Change100 at PokerWorks

Jen Leo emailed me last week to see if I wanted to play in her regular homegame, a two-table, $20 buy-in affair that usually took place in Cheviot Hills, but for that night was moving to the 90210 zip code, and would be hosted by the dynamic duo of Dave and Cotie, an engaged couple who had just finished a soup-to-nuts remodel of their Beverly Hills home. I love Jen and I’m a degenterate gambler… like I’m not gonna play poker at a totally gorgeous house that’s only a three-minute drive away?

Checks!

The house, while not ostentatious, is pretty much what California dreams are made of. Completely renovated. Soaring ceilings. Simple, impossibly chic furniture. A kitchen to die for and a spread of delicious food. A game room with a flat screen TV, white leather lounge chairs, and a fully stocked ebonized wood bar standing guard over the full-sized poker table. I drew a seat in that room while Jen drew the second table, set up in the dining room. I sat to the right of Adrian, a funny, jovial and agressive player and to the left of Sue, a charming blonde who was excited to play because she hadn’t done it in a while. Both of our hosts sat across from me– the unpredicatble and super-agressive Cotie and her fiance Dave, who took over all the dealing duties for the night (lemme tell you… it’s a lot faster than having a bunch of people on their third drink try and shuffle cards).

On either the second or third deal, I picked up AA and my raise got no action. Lucky for me, I picked them up again maybe 10 minutes later. An early position player raised to 300 and I made it 800 from the cutoff. After thinking for maybe 30-40 seconds, he called and we went to a K-Q-baby flop with two hearts. That’s a below-average flop for me and my red ace is the ace of diamonds. He checked to me and I fired out 1000. He called. Didn’t love that, but still it’s just a call, not a raise. A raise might give me pause. But I had no idea about this guy’s tendencies yet, so if the turn isn’t scary I’m going to bet out again. The turn was a baby heart. Scary indeed. But something about the way he looked at the heart come down made me think that he didn’t have a heart and he was more concerned that I had just made the flush. So I threw out Plan A and went with the read. He checked again. I moved in and he folded. Later, he told me he had A-J with no heart. So that was a nice pot and I suddenly had something like 8000 chips, almost triple our starting stacks of 3K.

A couple of levels later, I looked down at Q-Q after Larry, the UTG player, limped in for 150. I made it 600 to go, and everyone folded back to Larry who called. The flop came down K high. He checked, I put him in for his last 925 and he called, showing A-K. Bye-bye big stack! Cotie got the rest of my chips on two other hands– one where I had to lay down pocket fives on a J-6-9 flop with two spades and the other, where I pushed in for my last 9 BB with 4-4 and she rivered a Q to take the pot with K-Q. I was out 12th or 13th out of the 18 of us playing.

Cocktails!

The oldest player in this game, according to Jen, is a 93-year old woman who wears all pink and plays every hand. She wasn’t there that night, but I can’t wait to meet her. The youngest, is Larry’s daughter, Hannah, a junior at Beverly Hills High. While gabbing about movies in the kitchen after we both busted out, the film We Are Marshall and it’s hottie star Matthew Fox came up on the docket of films to see. Hannah, however, didn’t know who Matthew Fox was.

“From Lost? Do you watch Lost?”

“No, I heard it’s good though.”

“What about Party of Five?”

“What’s Party of Five?”

“You never saw Party of Five?! Oh my God you’d love it.”

“When was that on?”

“I don’t know, like, the mid-nineties?”

“Yeah… I was like, five.”

I’m not even 30 and I’ve never felt so dated. And by Party of Five of all things. To me, that feels relatively recent. Have I really done that many drugs?

Thanks to the lovely Jen Leo who let me join the party. I had a fabulous time and everyone was very welcoming. I hope to play this game again (and get a chance to stare down Schecky in the process )

Speaking of Schecky, check out his latest Aussie Millions video that went up today, featuring everyone’s favorite faux internet doctor, Pauly! The Main Event is in full swing and metrosexual Finnish dreamboat Patrik Antonius is the runaway chip leader with 315,000. The next guy has something like 200K. Fashionista and Christian Louboutin slingback enthustast Kristy Gazes has a pretty sweet stack herself with 138K. Keep up with all the action on PokerNews and tell Pauly how much you love his glasses

This entry was posted on Monday, January 15th, 2007 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.