It’s great to see these blogs; Ryan’s especially. He just made a dramatic move from Philly to Providence (well, maybe it wasn’t dramatic, but people in his life made it that way. I

Another amazing repeat story is unfolding in Las Vegas this week, too. It’s the Main Event in this year’s World Series of Poker, and with only two more days and 27 players left, last year’s champion Greg Raymer is starting today in fifth place with $3.8 million in chips. Other notables are jailbird Mike “The Mouth” Matusow in first place with $5.1 million, and Phil Ivey in second with $4.6M. Considering the huge field he had to wade through, it’s simply incredible that Raymer is on the verge of another final table this year.

There was a lot of talk about the huge explosion in poker’s popularity this year, and how every event was going to be a crapshoot with all these Internet qualifier donkeys, but it would seem that in most events the cream rose to the top, with many big names taking many big events, including both Doyle Brunson and Johnny Fucking Chan winning their record 10th WSOP bracelets.

I have no idea how the main event is going to finish up this year. Phil Ivey is the odds-on favorite (3-1), and Raymer is right behind him (5-1). Matusow is a volatile presence, so a final table involving all three pros would be something, indeed.

• Bauhaus
• New Order
• Coldplay
• The homefries at a Palm Springs breakfast place

• Winning $50 very quickly at a super-loose California cardroom Saturday

  Lowlights:

• The fucker from craigslist who never got back in touch about camping tickets
• Selling one too many extra Sunday tickets on Saturday, and having to buy another one Sunday
• Forgetting my ticket at the condo Saturday and having to go back for it
• Chemical Brothers
• Losing $150 not as quickly at a super-loose California cardroom Sunday
• The 5 hour drive back last night, and getting in at 3 a.m.

• The realization that I am now officially old and un-hip

update: Ok, maybe it’s not so bad. A few hours work, and I made like $400. It was a crazy action table, so I just picked my spots and got lucky a few times too, like when I flopped a straight flush with Q-10s. Too bad I didn’t get much action on that hand.

I was just getting ready to leave the next time the blinds get to me when there’s a kill pot (a $6/12 hand). I’m under the gun and dealt AK offsuit. Figuring this is as good a hand as any to decide if the poker gods love me or hate me I raise it to $12. 5 callers (see what I mean about it being an action table?). Flop comes 2-3-2. SB checks, BB (who was a completely aggressive maniac who would bet anything and also happened to get lucky a lot) bet, and I called. Everyone called, and everyone is in. Pot is now already $90. I can’t put the big blind on a 2, or even a 3, because he literally would bet or raise any 2 cards. Turn card is a beautiful, magical king. SB checks, BB bet, and now I raise ($24 raise at this point). We lose only one player and now the pot is $186. Someone is slow-playing a 2. I know it. Everyone else at the table knows it. We’re just waiting to find out who. River is a 7. It’s checked to me, I bet my last $9, get all but one caller, and we flip up. Other hands were K6o, pocket 5s, and the rest were mucked. So I got to take down that massive $260 pot! I actually raisied my arms up and did my best Homer Simpson “woo hoo!”, which I’m not sure everyone else appreciated, but fuck ‘em for being such maniacs. I stuck around for one more orbit or two, lost about $20, and decided to skedaddle while I was still in the black.

Moral of the story is: get your money in while you have the best of it. One big hand can make your whole night.

This time went a little better, to say the least.

I sat at an awesome $3/6 table, full of loose, passive and flat-out bad players. Perfect example was a hand which had 3 players at the showdown. There was 2 pairs on the board; 10s and 4s. Woman in the 8s turns over pocket deuces for 3 pair, and the other two players mucked their cards, and I saw the 9s throw away a king. Only the top two pairs would play, so all the woman really had was deuce high, so king high would have been the winner. Ooops, sometimes it’s better to just let the dealer tell you what you have.

2nd hand I was in I was dealt 2 red kings, raised it up, got one caller and he folded to my flop bet. Ok, that was easy. No cards for awhile after that, but then I started getting some good hands; pocket 10s, then AQ which connected on the flop, followed by AJ which hit on the turn. In each case I had at least 3 or 4 callers to at least the turn, all of them apparently calling with nothing. In all those cases I would show my hand even without callers so they knew I was getting and playing good hands.

Pocket aces? Twice. Held up both times. Later in the game I had pocket kings again in the big blind, raised it with like 6 limpers, hit my set on the turn and pulled in a metric ton of chips. Had A-10 of spades, raised it and had the flop come with 3 spades. I even had a string of kill pots (ie. $6/12 hands) that I was winning with some silly cards, like 6-4 offsuit that my free look gave me a pair of 4s on the flop which held up. Yes, I thought I was playing well and being selective with my starting hands, especially compared to the ninnies I was playing against, but a monkey could have played my cards and done well. I freely admit that I was lucky in a lot of spots, especially these 2 hands:

3-4 of clubs in the middle position. Against a table this loose and passive I can get away with limping in with this one, so along with like 5 other people we see a flop that’s 9-7-x with 2 clubs. Woohoo! Early position bets, one caller then I raise. A halfway decent player across the table from me makes it 3 bets, so I call. Other players drop out. I figured he’s got A-9, so with my flush draw I’m going to crush him 30% of the time. Next card is a 3, pairing me up and giving me some more outs. I check, he bets, and I call. River is another 3, giving me trips. Now I have to worry about him possibly having a set on the flop, which would give him a full house now. I bet, he just calls and shows 9-7 for a flopped 2 pair.

K-8 of spades in late position. 4 people limp, I limp and the button raises. Everyone calls, and the flop comes x-8-8. Fireworks are going off in my head, but there’s 2 clubs on the board, so when everyone checks and the button bets, I raise when it gets around to me. I have to try and make it expensive for flush draws, so better to get their money in now while I’m still ahead. I bet the rest of the way, keeping most of the callers. River is a 3rd club, but luckily nobody had a flush. My trip 8s were good, and that was a crazy big pot.

End result? I was there for a little less than 5 hours, and walked away $300 to the good. That works out to a little more than 10 BB/hr, which is completely unsustainable, although I’d sure like to try and do it again. Rats, I should have taken a picture of my chip stack; I had made a full triangle of 20-chip stacks, 6 wide at the base. I’m thinking I should buy in for that much every time, because it got me lots of respect.

Suffice to say that I walked away a winner at both tables.

After the bingo session (no, neither of us won, although I was within one number twice) Kim went to hit the slots, and I went to play some poker. There was a pretty long list for $3/6, so they started a new table and I got a seat. The action started pretty slow as everyone was just trying to get a feel for the table, and then it turned into magical loose table like that one at the Rio. All kinds of crazy loose passive play, 8-handed flops, etc. Of course I was only playing for about an hour and got only a few playable hands. Two good wins though… once with AJo (a notorious trouble hand) which I raised from early position, got two callers, hit an ace on the flop and had them call me the whole way down to the river. The other hand I had AKs in the small blind, raised to get the big blind out, and only got called by Star Jones across the table. Flop came all undercards, but with 2 of my suit! I bet out and was called, and then bet $6 in the dark before the turn card came out (it was a queen, and not my suit, btw). Star thought about it for half a second and said “He bet in the dark? He can have it.” and folded. I think if I had waited until the card had come out she would have called, but by representing AA or KK I got her to throw away whatever she had, maybe she had hit a pair on the board. I don’t know if I would have spiked a pair on the river or made my flush, but I’d love to think that my in-the-dark bet got her out of there.

