The key to winning the PAPT (Home Game)

For those of you that have read my blog for a while, you know that I frequently refer to the site of PAPT (aptly named based on the fact that it's on Park Avenue) as the House of Bad Beats. And it's really not because I experience a bad beat here and there and get all pissed off. Actually, quite the contrary. It happens to everyone. Equally. Suck out after suck out. Waiting for good cards is death because you're gonna get sucked out on. AK < AQ. AQ < QT. KQ < K9. You get the drift. And I'm not making this up. I couldn't. It's too unreal. "Random" number generators for online poker sites think the house is rigged.

So, the key to winning this thing is simple. Go in with the worse hand. And boy did I do a lot of that today. After donking off some chips by bluffing into guys who can't fold, I tighten up a little and then an interesting hand comes up. The blinds increase insanely fast in the mid to end game. Goes from 1-2, 2-4, 3-6, 4-8, 5-10, 7-14, 8-16, 10-20, and $5 increments above that. AND the levels start with 20 minutes until it hits 5-10 and then after that, it's 15 minute levels. So it's insanity as you can imagine.

Well, when the blinds were up to 5-10, I had about 40 in chips. After 5 callers, I limp also with 5-6 (at this point, I was gonna take it to the felt but playing goofy like this is all part of what makes this home game fun). Then Tyke reraises from the BB to thin the field. Now he's a fairly tight player so I put him on either a pocket pair or two over cards. Then there's another caller so I now have a chance to almost quadruple up (with all the limpers that were there). So, I toss in my last 30 chips. I don't remember what the other two had except they both had face cards. When will they learn? I flop an OESD, turn completes my straight and I'm back in business.

Later, I shove 8-10 and get called by AQ. AQ is garbage as we all know and I double up again, giving me some chips and I'm back to being healthy. At this point, the blinds are becoming insanely high and I think it was 15-30 and everyone's M is like 6. And there are still 5 of the original 9 players. Tyke's stack is starting to dwindle (his AJ obviously couldn't hold up against a short stack's A-10) and so he shoves with A5.... only to be called by Ramel's KQ. I folded A-7 so I thought this might be a bad beat waiting to happen. Until the flop comes A-J-x. Now, Tyke is golden. I would've caught my second pair on the turn as a harmless 7 comes. As Ramel starts giving up and starts counting out chips to double up Tyke, I go "10 would be brutal." Well, whaddaya know???? BOOM. 10 on the river gives Ramel the straight and sends Tyke to the rail. The funniest thing is... if I didn't say that, it would have taken a few seconds for Ramel to know that he won. On the turn, I bet you he thought he was drawing dead (ok, I bet you cuz he said so). His words? "I'm so slow I didn't even know I had a chance."

It's down to 4 and top 3 gets paid as well as the PAPT points. But, there's no such thing as a "bubble" here and so the plays are relatively fast and furious. Ramel (very LAGGY) raises to 120 (blinds are now 20-40) and I'm on the BB with AA. I shove for like 300+ total. Ramel instacalls with A-10 off. I go "watch, aces no good here."

And sure enough, I'm out the door few seconds later when Ramel catches a flush on the river with the river being the Q of clubs to put 4 clubs on the board. One of the guys said it best when he said "man, with all the crap cards you were going all in with and winning, it's ironic that he goes all in with AA and gets felted." Ironic? No. Standard for this house. And that's what makes it fun! It's nice to have a break from online poker once a week for a truly fun game where it's serious, but not quite serious.

Soon, I'm gonna update my blog to have the leader points up on the side or something. Just to keep it interesting.

Oh and just so you know, last year's PAPT Player of the Year? Sia aka PouringReign. I told you it was a donkfest!