Home Games

I listed the poker rooms I’ve been to earlier; now as promised here are the home games I tend to participate in (and a couple of, hopefully, humorous stories to go along with it).  The two hosts are John in Kent, and Thom in Burien.

(I've been to a few other home games.  Geoff used to have a game at his office in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle; and Moto, who is one of the nicest guys I've ever met at the table, had a game once at his house in SeaTac.)

Poker John in Kent I’ve already written about, but as promised, here is an interesting tale from one of my earliest visits.

John hosts a wide variety of tournaments at all levels of buy-in, from $40 up to $500 depending on the circumstances.  On one occasion (this was way back in October of 2006), he decided to host what he called a “High Roller” tournament with a $100 buy-in.  Unfortunately, he could only find fourteen players that could afford those stakes, including me.  So he decided to host a satellite tournament earlier in the evening, with a $20 buy-in, that would give a few more players the $100 needed for the high-roller tourney.  If five players played in the satellite, the winner would get the buy-in for the High Roller game.  If ten players played, the top two would get in.

As it happens, I showed up really early (with my $100), so I decided to play in the satellite.  There were nine of us; so the winner would get the High Roller buy-in, and second-place would get $80.

Unfortunately, I won the satellite, so basically I locked out somebody who, if they would have won instead, would have played in the tournament.

To make matters worse, I ended up winning the tournament, too.  So, my $20 buy-in yielded a $700 payday.  I think it’s the first tournament of any type that I actually won, so it was really exciting.

The other home game I tend to go to is Thom’s in Burien.  It’s usually a smaller group and always a cash game as opposed to a tournament.  The stakes are 25c/50c with a minimum buy-in of $40 and a max of whatever Thom feels like at the time (usually $100 but sometimes more).  The players there tend to be … well, I’ll be charitable and say that they are really loose.  But I’ll also be honest and say that I don’t believe I’ve ever gone away loser from Thom’s house.

One of the regulars there is Kim (also known as Satan).  He’s actually a really nice guy, although he doesn’t have earlobes.  He likes to see a lot of flops, and unfortunately he frequently carries inferior hands all the way to the river.

On a recent visit there, I was in middle position with a pocket pair of fives.  It was folded to me, and I raised it to $1.50 (three times the big blind).  It then folded to Kim on the button, who called.  I immediately put him on a range somewhere between deuce-three offsuit and pocket aces.  The blinds folded, and we took the flop heads-up.

The flop was garbage, and the betting went check-check.  Another rag on the turn, another check-check.  When the river also bricked, I checked again, thinking that my fives might actually win.

Kim then put out a river bet that was roughly pot-sized.  I figured he had two high cards but decided to ponder it just a little bit before calling.  Weak donkey that I am, I didn’t seriously consider a value-raise.

While I was in the process of deciding to go ahead and call, one of the other players at the table piped up and said, “He’s just bluffing!  Call him!”  Poor Kim, everybody likes to tease him.  But I realized that it was probably true – Kim had to bet to win.

So I said to the heckler, “Okay, give me five bucks and I’ll call him.”  My benefactor tossed over a five-dollar chip, and I turned over the winning pair.  While I was collecting the pot, I confessed, “You know, I was going to call anyhow, but I thought maybe I could get another five dollars out of it!”