[crazypete]

The other night I was playing some 3-6 waiting for a satellite to fill up. I had been there about 45 minutes and was +60 already. Family pots are a wonderful thing. Onward, poker soldiers.

I'm in the BB and I am dealt Queen Clubs Jack Clubs

EP player, I'll call him the table pro, raises to $6. Table pro was young, wore his Oakleys and his ball cap backwards.

3 callers and it gets to me. I decide it is only 1/2 a bet in the technical sense and my hand may play well in multiway action. $31 in pot.

The flop is King Clubs Ten Hearts Three (trey) Clubs , a fantastic flop if the players stay in and I can catch something.

Table pro bets out and gets 1 call before getting raised. Next player folds. Action on me and I think do some quick computations and think I'm getting about 7:1 so far from the pot (43:6). I'm thinking 3.5:1 for the flush and 8:1 on the open ended str8.
I call and table pro raises. Crap, I need to hit this hand. Call, fold, and call from me. Now, I can't fold for an extra $3 because there is $62 in the pot. Near 20:1 on the 3 bucks. After all bets are in there is $68 in pot.

Turn: Seven Diamonds Damn, ok please just check around. Nope, pro does check and Tommy Tourist bets $6, I want this pot and I call. Pro raises, crap. I don't want to put much more in but now the pot has $98 dollars in it. I go into the shallow end of the thinking tank and I call the extra 6 making it $104 in the pot. C'mon, damnit, I'm vested in this pot now. I've got $27 dollars already committed. I SHOULD BE COMMITTED.

River: Ace Spade Bingo. I've got the nuts. Pro checks and I think he may give up the hand here. Tommy Tourist bets out. Ahh well, I'm raising here. I raise to $12 and puts on his acting cap. I try to help him here. I look at him and when he meets my eyes I quickly look away down to the other player. I don't sigh but I put on a deflated look. Let's see if Caro knows his stuff about bad players. Pro raises, is my acting that good?, Tommy calls and I quickly announce my intention of capping it. Both call and their jaws drop when they flip up losing sets, Aces for pro and 3's for the cemetery visitor when I said I had THE NUTS. The pot totaled $176.
The tourist can't believe he is in 3rd place again! He must have spent the night befuddled because he lost a lot of pots while I was there. He was immediately talking and jabbing about what the hell was I doing and I ignored him. The young guy was pissed but did say gh. The 3rd player was some fool, another tourist, who was all in every 5th hand who started asking wtf was I thinking etc. He was pleading their case to the dealer. I politely inquired if this was his first time in a casino. He got huffy.
He continued blathering; he had no odds, what could he be doing, etc. I was NOT trying to antagonize the guy but I pointed out that I had an open ended str8 draw and the flush draw on the flop and my odds were good all along. He quit after the next hand and went away mumbling.

I wish I could say I dominated the table after that but I made some bad decisions and lost back a small chunk before picking up another great pot near the end. Granted, I won't make poker weekly for my brilliant play but I had chips and I play a looser style than many players. In this particular hand, I felt like I had great outs and the pot was big enough to justify the chasing.