Kim came to collect me with me up $20, so $15 for bingo plus $3 for snackies for us plus $1 for the woman who cashed out my chips meant I had made $1 for the evening! Kim was bumming because she had lost another $40 at the slots, so on the way out we passed by some sort of Monopoly nickel slot machine and I threw in $10. A few spins later, we landed on Boardwalk, collected 300x the nickel bet, and cashed out up $7! Total for the evening +$8 and lots of fun.

The last few sessions have felt really good. When everything is clicking I feel like an incoming tide. Every so often, a big wave will come and increase my stack, withdraw slightly, and then move forward again… a slow surge that is as inevitable as the tides themselves. The actual play starts to feel secondary, dreamlike. Cards come, bets and raises are made, hands are won and lost, but Zen calmness prevails. I’ve felt like this a few times while climbing where moves just feel more like instinct than work, and it’s almost like you’re watching yourself in your activity. It’s a nice feeling.

We land in Vegas 20 minutes after we took off (with the time change); pretty sweet. I’m still tickled every time I land at the airport, and you get right off your plane to the sound of slot machines. I noticed that they’re catering to developmentally challenged people now, which is nice. Bit of a pain to find our hotel shuttle bus, but eventually we get on and make our way to Palace Station.

First order of business is to get some food. Off to the buffet, which was sub-par at best, but for only $7.99, you really can’t beat it.

Then it was off to the strip for some gaming. The first place we went to was the Excalibur, which somehow feels like a sleazy Disneyland with its castle theme. I sat at a $2/6 spread-limit table for a little while, and it was as good as advertised (although there was no fight while I was there). They had a thing there that if your pocket aces got beaten, you got to spin the “money wheel”, and could win anywhere between $20 and $230 cash. Too bad that never happened to me. They had strange tables, with a wooden border where you would stack your chips, if anyone took theirs out of the rack, which they didn’t. I found that highly annoying, and it slowed the game down as people tried to get chips out of a full row. I only was there for less than an hour, sitting in the 10s closest to the dealer’s right, and got only one or two playable hands, but there were 6-8 people limping in to see every flop, hoping to hit a big hand. I raised from MP with pocket 10s once and got no callers. Another hand I had QJo, limped in and flopped middle pair. A woman with about $200 in front of her in the 8s bet, and I raised. I wound up making a straight on the river, beating her pair of queens. When I got up I was up about $20, which was fine. I wanted to go back, but never quite made it.

Next was the Luxor, which had a small poker room, maybe only 6-8 tables. I sat at a $2/4 which had some of the drunkest people ever at the other end. Apparently they had been there for a good part of the afternoon into the evening, drinking a lot and playing crazy; capping the raises at every opportunity, etc. They were so loose that it was a shame that I got no playable hands for the hour or so I was there. -$20.

Then it was back to Palace Station for Kim to play bingo. I went into their poker room, which was jammed. I put my name on the list for $4/8, and sat at a $2/4 table to wait. There were the oldest people in the world at my table, and each hand took about 5 minutes as people took their heart medicine or something before making a move. I won one hand before I moved (K-10o which turned into 2-pair), and then I slid over into my $4/8 seat. The structure was pretty cool, because small blind and big blind were $1 and $2, respectively. So, you could limp in for $2, or raise it to $6 pre-flop. That made it pretty cheap to play tight and wait for a good hand; no more expensive per orbit than $2/4.

I played pretty cautiously early on trying to gauge the skill level of the table. I won one decent pot betting into two other players with K-10o (again) with an A and Q on the board, as well as 3 clubs. Guess that was scary enough to make them go away.

Next big hand I had KK, raised pre-flop and got 3 callers. The flop is a rainbow of low cards; perfect for my hand. I bet out, and get 2 callers. Turn is an ace, which I’m not happy about at all, but I fire my $8 out, the 5s folds, and the 7s directly to my right raises. I make a crying call. He checks the river, and I check behind him. Jackass had A9o.

Near the end of my 2 hours being there I get AK of diamonds and raise. 2 callers, and a K and a diamond on the flop. Wahoo! Betting and getting called by the 3s. Turn and river are both diamonds, giving me the nut flush. One last bet and a call, and the other guy had AKo, so I scoop a healthy pot. Finished up for the night up $40, which wasn’t bad considering I didn’t play many hands.

Next day (Sunday) we made our way over in the morning to the Rio to drop our bags off and get some food. We went to the “World Buffet”, which was $25 a person and fantastic.

It was fun to try and see how many different continents you could get on one plate. Look, I’ve got sushi next to mashed potatoes next to some General Tzo’s chicken!

We rolled out of there and made our way to the CES. It was a giant clusterfuck trying to get on the shuttle bus, pick up our passes, and get into the show. Once finally inside we saw some neat stuff, although I didn’t get to the TiVo booth. Apparently there are these things called “plasma TVs”, which will be really hot in the near future.

Back to the Rio, and time to check out their newly opened poker room. You would think since they’re hosting the 2005 WSOP they’d be a bit more on the stick, but the room was barely a month old, and the tables were old tables that had been refurbished. Apparently they’re building some huge new building out by their convention center just to house the WSOP.

Anyway, when I got there there was only one game going, a $3/6 with a bunch of die-hards playing. 2 couples that wanted to play showed up, so we got a new dealer and started a new table.

1s – Kinda hot woman with a big rack
2s – Her husband, who fancied himself a fantastic player
3s – A guy in a baseball cap who actually knew what he was doing, sorta
4s – Relatively tight asian guy. By relatively tight I mean he was the only guy (besides me) that wasn’t in every single hand!
5s – Me
6s – Saucy older asian woman. Big hair, big fake jewelry, and very sweet.
7s – ??
8s – Fat wife. Part of the 2 couples that showed up.
9s – Fat balding husband.
10s – Jay from NYC. Old-ish guy (sort of Dennis Farina -looking) who sold karaoke supplies or some such nonsense.

This was the greatest table ever, and I wasn’t able to take advantage of it. It was 8-handed to almost every flop, as loose-passive as you could ever hope for. The problem was I got hardly any cards to play. I mean I was in some sort of statistical black hole where I kept getting 5-10 offsuit, Q-3 offsuit, etc. Finally I’m in late position and peek down at AQo. Raise and get 6(!) callers. Flop has a queen, and I’m feeling good. I bet the whole way, and callers keep dropping off until the river, when a 3 gives fatty in 8s a set. I didn’t really mind, because a few hands later I get Q10o in late position, limp in and see a Q-3-7 rainbow flop. I figure it’s time to get aggressive with this table. Fatty in 8s bets, gets 3 callers and I raise. Fatty calls, and other callers fold. Turn is a beautiful 10, giving me top 2 pair. She bets, I raise, and she calls. River is a blank; she checks, I bet and she calls. She had Q-3 and flopped two pair, but it was a worse two pair.

