90 Minutes in Verona

Driving back from school to home in order to get more clothes, I made a pit stop at the turning Stone. I sat at a table that seemed like any other table at the place. A few kids, a few middle aged men, a few guys in their 20s/30s, and one or two retirees. A good cross section of poker player. One player though was creating all the action at the table. He was raising preflop in the blind, calling down everything with anything. He was the type of player that simultaneously makes me salivate and cringe. I know I can take him for alot of money (which he had in his pockets) or he could outdraw me for alot of money (which I don't have). The best way to play was to wait and NEVER bet unless I was sure I had it. The hand finally came. Someone raised the $1/$2 blinds with a middle position raise of $10 on top of the blinds. I had pocket Jacks in the small blind so I called. i didn't want to re-raise because I really only wanted to see a flop and I would pretty much have to fold to any re-re-raise. The flop came Jack, Nine, Seven. I checked it, the crazy guy bet it, the preflop raiser called it, and I called it. The turn was an Ace. I checked it again, Crazy Guy bet it (about $25 each time) the third guy thought, and called it, then I called it. The river was another 7 giving me a boat. I decided to bet it because Crazy Guy had been checking the river and the preflop raiser seemed terrified of the Ace and the board pairing. I bet $30, pretty much all my stack, but I didn't want to scare anyone with an all-in. Crazy guy called and the raiser folded. Crazy guy had a pair of nines which, of course, were crushed by Jacks full of Sevens. That pot gave me about $100 of profit, which is nice.

About 30 minutes later, Crazy Guy was raising preflop $50 completely blind. He did this about 6 hands in a row. There was one hand that he did it and two players both called the $50. I was on the button and looked down at pocket 10s. I really really really wanted to play them but I only had $235 in chips and didn't want to risk more than a fifth of my chips when I was probably killed by one of them. I had to fold. It turns out I wasn't killed as both of them had Big Slick and Crazy guy had 64. Crazy Guy wound up winning with a pair of 6s. I wouldv'e flopped a set of 10s. I had no idea I was 46% to win the hand according to CradPlayer.com's calculator. The put would have given me about $300 of profit as Crazy Guy kept betting without looking. A few hands later, I decided that sitting there just wasn't worth it so I took about $110 in profit and cashed out. It wasn't as much as I wanted to win, but I figured that sitting there was just like sitting at a slot machine.