Since the Superdonk and I both had Friday night off and gas prices are way down, we decided a trip to our old stomping grounds was in order. The creek hadn't changed much...in fact, as I sat down in the seven seat I noticed Steve (big white guy reg, looks like kyle gass just not bald) and Su in the four seat (her husband Steve was playing NL.) The Superdonk ended up occupying the one seat, and the rest of the table was a smattering of LPP donks...it was going to be a good day.
Steve left pretty early, so I remember thinking the only players I really had to worry about was the SD and Su...but Su doesn't play incredibly well and me and the SD tend to stay out of each other's way for the most part.
I ran pretty good in the first hour or so...won a nice pot with a flopped set of aces on a four flush board and somehow no one had a diamond...you know, really odd stuff like that. I was up $100 for most of the night until I hit an absolute sick run of cards in my last hour or so at the table.
I won a kill pot with a goofy 75 soooooted hand...I think there was a couple limpers, I limped behind. Flop gave me a gutshot, so I bet with position and hoped to get a free river card. Everyone called...turn I hit my gutterball. Weeeeeeee. Checked to me and I bet, three callers. River was a blank, checked to me, one caller.
Anyway, it's taken me a week to write this and I can't remember anything else, but I cashed out +$430...wow, 50bbs+, obviously a sick run. Oh, shorthanded I got Aces once and Jacks once, both in kill pots...that helped out a lot. Anyway, I have an update for 12/12, so check back in a couple days for that.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
2008 Fantasy Football Rundown
Alrght since Champ said he wanted to read it, might as well post it. Sup Champ?! Anyway, somehow I found my way into three leagues this year (geek check!). The first two I purposefully joined ($100 league through work, $20 league through Cardplayer) and then the third league I helped out my friend from work who's never played before but wanted to get a free league going to learn, so I said w/e fuck it and joined as the 8th team.
So first off, my $100 league turned out to only be eight guys (two guys flaked on draft day, wtf?!) after being a 10-man league forever, so yeah, the teams came out kinda stacked. By the way, kind of a weird set-up...1 QB, 2 RBs, 4WRs (TEs count as WRs) 1 DEF, 1 Kicker, 20yds rush/run = 1 pt; 50 yds/pass = 1 pt, 6pts/TD...kinda odd, a lot of people I tell the league about hate the way it's set up...I've gotten used to it. Oh and there's no playoff system, best record at the end of the year wins...
So yeah, the first four picks were something like (Brady, LT, AP, Addai) and so I took Westbrook. I remember really wanting Addai, but decided Westbrook would work out okay. After that I can't really remember much, except I took Lynch 2nd round, Fitzgerald 3rd, then I got Turner in the 4th...blah blah...I had a pretty solid team and someone ranked me as the 2nd best looking team preseason. I know that doesn't mean dick, but at least someone liked how my team was set up. My one HUGE weakness was going to be QBs. Basically the 2nd and 3rd round was the round all the solid QBs went, so I said fuck it and decided to wait until the mid rounds to get a QB. I took all my RBs and WRs early (we have to start 4 WRs/TEs, so I loaded up) and didn't take Matt Hasselbeck until somewhere in Round 9 or 10. I also picked up Garrard and Delhomme, and just prayed one of these three would have a breakout year (if you've been following this year at all, you'll note none of the three have done shit). I almost took a shot and went with Kurt Warner, that would have been nice.
Basically what I learned from this league this year is that I am the luckiest motherfucker on the face of the Earth (*knock on wood* don't jinx me please). I knew it was going to be a good year as soon as week 1 when I was facing the commish's team with a three point lead going into the Monday night game...he had McFadden and his defense going and only needed four points to beat me (my guys were done), three to tie. Well obviously he only scored two points somehow (I think his D put up a goose egg) and I held onto a 53-52 (lowest scoring game of the week) victory. After that I seemed to face the lowest scorer each week and I'd repeatedly have to show up to work and say "I rallied my troops around, we played a close game, but we squeezed out a victory. That's what good teams do baby." I currently have a 1.5 game lead (I tied in week four or some shit) with four weeks left to play...HOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLD!!!
The CP league I decided to screw around a bit and take Brady in the first round with the 6th overall pick (I made sure to stay old school with the $100 league and take two RBs first). Let's just say after that my draft didn't look all that great, and once Brady went down in week 1, I all but gave up on that league.
The free league was an autodraft where you could pre-rank your players. I was definitely not going to spend the time pre-ranking players, especially since I really wanted a live draft, so I just left the rankings as they were and came back to a team where my first pick was S-Jax (I really didn't want S-Jax on any of my teams this year) and then my next three picks were all WRs (wtf...Moss, Andre Johnson, Fitzgerald). At least I had solid receivers...right? My backs ended up being S-Jax, Turner, Ronnie Brown (he didn't even sniff my starting line-up until after he blew up in one of those early weeks). Funny sidenote, Moss has been riding the pine in this league pretty much since week 2...and no one wanted to give me a good trade for him since Brady went down and we're all kinda stacked, so he's been on my bench except when he has had good matchups.
Anyway, somehow I made a couple good waiver wire moves (I picked up Steve Slaton off the free agent wire, traded Calvin Johnson for someone I can't remember because I was deep as fuck at receiver) and actually put a good team together. I started caring about this league once I figured out how much shit talk there would be, so I started getting into it and making my team as good as possible. The regular season just ended with me at 10-3, best record in the league, most points scored, yada yada, looking to take home the $20 trophy my buddy bought for the winner of the league.
So that's it for now, actually have a 4/8-Kill Cache Creek trip planned for Friday night, wish me luck, hopefully I'll have a good update for you guys Saturday. Thanks for reading.
So first off, my $100 league turned out to only be eight guys (two guys flaked on draft day, wtf?!) after being a 10-man league forever, so yeah, the teams came out kinda stacked. By the way, kind of a weird set-up...1 QB, 2 RBs, 4WRs (TEs count as WRs) 1 DEF, 1 Kicker, 20yds rush/run = 1 pt; 50 yds/pass = 1 pt, 6pts/TD...kinda odd, a lot of people I tell the league about hate the way it's set up...I've gotten used to it. Oh and there's no playoff system, best record at the end of the year wins...
So yeah, the first four picks were something like (Brady, LT, AP, Addai) and so I took Westbrook. I remember really wanting Addai, but decided Westbrook would work out okay. After that I can't really remember much, except I took Lynch 2nd round, Fitzgerald 3rd, then I got Turner in the 4th...blah blah...I had a pretty solid team and someone ranked me as the 2nd best looking team preseason. I know that doesn't mean dick, but at least someone liked how my team was set up. My one HUGE weakness was going to be QBs. Basically the 2nd and 3rd round was the round all the solid QBs went, so I said fuck it and decided to wait until the mid rounds to get a QB. I took all my RBs and WRs early (we have to start 4 WRs/TEs, so I loaded up) and didn't take Matt Hasselbeck until somewhere in Round 9 or 10. I also picked up Garrard and Delhomme, and just prayed one of these three would have a breakout year (if you've been following this year at all, you'll note none of the three have done shit). I almost took a shot and went with Kurt Warner, that would have been nice.
Basically what I learned from this league this year is that I am the luckiest motherfucker on the face of the Earth (*knock on wood* don't jinx me please). I knew it was going to be a good year as soon as week 1 when I was facing the commish's team with a three point lead going into the Monday night game...he had McFadden and his defense going and only needed four points to beat me (my guys were done), three to tie. Well obviously he only scored two points somehow (I think his D put up a goose egg) and I held onto a 53-52 (lowest scoring game of the week) victory. After that I seemed to face the lowest scorer each week and I'd repeatedly have to show up to work and say "I rallied my troops around, we played a close game, but we squeezed out a victory. That's what good teams do baby." I currently have a 1.5 game lead (I tied in week four or some shit) with four weeks left to play...HOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLD!!!
The CP league I decided to screw around a bit and take Brady in the first round with the 6th overall pick (I made sure to stay old school with the $100 league and take two RBs first). Let's just say after that my draft didn't look all that great, and once Brady went down in week 1, I all but gave up on that league.
The free league was an autodraft where you could pre-rank your players. I was definitely not going to spend the time pre-ranking players, especially since I really wanted a live draft, so I just left the rankings as they were and came back to a team where my first pick was S-Jax (I really didn't want S-Jax on any of my teams this year) and then my next three picks were all WRs (wtf...Moss, Andre Johnson, Fitzgerald). At least I had solid receivers...right? My backs ended up being S-Jax, Turner, Ronnie Brown (he didn't even sniff my starting line-up until after he blew up in one of those early weeks). Funny sidenote, Moss has been riding the pine in this league pretty much since week 2...and no one wanted to give me a good trade for him since Brady went down and we're all kinda stacked, so he's been on my bench except when he has had good matchups.