Next interesting hand I get AQs in EP and raise. 6(!) callers. Flop is Q-2-x. Turn is a 2. I bet, 4 limpers folds, and 2s raises. Uh-oh. I call, and the river is another 2. Now I’m fucked. I check, he bets, and I call. He flips up (drum roll, please), The Hammer! Oh, cruel irony!

At this point I’m down $70, which is amazing considering how juicy the table is. Then I start to get a few hands. KQo, which I raise and get 3 callers. Flop is K-Q-x, giving me top two pair. I bet, 8s calls, everyone else folds. Turn is a 3. I bet, she calls, and now I’m worried about her having a set again. River’s a blank, I bet and she calls with A-3o. Hahaha!

Very next hand I have pocket 4s, and flop a set. Huge pot!

I finish the session up $115 and go to have some dinner, then back to the tables. I get a different table this time, with some new faces. Slightly better play at this one, as it’s only 6-handed to every flop instead of 8. I sat tucked into the corner of the 9 seat, next to a guy who groused about every hand he didn’t play that would have flopped an unlikely straight, and a very drunk asian man who didn’t know where the hell he was.

At some point a guy who just won $1000 playing roulette came and sat in the 7s, which gave us some action for awhile. He quickly pissed away $100, including the last $20 that he played about 3 hands raising the whole way without even looking at his hole cards. And he won 2 of the 3!

I blew one hand completely. I was in the small blind, and had K-9 of hearts. There were 6 limpers, and I completed the bet. Flop has 3 hearts, and I could feel my eyes doing that old WB cartoon thing of turning into cash register dollar signs. It checked around to the button, who bet. Here’s where I screwed up. I raised, when I should have just smooth-called and let the rest of the table call as well. There was realistically only one card out there to worry about; the ace of hearts, and I wouldn’t be able to put in enough raises to get someone with that card to folds, so all I did by raising was announce my made flush, and scare everyone off. Next time I’ll think a bit more about what I’m trying to accomplish; if I’m trying to protect my hand, or let other people make 2nd best hands. A few hands later I had KK, and had it hold up.

I’m in LP(Late Position) and see 4-8 of diamonds. 4 limpers, so I’m getting decent odds to try and have a big hand. Flop has 2 diamonds in it. There’s a bet from early position, I raise and get 2 callers. Turn no diamond, and it’s checked around (using the free card play! I learned stuff from books!). River is a diamond. Guy to my right bets, and I just call, hoping for an overcall from the 5s. 5s raises, and now I figure my baby flush just got beaten. “Oh, shit” I say. 8s calls, and so do I. 5s made a straight, and 8s had two pair. “What was that about ‘oh shit’?” the 8s laughed as I scooped the pot.

Towards the end of the night 3 young guys who were all dealers at the Canterbury (which is a huge card club in Minnesota(?)) showed up. The one guy was kind of a smug prick, doing all kinds of chip tricks, and wearing mirrored shades and a visor. C’mon, dude.. it’s just a $3/6 game.. what kind of “tells” are you going to get off of a bunch of loose drunks that will call with anything? Turns out he was a “prop” player for the Canterbury most of the time, which means that he played at tables to fill seats. Apparently the difference between a prop player and a shill is that he played with his own money, not the house’s. So, he was actually like a professional poker player, which means I needed to get out of there, especially considering I was down about $70 for that session.

One of the last hands I had was pocket 8s. Flop was Q-Q-6. I bet (figuring I’m going to call a bet it’s better to bet than call anyway), get 2 callers. The magical 8 comes on the turn, giving me a full house. I bet, and get one caller. The river is the 13 of purple horseshoes(I totally stole that phrase from some 2+2 forums discussion, btw), and I bet. Last caller folds, and I show my house. Finished that session down $5, so +$110 for the night.

Our last day we had some time before our afternoon flight, so we checked out of the Rio and headed to Treasure Island (now just “TI”) to check out their buffet, which was slightly cheaper and almost as magical as the Rio’s. Took the tram over to the fucking Mirage, and I check out a $3/6 table. The action was good, but nothing can compare to the joy that was the Rio the night before. I was only sitting for a half-hour or so (Kim quickly lost her money at roulette), won one hand with a flopped set, and walked out up $20.

We went over to the forum shops at Caeser’s, which was pretty damn impressive. Lots of walking around, and lots of expensive crap.

We had just enough time before catching a cab to our flight to the airport for me to go back to the Mirage for a short while. I sat at a different table, lost with my pocket 10s on one of the first hands, and the time approached for me to leave. I waited through one last orbit, and then pulled the most awesome move from UTG. Yep, I tossed a live straddle= out there (For those of you that don’t know, a straddle bet is raising before you even see your cards. It’s totally stupid and will lose you lots of money in the long run. But it was Vegas, baby, Vegas), and got 2 callers. While the flop is coming I actually look at my cards… A-6o, not too shabby. Flop has a pair of jacks and a 3 or something, and I bet it. Both guys fold, I turn over my cards triumphantly, and skedaddle out of there.

Flight home was uneventful, and I slept like the dead that night.

I definitely need to go back sometime in the near future and do nothing but play poker at some of the juicier spots I found, namely the Excalibur and the Rio. I think with some more time and some slightly better cards (see stats below), and I should clean up.

Some stats for the cards I saw.
Times getting KK: 2.
Times getting 10-10: 2.
Times getting AKs: 1.
Times getting AA, QQ or JJ: 0.

Online hasn’t been much better; I’ll meander around at the $2/4 tables, and maybe be up a bit, maybe be down a bit. Then I’ll go to $3/6 and either make $100 in about a half an hour, or lose 3/4 of that in 2 hours.

We’re staying at the Palace Station Saturday night, and the Rio Sunday. It would have been nice to do the Rio both days, but rooms are amazingly expensive that weekend, on account of the fact that it’s both the CES show AND the AVN awards... In fact, we’re going to try and sneak into the CES show and collect lots of gadgets and pens and USB keychain drives.

Interspersed with all the gadget-coveting and fake-boob-spotting, of course I’m going to try and play some poker. Last time I was there I didn’t really play long enough (or well enough) to get a good idea about where the good games were, so this week I’m scouring the online archives of my favorite poker bloggers to try and find where the juicy tables are. I’m going to want to hit Aladdin, the Flamingo, the Luxor, Excalibur and perhaps the Mirage. Oooh, maybe the Bellagio for some celebrity-spotting. Any other suggestions? I’ll be bringing a notebook to the tables, so I should be able to give a pretty good trip report when I come back, as opposed to “I did good” or “I did bad”.

Apparently owning a newer car is A Bad Thing™, because the registration is amazingly expensive. I walked out of there with a $500 hole in my wallet, but on the plus side I did get a cool personalized plate out of the deal.

