flop nuts (AA) to call this bet, in my opinion. KK would suffice as well. QQ I'd think about. Everything else, I'd toss, especially AK.

Let's take a look at AK and the read you had on your opponent (TT, JJ, QQ). Assuming your read is correct, your opponent will bet out strongly on any flop that doesn't contain an A or a K. You will then be forced to fold. If you do hit the flop, your opponent will likely check and fold to any bet from you. You will hit the flop roughly 1/3 of the time. So you will likely lose your $75 call two-thirds of the time, and have little expectation for extracting any more money from your opponent on the remaining 1/3 of the time. Clearly, you have a negative expectation overall with this hand. Then let's not forget the rare cases where you hit your A or K, and your opponent makes trips - in which case you probably will lose $250, the amount your opponent had in her stack.

Let's also not forget the cases in which your read is incorrect and your opponent has KK or AA. I agree that her raise is more likely to indicate a medium to medium-large pair, but there is some chance she could be going a little crazy with a truly premium hand, in which case you're toast once again. The fact that it was a woman doing the betting makes that scenario even more likely, as they tend to play much tighter than the men. Honestly people, there are few things at a poker table that scare me more than a woman betting. They are even scarier then, than they are in real life.

So to me, AK is an easy laydown in that hand. Other than folding, your second best option would be to push all in. AK is a slight dog to a smaller pair only after all 5 community cards have hit the board, which won't happen most of the time if you simply call, since you will have to fold after the flop. It's also possible your opponent would lay down TT or JJ and you would take the pot right there. With such large pre-flop bet though, this is unlikely.

The only situation in which I would call such a large bet pre-flop with AK is if the bettor was short-stacked and going all-in. In that case, their range of hands is much more likely to include AQ, AJ, KQ, or any of the smaller pocket pairs. Even then you're probably gambling with a disadvantage on the hand, but the blinds and limper money make up for that, and heck, it ain't no fun to lay down AK.

Play well, everyone. Yee-haw!!!

i am the truth from which you run and i control you

Ack! Is this over yet?

I am so, so tired of playing poker.

I didn't even go on Friday, despite intending to. In addition to simply not wanting to play, I'd slept poorly the two nights prior and knew that it would be a bad idea for me to go. It's actually been a while since I've actually wanted to play - I know I haven't at all over the last week and a half or so.

Last night I dragged myself to the Bellagio. For some reason, I feel more comfortable there than I do anywhere else. I'm going to have to add "not hitting my monster draws" as another contributing factor to my ongoing troubles. If my memory serves me, on this trip I am 1 for 6 on all-ins where I am the favorite to win the hand on a draw. Since these pots are always in the multi-hundred dollar range, it's a big chunk. Now, 1 for 6 isn't an unexpected result over such a short time, but still. Last night I hit two draws where I had both an open-ended straight and flush draw (the second one, I also had two overcards) and lost both. I was a 56% favorite on the first, and a 69% favorite on the second. Waah, waah, waah.

My opponents, however, fared well on their draws, particularly those of the runner-runner straight variety with K4 and a K56 board against my black aces. The gentleman called a re-raise on the flop and a $45 bet on the turn. I actually bet the river with four to a straight on the board, because I did not believe that his kicker would have been in the range to make him a straight. I really don't like missing a bet that I think my opponent will call when I believe I have the best hand.

Luckily, I also hit some big hands of my own, so despite taking some heavy losses I only bought in once for $200. It was gone after I lost the second of the two drawing hands.

I've been thinking a lot about my game lately. I read a good article by Annie Duke about tilting. She was conversing with a winning player that had been losing for two weeks straight, and they got on the subject of tilting. In the article, she says that when most players think of 'tilt', they specifically think of wild, maniacal calling/betting because you are emotionally upset. However, she generalized the definition to include any time your decisions are affected by your emotional state. She then went on to say that some players express their tilt by playing to minimize their losses. Here's a quote from the article "They get it into their head that even if they have aces, they will lose." Obviously, that struck home. She also gave a typical real-life example of a person who, with a very weak hand, does not bet out when a card that is likely to be scary for his opponent comes on the river, and a bet is likely to cause the opponent to fold.