Anyway, somehow I made a couple good waiver wire moves (I picked up Steve Slaton off the free agent wire, traded Calvin Johnson for someone I can't remember because I was deep as fuck at receiver) and actually put a good team together. I started caring about this league once I figured out how much shit talk there would be, so I started getting into it and making my team as good as possible. The regular season just ended with me at 10-3, best record in the league, most points scored, yada yada, looking to take home the $20 trophy my buddy bought for the winner of the league.
So that's it for now, actually have a 4/8-Kill Cache Creek trip planned for Friday night, wish me luck, hopefully I'll have a good update for you guys Saturday. Thanks for reading.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
About Updating...
Never got around to updating the Vegas trip. Still being lazy, still sucking at life when it comes to poker and updating this. To be honest, I think I've played only a couple smaller sessions since Vegas and I just don't see playing a consistent live game happening anytime soon. I'm dealing with a lot of other stuff right now, you know, IRL stuff haha. I'm working a little more because of the holidays, job searching, talking to contacts, blah blah, boring stuff.
I do plan on making a Fantasy Football related blog post though lol, stay tuned.
I do plan on making a Fantasy Football related blog post though lol, stay tuned.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Wow, Been Awhile
Laziness, running shitty (sorta), and more laziness are my only reasons for not updating as often as I'd like. Sorry for leaving you guys hanging (hopefully I still have readers), and I promise to start posting semi-regularly again. I plan on updating the blog with the back end of my September sessions and my October Vegas trip.
Catch ya guys later, and thanks for still reading
Catch ya guys later, and thanks for still reading
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Wednesday Night 9/18 (9/24)
So I rolled into Cap kinda late, around 11pm or so. Saw The Dark Knight at Imax btw...sick stuff.
Anyway, I sat down at 4/8 for a few orbits and I kid you not, I went 2 for 4 with big premiums (AA-JJ). Unfortunately jacks and kings won me a couple small pots and the aces and queens lost me some bigger ones. After my name was called for the 9/18 game I was down $60 or so...
9/18 didn't start off so hot either as I was dealt 99 my 3rd hand at the table and raised from EP out of seat six. Bill (older, nice white guy regular) called from the eight seat as did the blinds. The flop came out JT9. I bet, Bill raised, blinds folded, I 3-bet, and he capped. The turn was a blank, I bet, he raised again...and so I decided to call. Me and Bill have some history, and we both should be able to put each other on big hands at this point. The turn was a hideous eight, so I check/called and he showed KQ for the flopped nut straight. Oh well...
9/18 continued to be pretty awful for the first hour and a half or so, as I just couldn't make any hands hold. There was this older white woman named Michelle in seat three who was just terrible, and sounded like a 3/6 player the way she tried to justify the donkeyish way she'd play a hand. I iso-raised her a lot with some solid cards (AK, AQ, medium pockets) and some other stuff like A9s or JTs, and boy was she mean-mugging me all night. Two pots she beat me out of early on were just disgusting...the A9 hand I flopped top pair and she flopped a couple backdoor draws with KJ of spades. Of course she goes running spades on me and I make two pair on the river and have to pay her off. A couple hands later she turned a set of threes against my pocket tens on an all-unders board...omg lifetilt.
At one point I was stuck close to $600 on the night, but eventually turned it around and left Cap around 5am or so up $380 (+$440 on 9/18). I'll talk about a couple beats I took before I end the entry for tonight, and I'll be back tomorrow (later today errr after I wake up) to talk about the sick hands I caught after hour number two to pull off a $1k swing.
The first beat is pocket aces in the Cutoff. Limped in one spot, I raised, a regular out of seat seven named Tom I think (short, mustache, always angry) calls from the button with 76os and the BB and limper call. The flop is 972 rainbow...BB donks, limper folds, I raise, Tom calls for some reason, BB calls. The turn is of course a seven and it goes check, bet, raise, fold, and I check/call down.
The second one is kinda minor, but it still kinda sucks. I got Kings somewhere in EP, I raised, and pretty much everyone called. The flop looked great (Q94), I bet out and four people called. The turn was an ace though, and Wilson bet out from the small blind and the BB raised so I had to fold. Oh well...
Like I said, things get much better, so I'll come back tomorrow and talk about those hands. Thanks for reading.
Anyway, I sat down at 4/8 for a few orbits and I kid you not, I went 2 for 4 with big premiums (AA-JJ). Unfortunately jacks and kings won me a couple small pots and the aces and queens lost me some bigger ones. After my name was called for the 9/18 game I was down $60 or so...
9/18 didn't start off so hot either as I was dealt 99 my 3rd hand at the table and raised from EP out of seat six. Bill (older, nice white guy regular) called from the eight seat as did the blinds. The flop came out JT9. I bet, Bill raised, blinds folded, I 3-bet, and he capped. The turn was a blank, I bet, he raised again...and so I decided to call. Me and Bill have some history, and we both should be able to put each other on big hands at this point. The turn was a hideous eight, so I check/called and he showed KQ for the flopped nut straight. Oh well...
9/18 continued to be pretty awful for the first hour and a half or so, as I just couldn't make any hands hold. There was this older white woman named Michelle in seat three who was just terrible, and sounded like a 3/6 player the way she tried to justify the donkeyish way she'd play a hand. I iso-raised her a lot with some solid cards (AK, AQ, medium pockets) and some other stuff like A9s or JTs, and boy was she mean-mugging me all night. Two pots she beat me out of early on were just disgusting...the A9 hand I flopped top pair and she flopped a couple backdoor draws with KJ of spades. Of course she goes running spades on me and I make two pair on the river and have to pay her off. A couple hands later she turned a set of threes against my pocket tens on an all-unders board...omg lifetilt.
At one point I was stuck close to $600 on the night, but eventually turned it around and left Cap around 5am or so up $380 (+$440 on 9/18). I'll talk about a couple beats I took before I end the entry for tonight, and I'll be back tomorrow (later today errr after I wake up) to talk about the sick hands I caught after hour number two to pull off a $1k swing.
The first beat is pocket aces in the Cutoff. Limped in one spot, I raised, a regular out of seat seven named Tom I think (short, mustache, always angry) calls from the button with 76os and the BB and limper call. The flop is 972 rainbow...BB donks, limper folds, I raise, Tom calls for some reason, BB calls. The turn is of course a seven and it goes check, bet, raise, fold, and I check/call down.
The second one is kinda minor, but it still kinda sucks. I got Kings somewhere in EP, I raised, and pretty much everyone called. The flop looked great (Q94), I bet out and four people called. The turn was an ace though, and Wilson bet out from the small blind and the BB raised so I had to fold. Oh well...
Like I said, things get much better, so I'll come back tomorrow and talk about those hands. Thanks for reading.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Thursday Night Poker Action (9/18) II
Ahh I missed 4/8, it was such a beautiful table last night. Call. Call. Call. Check. Call. Call. Call. Wonderful indeed. I folded a lot (obv), but then picked up this hand out of the BB.
If you read back a few entries, I talked about a hand where I flopped the nutflush out of the BB with A6 of diamonds, and I said I wanted to work on raising in that spot against a ton of limpers because we have a good equity advantage (Ax-suited). If I miss, I can check/fold and not have it be a big deal. So I was dealt A5 of clubs, raised after five callers limped, someone re-raised all-in for like two more chips, so everyone called that too...$10 x 6 players to the flop of 863 with two clubs.
I bet out, got three callers...turn was another eight, but the eight of clubs. I bet, kinda expecting to get raised (and wondering if anyone boated up...doubtful), but only got two callers. The river was a blank, I bet, all folded. I showed my nutflush and the all-in player showed her QJ of clubs with a big "awwwwwww" :(
There was another really big hand where I flopped a set of five out of the SB against a guy trying to get all-in. The flop was KQ5, turn was a six and the river was a jack...anyway I held and won another sizeable pot. Aside from those two hands, I can't really remember any other hands I won at 4/8...
9/18 was a good mix of bad players and some regs who are decent. There was a stretch where I raised with AA, won that pot, raised the very next hand with AQ of spades, flopped the nutflush, and then the very next hand after picked up Aces again. Craziness...this of course was after folding for my first few orbits at the table. I had actually seat changed from seat five (middle of the table...yuck) to seat one because I absolutely hate the middle of the table. No superstitions, just fat kid claustrophobia and feeling like I'm "in the spotlight." One player commented "seat change means new gear?" to which I laughed off and said "we'll see."
The second Aces hand was a bit strange as I raised from UTG, a guy named Dale in seat four (typical LPP) called, folded around to Sam in the BB who defended. Bummer...third hand I've raised in a row and no one wants to three-bet me when I have the nuts pre.