Update: Robin sent me an updated license plate. Really sort of demonstrates what she thinks of me.

You can also make your own here.

Update 2: Crap. After doing a Google popularity contest between 27o poker and 72o poker I should have made it be “72 OFF”. Crap. Maybe I’ll have a nice run at $3/6 and just get it anyway.

Bottom line, I made $200 in about 20 minutes. Granted, my win rate of around 60 big bets/hour (a good player will average about 3) was completely unsustainable, so I quickly got up before the cards went cold and went for a nice bike ride, but it was still a lot of fun. I’m hoping I’ll get similar cards tomorrow at Casino Arizona, but confident that I’ll play patiently and well regardless of what I’m dealt.

This time I walked in ready to play (especially after hitting the poker room at Casino Del Sol a few times and finding it not scary). I went up to the cardroom manager (super-nice guy (Jason maybe?)) and asked about $2/4. He said that everyone in a seat right now was a die-hard, so it might be a long wait. He wanted to know if I would take a seat at a $3/6 table instead. I thought about it for a minute, then said “sure”. After all, it’s only a buck more in blinds per orbit, so as long as I played tight I figured I’d be alright.

Finally got into my seat, got $100 in chips, and I was ready to play. I folded about the first 20 hands, then got pocket 4s. I call the big blind, and the flop is full of overcards, so I fold at the first bet.

Couple of hands later, and I’m dealt pocket 9s. 5 players to the flop, and there’s a 9, so now I’ve got a set. There’s a bet in front of me, and I raise to try and ward off any freak draws. 2 callers, and the turn in a blank. I bet out again, get one fold and one call. Last card makes a pair of jacks on the board, so now I’ve got a full house. It’s checked to me, and I bet. The woman I’m heads-up against folds, and I show my cards as sort of a PR move. It was a nice sized pot, and now I’m probably at about $140.

After that, however… nothing went right. I continued to play tight/aggressive, but cards weren’t coming my way. I mucked bad hand after bad hand… 2-5o, 10-5o, 7-3o. Fold, fold, fold. It wasn’t really frustrating; just some quiet bemusement that I wasn’t getting anything to work with. The few good starting hands I did get didn’t turn into anything. I would flop four to the flush, and then no more cards I needed would come. Medium pairs wouldn’t yield anything, so I would have to fold. The end result was that I walked away down about $70, but considering how long I was playing, and how much worse it could have been, I was pleased with my play, but just dissapointed with the net results.

Yesterday I went to Casino Del Sol, to see if I was just having an off night. Once again no $2/4, but there weren’t even any tables of it, so I had to go to a $3/6. This one started out much the same way; up a little, down a little, but holding my own and no major disasters.

Then the cards started coming my way. It started with A-10o, and the flop came with some cards towards a straight, and 2 spades. My ace was a spade, so I figured it would be worth it to stick around. 4th street was another spade, and the other guy in the pot is betting like mad trying to get me off the hand, but I stay in. Last card is another spade, and now I’ve made the nut flush. With no pair on the board, I’m sure I’ve got the best hand, and I do. That opened the floodgates, and I started getting some really good hands. Flopped trip 7s which held up. A-J of diamonds makes a flush grabbing me a monster pot. Even my A-10 stands up as top pair, top kicker. After that hand one of the better players at the table (and they were by far better than the people playing the night before) commented that he couldn’t get a read on me, which I took as a huge compliment. Of course, I had to say something funny like “why, because I look like I’m shitting my pants on every hand?” I don’t think I wound up losing a showdown the rest of the day. I had a weak 2-4o (in the blinds) turn into 2 pair on the river, beating out a pair of aces.

The funniest hand had me a late position with a 5-7 of diamonds. Flop came with some low cards and a 7 (with a diamond), so I stayed with my pair and backdoor flush. Next card gave me a gutshot low (A-2-4-7 on the board), so I called the bet from across the table. Last card was the miracle 3, giving me a wheel straight. The other guy had a pair of aces, and I flipped up my 5, proclaiming “straight!”. The dealer took a look and said, “I can’t get a straight from this”, which of course made my heart completely stop beating. Then she took a second look and decided I did indeed have the straight, and raked that one in.

The total tally had me walking out with $275 after buying in for $100, so a profit of $175 for the day (not including all the tips for the dealers), making my weekend tally solidly in the black. I probably could have stayed longer and made more, but I had plans (bowling!) that I didn’t want to miss. Small aside; the guy who said he couldn’t read me and one of the dealers both made a point to tell me when I was leaving that I had played really well, which was pretty cool indeed.

I’ve been doing lots of reading. I’m pretty much done with Super/System, and the one I’m reading now is “Zen and the art of Poker”, which is philosophy as opposed to actual strategy. It stresses patience, even emotions, and general Zen. As I like to consider myself having a bit of an Eastern bent, philosophically, it meshes well. Detachment at the poker table is a hard thing to do, but I’m trying.

Seems like the home games in Pittsburgh are picking up a little bit of steam, which is awesome. I was especially happy to see that David cleaned up last night. He improved vastly from when we first started, but sometimes played a bit loose, and had the worst luck with pocket Kings. Nice that he finally caught some cards and was a big wiener.

At some point I’m going to have to check out the local casino action. Desert Diamond apparently has some low buy-in tournaments running pretty much all the time (and I feel like my tourney play is pretty strong right now), and Casino del Sol sounds like they have a nice poker room. Maybe I’ll check that out this weekend. It would be fun to do like a once a month thing, go bring $50 and see what happens.

Not much memorable except the hand where my first 2 down cards and 1 up card were all aces. Most winning hands were of the 2-pair, 3 of a kind variety, although David W. managed to pull out a low straight (A-through-5) twice.

Went to regular limit Hold ‘Em later on. I had some good hands for a few good pots, and then right towards the end of the night I had my pocket aces turn into a set of aces, and won a few Happy Meals with that one.

The end result was Joshua and I both were up $20, and David and Aaron went bust. I will miss the home games a lot, and somehow I don’t think all of us getting together online to play will be the same.

We got started, and I was nervous. Even more nervous than I was at the start of the tourney from a few weeks ago, which was silly because I knew all these people. Maybe that was it; I didn’t want to be making bonehead plays in front of my friends. Even now only about 12 hours later lots of those hands are blurs to me, but I’ll try and recollect best I can, and I’m sure David and Joshua (and Dan? where are you Dan?) will chime in.

The first few deals around were pretty uneventful… just feeling everyone out to see how they would play. I made some good positional raises with decent cards and took down some early pots. Joshua took a good chunk out of me when I put in a semi-bluff with some good cards that just didn’t pan out on the board. He was playing similarly as far as agressive blind-stealing, although with the level we were at ($25/$50 blinds) I wasn’t trying to steal as much since it wasn’t worth the risk that early on.

