Having enjoyed some success playing stud cash games in all forms (doing exceptionally well in Razz of late), I decided to take another crack at NLHE cash. Because stud games are all played in some form of limit, the amount that you can win or lose on any single hand is minimized. So it was my thinking that if I played a solid NLHE game, I would be able to double my money a lot faster. Well that is true, but I can also stack myself a lot faster.
My cash game got off to a fast start with what is far and away my largest single hand win to date:
And how bad must that have sucked for the other guy?
Unfortunately, that was followed almost immediately by my largest single hand loss to date. I was in the big blind on this hand, and there were two limpers prior to the button. The button put in a raise that made it $1.50 to go (.25/.50 blinds), and was immediately called by the small blind. That put the pot at $4.50, and with a suited 78, I was willing to call a buck to see the flop. The flop gave me every draw known to man, as well as top pair. I bet the pot, which got all but the pf raiser to fold, he went all in. I had him covered (the bet was about $40), but barely, and the huge overbet was just what I would expect from someone with an overpair who knew that there were too many draws on the board. I made the call as a pretty significant favorite, although he did have a better hand when the chips went in. As often happens in these situations on PokerStars, I was staring at the screen mouth agape and forgot to screenshot it. This pic from a calculator though does nicely since it shows the odds:
A call that I really have to make with an OESFD. Any 4, 7, 8, 9, or heart and I win the hand. A quick look at the math shows that I had two shots at roughly 20 outs, and I managed to miss every one of them.