Warning : No hot luvin or coke-sniffing in following trip report ( )

I've gotten to know FTR member andy-akb pretty well online over the past few months. A few weeks ago he mentioned he'd probably be in Montreal for a couple days during his break.

You never know if this kind of thing will work out or not, but just in case, I got a live game set up with some old guy who runs decent cash-games close by. After akb confirmed he'd be coming (and bringing at least one poker player with him) the FTR game was on.

I rounded up my buddy Ravageur and invited relatively new FTR member Alexos. Both have played a good amout of NL cash (as high as 5/10 online) and have tons of history together. Combine that with the fact the akb and I have talked about hands for bajillions of hours and we had a pretty good recipe for an "nth" level live-game.

The place was spreading 1/2 full ring and the seating kind of made for 2 tables in 1: from right to left sat yours truly, Ravageur, akb, akb’s buddy (who plays Party nl25 and seemed pretty solid), and Alexos.

From Alexos’ left back around to me was the “table within the table” that was made up of Ron, the guy running the game (loose-passive fish), a quirky – slightly senile? – guy named George who played like a bad nit and some super weak-tightie named Matt. I never caught the name of the guy to my immediate right (last guy between Matt and myself). But I’ll definitely remember the shooters I bought with his money.

We had to wait around a bit before the non-FTRers (who I gather are regs at that game) arrived and Ron was shipping us the drinks in a hurry. Pretty sure we were all 3 or 4 beers deep when the game started.

Now I know Alexos as a super-solid tag so the very 1st hand of the night kind of caught me by surprise. Pretty much everybody bought in for 250$. After a raise from MP and 2 callers, Alexos squeezed from the SB. BB (Ron) flat called and everyone else folded.

Pot is 80ish and Alexos bets 50 at a board of JJ10 rainbow. Ron instacalls. Akb and Rav give me confused looks. I think mainly we were trying to figure out whether Alexos had an overpair, quads, or 10s full. AK was probably the very bottom of his range in my mind.

Turn is a rag and our super-solid, super-taggy friend something like ½ pot. Ron snap calls again. At this point I think we were all legitimately confused, feeling a little sorry for Ron.

River is another rag and Alexos shoves his remaining stack into the pot. Ron sighs and calls. Alexos instamucks and says “oops”. 9-high no good… All of the FTRers just gasp.
Next big hand takes place between Rav and akb. Rav opens from Co and akb 3-bets from Btn.

Flop is KJ5 with 2 spades. Rav check-calls 2/3 pot. Turn is 10s – check/check. River is 6s bring the dreaded 4-flush. Rav checks and akb bets something like 50ish into 100. Rav laughingly tosses away KJ no spade and akb shows 23o without a spade. Yay position.

Alexos gets 2 outered shortly thereafter when his AK goes down in flames to Ron’s 1010 on a K94 board when the obv 10 hits the turn (Ron: “I thought you were bluffing again!”) so he’s now stuck pretty badly. Rav seems to be tilting a bit after getting bluffed by akb and isn’t folding much preflop. He’s also probably the drunkest of all of us.

I haven’t really done anything at this point and am sitting with about 250ish when I overcall a raise from the CO w J10o. Everyone behind me calls so we’re looking at a juiced pot preflop.

Flop comes 6-7-9 rainbow and Preflop raiser donks something like 15 into 45. I overcall as do 2 ppl behind me.

Turn is a beautiful 8h, bring up a heart flushdraw and giving me the nuts. Out of nowhere, the guy whose name I couldn’t remember just shoves. I don’t mean some semi-bluffing ninja shove. I mean overbetting 252$ into a 115$ pot. I tank a bit then call. As Rav is mulling over his 10-high straight on the Btn, I go to take a leak.

When I come back, it’s finally been folded around and I ask the guy – my God was he stoned… (like at least 4 thick joints had burned away between his lips since the beginning of the game) – so like I was saying, I ask the guy “do we have the same hand?” and I show J10 fully expecting to be splitting the dead money.

He flips 6s8s for 2 pair. Ppl are genuinely surprised since this guy had been playing tight and had just finished a brag about how he’d folded AK on a K high flop and tilted some villain who had a set.

When the river fails to bring one of his 4 outs I’m struggling to keep my face straight. At this point, akb turns to the dood and says, COMPLETELY sincerely and nice-guyishly: “Wow man, that’s tough. Nothing you could do”. This is too much for me so I run back to the kitchen and get some more beer.

The last hand of the night is probably the only other one worth reporting. At this point, the rest of the table knows that we’re leaving after this hand and Rav is stuck pretty badly. I’m on the BB and Rav raises to 10 blind. Akb calls. Surprisingly, everyone else folds.

Flop is 5-6-10 rainbow and Rav bets 20 in the dark. Akb calls.

Turn is a 3. Rav comments “hmmm… Looks like a good board for a random hand” and checks. I confirm to akb that Rav hasn’t looked at his cards yet. He checks behind.

River is a 4 making the board 3-4-5-6-10. Rav finishes his last beer and makes his last dark bet, 50 straight.

Akb laughs sheepishly and calls, flipping over J10. Rav asks him if he wants to flip his cards and akb obliges. 1st card is a 9. 2nd card is… (lol can it get more obvious?) a 7 giving him the straight and going a long ways towards getting him unstuck at akb’s expense.

As for the rest of the night, we ran around Montreal a good bit, got really wasted at the expense of my 2-pair buddy and just had a great time. The big disappointment for me is that akb didn’t join me on the dance floor at Café Campus and bust a move, but I’m guessing he’s saving that for his next trip up here.

The best thing though was playing with “real” players who enjoyed talking about hands. It was by far the most enjoyable live-game I’ve played. The other great thing was meeting Andy. He’s a genuinely nice guy, really fun and was awesome to hang out with.