One early hand I was one behind the button with K-K. I flat-called, and Josh raised three times the big blind. I came back over the top for about another thousand, and took him off that pot. Flopped a flush the hand after that, and managed to squeeze some money out of Dave W. with that one. Another hand or two after that I got K-K again, but this time nobody wanted to play. Same story with A-A a little later on. Jason K. was quietly building up a massive stack, with a good slowplay to take a bite out of Josh, as well as pretty much everyone else at the table at various points. Oh, and Dave W. flopped quad kings at one point… sweet. Glad I wasn’t in that hand.

In the 2nd hour I started playing a little more recklessly. I figured I had the option to do another rebuy for $25, so I might as well try and double up a few times, or force people out of better hands with some strong betting. Well, that backfired as I pushed all-in with some garbage like A-5 or something. I went up against A-K, an A hit on the flop, and there was no runner-runner 5s miracle like last time.

So, I rebought and vowed to play a little tighter. 3 memorable hands from the end of that level: – Folding pocket 7s to a huge raise from Jason D. There were all sorts of overcards on the board that were frightening, and my 7s shrunk up fast. Turns out he had nothing. In fact, we turned over the remaining cards after I folded just for a giggle. The burn card was flipped over by accident. 7. Then the actual turn card was a 7. Sheesh! – Looking at 9-9 a few hands later, and Jason made another stab. This time I stood my ground, and put him all-in. He turned over A-K. Eeep. It’s just a coinflip, really… I’ll take those odds. Flop comes A-x-x. Shit. Now he’s way ahead with his pair of aces. Turn comes, and it’s a miracle 9. Last card needs to be an ace for Jason to hang on, and it’s not. – Last hand before we combined into one table (Pat and Tisha had gone out, and Tisha doing so after getting a straight flush(!) earlier in the night). It was down to Joshua and me, and I was up a little bit from my rebuy. I had ok hole cards (Q-9), but nothing hit on the flop, although there were some high cards out there. I put in a decent sized raise, and he called after much deliberation. I figured he was on a draw or a low pair at that point, so after the turn I put in a bet for a good chunk of the remainder of Joshua’s stack, maybe about $1500. Joshua thought. And thought. And thought some more. He counted his chips, sighed, thought some more, and then eventually asked if I would show him if he folded. I agreed, perhaps too eagerly, and showed him the crap I was holding. He turned over 3-3. So, he had me beat to that point, but on such a scary hand that him throwing it away was the right move.

The final table started with 8 people. Now I had Joshua to my right, Jason K. and his big stack to my left, and then continuing left around the table was Michael from work, Aaron, David, Dave W., and Dan from work (who had built up a huuuuuuge stack before we broke our table)

The blinds were getting scary enough (200/400 and a $50 ante) that no stack except maybe Dan’s could feel safe. It was time to start gambling a little. I bought a few pots with good raises on the button, but didn’t really make a ton of moves. I got up to pee, thinking that when I came back I might want to go all-in before I was even dealt cards, just to either succeed massively or go out in a blaze of glory. I come back, sit down, and look at my hole cards: A-A. American Airlines. Bullets. The best starting hand you can have. With that many people at the table, I was hoping to take a big chunk out of somebody. Aaron went all in right away, and I called him. Flop was no help, and I wound up busting him out.

Michael was a wild man… betting hard, and Dan was there taking his action. One hand had Q-Q-J on the board, and Micheal immediately went all-in. Dan called, and Michael flipped over J-x. Dan had J-Q; he had flopped the full house.

David went out at some point (not sure with what hand). Dave W. was severly short-stacked, to the point where posting his blind put him all in. Lucky for him on that hand he got A-A, although he was out a few hands later too.

So, we got down to the final 4, and it was me, Jason K., Dan and Joshua. The blinds were getting obscene at this point; 400/800 with $100 ante. Joshua and I were both looking pretty desperate with less than 10X BB. He raised a good amount in front of me, and I went all-in for about $5000. He called, and flipped over Q-8. I had J-9, and a big mountain to climb. Flop came, and nothing hit us. Turn, nothing. Last card came, and I spiked a jack to pair up and take out Joshua. Dan looked ill; he threw away K-8, and there was a king on the board and he would have knocked out both of us.

Update: Stupid me… Joshua (as he points out in the comments) had A-10 (which is why it was funny when I knocked Dan out with A-10), hit a 10 on the flop, which is why it was extra-heartbreaking when I spiked that J. Sorry Joshua, I can’t remember all the winning knockout hands I had last night.

With the blinds now at 800/1600 with $200 ante it was still uncomfortable, even with the decent-sized stack I now had. Next hand or so I get A-10, an actual hand. Dan calls, and I go all-in. Dan has K-8 again, and he’ll be damned if he’s gonna throw it away this time. Flop is a blank, but then a 10 comes on the turn. Dan needs a king on the river, and it doesn’t come. Now it’s down to me and Jason K., and I’ve got about a 4-1 chip lead on him. I do one raise to take his blind, he raises back next hand and I fold utter garbage; 2-4. Next hand I have decent cards and just try and put him all-in and end it. He calls, and doubles through. Next hand again I have J-9, go all-in and Jason calls with Q-x of diamonds. Flop comes with 2 diamonds, no pairs. Turn is a jack, and now I’m looking good. Last card needs to not be a diamond or a queen, and it’s not. I won my namesake tournament!

The take for me was $159, minus my $50 buy-in + rebuy, plus the $40 I got from Jason D. for selling him my old chips. So, the night was +$149.. not too shabby.

Joshua, Steve and I were all at different tables to start, which was good because it meant that we wouldn’t have to go against each other. I probably had the toughest table there. Directly to my left was Dennis, a sharp old codger that I didn’t want to tangle with, and then there was Derek, a young hotshot that had been playing for about 5 years and had won large online tournaments in both Hold ‘em and Omaha. To his left was a big guy Jason who had won a tournament a few weeks before at a similar event a few miles away. There were two Daves, one of which had never even played before; just watched on TV. I guess with the torrent of poker shows out there these days that’s probably enough.

Ok, so we were underway. I was nervous, but not too bad. I had my strategy in my head: “Play tight, and push hard with good hands. Raise or fold, etc.” There was some action early on that I wasn’t a part of, and nothing happened until I was first to be in the big blind. I was dealt 97o, but since nobody raised I was able to see the flop for free. Flop came 9-8-7, and I raised about 3 times the size of the BB, and took down the early pot. Hey, this is easy! Not much else memorable from the early going, except for a hand where I had 99. Raised 3x, and Derek the hotshot was the only other person who stayed in. Flop came with low cards; nothing too scary, so I bet about $1k, just to see where I stood. Derek quickly called, so I put him on high overcards, like AK or AQ. River was still nothing scary, so I made a pot-sized bet… about $3k. Derek stared at me for about 2 minutes straight (good thing I wore contacts and brought my sunglasses) and then mucked. He asked me a few hands later if I would tell him what I had, and although I don’t like to show cards often I told him about my 9s. He did indeed have AK, so I think I played that hand well.

