With the blinds 25/50 cents, I buy in for $40, and turn that into $75 within the first 10 hands. I had hit a few flops, and bought a few nice pots, but nothing significant happened until I ran into a very tough situation.
UTG, I'm dealt 66, and decide to bump it up to $3, and 3 guys call. Our cash games, due to the low stakes, are typically fairly loose, so when the flop comes down 6h-5h-3h, I'm not feeling too good about my situation. I've flopped the top set, but straight and flush possibilities exist, and 2 of the guys that called me are known for especially loose play.
I decide to see where I stand, and bet $9, hoping to make flush and straight draws fold their hands. The one guy who isn't really loose is first to act, and he re-raises me $42 more, putting himself all-in. The other 2 guys fold, and I'm left with a very tough decision. In my gut, I suspect I'm already beat, and that he's made either the straight, or a medium flush.
I show my cards as I fold them, and most of the table goes nuts, amazed that I didn't call the bet, but I didn't want to risk all the money (and then some) that I had already won in a situation where I'm likely beat, or at best even money vs straight and/or flush draws. My opponent shows his cards, revealing Ad-4h for the open-ended straight flush draw.
A little rabbit hunting revealed I would have made a full-house on the turn, and quads on the river, just to emphasize a point I guess. It took me quite a while to recover mentally from this hand, as I kept replaying it in my head.
I kept wondering what would have happened if I'd checked the flop, and called the $5 bet likely to be made by one of the other players. I didn't know what the flop and turn would bring, what if instead another heart came down, my hand would have been all but useless then.
I concluded I played the hand properly, and just chalked this one down to being one of those situations that happen in poker, where no matter how you play a hand, you'll never feel good about it. When I did start to focus and play poker again, the rest of the night was fantastic.
Every bluff I made was perfectly timed, most over-bets I made to make it look like I was trying to steal the pot was called, and I had a lot of great starting hands and flops. I wish every night of poker could be like this, as I walked away with $170 profit on my $40 buy-in, and aside from that one hand mentioned above, I was never at risk of losing large chunks.
