Splunk has always had its share of poker fiends. A bunch of us went to Vegas during the WSOP, and while no one played in the main event there were 4 people we knew who played in the $1500 NL event. One of the guys (alas, not a splunker) from Will’s monday night game actually won the event, taking home $730,000 and a bracelet. Will recently moved to the hood, and the game seems to have tailed off, leaving us jonesing for some card action.

As part of our quarterly kickoff, we had our second Splunk Poker Night last night and had a great turnout: Bagley, Amrit, Deep, Alex, Josh, Micah, Brad, Brian, Rory, Maverick and myself. We got to use the special Splunk embossed poker chips, my new Copag plastic cards, and the fine green table felt. To capture it, Josh, our motion graphics designer, videotaped the whole thing.

Videotape aside, this game should not be confused with anything you might see on TV.This was low stakes NL holdem at it’s finest, which is quite a fun game, as the buy in is low enough so you’re not bummed if you bust out, but there’s enough in play to make it worth fighting over. Blinds were .25/.50 and buy-ins ranged from $20-40,with most people opting for $40. That put about $500 in play over the course of the evening once you factor in some of the rebuys.

The game started off pretty passive, with lots of limpers trying to see a flop. The 11 players were a mix of ringers, intermediates, and a few novices. The game was pretty passive preflop, so I tried to see as many cheap flops as possible with good drawing hands (i.e. suited connectors, 1-gappers) and mixed it up a bit by raising strong hands