Didn’t have much else good happen in the early going. Dennis the scary old dude got knocked out (yay!), but they brought in Ed and his roughly $15k in chips to replace him (boo!). Ed was a big California-looking guy with a Don Ho shirt and everything… sorta like a healthy Gary Busey. I had some hands with good hole cards that nothing developed from, so I started to get whittled down a bit. Then I got hole jacks. I raise 3x, and Dave the TV guy calls. Flop comes with low cards, and I make a large bet. Dave calls and we get another card. Nothing scary, so more betting. Dave calls again. Last card, more betting, and Dave calls again. I flip over my jacks, thinking that he was holding high cards and waiting for a hit and then just calling the last bet out of frustration. Nope, he had AA. Ouch. There went most of my stack. At this point Derek was already out, and Jason’s pile of chips was getting as big as he was. Oh, you have never seen fat until you’ve been to a local tournament. There were at least 3 guys who were well beyond 300 lbs… scary.

In Level 3, the blinds where $300/$600, and with me only having $1600 left, that meant I was pretty well committed the next time the blinds came to me. Before the deal started I announced I was going all-in “in the dark”, which meant I was going to bet before I even saw my cards. That got a few blinks from the table, as well as “gutsy call” from Ed, when I think he meant “stupid call”. Everyone folded around to Dave the TV guy, who looked at his cards and called. I finally looked at my cards when I flipped them over for the showdown. K3. I look over at Dave, and he’s got 53. Flop comes with nothing, which means I’m still in the lead. On 4th street a king comes, which means I’ve doubled through and survived. Whew!

Few more hands that I raised on that didn’t pan out, and I was getting low again; down to about $4k or so. I decided to go all-in next playable hand, and either double-through to a more comfortable stack or just get out and start playing in the side games. In the BB I get A3 and push in. Ed calls me, and flips over A10. I’m fucked. Flop comes x-10-x and now I’m really fucked. If an A comes, that’s no help because he’ll have 2 pair. I’m picking up my bag and ready to go. Turn is a 3. Ray of light. River comes another 3. Holy shit. Running 3s to stay in. I think the odds of that happening are something like 250-to-1 or something improbable like that.

A few hands later I get pocket 10s. Feeling like I’m still hopelessly short-stacked I raise 3x, and get a call from Dave the TV guy (who, by the way, kept his chips in a messy pile the whole night instead of the careful stacks that everyone else was making, which was strangely endearing). Flop comes with some face cards, and I start to feel impending doom. I bet strong into it anyway, hoping that I can scare him off the pot, but no dice… he calls. Turn card is another face card, and I move all-in. Dave calls with an ace to match one on the table, and I’m out.

I’m not entirely sure about what place I finished, but certainly I was in the top third out of the 80 or so people that were in. I don’t think I played particularly poorly, except maybe pushing too hard with JJ, and certainly going all in with 10-10 when there were high cards out there, and I definitely had a good time.

I wandered around and watched what was going on at the other tables. Joshua had a few miracle all-ins to hang on by his fingernails too; I watched him pull more than a few rabbits out of his hat, but then finally he was done.

Steve had a heartbreaking evening. He finished 8th, which was the last non-paying spot. You’ll make them pay next year, Steve!

There were cash games sprouting up all over between the losers, so I got in on that. There were kids betting all sorts of crazy and catching cards, so I lost my first $10 in fairly short order.

I played a stupid game of $.10/$.20 Omaha for a little bit and won a whopping $2. Joshua and I both sat in on another $10NL table with a few older guys (including Dennis from my table). I was up and down a bit, but Joshua was crushing everyone, and wound up taking about $100 from that table total.

I watched a little bit of the action at the final table. Steve didn’t make it, but his neighbor did and finished a very respectable 4th. The big winner was a big fat cop named Mike, who pretty much had the biggest stack all night anyway. The turning point at that final table was when he took a huge chunk out of the next closest stack with quad 7s. Hell of a time to get 4 of a kind.

Derek the hotshot invited me to play at another tourney that he was hosting this coming weekend. I was pleased and flattered that he asked, because he said “it’s nice to see someone who knows what pot odds are”. I think I’ll be visiting family in NJ this weekend, but if for some reason I’m not I’ll definitely think about it.

• My moving plans are pretty much solidified. Leaving the glorious state of Pennsylvania and the even more glorious city of Pittsburgh the last weekend of August. My sister is going to come out and help me do the drive down, which is awesome. I’ve got the truck rental reservation, and I keep checking and the price keeps dropping, so I have them update my rental. Down $700 so far from what is was initially going to be. I nearly shit my pants the other day when it looked like it had dropped $2000, but then I realized I had typed in “Tucson, AZ 15221 (which is a Pittsburgh zip code)” and it thought I was doing a local move. Ooops. Gonna get a trailer for the new car (which has been loads of fun, BTW), and load the cats in the car and let them yowl for all they’re worth back where I can’t hear them. The heat is a bit of a concern, but I’ll try and get sunshades in all the windows, do as much of the driving at night as possible, and of course I’m sure I’ll be pulling over every 5 seconds to check on them anyway.
• My audit with Pittsburgh so far has been suprisingly easy. Called the city person on the phone, told her what was going on, and I’m just in the process of retrieving all my W-2s from my various employers from the last few years. Yes, I know I’m supposed to keep 7 years worth, but that’s what former employers or payroll companies are for, right? Anyway, so far it looks like I was paying in the correct amount for every job besides this one, so I shouldn’t get dinged too badly. I must say that for a city in the middle of a fiscal crisis, they don’t seem to be too eager to get their money.
• The plans for Tucson are already shaping up to be fantastic. Paul and April are all excited for me to get out there, and we’ve got reservations at Hueco pretty much every weekend of the winter. They keep telling me that it’s better than Bishop, so I can’t wait to check it out. There’s some things I want to make sure I do while in AZ, like 1) Drink more water. 2) Make sure to take my psyllium husk every day. 3) Convert my cyclocross bike into a single-speed to make my daily rides more fun.
• Poker has been good. My play at limit raise has been horrible, both online and during the weekly events (which unfortunately have been less than weekly lately). I’m convinced that most of limit play is pure luck; you either get the cards or you don’t. However, I’ve been kicking ass and taking names at the $10 SNG single table tournaments on PartyPoker. I’ve cashed in probably 75% of the tourneys I’ve been in, and even won a couple for $50. Certainly it’s the most consistantly profitible playing I’ve done. I might even be able to make gas money out of it! Oh! I’m also playing in a $50 buy-in tourney next weekend a little north of the city. Should be a good time, and I’ll try and remember more than the hand I bust out on to write it up.

Thanks David!

(Oh, and in related news...)

From the first hand on, it was pretty clear that I wasn’t getting the same sort of cards that I had the week before. With play being only 4-handed, I loosened up my starting requirements somewhat, but just wasn’t catching cards. I was getting whittled away slowly, with David and Jason building up their stacks nicely, and Joshua going out pretty early.

Towards the very end of the night I started to come back. I drew a flush on the river which got me a nice pot from David, and then I played the Best. Hand. Ever.

