Last night I hosted a poker game at my place, $5 buy-in no-limit Texas Hold’em tournament (re buys allowed for the first hour and a half).

As with any low buy-in home game with a few friends it was a mix of skill and interest levels with some people there more for a beer and a chat rather than the cards, however those that were there to play played quite well and we actually had quite an eventful game.

Things started off fairly quietly with a few small to medium sized pots being contested, as we reached the end of the re-buy period some players loosened up a bit and took a few more risks and by the time re buys were over three people had coughed up the dough for another $1500 in chips.

Special mention has to go to Tony for being the first player out before the re-buy period and then the first out afterwards! Unlucky mate!

The rest of the game really came down to one hand it was such a confusing one from a dealing point of view that I don’t remember every little detail but it went something like this:

In middle position I was dealt:

:Ad::Ac:

Lovely, but I wasn’t really sure how to play them until a player before me (Damo) pushed his entire stack into the middle “all-in”, now I think it would be fair to say that Damo had played in a fairly reckless fashion throughout the night and may have been getting more than a little bored by this point. Regardless, I had him covered and in an attempt to isolate him I re-raised all-in myself. Then the fun part, I got three callers!

Unfortunately I don’t remember everyones cards, but a nervous flop, turn and river later my aces held up and I took a comfortable chip lead into the final four.

A short while later I put the short stack (sorry Tania!) all-in with top pair which held up and we went into the final three.

Three became two when the eventual second place winner (Michael Y) knocked out third place (Jono) with a pair of nines (A9 vs AJ).

Heads up play lasted quite a while, I was making bluffs when I felt I could get away with it and really tried to use my fairly considerable chip advantage as best I could. Eventually it came down to this hand:

:Th::4h:

on a flop of:

:Jc::Qh::Td:

I re-raised a small bet all-in and was called with:

:Ac::8c:

I was well ahead at this point and we saw a turn:

Two pair for me and Michael was drawing dead to the river:

I did have some photos of this final hand, however my cameras memory card has decided to die on me so I can’t share them with you. If I fix it I’ll edit them in later.

So, the final standings were:

1st - Myself
2nd - Michael Y
3rd - Jono

And outside the money:

4th - Tania
5th - Michael V
6th, 7th, 8th and 9th - Damo, Jo, Tanya and Suse
10th - Dan
11th - Tony

Disclaimer: The order of those lower placings might not be 100% accurate, I wasn’t taking notes and it took most of my concentration to work out the side pots :)

All in all it was a pretty entertaining evening and importantly I’ve managed to end my run of no-limit failures! Hopefully, as time goes on we’ll have a group of semi-serious players who want to get together on a more regular basis. Time will tell…