The flop was pretty good looking, 973 with two hearts, and I had the Ace of hearts in my hand. Sam bets out, I raise, Dale 3-bets (yikes), Sam caps and we all call...Hmm, what did I get myself into here? Sam, while mixes in his aggression well at times, has played with me a lot and would almost definitely put me on an overpair here...and Dale is as stationy as they come...
The turn is a blank ten, Sam bets out and I decide to just call. I was pretty sure he didn't have anything less than two pair here. Dale calls behind me and we see a turn of a three of hearts, pairing the board while also completing the flush. Sam seems unphased and bets out, I call, Dale calls.
Sam showed 77 for sevens full, Dale then shows the other two aces in the deck...lol. Wow, I usually muck my hand in this spot, especially since there's no reward for getting your aces cracked at the moment (usually it's $35), so I laughed and showed them the other two aces. "Sorry Sam I have quads" I remember saying as I threw my aces toward Dale's... :-)
After that a lot of hands are hazy...and like I said I ended up taking off to the Omaha game at the Derby. When I first sat down I bought in for a couple racks of $1 chips at 5/10 O8 with an option for a $20 bet on the river (sounds fun). One of the first hands I sat down I was dealt A34K with the ace-suited. I think just about everyone limped in, one guy out of the blinds raised (everyone called), and the flop was 982 and I was left in the middle of two guys raising each other and a bunch of callers. Weeeeee, fireworks already. The turn blanked out and it went bet/call/call, but the river I hit my four and had the nut low. I check/called a $20 bet from this Asian guy (played every single hand the entire time I was there, he may have folded three hands the entire night). Turns out the raiser out of the blinds couldn't beat either the high hand or my nut low, so me and the asian guy chopped the pot. It was a good pot...
After that a few hands later I played AKQ2 (double suited) from lp after a ton of limpers and raised. The flop was J93 rainbow with one of my suits backdoor. Some guy in EP bet out, and a few people called, I called.
The turn brought a 10 of clubs which gave me the nuts on a rainbow board, no low draw. Basically I had to dodge pairing the board and I'd have the nuts. EP bet out again, two callers, I raised, three calls. The river blanked out with a four or something...checked to me, I bet $20, everyone folded. Weeeeeeeeeee up $140 almost immediately.
Unfortunately after that I folded for-ev-er and was left watching a bunch of old men donk off tons of chips. Seriously, the next youngest guy at the table was probably 45 years old (not exagerating), but everyone played awful. The Asian guy to my left said he dropped $1400 for the night, and I believe him. He played every single hand, went to the river almost every single hand, and was looking people up with hands like bottom two pair. Wowwwwwww. <3 Live O8
Okay well that's all for now, look for some updates sometime tomorrow, I plan on playing today.
If you read back a few entries, I talked about a hand where I flopped the nutflush out of the BB with A6 of diamonds, and I said I wanted to work on raising in that spot against a ton of limpers because we have a good equity advantage (Ax-suited). If I miss, I can check/fold and not have it be a big deal. So I was dealt A5 of clubs, raised after five callers limped, someone re-raised all-in for like two more chips, so everyone called that too...$10 x 6 players to the flop of 863 with two clubs.
I bet out, got three callers...turn was another eight, but the eight of clubs. I bet, kinda expecting to get raised (and wondering if anyone boated up...doubtful), but only got two callers. The river was a blank, I bet, all folded. I showed my nutflush and the all-in player showed her QJ of clubs with a big "awwwwwww" :(
There was another really big hand where I flopped a set of five out of the SB against a guy trying to get all-in. The flop was KQ5, turn was a six and the river was a jack...anyway I held and won another sizeable pot. Aside from those two hands, I can't really remember any other hands I won at 4/8...
9/18 was a good mix of bad players and some regs who are decent. There was a stretch where I raised with AA, won that pot, raised the very next hand with AQ of spades, flopped the nutflush, and then the very next hand after picked up Aces again. Craziness...this of course was after folding for my first few orbits at the table. I had actually seat changed from seat five (middle of the table...yuck) to seat one because I absolutely hate the middle of the table. No superstitions, just fat kid claustrophobia and feeling like I'm "in the spotlight." One player commented "seat change means new gear?" to which I laughed off and said "we'll see."
The second Aces hand was a bit strange as I raised from UTG, a guy named Dale in seat four (typical LPP) called, folded around to Sam in the BB who defended. Bummer...third hand I've raised in a row and no one wants to three-bet me when I have the nuts pre.
The flop was pretty good looking, 973 with two hearts, and I had the Ace of hearts in my hand. Sam bets out, I raise, Dale 3-bets (yikes), Sam caps and we all call...Hmm, what did I get myself into here? Sam, while mixes in his aggression well at times, has played with me a lot and would almost definitely put me on an overpair here...and Dale is as stationy as they come...
The turn is a blank ten, Sam bets out and I decide to just call. I was pretty sure he didn't have anything less than two pair here. Dale calls behind me and we see a turn of a three of hearts, pairing the board while also completing the flush. Sam seems unphased and bets out, I call, Dale calls.
Sam showed 77 for sevens full, Dale then shows the other two aces in the deck...lol. Wow, I usually muck my hand in this spot, especially since there's no reward for getting your aces cracked at the moment (usually it's $35), so I laughed and showed them the other two aces. "Sorry Sam I have quads" I remember saying as I threw my aces toward Dale's... :-)
After that a lot of hands are hazy...and like I said I ended up taking off to the Omaha game at the Derby. When I first sat down I bought in for a couple racks of $1 chips at 5/10 O8 with an option for a $20 bet on the river (sounds fun). One of the first hands I sat down I was dealt A34K with the ace-suited. I think just about everyone limped in, one guy out of the blinds raised (everyone called), and the flop was 982 and I was left in the middle of two guys raising each other and a bunch of callers. Weeeeee, fireworks already. The turn blanked out and it went bet/call/call, but the river I hit my four and had the nut low. I check/called a $20 bet from this Asian guy (played every single hand the entire time I was there, he may have folded three hands the entire night). Turns out the raiser out of the blinds couldn't beat either the high hand or my nut low, so me and the asian guy chopped the pot. It was a good pot...
After that a few hands later I played AKQ2 (double suited) from lp after a ton of limpers and raised. The flop was J93 rainbow with one of my suits backdoor. Some guy in EP bet out, and a few people called, I called.
The turn brought a 10 of clubs which gave me the nuts on a rainbow board, no low draw. Basically I had to dodge pairing the board and I'd have the nuts. EP bet out again, two callers, I raised, three calls. The river blanked out with a four or something...checked to me, I bet $20, everyone folded. Weeeeeeeeeee up $140 almost immediately.
Unfortunately after that I folded for-ev-er and was left watching a bunch of old men donk off tons of chips. Seriously, the next youngest guy at the table was probably 45 years old (not exagerating), but everyone played awful. The Asian guy to my left said he dropped $1400 for the night, and I believe him. He played every single hand, went to the river almost every single hand, and was looking people up with hands like bottom two pair. Wowwwwwww. <3 Live O8
Okay well that's all for now, look for some updates sometime tomorrow, I plan on playing today.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Thursday Night Poker Action (9/18)
I'm way too tired to blog about the sessions buuuuut...results are fun.
4/8: +200
9/18: +100
5/10 O8: +125
I rolled into Capitol around 8pm (Tony put my name on the 9/18 list at 7pm), and I was still 14th on the list...wtf? So I played 4/8 for a little while, bought in for a rack, and by the time I got called for 9/18, I didn't have to pull anymore money out of my wallet. I gave the floorman three racks of orange and traded that in for a rack of purple $3 chips...
A couple hours of 9/18 were pretty crazy. Up and down, up and down. I think I got AK and AQ at least five times a piece tonight...some held, some didn't. I don't think I ever cracked more than +180 at that game, and never fell below even. Eventually the game broke around 1230am and I was left wide awake and bored out of my mind. Phoenix?
I decided the night was way too young and drove out to the Phoenix to see if they had anything going...I must have made a wrong turn, because I drove past where I thought Phoenix was and eventually ran into the Lucky Derby...w/e.
Derby had a 4/8-half kill game and a bunch of shortstacked NL games running, and then I saw a list for Omaha8. Hmmmmmm...
I sat down playing O8 and won a couple big pots early, folded for what seemed like an enternity, and then played some O8 shorthanded before finally calling it a night/morning.
Fun stuff, I'll blog about some hands tomorrow, right now I need to sleep.
4/8: +200
9/18: +100
5/10 O8: +125
I rolled into Capitol around 8pm (Tony put my name on the 9/18 list at 7pm), and I was still 14th on the list...wtf? So I played 4/8 for a little while, bought in for a rack, and by the time I got called for 9/18, I didn't have to pull anymore money out of my wallet. I gave the floorman three racks of orange and traded that in for a rack of purple $3 chips...
