SIF@HOME 0x1: Can We Play Stud/8, b/c HighOnPoker is PL Draw Specialist?

Date:

Sunday 15 October 2006

In attendance:

Contraphonic, Dawn of ihadouts, highonpoker, princessmaigrey (aka maigrey), SamTheDealer, W.D.

Mix:

Limit O/8, NL Crazy Pineapple, Razz, PLO, TD2-7 (was Limit HE first round), NL HE, Limit Stud/8, PL Draw-High

My report is below:

The mix negotiation started with some complaining that Stud and some other games suck as PL (inspiring me to later clarify this issue in the rules), and some demand that we pick more limit games. We threw in a lot of Omahas, which I really liked, and limit HE was added. At first, NL HE wasn't in the mix, but into the first round, many complained we had too much Omaha, and we replaced PLO/8 with NL HE, and then later realized that put two HEs against each other and we replaced the limit HE with TD2-7.

PL Draw-High was insisted on by HighOnPoker, since he won so much in the last game and had since become a PL Draw specialist. Since it was fast, he argued, it would be the palate cleaner — the sorbet of our mix. I'd have much rather taken NL 2-7 Single Draw for this, but maybe next time.

The games played relatively tight, most going heads up early. But, as split pot games are wont to do, O/8 induced a fair bit of action, and Stud/8 was, well, insane. Early on in Stud/8, I pushed a lot of chips in with kings up, like a fool, and HighOnPoker rivered the high by pairing his ace. I thought I was stuck in the same situation when I later made queens and treys on fourth (!) but fortunately filled, and then made quad 3s. W.D. thankfully had no low but a weaker full house instead (which he exposed on sixth thinking we were done, causing me to miss what probably would have been a three bet on the river, I think — see, the mistake saved you money, W.D.!).

Dawn showed her undying love, as always, for Stud/8 by playing almost every last pot that was dealt. Can we talk her out of it? I am not sure, but I keep trying. (Hint to Dawn: Read T. Brunson's chapter, twice, before next week!) Anyway, Stud/8 seems to be the crowd pleaser of the game because (a) Dawn loves dealing it, (b) Dawn (and sometimes HighOnPoker) seem incapable of folding in it, and, AFAICT, maigrey is some sort of Stud/8 specialist — or at least prefers the game.

Well, I like all the games. Of course, I'd love to get some PL stud games in, notwithstanding maigrey's undying hatred of the very idea (hey, the British are our allies, so why not play poker like they do sometimes? In other news, I'm calling the next straight I get a “sequence”). I am sure we could get Dawn real interested in PL Stud/8, I mean, hey, Dawn, you can go all-in and get all those cards! It's like NL HE and Stud/8 at the same time!

The dealing went very well on the new table. I was, if nothing else, right about round being a good choice. There were fewer dealer errors, although we all have to learn that Crazy Pineapple is crazy for a reason — you've got to wait for the discards before dealing the turn! I asked the field to try and wait for the first spill until game 0x02, but we did get a few droplets on it. I noticed that the felt depressed rather easily, as elbows on the table quickly left noticable indentations on the felt. I believe it's 2-to-1 against them coming back to normal, but even if they don't, the table is still excellent.

Despite the tough hit when I held big-full-then-quads against W.D.'s small full, I think W.D. (a NL HE specialist) adjusted to mix games well. You see, playing tight when you don't know the game is a strategy that really can't go too wrong. Sure, you might miss some positive-EV situations, but you don't get yourself into major negative-EV when you tighten up.

The big winner for the night was SamTheDealer, who seemed to be able to scoop constantly in O/8, even if he does call two bets cold on the river in a three way pot with third-nut/sixth-nut. :)

Other than that, there isn't much to report by way of big crazy hands. It's mostly the mundane pots that got heads-up or three handed by the later betting rounds and someone (usually SamTheDealer :) outdrew someone else (usually maigrey :) and money shipped around. It was poker; it was fun; but you probably had to be there.

As for snacks, I clearly moved from too much to too little. Late in the session, W.D. said to me, in his litigator sort of way, are these all the snacks that are available? I suppose I'll buy more next time; I'd forgotten the cookies really did go well, since I bought four whole bags, and only one and a half were left after Game 0x00. Sure, I had left overs, but nearly three out of four bags gotten eaten! And, for the record, Twix appear to be slightly more popular with mixed game poker players than Kit Kat.

We did, however, order Chinese food which worked well. I'd forgotten that my local places do lunch specials, even on weekends, and half the table enjoyed some pretty good delivery. We can hit the good pizza places too.

I don't want to jinx it, but I feel like this game is likely to go regularly. My wife and I are ready to do it weekly semi-permanently, so long as we don't go beyond the end time. Although, another idea that she and I came up with is to play a marathon game (say, 12:30PM-midnight) every other week. I don't think I'd want to make this the norm, but maybe once every few months, I'll declare a “marathon game”. My real worry here is that people would come and go too much, so I'd only want to do it if a core group wanted to seriously play for 10-12 hours straight. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Finally, in Bill Mahr style. New Rule: People with the Caro-classic “lean back” tell are prohibited from sitting in the white kitchen chairs in my apartment. Those chairs don't lean back, so if you get the nuts, it might collapse.