I was in the big blind, and got dealt the mother of all hands, the one that Iggy and I like to call “The Hammer”, statistically the worst possible starting hand, 2-7 offsuit. I raised pre-flop, David folded, and Jason called. Flop came out with low cards, including a 2, so now I was paired up. Jason checked, signifying that he hadn’t paired anything on the board, so I raised. He called, and the next card came. Now the board paired, so I was looking at 2 pair. Throwing caution to the wind, and determined to bring “The Hammer”, I raised again. Jason called once more, and then the river came. Another 2. With the board already paired, that meant that I had a full house. From 2-7o. Unbelievable. Jay checked, I raised, he called, and I pulled in a monster pot. Back from the dead, again.

Next hand was going to be the last hand of the night. I look down at 8-3 offsuit, which is probably the 2nd worst starting hand, declare it “The Mini-Hammer”, and start betting away. It was nearly a mirror image of the previous hand. I kept betting, and Jason kept calling. An 8 came on the flop, the board paired on the turn, and the miracle 3rd 8 came on the river, giving me 2 full houses. In a row. From absolutely horrible starting hands.

So, by the end of the night I was only down $7, and as David put it “that’s a whole lot of entertainment for $7”. David made about $6-7 himself, and Jason was the big winner, coming out $30 over what he came in with, or “a can of paint”, as there was much discussion of home improvement last night.

When I got home I went on partypoker.com for a few minutes, and on about the fourth hand I drew to a flush and put some joker all-in, and wound up taking the pot, and making about $20 in five minutes, thereby wiping out any losses from earlier in the evening.

Some other highlights of the evening:

• David had pocket aces. THREE TIMES.
• Funniest hand of the night saw the board come up with a straight, 10-to-A, so the pot was split between Jason and David. The kicker? They were holding Q-Q and A-A, respectively.

• The cookies. Definitely the cookies.

  This morning, Pat wondered how I had all this money to be playing poker, and I have to say it’s because I’m outsourcing critical help desk support for feralboy.com overseas:

  

  ]]> http://feralboy.com/2004/06/10/mpt-week-6/feed/ 0 http://feralboy.com/2004/06/03/mpt-week-5/ http://feralboy.com/2004/06/03/mpt-week-5/#comments Thu, 03 Jun 2004 16:00:00 +0000 mattcomroe http://feralboy.com/?p=284 Last night we mixed it up a bit. We had 6 players, so we decided instead of a few hours of limit-raise and then an hour or so of no-limit to run a tournament. Everyone bought in for $20, and got $2k in chips. The idea, much like the WSOP, is that as each player is eliminated, you get a placement. We did it so that the top 3 places were “in the money”, and got 50%, 30% and 20% for first, second and third. We had a quickly escalating blind structure, with levels changing every 20 minutes. We also let people do a rebuy at the end of the first hour to bring them back up to $2k, if they wanted.

  Mike and Aaron both had rough nights; never really getting good enough hands to play, and eventually got blinded down to the felt. David gets the “most improved student” gold star… he’s been doing his homework and played really well… using his stack to his advantage, and making smart plays. His best hand was a showdown against Jason where he went all-in with the K-high nut flush (A was already on the board), and Jason had the Q-high. Jason was the wild man; betting heavy, and not afraid to call someone’s all-in, which proved to be a good enough strategy when paired with decent cards to put him 2nd in the money. Joshua was a little off-balance the whole night… loosing the first hand to me with cards he shouldn’t have stayed in with, and then not getting a lot of good cards throughout the night.

  I was fairly unstoppable. The very first hand of the night, I wound up going heads-up with 2 pair, and took in a nice sized pot from that. I sort of meandered after that, without enough of a stack to really do damage. Towards the end of the first hour, I won a massive pot off of David when my pocket 9s made a full boat with 7-7-X-X-9, and the miracle river beating his 2 pair. Some other lucky hands were me rivering a set of 2s with A-2, and knocking Joshua out the first hand after the rebuy period when my A-A yielded a set of aces on the turn, and his flush draw never materialized after I put him all in.

  The last hand was pretty innocuous; I was big blind, and Jason just limped in from the small blind. I had something crappy like 2-6s (hearts), and the flop came X-K-2, with one heart. J made a small raise, and I called just to see if I’d get 2 pair or the lucky and improbable set of 2s. Next card was a heart. I don’t think it even registered, as it was a low card, and didn’t match either of my cards, and we both checked. Last card came as another heart, and I had made a flush with two running hearts. I checked my hole cards to make sure I really had it, and then looked one more time to be sure. I put J all-in, and he called with a pair of Ks. I wasn’t even really sure I had the flush until I flipped my cards over, and sure enough, there were 5 hearts out there. 50% of $170 meant a very, very good night for me.

  I wonder if I’ll be able to repeat that performance. I was very lucky early on to not get short stacked, and as I picked up a few decent pots with good hands, I was able to start muscling the smaller stacks around, and bought quite a few pots with low pair or nothing at all, but people were unwilling to call after I had already made and shown such good hands before.

  ]]> http://feralboy.com/2004/06/03/mpt-week-5/feed/ 0 http://feralboy.com/2004/05/13/mpt-week-4/ http://feralboy.com/2004/05/13/mpt-week-4/#comments Thu, 13 May 2004 15:28:04 +0000 mattcomroe http://feralboy.com/?p=295 An all-new installment of the Matt Poker Tour. Last night the action was at Ron’s, who climbs at our gym. He has a sweet house (including regulation 8-sided card table!) up in the hills near where I work, so I went directly there from a work send-off party for one of my co-workers that’s leaving.

  We started 6-handed, and did limit raise for about 2 hours. I finally was catching good cards, although I folded two big pots early on that I would have won, including a straight draw that I folded on the turn. After those beats I started to catch some good hands; 2 pair AJ, pocket aces that turned into a full house, and even a few good bluffs. By the end of limit play I was probably up about $20-25. No-limit was not as good. Drew had already busted out of limit play, so we started 5-handed. Aaron went down pretty early on an all-in, and so once we were playing 4-handed I started to play a bit looser, thinking that I wouldn’t need as good of hands to win. Sometimes that was true, and I took a couple of pots with some dubious hands, but then wound up loosing about $10 to Joshua on a showdown I should have folded out of 2 rounds before. End result? I walked away up $15, but more important I figured out a little bit better rhythm than last weeks disastrous playing. Josuha again walked away the big winner; up about $50. David finally had a good game; not bluffing too much, catching good cards and playing them well. He only lost $10 on the night, and our esteemed host Ron lost $20 after buying back in midway through the night.

  I’ve also bought back in to the online poker recently to try and brush up on my no-limit skillz. So far it’s working well, and I’m up around $30. No great shakes, and probably not nearly as many fish as if I went to Party Poker, but I like the desktop client at the site I play at.

