Oh No, Dealing at Legion

My worst nights at the Legion are usually when I walk in and Sandy asks me to deal. My answer is always the same, "If you can't get anyone else". There is a small group who actually like it, but most of us agree that it really throws off your game (imagine Donny playing and dealing). I always seem to give myself awful cards to boot and really get zero reads on the other players being distracted.

Last night I dealt. There were a group of friends playing together on my table and they fancied themselves quite the pros. One player in particular was good, I saw him being very deliberate, setting traps, and getting very lucky. An example: I was playing a suited 9/10 of spades when the flop came 10/10/J with 2 diamonds. Very nice flop for me. The young gun bets into me, I flat call with another player in the hand. He also calls. The turn is a blank and young gun bets a little bigger (300) I raise to 900, the other player folds and he calls. The river is the 2 diamonds. He checks, I check behind and he shows the flush. Clever and nice try. Later, he flops trip 4's with another player having the 4-flush. When the other player raises him all in he calls and the flush misses. Reversed situations, luck.

I snap one of his friends who was making lots of plays like reraising early position bettors, betting big on the button, and had accumulated quite a few chips. Being short stacked due to his buddies draw out I raise in late position with 4/4 with him limping and another guy calling my raise he reraises enough to almost put me all in...as I remember I made it 250 and he reraised to 900. The other limper folds and the flop is small with a 3. I have only 60 behind which I shove, he calls and shows 2/2. I sweat the 2 outer and more than double up. The folder says that he gave up on his 3/3 which would have flopped the set. Unusual three hands with pocket 2's, 3's and 4's. I did have the best hand preflop.

I again make the final table short stacked and survive till the bubble. The table decided to pay bubble boy his buy in back and I shove a couple of times after that finally losing to a raise from 10/10 calling with my A/Q and seeing a 9 high flop. Had enough chips behind to probably induce his fold if any overcards had flopped, but another player said that he had folded A/Q so I was drawing pretty thin. Shortly after I got knocked out a huge 3 way all in happened and the big stack knocked out two. If I had folded my AQ preflop I would have taken 4th place money, $127.

The tip money is split among the dealers 50/30/20% with my table 2 getting the 30 I "won" $14. The young gun came in second and failed to leave a tip with his $260 win.

Thursday the Oregon Coast Poker Championships begin. Planning to play in the Omaha game on Thursday.