Home Game, Hero of the Week

I'm back, more on that later, but first I want to start out with a weekly feature that will run titled, "Home Game Hero of the Week". For some background, I play in a home game that occurs every Friday night near my house. This game consists of a variety of players ranging from great, to good, to bad, to awful, to downright sick how the fuck can you play those to cards together?



It's a good mix with the good players winning 95% of the time and the other players sneaking a donkey win or place every now and again. The game normally consists of 15-20 people and I'll introduce them all to you throughout the course of this series. This way, you'll understand some of their tendencies and be able to evaluate hands with me as we go further along in the series. I won't be specific with names at all, but I'll try to provide you all the information necessary to understand a certain player.



The Home Game, Hero of the Week will generally consist of the donkey that busts me, not just because it gives me a chance to wallow in my own self pity, but also because I will have the maximum amount of information for that hand. I will occasionally list hands I was not involved with as well, since these hands are often as important as the hands that I would be playing. Got it? Good. Moving on. The game this week consisted of 9 people (considerably low for normal). Starting stacks of 20K, Unlimited Rebuys for the first hour.



This week's Home Game, Hero of the Week involves Five-Gap. Derived from the term one-gap or two gap. Also derived from amount of space that is seen in his upper set of teeth. Examples of hands seen by Five-Gap include J/5, 10/4, K/8(insert any number after a K, Q, or A). These hands are gold for Five-Gap. Of course, soooted is preferred. At the time of his famed move, there were 5 rebuys from 4 people and we are now down to 5. Two places paid tonight, first place gets $250, second place gets $100. There are 420K chips in play and Five-gap has luckboxed his way into over 180K. With blinds at 400/800 he is in no trouble of easing into the final 2 for his first every payout.



He has easily busted (whether they rebought or left after the rebuy period) 6 people thus far. Some of the hands used to collect chips to this point include A2o, 22 unimproved, Q8, J4 and 54s. Five-gap has been known to play ultra aggressive with any hand, call down with any hand, and cannot be bluffed. He is the ultimate aggressive calling station. Five-gap is the ultimate limper. He has been known to call raises against tight players with ATC and this sometimes causes players to stop raising with hands like AK, AQ, JJ-88 because they know Five-gap will call and they are better off controlling the pot size. Just because Five-gap bets a lot, does not mean he does so well. T200 into a T5000 pot is normal for Five-gap because he does not understand pot odds or pushing people out.



A second player in this hand, The Boss, runs the game out of his garage and is an exact replica (minus a foot in height and mustache length) of the father from Orange County Choppers, Paul Teutul, Sr. His game is very much like that of a calling station, but a very loose calling station who will actually bet when no one else is inclined. He will call you down with top pair in most situations, but he is a generally smart player who has just not gotten into a lot of the strategy involved in poker. Consistantly, and I cannot say that strongly enough, gets into the bottom 2-4, with one win. Seems to always know when he is ahead and behind and difficult to read because of his loose starting hand requirements. Back to the hand, 5 players left and I am is sitting with 75K in the BB. I've played with Five-gap on three different occasions and have seen many of his spectacular moves to this point.



I'm dealt Jh4h and am ready to check my option, as the table has been as passive as could possibly be (one guy has had KK twice and not raised either time). Limpers all around and we see a flop of Js 4s 3h. Check from the small blind and I check looking to check raise whoever got a piece of the pot with my top two. UTG, The Boss, leads out for T3000 into the T4000 pot. UTG+1 folds, Five-gap calls, SB folds and I reraise T12000 more. UTG thinks for a minute and calls. Five-gap instacalls. I have T59000 at this point and need to put them both on a hand while the turn is the 8h. At this point I've narrowed Five-gap down to a shitload of hands. Hands that I am getting beat by at this point include JJ, J8, 88, 44, 33. He could easily (this is what I initially put him on) have top pair with a 9+ kicker where I would be 88% to win. He could very easily have two spades which would put me at 70%-30%. A straight draw is possible which would put me close to 90%, two lower pair which would put me at 90% or just bottom pair which puts me at 91%. At the time, I put him on either top pair, a medium pair that's not a set, or a flush/straight draw, maybe both but not likely.



I put The Boss on a flush draw, from previously playing with him and he tends to think more about calling with draws, than calling with his made hands. I was inclined to think at the time that one had a flush draw, while the other had top pair, most likely AJ, QJ, KJ, 10J as these are all hands played frequently by this bunch. The 8h on the turn made my hand all the more stronger, as I now have a redraw in case I am up against an unfortunate set. I want to know on the turn if I am up against a set, or whether they are drawing so I decide to bet T45000 into the T49000 pot. Looking back I should have just pushed or bet smaller to give myself some room to get away, leaving T15000 doesn't do me much good either way. I don't like it now, but I thought it would be effective to punish or push out the drawing hand and punish the top pair hand. UTG thought for two minutes solid and folded. At this point I am certain that he had the draw, but the bet would have effectively put him close to all in and he chose to fight another day. Five-gap instacalls again. I've seen this call before and it screams, "I have top pair and I will call you down don't bluff me". I've seen it before, and I'll see it again. Thus the reason that the 3c did not scare me. I really didn't want to give him a chance out of this pot without paying me off for the rest. I was certain that he had top pair, and if I was wrong I was certain his flush did not get there and he might be tempted to call me down with Ace high for the price and the pot being T139000.



I put my T15000 in and as I was counting it out Five-gap thought about it and I grew more and more confidant. After counting it out, he waited another 20 seconds before calling and waiting for me to table my 2 pair. To say he slow rolled me would be an understatement, first he placed his cards face down, then he turned them over, one on top of the other with the Ks showing. Then he slid that to the side to reveal the 3d which tripped up on the river. That one took a minute to register and I had to actively think to myself to stay calm because I did not want to scare off the fish for next time.



For that hand, Five-gap earns my coveted Hero of the Week award. The Hero of the Week award would not be complete without telling how Five-gap finished. I stayed til the end because I drove one of my friends to the game and was able to witness Five-gap play every hand for the next hour, doubling up every player and eventually busting in 3rd place with no money. After he left, The Boss and I talked about his play and it was not the first time that Five-gap had taken a monster chip lead into the last couple of players. And we're both certain this would not be the last time he takes a monster fall like the one this week.