I don't know if I'm in that state of tilt or not - probably to some extent, I am. I haven't completely lost my aggression - for instance, I limped in UTG with 77, called a raise to $30, and bet out $45 on a K-high flop to take the pot down. A lot of players would probably have conceded that pot. But that's just one example; overall, my game has progressed in the direction of timidity.

I did finally come across a situation in which even I would have been ethically compelled to not exploit a weakness of an opponent. Joining the table late last night was a man in a wheelchair who had some sort of condition which elimated, I would estimate, about 85% of his muscular control. His arms and legs would curl and twist in the general direction of a target, but with little effectiveness, and every so often his whole body would spasm. I do not know the name of this condition, but I seem to remember one of my great-aunts, or someone in my family, having it. Anyway, there was no way this player could manage a task such as handling his own cards, so he had a companion with him to show him the cards, and to translate the mostly unintelligible speech. This companion would lift the cards up high, and it was obvious that the people sitting on either side of him had a clear view of them also. I do not know whether they looked or not; it would have been difficult NOT to. But the table itself took on a different character while he was there. He was not a skilled player, folding almost every hand and raising huge amounts when he had something, so his stack was quickly eroding. But you could tell that some of the other players playing were kind of rooting for him. At one point, he was under the gun and raised all-in for a little over $100. Now, this is a preposterous UTG raise at a $2-$5 table, that would only get called by AA or maybe KK, and no one called. But one or two of the guys were looking at their hands for a while, and to my opinion it seemed as though they were searching for a reason to call, knowing they were way behind, just to give this man a little taste of success. Myself, I was thinking that it was pretty neat that poker provided an avenue for him to go out into the world and have an adventure.

I liked Jeff's caption for the Godzilla/Mothra scene. Even though he was the only one to try, it probably would have stood up to some more competition.

HAND OF THE DAY:
-------------------------

This HOTD is one of the most confusing hands I've ever been involved in.

I'm on the button with AQ suited. A few players limp in, and I raised to $15, and get two callers. I know this is a small raise, but there's two reasons why I chose $15. First, as I have already noted, I've been playing less aggressively, and with hands like AK and AQ I don't feel like committing a lot to a pot pre-flop. Secondly, no one at the table would call raises larger than that, if they came from me, due to my tight play.

So the flop comes: Q55

Now, I feel like playing a paired flop is one of the most interesting challenges in poker. There are so many variations on position, holdings, and the fear that is involved with both you and your opponents. Strategic play and bluffing is rewarded well. I might talk about this in a later post.

The action is checked to me, so I bet $25. The first caller, who was in the big blind, calls. And so does the other player! One caller, I can still feel relatively confident about my hand, but with two? Not so confident at all.

The turn is an 8 and is checked around by all. The river is a J, and suddenly the big blind bets out $75. To which, the next player responds by going over the top, all in, for another $60 or so.

I am so confused by this, and my assumption is that I am beaten, so I fold. Now this is where it gets really weird. First, the big blind folded, and flashed a K as he did so. Then, the over-the-top raiser flashed one of his cards - also a K. Bizarre. I strongly believe neither of those players would have played K5. The big blind might have, but he never would have folded his hand if that were the case. So I believe he had KQ - and I would have called his $75 bet. The other guy is somewhat of a mystery. I also don't believe he had K5. KJ is a possibility, but I doubt he would have called my initial $25 bet. The guy limped in, called a pre-flop raise, called a bet on a Q55 board, then raised over the top when he had no chance of bluffing an opponent out of the pot. He must have believed he had the best hand. Given all that, I believe that he had KK. I had seen some very odd play of big pairs - people would limp in even in late position with the hope of getting raised. Who knows? I asked him about his hand but he was too cool to tell me what it was. KQ is another possibility, but I don't think that hand would have merited the over-the-top raise. Usually I'm not too concerned with my opponents' holdings in any given hand, but in this case I was really curious.

Actually, thinking about it now, maybe the BB had AK and was just bluffing with his $75. Man, I wish I knew what those guys had.

I don't know if I'm going in today. My calendar tells me it's Palm Sunday. If there ever were a day I could get a good hand or two, I guess this is it. Ha! Now that, my friends, was a bad pun. What I should have done was given up poker for Lent. Speaking of Lent, I'm running a little short on cash...

Please, make it stop! Play well, everyone.