Meeting the locals..........

I was invited over to a local poker tournament in town. It was held in one of the buildings on the town square in an upstairs office. Nothing fancy, but had a pretty interesting cross-section of the community. There were some good civic leader connections available, which may help down the line with the local renovation project we're working on. They play a tournament every Wednesday night. I usually am busy taking care of Kali 2.7 or doing other things, but since Kali was out of town with the grandparents, I decided to give it a whirl.

I played pretty tight poker to feel out the players a bit and then started with some aggression once I knew what I was up against. I won a little pot early on with pocket tens and made sure to flip it over just to advertise to the table that I only played premium hands. I used that to my advantage about 15 minutes later when I had the best flush draw after the flop. I bet and one guy called. Pot was large and I checked the turn. He checked as well and I had a pretty good idea that he was hoping for the same thing I was, which was another card to hit a flush. The river came and I didn't have my flush. I had ace high and went all-in. He thought for some time and then finally folded and showed that he had king high and was going for the same flush as me. I got a big stack from that pot and flipped over my bluff just to let them know I could bluff.

I mixed up my play pretty well the rest of the night. I got paid off on a lot of good hands due to my big bluff earlier. I think it was very adventageous that I was a new guy. The regulars in the game were pretty baffled and couldn't get a good read on me. I didn't bluff a whole lot, but when I did, I never got called where I had to show the bluff.

After 4 hours, I won the tournament and went home with $250. Unfortunately, that pretty much means I'll have to go and play again at some point, but it'll probably be a couple of months. I'm sure I'll find a good use for the money.