But Rick gets these every day!

Yep, I knew if I was stubborn enough, hung around long enough, suffered through enough of them when they didn't come, that eventually I would catch one of these.... Not a particularly awe-inspiring hand, but I wanted to see the flop. Fortunately it was actually on my straddle, so I was already in the pot and although everyone called, no one raised! Sweet!

The flop was ok, but I felt the check was the appropriate move....

Amazingly, it checked around.... the turn inspired a semi-bluff.

I almost felt that my A5 low draw was good if it got there so when the board paired fours AND gave me a 10 high flush draw to go with my low draw and gut shot straight, I thought it was time to find out who had what.... so from early position, I bet $60, about 2/3 of the pot, and got four callers. I don't really know that that was what I wanted to happen.

At any rate, I was pretty certain that everyone at the table could hear me chanting for a 3, but I wasn't certain that I wanted the 3 of spades.... I was certain that someone was on a better spade flush draw. And then it happened, the beautiful river.....

I wasn't afraid of the boat since no one raised me on my turn bet and I was only hoping that I could be lucky enough that someone with a big stack had hit the wheel with me.... So, I lead out with a $100 bet and it folds to Chad, one of the nicest kids that plays there, I really didn't want it to be him, I wanted it to be one of the guys that abuses me every chance they get.... but, he'll do. He pots it! It's about $500 to me and I've got $750 in front of me after the $100 bet, so I re-pot.... he suspects something, but makes the crying call anyway. Sure enough.... He made the Ax 5x straight, but my 56 took the high straight and quartered him on the A5. Nice! He counts out the $375 from his stack and Chuck quarters the loot in the main pot.... He played really tight all night showing down some big no-re-raises when he had the nut flush because there was a potential straight flush on the board and in another hand the nut jack-high straight, afraid that Akash may have had the same straight and a low.... I really do hate that it was him that whamboozled, but glad it was somebody other than me for a change. He immediately cashed out and we only played another round or two as we're now playing 4 handed. Dean-O is one of the four which makes it feel like we're playing 3-handed and taking a stomach punch....

I must say it felt very good.... I know Rick does about 4 of those a night, but its the first one like that for me in quite some time! Oh yes, I've been on the other end of it many times, but it did bring back some sweet distant memories of days and poker hands gone by....

I can only hope that the Juice is able to get enough players for us to have a game Saturday night... It's such a shame that a guy really wants to host a game and just can't seem to muster enough personality to get 6-8 guys to show up on a weekly basis. This could be the third straight Saturday night that he hasn't been able to table a game! Well, we'll see... I think the thing that really started the spiral downward was when J-Rod left for greener pastures and of course the therapy sessions required to lift him from the months of verbal, mental and physical abuse. LOL.

Oh well.... let's hope that we're playing!

Let the suck outs begin!