  ]]> http://feralboy.com/2004/05/13/mpt-week-4/feed/ 0 http://feralboy.com/2004/05/06/mpt-week-3/ http://feralboy.com/2004/05/06/mpt-week-3/#comments Thu, 06 May 2004 15:16:55 +0000 mattcomroe http://feralboy.com/?p=298 Ugh. Very short entry about last night. Suffice to say I had my ass handed to me to the tune of $30. I wasn’t playing tight at all, but that was because I was seeing other people winning with these completely weak-ass hands. I had one decent hand all night (full house, and only because 4 of the cards were on the table); kept getting picture-rag, and then horrible flops. Next time, no fooling around; only playing good hands, and then we’ll see who needs the KY Jelly.
  ]]> http://feralboy.com/2004/05/06/mpt-week-3/feed/ 0 http://feralboy.com/2004/04/29/mpt-week-2/ http://feralboy.com/2004/04/29/mpt-week-2/#comments Thu, 29 Apr 2004 15:39:55 +0000 mattcomroe http://feralboy.com/?p=303 Another fun night on the MPT last night. We went to Jason house, which is in the middle of East Nowhere, but still a nice spread. My play was ok; I got better cards than last week, but also played a bit looser. I was up about $10 early in the limit-raise round, after catching a few good cards, and also staying in until the end with not so good hands, but against people with even worse hands.

  Towards the end I got handed like 3 bad beats in a row; got great flops (including a straight), but just got outdrawn and couldn’t bet other people out of the pot.

  The $5 no-limit hands were fairly exciting, although people were playing a lot more conservatively than last week. There was one great showdown that I was in; 3 people all-in without seeing the flop. I had K-rag against K-rag and A-rag. The other K and I were behind until the river, and then caught the pair, but I had a higher kicker so I took the whole thing. Made back a little bit of the money I had lost with limit-raise, but wound up down like $7 for the night, which meant I’m just about even over the 2 weeks. I need to play more disciplined, even though chasing bad hands and bluffing is a lot easier to do 4 or 5-handed than 8 or 9.

  Big winners last night were Aaron ($20) and Jason ($15). David did about the same as I did; down a few for the day, and Joshua had his ass handed to him (busted out of both no-limit rounds by going all-in on the first hand. He had good cards and it was the right play to make both times, but just got outdrawn), but is still up overall.

  ]]> http://feralboy.com/2004/04/29/mpt-week-2/feed/ 0 http://feralboy.com/2004/04/22/poker-night/ http://feralboy.com/2004/04/22/poker-night/#comments Thu, 22 Apr 2004 16:20:51 +0000 mattcomroe http://feralboy.com/?p=307 Last night was the first of what I hope will be the weekly friendly poker night. There were only 4 guys in attendance, which is a little light, but there’s enough interest from enough people that I’m thinking on any given week we should have at least 5 or 6.

  We started a bit early to get anyone who didn’t know the intricacies of limit raise and no-limit hold ‘em betting up to speed. The new chips were awesome, and we even had a piece of green felt to cover the table. Aaron provided beers, and I brought chips and guacamole and spinich artichoke dips. As The Donald would say, “classy… really classy.” We played about an hour with no stake, where I got beaten down fairly badly, and David wound up doing the best.

  Then we switched to a limit raise game, this time with a $20 buy-in. The bet structure was a little different than what I was used to at the other home game I had played at a few times; instead of a set $.50 raise pre-flop and after, and then $1 after 4th street, you could bet either $.50 or $1 at any point in the betting, which gave you a little leeway with trying to buy the pot or muscle people out. It probably wasn’t as loose as the spread-limit betting described here, but since we were playing for such low stakes, you couldn’t really give someone a spread from say $.10 to $3. Just wouldn’t work.

  In any case, I played a lot tighter with actual money at stake, and didn’t chase bad hands. I don’t know if the other guys were playing loose due to inexperience or just being reckless, but people were bluffing all over the place, and I won a few pots with some pretty piss-poor cards, like a pair of 2s in one case. I also won some quality hands, with a set of aces, and a nice jack-high flush that blew out Joshua’s 6-high. David didn’t fare as well that round, and lost pretty much all of his $20 by the end of 2 hours. I threw him $10 to keep him playing, and then at 10 p.m. we switched to some $5 no-limit rounds. I cleaned David out first round by hitting a pair of Qs on the river, but then lost it all to Joshua by trying to catch a lucky card all-in with JK against Josh’s ace high. We went one more round, and it came down again to me and Joshua, and this time I played tight, and wound up after 5 hands of heads-up (our self-imposed limit on heads-up play) I escaped with the same $5 I started with.

  So, the end result was I won $5, Aaron broke pretty much even, and David dropped $30. Joshua was our big winner of the night, walking out with about $25 more than he got there with. Looking forward to next week, and hopefully more people. With only 4 guys, you’re in the blind 50% of the time, so it’s harder to make your money last longer if you’re trying to play tight.

  ]]> http://feralboy.com/2004/04/22/poker-night/feed/ 0 http://feralboy.com/2004/04/12/shuffle-up-and-deal/ http://feralboy.com/2004/04/12/shuffle-up-and-deal/#comments Mon, 12 Apr 2004 23:56:15 +0000 mattcomroe http://feralboy.com/?p=314 The near-constant flood of poker shows on The Travel Channel has finally broken me down, and I started lobbying this weekend for a friendly weekly game with the climbing peeps. Lots of emails flying around today about which day of the week would be best (so far Monday and Wednesday are the main candidates), as well as some side discussions about what the format should be. On one hand, there’s something to be said for a low threshold limit raise game. More people will play in each pot, since a quarter or $.50 to see a flop is no big deal. You’ll also lose money more slowly, so it would be hard to whittle away more than $20 over the course of 3 hours or so.

  On the other hand, nothing compares to the strategy and gut-wrenching feeling of playing no-limit hold’em. You can’t really bully the short stack with a $.50 call, but if you push $20 into the pot unless he’s sitting on American Airlines he’ll probably back out pretty quick. The flip side of that is everyone going all-in right away to try and double up, which makes for not a very fun night. So, coming out of the side discussion that Joshua and I were having, I have a few ideas for poker nights:

  • Two different games. Maybe we all get together around 8, and play $.50/$1 limit raise games for a few hours, until maybe 10. That way everyone’s had their fill, and gotten to play a bunch of hands for good or ill. Then at 10, anyone who’s got the stomach for no-limit can get dealt in on no-limit or pot-limit games. This could get ugly quickly, which leads me to my next option.
  • Tournament play. Everyone has a set buy-in, maybe $20, and then gets a supply of “fake money” chips... maybe totalling $1000 or something. Everyone just plays until they are eliminated, and then based on what place you come in, you take home a certain percentage. Depending on the amount of players we could probably just use this WSOP table. That’s how most tournaments are run anyway. The downside to this is that maybe 1/3 of the players are guaranteed to go home with nothing, whereas with the limit raise games I’ve played so far, even if you’re doing poorly you tend to have at least $5 left at the end of 2-3 hours.
  • Saw an interesting article about spread limit games, which gives you some flexibility on your bets each round, but still capping the totals to the pots don’t get too out of hand. That way you can make calling a little more uncomfortable for people if you either a) have a good hand, or b) are trying to buy the pot.

    In any case, I don’t know if it can all get organized this week, but I’m guessing by next week we’ll have our first game, and I’m pretty excited about it. Should be lots of fun.

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