A couple hours of 9/18 were pretty crazy. Up and down, up and down. I think I got AK and AQ at least five times a piece tonight...some held, some didn't. I don't think I ever cracked more than +180 at that game, and never fell below even. Eventually the game broke around 1230am and I was left wide awake and bored out of my mind. Phoenix?
I decided the night was way too young and drove out to the Phoenix to see if they had anything going...I must have made a wrong turn, because I drove past where I thought Phoenix was and eventually ran into the Lucky Derby...w/e.
Derby had a 4/8-half kill game and a bunch of shortstacked NL games running, and then I saw a list for Omaha8. Hmmmmmm...
I sat down playing O8 and won a couple big pots early, folded for what seemed like an enternity, and then played some O8 shorthanded before finally calling it a night/morning.
Fun stuff, I'll blog about some hands tomorrow, right now I need to sleep.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Wednesday Night 15/30 (9/10) Cont..
Okay so I won a couple hands out of the blinds over the course of an hour or so, before I decide to limp behind with 87 of diamonds from the button with a few limpers in front of me...flop is J88. Checks to me and I stab at it, praying someone would think I was full of shit. I get called by an UTG limper and everyone else folds. The turn is a blank and UTG check/folds to my bet. Oh well, I still won a nice little pot from all those limpers...
The next big pot I won was JT of diamonds from the cutoff. Limped in a couple spots, I raised, folds around to the BB who calls, limpers call.
Flop: J84 with one diamond
BB checked, EP limper checked, MP limper named Bill (plays kinda odd) bet out into me, I raised, BB folded, EP limper called (odd), and Bill called. The turn was a deuce of hearts, completing the rainbow on the board. EP checked again, Bill checked, I bet, EP and Bill both called. The river paired the eight...kinda ugly. EP checked and this time Bill bet out into me. Ugh, so lame if he has the eight here, but I call obv because this is limit and what's that? Yeah, big folds are ghey in limit. EP folded and I said "nice hand"...Bill shook his head and turned over pocket sixes and said "nah your hand is good, was hoping you had AK." Phew.
So that was a healthy pot and finally I broke out over my break-even chipstack. A couple more interesting hands popped up, one where I flopped a set in a raised pot and got rivered by a King-high flush (lost a lot of chips) but then gained them back with a couple big hands (AK flopped a King and JJ held). Those two hands probably helped set me up for this hand.
We were maybe seven or eight-handed at this point as people had been getting up for smoke breaks or bathroom breaks, w/e, and I looked down at AJ of clubs UTG+1. UTG folded, I raised from the nine seat, and then got called by seats one, two and four as well as the SB in seat five and the BB in seat six. Jeeeeez...huge pot already.
The flop was disgustingly ugly...334 rainbow. "Wow...maybe no one caught a piece of that..." I thought to myself. Checks to me, I bet, called by seats one and two (which basically meant nothing, they had been floating with crap all day) and after those calls everyone else folded. Wow...I might have a shot at taking this one down...
During this time seat six had started talking and saying "I'm gonna lay my cards down to you man, you've been too hot, I don't think I'm good." I was hoping people would listen to him and maybe give me credit for a monster hand.
The turn was another low card, a six or a seven. I fired again, this time seat one folded and seat two called. Meh...at this point I figured I was getting looked up by a midpair. I've played with this guy before, older white guy named Fred, and I knew he was going to look up my river bet unless he had a missed draw that I beat anyway. The river was an ugly ugly card, a five I think. The board was now 33457...so a six would have made a straight.
I gave a bit of a stutterstep move, like I was going to bet and now just opted to check because the board was ugly...basically trying to spell out I had a monster but was afraid of the straight. Fwiw, I was check/calling the river for this massive pot, even though I was pretty sure Fred wouldn't bet the river without a hand that beat me. He checked behind and I said "I only have ace high" and turned my cards over. Immediately seat six started saying "nooo, I had the best hand, you got a lot of heart man" as he laughed and Fred looked at his cards and said "I can't beat that" and looked at his cards some more...he was obviously angry at himself for not putting a raise in somewhere or maybe a bet on the river during the hand (even though I would have called a river bet, he doesn't know that). So after several seconds of looking at his cards he finally mucked his hand and I raked in a sick sick pot with AJ-high.
So after that I was up a rack or so and picked up AA out of the BB about an orbit later. Three limpers, I raised, all called to see a semi ugly flop of KJ6. I bet, two callers. The turn was another baby card, something like a four. I bet, only one caller. The river was an ace...only QT beat me at this point. Bet/call and my opponent sheepishly mucked his cards. "Overkill" he said jokingly.
At this point I was up close to $800 and seriously wondering if I could maintain this kind of a rush...I had been slow early on, but I didn't expect to get this hot. Anyway, here's that three hand stretch of cards I was talking about...
So maybe a few hands later I get dealt aces yet again. Limped in a couple spots, I raise, the blinds and two limpers look me up. The flop is 853 rainbow. Checks to me and I bet, a laggy guy in seat three raises, I 3-bet and he caps OOP. Wow...that good? He had been pretty aggro since he sat down a few orbits ago, but for him to be able to cap OOP I figured he must be pretty strong. The turn was a nine, so I remember thinking if he was open-ended then he got there. He continued to fire, so I decided to go into call down mode. The river was a ten, not pairing a card like I wanted, so it went bet/call. Sure enough the villain turned over 76 and had gotten there on the turn...oh well, no biggie, I had been running out.
Very next hand I get dealt QQ, folded to me, and I raise. Unfortunately it folds to the BB (wtf, shouldn't they think I'm steaming?!), BB 3-bets (woohoo), and I only call (to disguise my hand). The flop is kinda bleh, KT4 with a couple of spades. He bets, I raise, he disgustedly calls. The turn is a jack...he checks, I bet, and he raises before I can finish my bet...I call. The river misses my OESD, he bets, I call and he shows a turned set of Jacks. Dammit!
Wow, at this point I'm now only +$500, sick turn of events. The very next hand (I kid you not) I get pocket tens...raise...get three callers behind me and the BB also calls. I started thinking about how sick it would be if I flop a set or an overpair and still lose...
Sure enough, the flop is AT8 with two diamonds. "omg if I lose this hand I'm gonna flip..." Checks to me and I bet, get one caller only.
The turn is an eight. Checks to me, I bet, and my opponent folded. Wow...sick that I got no action when it should look like I'm on ridiculous tiltbox mode...oh well haha.
A few more orbits go by and eventually all of the LPPs start leaving and start getting replaced with semi-solid players, so I decided to bounce out and grab some food. I plan on playing some tomorrow, so look for some updates from me this weekend. Thanks again for reading.
The next big pot I won was JT of diamonds from the cutoff. Limped in a couple spots, I raised, folds around to the BB who calls, limpers call.
Flop: J84 with one diamond
BB checked, EP limper checked, MP limper named Bill (plays kinda odd) bet out into me, I raised, BB folded, EP limper called (odd), and Bill called. The turn was a deuce of hearts, completing the rainbow on the board. EP checked again, Bill checked, I bet, EP and Bill both called. The river paired the eight...kinda ugly. EP checked and this time Bill bet out into me. Ugh, so lame if he has the eight here, but I call obv because this is limit and what's that? Yeah, big folds are ghey in limit. EP folded and I said "nice hand"...Bill shook his head and turned over pocket sixes and said "nah your hand is good, was hoping you had AK." Phew.
So that was a healthy pot and finally I broke out over my break-even chipstack. A couple more interesting hands popped up, one where I flopped a set in a raised pot and got rivered by a King-high flush (lost a lot of chips) but then gained them back with a couple big hands (AK flopped a King and JJ held). Those two hands probably helped set me up for this hand.
We were maybe seven or eight-handed at this point as people had been getting up for smoke breaks or bathroom breaks, w/e, and I looked down at AJ of clubs UTG+1. UTG folded, I raised from the nine seat, and then got called by seats one, two and four as well as the SB in seat five and the BB in seat six. Jeeeeez...huge pot already.
The flop was disgustingly ugly...334 rainbow. "Wow...maybe no one caught a piece of that..." I thought to myself. Checks to me, I bet, called by seats one and two (which basically meant nothing, they had been floating with crap all day) and after those calls everyone else folded. Wow...I might have a shot at taking this one down...
During this time seat six had started talking and saying "I'm gonna lay my cards down to you man, you've been too hot, I don't think I'm good." I was hoping people would listen to him and maybe give me credit for a monster hand.
The turn was another low card, a six or a seven. I fired again, this time seat one folded and seat two called. Meh...at this point I figured I was getting looked up by a midpair. I've played with this guy before, older white guy named Fred, and I knew he was going to look up my river bet unless he had a missed draw that I beat anyway. The river was an ugly ugly card, a five I think. The board was now 33457...so a six would have made a straight.
