Friday night was a ton of fun. My wife and daughter were out of town, so I hosted a poker game. We had 12 people show up, and it was one of the weirdest poker nights for me in a long time. I dealt most of the night, we ran two tables, each having six players.

I swear that almost every single hand I dealt either had the makings of a flush, or a straight, and a lot of straight flush possibilities. One of the first hands of the night I started off with:

  ,

A nice little connector I thought, so I limped in to see a flop, which came: , , . Nobody seemed that interested in the pot, so I bluffed at it for 2x the big blind. Two callers. The turn comes . Sweet I've made my straight! So I check. It checks around... damn. The last card . So I bet about five times the big blind. One guy folds, the other raises me the same amount, I call, and loose to a flush. Doh! I didn't even notice it.

Ok, not a big deal, still have plenty of chips. But now I'm gunshy. So a few hands later, I get pocket sevens (, ). I call the bets and the flop comes , , . Crap. I've flopped a set, but man there's a flush possibility, and a straight draw. So I bet big, 6x the big blind.

Two people call. Crap. Now the comes off. Great. I check. Two more huge bets. I think I'm so smart and say, "I'm gonna lay this one down...." The river comes off w/ something innoculous. The two huge betters reveal their hands, a pair of kings, and two pair! Damn... I made the wrong call again.

That's really not like me.

Ok so I figure, time to recompose myself. Let those two hands go.

So here's where the night got interesting, my neighbor Brent, was just TEARING through the competiion, he had knocked three people out (2 of them rebought into the game, to be knocked out minutes later) then it was time to combine the two tables.

We all played for a while, and two or three people got knocked out. Brent was poised to win the tournamnet, no questions, hands down, when he leaned over to me and said "My babysitter has to leave at midnight, do you think I'd win if I stayed?"

I said, "Dude, you'd have to be a moron to lose with the amount of chips that you have."

He was bummed out because 1st place paid $150 on a $20 entry. So out of desperation, or frustration, he started betting all his chips on every hand, no matter what cards he had. Now this may seem cool, for someone that had a good hand, but the thing to remember in a situation like this is, if you lose the race against a chip bully, you're out of the tournament!

So one of the very last hands before he had to go, Brent moves all in with and . Most of everyone folds, but my good friend eric pauses and says "I have a good hand". He's obviously conflicted, but I know the thought, "If I beat this guy, who has to leave, who does not care if he wins this hand, I'd be poised to win this thing".

So Eric pushes all his chips into the pot. Then a few people later, Darren, decides to go all in as well. Amazing. So our seven handed game has the opportunity (for me) to go from 7 players to 4 (if Brent wins since he's leaving). I think I even said aloud, "I don't know why you guys would tangle with Brent, since he's leaving.... he'll probably knock you out of the game."

Well Eric turns over (suit is not important in this hand), Darren turns over , and Brent turns over . Darren is a strong favorite in this situation. The flop came three rags () so Darren is still in front, then the came on the turn. Brent is in the lead. The only way Darren can win, is to get an Ace, and Eric is pretty much out of the game at this point. The river brings a , giving brent two pair, Jacks and sixes. Eric and Darren are out of the game.

Brent plays a few more hands, and keeps pushing all in... he thinks he's trying to give his chips away, but everyone just concedes folding their cards. I laid down an Ace Jack, that would have won, but I did not want to risk my position. After Brent leaves, it's just four of us now. It would have been very tough for me to make 1st, 2nd, or 3rd. But now, I'm way better off.

Long story short, we played for another hour or so, and I was able to win the match. Another point, when playing a tournament format, make sure that you can stay for as long as the tournament will run, seldom do we ever finish before midnight. I was shocked when Brent said he could not stay later.

Oh yeah my new table I'm building is about 60% complete, here is a shot of the LCD monitor embedded into the table to keep track of the blinds, and run our tournament software.