Great Home Game

If you could construct the perfect home game, how would you do it?

What about against a bunch of players who have no idea what they're doing and are just looking to have some beers and say "all-in"? Normally, players like that would play for low stakes...maybe $5 or $10 buy-ins. But what if you could get players like that who were willing to pay $200 for the buy-in? Sounds good right?

But it's not much fun to say that you took down a bunch of guys who had no idea what the "button" is or that you have to "burn" a card before the flop. So to make this game even better, why not invite a big name pro to play? Obviously there's no reason a big name pro would want to play in a game like this, but who knows, it could happen.

Tuesday morning I'm sitting at my desk. One of the co-founders of the company I work for comes over to my desk and the following conversation takes place:

Him: "How confident are you in your poker game."
Me: "There's only two players in the world that are better than me."
Him: "You want to play with the best?"
Me: "Who are the best?"
Him: "Do you know who Juanda is?"
Me: "Yeah."
Him: "You think you can beat him."
Me (now hesitating): "Easily."
Him: "Do you know who Daniel Negreanu is?"
Me: "Yeah (lol)."
Him: "You want to play against them? They're coming to my house to play on Thursday."
Me: "Sure, I'd love to."
Him: "The buy-in is $200, be there at six."

This is an interesting and exciting conversation to have in the first hour of work. And surprisingly, coming from the guy it came from, who is a pretty cool guy and incredibly balleriffic, I actually believed him when he said they would be at his house.

The questions I had in my head were:

1. How does he know I play poker?

And

2. Why would John Juanda and Daniel Negreanu be going to his house to play poker for $200?

Obviously the first thought is that they are doing some kind of business with him or that he is going to get them to invest in the company or something like that. I mean there has to be some kind of incentive for high stakes pros to play in a $200 tournament at someone's house.

Turns out I was wrong. They were just going because they have mutual friends. Apparently, Negreanu didn't make it because of Chip Reese's funeral services, which was to take place today I believe. I'm still not convinced that he ever was going to go, I think his name was just thrown in the mix.

I showed up to the house at 6:30 p.m. and it was empty with the door open. This was by far the tightest house I have ever been in so I was a little uncomfortable just walking in and snooping around until I found someone. So I just yelled out my guy's name until his wife answered and told me to come downstairs.

Besides that fact I felt like an idiot for being the first one to show up, no one else came for another 20 minutes.

By the time people started showing up I had sorted all the chips out into stacks and we had wiped down the folding chairs. But still, no Juanda, no Negreanu. Then my guy got word that Juanda would be there but late, around 8 p.m.

So we started a little cash game with $1/2 blinds and I realized what I got myself into. I didn't play the first five hands and the other guys starting saying that if I got in a pot they would all fold because I must have aces. This is after folding five hands. So my small blind comes and I get AK. Everyone is in so I raise it to $7. One guy folds and everyone else calls. The flop comes A-2-3 rainbow and I bet $15. One guy looks like he's about to fold, then thinks, then raises me $40 more. I go all-in for like $5 and he shows A-8 off-suit and misses. Sweet. The way my cards were running, I would have bet my car that his eight was on the turn or river.

We eventually start the tournament with an extra spot saved for Juanda, at my table, which is cool. There's three tables and 18 people. Starting stacks are $2k and blinds start at 25/50.

As soon as we start it's very evident to me that no one knows what they're doing. Burn cards are being forgotten, string bets are abundant and guys are check-raising each other with bottom pair. Just excellent stuff. On the first hand of the game, B#1 bets $100 on a flop of Q-K-9. B#2 raises B#1 to $200 and one guy calls as well as a call from B#1. The turn is a 5 and B#2 bets $200. One guy calls and B#1 folds. The river is a 6 and B#2 bets $500. The guy calls and B#2 says "you're not gonna believe what I have, I was bluffing the whole time," and shows 7-8 for the nut BACKDOOR STRAIGHT. Awesome. The other player, who was the only guy at the table that had any clue, was devastated and never recovered. I, however, was not getting any hands at all.

Then Juanda shows up. Of course they weren't blind him off at all and he came in wrecking shop. I had a hard time making any plays because I was card dead, plus the guys at my table were willing to call all the way down with bottom pair so there was minimal chance of stealing a pot. Not to mention JJ was on my left.

Going into this, I figured he would just be messing around because it's only for $200. But I have to say that he was actually playing for real and raising on the button, making moves when people were weak, etc. He had the luxury of the fact that everyone knew he was a top player in the world so no one would call him down with weak pairs like they were to their buddies.



I didn't catch any hands. In fact, I only played two hands the whole night. I admit this sounds very p-u-s-s-y but my hands were literally 9-2, 10-3, 9-3, J-2, 7-4, 9-5, 8-4, Q-5, etc. Then I get AQ in the button and B#1 and B#2, the two big bluffers have limped. So I move all-in hoping that one is in the mood to gamble and they both think and fold. That was the only pot I won.

We took a break at 9 p.m. and I moved tables. I get to the new table and there's two guys wearing sunglasses and acting all anal about everything, which is a huge change from my first table. On my first table, Juanda bet 250 and B#1 raised him 100 more. Yes, 100 more. Obviously, Juanda didn't complain about it and neither did I. I don't think anyone else even knew it was an illegal raise.

Anyways I get to the new table and these guys are calling out string bets and just acting like the poker police, which kind of sucked because no one else knew what was going on so it was all in good fun. It wasn't like people were making string bets on purpose or anything and these guys were just policing our table like nazis. My stack is dwindling with the blinds at 100/200 and everyone folds to me on the button and I move in with 10-8 (best hand I've seen in a while) for 1100. Small blind wakes up with aces and I'm done.

After that I just hung around and then dealt to the final table for a while. Juanda ended up busting out like 6th or 7th with his 88 vs. AQ. He was an incredibly nice and pretty funny guy. Everyone barraged him with questions about the professional poker life and he was very willing to give honest answers and even had his girlfriend take a picture of him at the final table, although he was disappointed to hear that it wouldn't be televised. He talked about Full Tilt sponsorship, staking other players, the big game, travelling, how often he plays, playing on the internet, etc.

I will say that when someone asked him who the best player in the world is, he said "Well, you can't really say there is a best player. Everyone has their lucky days. But Phil Ivey is one of the best. Doyle Bruson, also."

I gotta give a shout out to my guy BC, who was the reason I even got invited to the game. If you read this, good looking out! Hopefully next time I can get another buddy in the game and so on.