I gave a bit of a stutterstep move, like I was going to bet and now just opted to check because the board was ugly...basically trying to spell out I had a monster but was afraid of the straight. Fwiw, I was check/calling the river for this massive pot, even though I was pretty sure Fred wouldn't bet the river without a hand that beat me. He checked behind and I said "I only have ace high" and turned my cards over. Immediately seat six started saying "nooo, I had the best hand, you got a lot of heart man" as he laughed and Fred looked at his cards and said "I can't beat that" and looked at his cards some more...he was obviously angry at himself for not putting a raise in somewhere or maybe a bet on the river during the hand (even though I would have called a river bet, he doesn't know that). So after several seconds of looking at his cards he finally mucked his hand and I raked in a sick sick pot with AJ-high.
So after that I was up a rack or so and picked up AA out of the BB about an orbit later. Three limpers, I raised, all called to see a semi ugly flop of KJ6. I bet, two callers. The turn was another baby card, something like a four. I bet, only one caller. The river was an ace...only QT beat me at this point. Bet/call and my opponent sheepishly mucked his cards. "Overkill" he said jokingly.
At this point I was up close to $800 and seriously wondering if I could maintain this kind of a rush...I had been slow early on, but I didn't expect to get this hot. Anyway, here's that three hand stretch of cards I was talking about...
So maybe a few hands later I get dealt aces yet again. Limped in a couple spots, I raise, the blinds and two limpers look me up. The flop is 853 rainbow. Checks to me and I bet, a laggy guy in seat three raises, I 3-bet and he caps OOP. Wow...that good? He had been pretty aggro since he sat down a few orbits ago, but for him to be able to cap OOP I figured he must be pretty strong. The turn was a nine, so I remember thinking if he was open-ended then he got there. He continued to fire, so I decided to go into call down mode. The river was a ten, not pairing a card like I wanted, so it went bet/call. Sure enough the villain turned over 76 and had gotten there on the turn...oh well, no biggie, I had been running out.
Very next hand I get dealt QQ, folded to me, and I raise. Unfortunately it folds to the BB (wtf, shouldn't they think I'm steaming?!), BB 3-bets (woohoo), and I only call (to disguise my hand). The flop is kinda bleh, KT4 with a couple of spades. He bets, I raise, he disgustedly calls. The turn is a jack...he checks, I bet, and he raises before I can finish my bet...I call. The river misses my OESD, he bets, I call and he shows a turned set of Jacks. Dammit!
Wow, at this point I'm now only +$500, sick turn of events. The very next hand (I kid you not) I get pocket tens...raise...get three callers behind me and the BB also calls. I started thinking about how sick it would be if I flop a set or an overpair and still lose...
Sure enough, the flop is AT8 with two diamonds. "omg if I lose this hand I'm gonna flip..." Checks to me and I bet, get one caller only.
The turn is an eight. Checks to me, I bet, and my opponent folded. Wow...sick that I got no action when it should look like I'm on ridiculous tiltbox mode...oh well haha.
A few more orbits go by and eventually all of the LPPs start leaving and start getting replaced with semi-solid players, so I decided to bounce out and grab some food. I plan on playing some tomorrow, so look for some updates from me this weekend. Thanks again for reading.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Wednesday Night 15/30 (9/10)
So yeah, I've been up close to 24 hours so I think I'm just going to give a quick re-cap of the night. First things first, I played much earlier than I'm used to, maybe 430pm and just have to say that the daytime guys were very, very much different than the night players. For my first few hours four or five limpers was basically standard per hand...wtf right? That and my BB rarely got raised, which really helped me out considering I was very much card dead my first couple hours at the table. It was incredibly frustrating folding so much when there were three limpers in front of me and I had position, but there was nothing I could do with the cards that were given to me.
Eventually I caught some hands and made them hold in big multiway pots, which broke me from my breakeven chipstack that seemed to haunt me in my first two hours of play...I guess I'll start with 87 of diamonds flopping trips and then JT of diamonds TP holding against a couple stations...after that things started to flow...
I'll blog about the rest of my session tomorrow when I wake up, trust me, it gets much more exciting. The highest I found myself up for night was almot $800, unfortunately I hit a sick streak of cards that brought me down to cashing out $570 for the night. Still a great night obv, but yeah, I'll talk about it tomorrow (i.e. ater today for some of you). Check back later, thanks for reading.
Eventually I caught some hands and made them hold in big multiway pots, which broke me from my breakeven chipstack that seemed to haunt me in my first two hours of play...I guess I'll start with 87 of diamonds flopping trips and then JT of diamonds TP holding against a couple stations...after that things started to flow...
I'll blog about the rest of my session tomorrow when I wake up, trust me, it gets much more exciting. The highest I found myself up for night was almot $800, unfortunately I hit a sick streak of cards that brought me down to cashing out $570 for the night. Still a great night obv, but yeah, I'll talk about it tomorrow (i.e. ater today for some of you). Check back later, thanks for reading.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Some Friday Night 9/18 Action (9/5)
Uh oh, second night I've played in a row where the 15/30 game couldn't get off the ground. It's a bit disappointing since my edge in that game is probably just as good as it is in the 9/18 game (and obv the stakes are higher), but at the same time I'm okay with it because the swings in that game could get nasty. Being stuck two racks at 9/18 is $600 compared to $1k at 15/30, so in a way it makes taking a loss a tad less stressful.
Anyway, for some reason I feel completely awful right now (monster headache), so let's see how long I can type before I go crawl into bed like a little girl. For the most part, I ran kinda bleh tonight. I had a couple hands hold facing a lot of action, but my big pairs were doing everything they could to get themselves cracked...aside from this hand:
It's maybe my second orbit in the session and I see UTG raise. I recognized UTG as a very loose/passive type, so an UTG raise was kinda scary. I looked down at a couple red queens though and obv three-bet. The BB came along for two more bets and UTG just called (probably an AK-like hand, maybe JJ).
I remember seeing a queen of spades in the window...the flop was Q96 rainbow, doesn't get much better than that. Checked to me, I bet, two calls. The turn was a second spade, a three I believe...so I remember I had to sweat the river a little bit...thankfully it blanked out and I got looked up by the BB with just second pair. Good start to the night...unfortunately it would only get worse from there.
About an hour or so into my session a very maniacal (poker-wise) heavyset black dude took a seat next to me in seat five (I was in seat four). After he sat down I had a couple orbits to watch him play as I was just terribly card dead, and he was doing some crazy stuff. CR-ing with bottom pair on the river, jamming up flops with absolutely nothing, etc. Obviously he'd get a hand against me though...
I'm UTG and look down at a couple red aces so I raise. Maniac calls, folds around to the BB who also comes along. The flop was pretty ugly: JT7 with a couple diamonds. BB checked, I bet, maniac raises, BB folded, I 3-bet, Maniac just calls.
His call really gave me a lot of confidence he had absolutely nothing. If he had a pair of tens he'd probably jam the flop up, but just calling my bet I was almost positive he had nothing but hopes and dreams. The turn was a four of diamonds, kinda ugly, but I had the ace of diamonds and figured the maniac would cap his flush draw on the flop. I bet out, maniac tanks and checks his cards again, and calls...
Hmmm...you on a lone diamond draw there? "Give him a diamond, ya know, since I do have the ace...", I thought to myself. The river was a red three...the three of hearts. I figured my hand was still safe and bet out...as soon as I bet the maniac raised. Bah...did he run me down and make two pair? I snap-called obv since the maniac could have 6-high here as far as I'm concerned and he turns over the three of diamonds and the three of clubs for a rivered set...yay two outers. To make matters worse I didn't even get $35 from the aces cracked w/e because the jackpot isn't $100k yet...I didn't really care about $35 anyway though. One of the shittiest feelings in poker is having the table moron catch on you and then donate all your chips back to the rest of the players at the table, and that's basically what he did the rest of the night.
Eventually I moved to the main game (they had two 9/18 games running, I started off at the must-move game). One of my first hands there propelled me back to even as I made AJ hold against A6 of spades on an A84 flop with two spades. The button in the hand turned out to have Q7 of spades, so I faded two flush draws and won a pretty nice pot. We capped the flop three-handed and then one bet a piece on the turn...I can't remember the board, but there was a four to a straight on the board after the river hit so the river checked through.
Unfortunately that was about it as far as big pots were concerned...I won some smaller ones, but lost a couple big ones when I flopped TP against five opps with AT, check-raised a T-high flop, made aces-up on the turn, but then got popped by a runner-runner diamond flush that got there on the river. To his credit, he did flop bottom pair on the flop with a five-kicker...:puke:
I ended up dropping something like $50 before taking off for the night. No big deal, hopefully I can squeeze a session in tomorrow night before work, but I'll likely be trying to sleep as much as possible so I can watch football all day Sunday. Thanks for reading.
