Straight Flush

So I've started visiting the Hawaiian Gardens Casino with some regularity lately, as it's just down the block from the casino dealer school. Also, the cocktail waitresses are hot. If you don't usually hear HG mentioned in the same breath as the Bike, Commerce and Hustler, it's probably because it's a bit further south (off the 605, Carson exit), but as far as I'm concerned, it's worth the extra few miles. The vibe, with its tropical theme, is decidedly cozier than the others, the wait-lists are never too long, and did I mention the cocktail waitresses?

Anyway, so I'd been a couple times earlier in the week, the only memorable moment in the two visits being when I flopped Quad 6's. I hadn't seen Quads in a while; I barely recognized them. So the hand soon whittled down to me (6's) and Seat #1, who had bet about half his stack on the flop (K-6-6) and then checked the turn. The river brought another King, and I pushed my stack (about equal with his) all in. He hesitated, muttering his concern that I had hit a Full House. Arguably foolish to respond, but too deliciously tempted to resist, I turned to him and assured him that no, I did not have a Full House. He finally shrugged, "Well, I'm pot-committed at this point" and pushed in. We showed down. The table had a good laugh. To the villain's credit, he was a good sport about it.

So I left having doubled up my $40 and then proceeded to lose $30 of it two days later, and by yesterday, it had finally dawned on me that playing the $40 table ($1/$2 blinds) makes practically no sense when there is a $100 table ($2/$3 blinds). Well, okay, it makes sense if a) You have only $40; or b) You want to make absolutely positively sure that you don't lose more than $40. Other than THAT, it's silly.

At the $40 table, you are buying in for a mere 20 big blinds; at the $100 table, you get 33.3 blinds. Or to use Dan Harrington's "M" figure (which actually pertains more to tournaments, but it's a useful barometer for cash games as well) of your stack divided by the combined total of blinds (i.e. small+ big)...

$40/$3 = M of 13.3
$100/$5 = M of 20

...it's just no contest. So I figured I'd try the $100 table, promising myself that I'd probably walk away if my stack dipped below $50. My promises to myself are generally pretty weak. So anyway, after about a half hour, I was about even when I finally hit pocket aces and managed to scoop a big pot from the table's chip leader and her pocket Kings. This gave me some breathing room to widen my list of playable hands, so a few minutes later, when I got J/9 of spades, and only a minor raise was made, I threw in.

And the flop....

Q, 10, 8 of spades.

Rechecked the hand. Nope, wasn't dreaming, wasn't hallucinating. Holiest of craps, I'd just flopped a straight flush. I still carry the wound of having had my Ace-high flush walloped by a straight flush last year, in my own home, no less. But of the hundreds (thousands?) of poker hands I've possessed in the last few years since I started playing, I had never actually HELD a straight flush until that moment.

It felt...good.

The only question was how to maximize the profits off of it, and I wish I could report back that I had done so, but...Well, see for yourself:

Seat #2 bet $20. I called.
Guy to my left raises to $50, just less than half his stack.

Seat #2 folded.

I called, somehow refraining from weeping tears of joy.

The turn: King of spades. Not that it made any difference, but now I had a SIX CARD straight flush. I'm willing to take odds that I will never see a hand that good again, never, ever, ever.

So what to do?

Only the stupidest thing I could have possibly done.

Thinking something along the lines of, "Well, he's pot-committed at this point (apparently I had him confused with the Quad-6's villain), he's not going to just fold away his $50"...I bet. $50. Relatively meager, less than half the pot, not his entire stack, thinking he would have no choice but to go all-in at that point...

But nope. He considered it for a minute, then shook his head, turned his cards over. Two pair. What I hadn't considered, idiotically, was what a scare-card the King of spades would have been for him, creating a entirely possible straight and a highly probable flush for his opponent.

Thus, one could argue, even if I had checked, as any other moron would have done in my shoes, I still might not have made any money on the river. So...that's what I'm TRYING to convince myself of, but not really succeeding.

In any case, I flipped my hand, got a collective gasp from the table, scooped the pot...and all I could think was, GODDAMNIT, I should've checked.

Oh, sure, sure, sure, on the one hand, I scooped a decent pot and eventually walked out of there $115 up, so it's rather undignified to grouse. Guilty as charged.

But on the other hand, goddamnit all...Best hand I'll ever have, and basically, I blew it, and I deserve all your scorn.

I'm still a relative novice at Hold 'em, so don't expect to find any great pearls of wisdom on these pages, but this one you can take to your grave:

Never friggin' bet the friggin' turn when you have a straight friggin' flush.

Class dismissed.