Wild Rushing at the Blue Heron
Hey all. Been reading for a bit but haven't posted yet. Figured my trip to the Blue Heron this weekend was worthy of a post! I have been there a couple of times before, breaking-even or taking a small loss, but this time it seemed I could not lose! Finished up just over $1,700, playing 5/10 from about 7pm Saturday to 1pm Sunday. It was a long session but its hard to quit when you are getting great cards all night long. 
What this trip did for me was really hammer home that playing skillfully, while it can obviously provide an advantage against your opponents over the long run, pales in comparison to being lucky in getting great hole cards and making your draws. I changed seats about half-way through my run and I think my first 5 starting hands were something like AQ, KK, AT, AA, KQ. And there's nothing like flopping quad 3s to make the table roll their eyes after you've already won 3 hands in a row. 
I tried to keep away from playing garbage, except in the blinds, but with the huge pre-flop action, I usually had reasonable odds for a draw after the flop. Hit a lot of open ended straights, a few inside straights and a few high flushes for the nuts. Because of an average of about 70 dollars in the pot pre-flop, I wouldn't characterize a lot of my chasing as holding out for a prayer but I did crack an opponents pocket aces with KT :diamond: against a flop of 5 :spade: 2 :diamond: 6
when he bet into me on the flop and I decided to stick around and ended up hitting diamonds on the turn and river (being the A :diamond: ).
I don't know how the regulars would describe the 5-10 week-end games at the Blue Heron but it seems like with all the people paying whatever it takes to see the flop, betting solid hole cards for value, including suited or unsuited no-gappers will pay off big, albeit with perhaps a high variability. I saw a lot people playing any two-suited cards and frequently getting cracked by an A or K when the four flush hit the board. I was able to do that more than once myself. I generally tried to keep away from unconnected same suiters that were low but saw some big payoffs from nut-straight draws which I was lucky to hit. I'd play any 89, 9T or TJ in any position given the action I was seeing.
What this trip did for me was really hammer home that playing skillfully, while it can obviously provide an advantage against your opponents over the long run, pales in comparison to being lucky in getting great hole cards and making your draws. I changed seats about half-way through my run and I think my first 5 starting hands were something like AQ, KK, AT, AA, KQ. And there's nothing like flopping quad 3s to make the table roll their eyes after you've already won 3 hands in a row. I tried to keep away from playing garbage, except in the blinds, but with the huge pre-flop action, I usually had reasonable odds for a draw after the flop. Hit a lot of open ended straights, a few inside straights and a few high flushes for the nuts. Because of an average of about 70 dollars in the pot pre-flop, I wouldn't characterize a lot of my chasing as holding out for a prayer but I did crack an opponents pocket aces with KT :diamond: against a flop of 5 :spade: 2 :diamond: 6
when he bet into me on the flop and I decided to stick around and ended up hitting diamonds on the turn and river (being the A :diamond: ).I don't know how the regulars would describe the 5-10 week-end games at the Blue Heron but it seems like with all the people paying whatever it takes to see the flop, betting solid hole cards for value, including suited or unsuited no-gappers will pay off big, albeit with perhaps a high variability. I saw a lot people playing any two-suited cards and frequently getting cracked by an A or K when the four flush hit the board. I was able to do that more than once myself.
I generally tried to keep away from unconnected same suiters that were low but saw some big payoffs from nut-straight draws which I was lucky to hit. I'd play any 89, 9T or TJ in any position given the action I was seeing.