Anyway, for some reason I feel completely awful right now (monster headache), so let's see how long I can type before I go crawl into bed like a little girl. For the most part, I ran kinda bleh tonight. I had a couple hands hold facing a lot of action, but my big pairs were doing everything they could to get themselves cracked...aside from this hand:
It's maybe my second orbit in the session and I see UTG raise. I recognized UTG as a very loose/passive type, so an UTG raise was kinda scary. I looked down at a couple red queens though and obv three-bet. The BB came along for two more bets and UTG just called (probably an AK-like hand, maybe JJ).
I remember seeing a queen of spades in the window...the flop was Q96 rainbow, doesn't get much better than that. Checked to me, I bet, two calls. The turn was a second spade, a three I believe...so I remember I had to sweat the river a little bit...thankfully it blanked out and I got looked up by the BB with just second pair. Good start to the night...unfortunately it would only get worse from there.
About an hour or so into my session a very maniacal (poker-wise) heavyset black dude took a seat next to me in seat five (I was in seat four). After he sat down I had a couple orbits to watch him play as I was just terribly card dead, and he was doing some crazy stuff. CR-ing with bottom pair on the river, jamming up flops with absolutely nothing, etc. Obviously he'd get a hand against me though...
I'm UTG and look down at a couple red aces so I raise. Maniac calls, folds around to the BB who also comes along. The flop was pretty ugly: JT7 with a couple diamonds. BB checked, I bet, maniac raises, BB folded, I 3-bet, Maniac just calls.
His call really gave me a lot of confidence he had absolutely nothing. If he had a pair of tens he'd probably jam the flop up, but just calling my bet I was almost positive he had nothing but hopes and dreams. The turn was a four of diamonds, kinda ugly, but I had the ace of diamonds and figured the maniac would cap his flush draw on the flop. I bet out, maniac tanks and checks his cards again, and calls...
Hmmm...you on a lone diamond draw there? "Give him a diamond, ya know, since I do have the ace...", I thought to myself. The river was a red three...the three of hearts. I figured my hand was still safe and bet out...as soon as I bet the maniac raised. Bah...did he run me down and make two pair? I snap-called obv since the maniac could have 6-high here as far as I'm concerned and he turns over the three of diamonds and the three of clubs for a rivered set...yay two outers. To make matters worse I didn't even get $35 from the aces cracked w/e because the jackpot isn't $100k yet...I didn't really care about $35 anyway though. One of the shittiest feelings in poker is having the table moron catch on you and then donate all your chips back to the rest of the players at the table, and that's basically what he did the rest of the night.
Eventually I moved to the main game (they had two 9/18 games running, I started off at the must-move game). One of my first hands there propelled me back to even as I made AJ hold against A6 of spades on an A84 flop with two spades. The button in the hand turned out to have Q7 of spades, so I faded two flush draws and won a pretty nice pot. We capped the flop three-handed and then one bet a piece on the turn...I can't remember the board, but there was a four to a straight on the board after the river hit so the river checked through.
Unfortunately that was about it as far as big pots were concerned...I won some smaller ones, but lost a couple big ones when I flopped TP against five opps with AT, check-raised a T-high flop, made aces-up on the turn, but then got popped by a runner-runner diamond flush that got there on the river. To his credit, he did flop bottom pair on the flop with a five-kicker...:puke:
I ended up dropping something like $50 before taking off for the night. No big deal, hopefully I can squeeze a session in tomorrow night before work, but I'll likely be trying to sleep as much as possible so I can watch football all day Sunday. Thanks for reading.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Interesting Week (15/30 and 9/18) Tues/Fri Part II
Alright well where we last left off our hero was hurriedly eating dinner in an attempt to get back to the super profitable 9/18 game asap. I had just finished folding pretty much every hand for the last few orbits, getting zero playable cards. At this point I was up probably $500 or so, but I was very aware that cushion could quickly vanish. More awful players = higher variance. I could very easily go up or down a couple racks when I returned.
My return to the table was pretty quiet and I remained a non-factor for a couple orbits. The game was still 8-handed with multiple players seeing flops/going to showdown, so mixing it up with junk obv wouldn't be the best idea. Also, the blinds in this game are only 9/3 or 3 chips/1 chip, so the pressure to get involved isn't as high as it is in the 15/30 game.
Alright well the first big pot I played after returning from dinner was a monster pot. It took a few orbits and a couple lost stacks for me to get there, as I was down to only about +$380 after playing blind hands and an AK hand. It gets limped around in something like four places (this had become completely standard for the table), Wilson completes from the SB, and I check my A6 of diamonds in the BB. I know on CP a LHE topic came up about raising Ax-suited hands in the BB in spots like this and then just check/folding some whiffs, but I guess I wasn't thinking about it at the time.
The flop comes Q93 all diamonds...wow...patience does pay off apparently. Wilson checks, I bet out (why slowplay here with four people behind me?), the guy in seat seven raised...*pause* Not sure if I talked about this guy in my last entry, but he was another laggy cocky asian guy, obv ~friends with seat three. It gets called by seat one and three, Sam folds, Wilson only calls, and I decided to call and see if I could trap a ton of money in on the turn. In retrospect, I'm not sure I like it...but whatever.
The turn was a good blank card, something like a black five. Wilson checks, I check, seat seven bets, Latin guy and seat three call, Wilson raises (awesome), I decide it's time to charge the two-pair/set hands if they have it and 3-bet, all fold back to Wilson who only calls. Seat seven was obviously angry that I 3-bet the turn and said "come on man why couldn't you just call?" and I thought to myself, "well I'd be pretty pissed if the board pairs on the river and I didn't charge you the max to suck out." Anyway, the river is a blank and Wilson check/called my river bet. I turned over the nuts and he turned over JT of diamonds for an OESFD that whiffed (phew!)
I think pre-flop could be a raise and I should have probably just jammed up the flop/led the turn, but I guess my head was stuck in fancy-play syndrome and I was going to make an example out of people trying to run me over. After that hand I pretty much took Wilson's desire to continue playing (he had been stuck all night and just running awful). He was actually playing pretty well all night, but was constantly falling victim to suckouts from seats one and three. He left soon after and we found ourselves six-handed.
I can't remember many hands six-handed...most were just LP raises and folding on the flops, but after awhile it was apparent that I was getting to seat three. I was folding a lot of my blind hands because of LP raises from Sam or Seat three, but I was returning the favor in LP on their blinds (mostly when I had solid hands) and was basically taking seat three to value town. I'm not entirely sure what he was looking me up with, as I was able to get three streets of value out of him one hand with middle pair...anyway, here's a two hand run set up by you guys knowing this.
I raised UTG, we're now five handed, with KT of hearts, seat six and seven fold, the latin guy has now left for the night, seat three calls from the SB and Sam defends his BB. The flop comes AT4 with two diamonds. Checks to hero who bets, seat three raises, Sam folds, I 3-bet, Villain calls. I'm thinking he has a diamond draw or complete junk...the turn is a King. He checks, I bet, and he disgustedly folded A8 face up. lol...uh oh, I think I'm getting to someone. It'd be interesting to see if he would have folded had a King not appeared, but I must have convinced him I had AK.
Next orbit I raised A5 of spades UTG, folded around to seat three who calls and Sam who calls. At this point seat seven is trying to needle me, saying stuff like "you can't just raise AK in this game," or something like that, and I just smirk at him and say "alright good to know" and then look down at my chip stack which is well over $1k. Note to those out there, if you're going to needle someone, it might work better if they're not up almost three racks for the night. Anyway, the flop comes K73 rainbow, completely dry board and fire a c-bet when it gets checked to me. I was hoping the table talk from seat seven would encourage the two villains to fold to my c-bet, but seat three called and Sam folded. The turn was an Ace (hehe). Villain checked and I decided to check behind, hoping to either draw out a bluff or get a curiousity call on the river if checked to.
The river was a low card, and again seat three checked. I bet, and he tanked for a second, then called me. I showed Ace-five and seat seven jokingly says, "that's it, next time you raise, I'll three-bet you." I laugh and ask him "Promise?" Ahhh, tilting the table is fun.
Seat six ended up busting out after his massage and we played a couple uninteresting orbits four-handed before breaking for the night. I came up $820 or so and went to 4/8-Kill to donk off $25 over the course of an hour and a half before leaving for the night.
So I think my final count was +$15 for the week, but what an exciting $15 it was lol. Extreme swings sure are freaking stressful, but fun nonetheless. Thanks for reading, hopefully things aren't so insane next week :)
My return to the table was pretty quiet and I remained a non-factor for a couple orbits. The game was still 8-handed with multiple players seeing flops/going to showdown, so mixing it up with junk obv wouldn't be the best idea. Also, the blinds in this game are only 9/3 or 3 chips/1 chip, so the pressure to get involved isn't as high as it is in the 15/30 game.
Alright well the first big pot I played after returning from dinner was a monster pot. It took a few orbits and a couple lost stacks for me to get there, as I was down to only about +$380 after playing blind hands and an AK hand. It gets limped around in something like four places (this had become completely standard for the table), Wilson completes from the SB, and I check my A6 of diamonds in the BB. I know on CP a LHE topic came up about raising Ax-suited hands in the BB in spots like this and then just check/folding some whiffs, but I guess I wasn't thinking about it at the time.
The flop comes Q93 all diamonds...wow...patience does pay off apparently. Wilson checks, I bet out (why slowplay here with four people behind me?), the guy in seat seven raised...*pause* Not sure if I talked about this guy in my last entry, but he was another laggy cocky asian guy, obv ~friends with seat three. It gets called by seat one and three, Sam folds, Wilson only calls, and I decided to call and see if I could trap a ton of money in on the turn. In retrospect, I'm not sure I like it...but whatever.
The turn was a good blank card, something like a black five. Wilson checks, I check, seat seven bets, Latin guy and seat three call, Wilson raises (awesome), I decide it's time to charge the two-pair/set hands if they have it and 3-bet, all fold back to Wilson who only calls. Seat seven was obviously angry that I 3-bet the turn and said "come on man why couldn't you just call?" and I thought to myself, "well I'd be pretty pissed if the board pairs on the river and I didn't charge you the max to suck out." Anyway, the river is a blank and Wilson check/called my river bet. I turned over the nuts and he turned over JT of diamonds for an OESFD that whiffed (phew!)
I think pre-flop could be a raise and I should have probably just jammed up the flop/led the turn, but I guess my head was stuck in fancy-play syndrome and I was going to make an example out of people trying to run me over. After that hand I pretty much took Wilson's desire to continue playing (he had been stuck all night and just running awful). He was actually playing pretty well all night, but was constantly falling victim to suckouts from seats one and three. He left soon after and we found ourselves six-handed.
I can't remember many hands six-handed...most were just LP raises and folding on the flops, but after awhile it was apparent that I was getting to seat three. I was folding a lot of my blind hands because of LP raises from Sam or Seat three, but I was returning the favor in LP on their blinds (mostly when I had solid hands) and was basically taking seat three to value town. I'm not entirely sure what he was looking me up with, as I was able to get three streets of value out of him one hand with middle pair...anyway, here's a two hand run set up by you guys knowing this.
I raised UTG, we're now five handed, with KT of hearts, seat six and seven fold, the latin guy has now left for the night, seat three calls from the SB and Sam defends his BB. The flop comes AT4 with two diamonds. Checks to hero who bets, seat three raises, Sam folds, I 3-bet, Villain calls. I'm thinking he has a diamond draw or complete junk...the turn is a King. He checks, I bet, and he disgustedly folded A8 face up. lol...uh oh, I think I'm getting to someone. It'd be interesting to see if he would have folded had a King not appeared, but I must have convinced him I had AK.
Next orbit I raised A5 of spades UTG, folded around to seat three who calls and Sam who calls. At this point seat seven is trying to needle me, saying stuff like "you can't just raise AK in this game," or something like that, and I just smirk at him and say "alright good to know" and then look down at my chip stack which is well over $1k. Note to those out there, if you're going to needle someone, it might work better if they're not up almost three racks for the night. Anyway, the flop comes K73 rainbow, completely dry board and fire a c-bet when it gets checked to me. I was hoping the table talk from seat seven would encourage the two villains to fold to my c-bet, but seat three called and Sam folded. The turn was an Ace (hehe). Villain checked and I decided to check behind, hoping to either draw out a bluff or get a curiousity call on the river if checked to.
The river was a low card, and again seat three checked. I bet, and he tanked for a second, then called me. I showed Ace-five and seat seven jokingly says, "that's it, next time you raise, I'll three-bet you." I laugh and ask him "Promise?" Ahhh, tilting the table is fun.
Seat six ended up busting out after his massage and we played a couple uninteresting orbits four-handed before breaking for the night. I came up $820 or so and went to 4/8-Kill to donk off $25 over the course of an hour and a half before leaving for the night.
So I think my final count was +$15 for the week, but what an exciting $15 it was lol. Extreme swings sure are freaking stressful, but fun nonetheless. Thanks for reading, hopefully things aren't so insane next week :)
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Interesting Week (15/30 and 9/18) Tues/Fri
I rolled into Cap Tuesday night around 9pm or so and just couldn't get anything going. The table was actually very good (in terms of action, not skill level)...aside from Davin and Wilson (who can sometimes slip into donk-mode), the table was very fishy. There were a couple girls playing who were very lpp, 30ish Asian guys that were laggy as shit, and the Mexican floor guy (Oscar I think) who just doesn't play very well. He ended up donating a couple racks to everyone's cause.
It was one of those tables where there would be at least four people to the flop, usually five and sometimes six, so you had to make your hands hold. That's okay, considering I've grinded out 4/8 for the last couple years, shouldn't be a problem. Well, the only problem was holding or hitting a flop for me, as at the end of the night, I was down close to $800 (about $780 or something like that) and took the biggest loss for a session that I've taken in awhile. The one shining moment of the night was a capped pre-flop hand (three-ways) where I flopped quads, aside from that...blech.
Alright well dropping $780 that night and a few hundred the week before really stuck it to my desire to play. I knew big swings of money were inevitable, but mentally preparing for them <> actually living them. I'm really suprised/proud of myself that I decided to play last night.
I showed up at Cap around 10:30pm or so and noticed there wasn't a 15/30 game going...bummer. 9/18 was running as the main game for the first time in a long time, so I put my name on the list and went to watch some Olympics in the lounge. I wasn't on the list for long, and in about 15 minutes or so I had a seat and was surveying the table.
Just like 15/30 the other night, this table was pretty fishy, and it would only get better as time wore on. Some main villains for the evening: Seat one was this 35-year old latin guy, bought in for $180 and cashed out a couple racks ($600). He played liked he belonged at 3/6, but he was sucking out left and right and just couldn't be stopped. Seat 3 was this young, incredibly cocky, laggish Asian kid (probably late 20's/early 30's). When he sat down Davin called him the "9/18 Specialist" so naturally I was somewhat curious to how he played. The first couple of hands he showed down were absolute garbage and nothing changed from that first couple hands I observed of his. He also talked a ton of shit, lucky for him none of his remarks were aimed at me, or else I had a great line saved up for him and his track and field looking jacket. Seat 4 was this older Asian guy that always wears a "The Italian Job" baseball hat (looks like he bought it for $3 on vacaction once). Seat 5 was...you guessed it...Wilson. Seat 6 was yours truly, and seat nine was this guy named Ben who looks a lot like JC Tran's brother, at least that's what Tommy said anyway.
One of the first big hands I won came with a5 of spades in the big blind. Seat four had been getting beat up a lot, so after four limpers, he raised OTB, Wilson folded, I called, everyone else called. I noticed he only had a small stack of chips left, maybe 16 or so, which would be about $48 in $3 chips. The flop came 467 with two spades. Wow, huge flop...and so I did something I almost never do...I donk-bet!
That's right kids, I am a firm believer in not d-betting, but my relative position was perfect. I had four people in between me and the original raiser, and I knew almost for certain that seat four was jamming up this flop no matter what, so I wanted to trap everyone's money in instead of CR'ing the flop and losing people who didn't want to call two bets. The plan started out great as the first two limpers called, the other two folded (seat three gave me some lip asking why I would donk-bet, but eventually folded), seat four raised, I 3-bet, one limper folded, the other one called, seat four capped and only had two chips left...
The turn was a blank, maybe a ten of hearts or something close. I bet, call, seat four called all-in. River was a jack of spades...I bet, the limper folded, and then I showed seat four who was all-in my nut flush. He showed a flopped set of sevens (ouch) and left angrily toward the door. Phew...right away I could tell this night had a shot of being the exact opposite as Tuesday night.
Fast forward a couple hours and I was firmly up a rack and some change. Aside from being sucked out on by seat one (one gutshot, one three-outer two pair hand) and seat three (river three-outered on a QQ7 flop, I had jacks, he had 87, capped pre-flop four ways, river was a 7), I was running pretty well and had no reason to complain. All of my TP hands (see AK, KQ, etc) and overpairs were holding, so I felt good. I took a quick orbit off after talking to Tommy about when he was going to show up so I could grab a lunch break, and after that I went up another rack with a sick three hand run.
John was dealing and I was dealt Aces my 2nd hand back...lost. Skip a couple hands and I was dealt Kings that held in a five-way raised pot pre-flop, lost with Queens to a King-high flop the very next hand, and then won with KQ of diamonds after flopping a Queen and hitting running 2's for a full-house the hand directly after that (obv I was ahead the whole way, but still). After those three hands I was up almost two racks and the table got much fishier as a couple straightforward players left and were replaced by more cocky young asian guys. Sam the floorman eventually came over to the table as well, and so we had an eight-handed 9/18 donkfest on our hands. Unfortunately for me I was card dead for three orbits, went to grab food when Tommy finally showed up, and came back to the table 20 mins later and thankfully nothing had changed.
I'll talk about the rest of the game tomorrow...it eventually got down to five and four-handed and was fun as shit (i.e. I came up close to another rack from short-handed play). Thanks for reading, look for part II of this entry in a couple days.
It was one of those tables where there would be at least four people to the flop, usually five and sometimes six, so you had to make your hands hold. That's okay, considering I've grinded out 4/8 for the last couple years, shouldn't be a problem. Well, the only problem was holding or hitting a flop for me, as at the end of the night, I was down close to $800 (about $780 or something like that) and took the biggest loss for a session that I've taken in awhile. The one shining moment of the night was a capped pre-flop hand (three-ways) where I flopped quads, aside from that...blech.
Alright well dropping $780 that night and a few hundred the week before really stuck it to my desire to play. I knew big swings of money were inevitable, but mentally preparing for them <> actually living them. I'm really suprised/proud of myself that I decided to play last night.
I showed up at Cap around 10:30pm or so and noticed there wasn't a 15/30 game going...bummer. 9/18 was running as the main game for the first time in a long time, so I put my name on the list and went to watch some Olympics in the lounge. I wasn't on the list for long, and in about 15 minutes or so I had a seat and was surveying the table.
Just like 15/30 the other night, this table was pretty fishy, and it would only get better as time wore on. Some main villains for the evening: Seat one was this 35-year old latin guy, bought in for $180 and cashed out a couple racks ($600). He played liked he belonged at 3/6, but he was sucking out left and right and just couldn't be stopped. Seat 3 was this young, incredibly cocky, laggish Asian kid (probably late 20's/early 30's). When he sat down Davin called him the "9/18 Specialist" so naturally I was somewhat curious to how he played. The first couple of hands he showed down were absolute garbage and nothing changed from that first couple hands I observed of his. He also talked a ton of shit, lucky for him none of his remarks were aimed at me, or else I had a great line saved up for him and his track and field looking jacket. Seat 4 was this older Asian guy that always wears a "The Italian Job" baseball hat (looks like he bought it for $3 on vacaction once). Seat 5 was...you guessed it...Wilson. Seat 6 was yours truly, and seat nine was this guy named Ben who looks a lot like JC Tran's brother, at least that's what Tommy said anyway.
One of the first big hands I won came with a5 of spades in the big blind. Seat four had been getting beat up a lot, so after four limpers, he raised OTB, Wilson folded, I called, everyone else called. I noticed he only had a small stack of chips left, maybe 16 or so, which would be about $48 in $3 chips. The flop came 467 with two spades. Wow, huge flop...and so I did something I almost never do...I donk-bet!
That's right kids, I am a firm believer in not d-betting, but my relative position was perfect. I had four people in between me and the original raiser, and I knew almost for certain that seat four was jamming up this flop no matter what, so I wanted to trap everyone's money in instead of CR'ing the flop and losing people who didn't want to call two bets. The plan started out great as the first two limpers called, the other two folded (seat three gave me some lip asking why I would donk-bet, but eventually folded), seat four raised, I 3-bet, one limper folded, the other one called, seat four capped and only had two chips left...
The turn was a blank, maybe a ten of hearts or something close. I bet, call, seat four called all-in. River was a jack of spades...I bet, the limper folded, and then I showed seat four who was all-in my nut flush. He showed a flopped set of sevens (ouch) and left angrily toward the door. Phew...right away I could tell this night had a shot of being the exact opposite as Tuesday night.
Fast forward a couple hours and I was firmly up a rack and some change. Aside from being sucked out on by seat one (one gutshot, one three-outer two pair hand) and seat three (river three-outered on a QQ7 flop, I had jacks, he had 87, capped pre-flop four ways, river was a 7), I was running pretty well and had no reason to complain. All of my TP hands (see AK, KQ, etc) and overpairs were holding, so I felt good. I took a quick orbit off after talking to Tommy about when he was going to show up so I could grab a lunch break, and after that I went up another rack with a sick three hand run.
John was dealing and I was dealt Aces my 2nd hand back...lost. Skip a couple hands and I was dealt Kings that held in a five-way raised pot pre-flop, lost with Queens to a King-high flop the very next hand, and then won with KQ of diamonds after flopping a Queen and hitting running 2's for a full-house the hand directly after that (obv I was ahead the whole way, but still). After those three hands I was up almost two racks and the table got much fishier as a couple straightforward players left and were replaced by more cocky young asian guys. Sam the floorman eventually came over to the table as well, and so we had an eight-handed 9/18 donkfest on our hands. Unfortunately for me I was card dead for three orbits, went to grab food when Tommy finally showed up, and came back to the table 20 mins later and thankfully nothing had changed.
I'll talk about the rest of the game tomorrow...it eventually got down to five and four-handed and was fun as shit (i.e. I came up close to another rack from short-handed play). Thanks for reading, look for part II of this entry in a couple days.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Friday Night 9/18 and 15/30 (8/15)
I ended up catching a 10pm showing of "Tropic Thunder," so obvioiusly I was a tad bit late getting to the cardroom for a session. I sat down at 9/18 pretty quickly, as I was first up on both the 9/18 and 15/30 lists. The 15/30 was in obv gamble-mode and I really wanted a seat, but I would end up being on the list for close to an hour before getting on.
I won a couple small pots at 9/18, mostly LP Blind steals, and then this hand came up. We're 6-handed, the table has died down considerably, and I was begging for a 15/30 seat to open. I raise in the CO with KJ, folds to the SB who 3-bets (uh oh) and everyone else folds, I call. We're HU to a flop of K96 rainbow.
The villain has been pretty tight so far, no real reads, but I'll generally respect a 3-bet out of the SB. He bet and I called. At this point I just wanted to showdown. I'm behind to AA-KK, AK, KQ and ahead of QQ-TT or any hands I want him bluffing with. I figured if I raise him I might lose him or he'll just re-pop me and I'd puke.
The turn paired the six, he bet again, and again I just called. Good card I figured, as it didn't change all that much...I wanted a King on the river or a baby card.
The river was a somewhat ugly Queen, the villain bet again, and at this point I figured I had to be beat, but of course called anyway. He showed pocket Queens and I just kinda smiled and mucked my cards. He said "you had a king didn't ya...sorry man, only way I can win is if I suck out." I kinda laughed it off and told him it was cool, he was ahead pre-flop and couldn't go anywhere. The table ended up breaking about an orbit after that and I was left waiting for the 15/30.
I got a seat for 15/30 about 20 mins and took the five seat (bleh). Wilson was in the six, this Asian dude wearing a hat that I kinda recognized was in the seven, Davin was in the eight, and the rest of the table were fairly donktastic. They were limping with some real junk, and I just remember hoping I could hit a big hand before all this money went away from the table.
I started off really slow, folding from the CO all the way to my blinds, playing those, and then folding some more. I think I lost my first three hands I opened and quickly found myself down a few stacks ($300). I rebought from seat seven who was leaving, and slid over into his seat. Wilson had also left, and the table was threatening to break. I got a couple hands to hold (JT of hearts on an 89T board, 9 on the turn, 3 on the river) and a small pot with AA (one raise pre, folded to a lady named Debra who called my raise all-in)...lame.
The game broke a little after that, and I cashed out down a couple hundred for the night (170 at 15/30, 35 or so at 9/18). I hung around the rail and watched the SD play for a little while and would have been open to playing a 4/8-Kill game, but after 20 mins on the list and still being a few names deep on the list, I decided to just bounce.
Slow night, but it was my fault for screwing around all day/night and showing up much too late. Maybe next week I can get my head out of my ass and actually go play, but to be honest, I'm having fun being on a semi-break from cards. It's August, it's hot out, poker will always be there, maybe at the moment having fun and being somewhat social is more important than the continuous grind that is LHE.
Sorry for the lack of playing/updates, if the motivation is there, I'll try and play/blog some more this weekend or later on next week. Thanks for reading guys.
I won a couple small pots at 9/18, mostly LP Blind steals, and then this hand came up. We're 6-handed, the table has died down considerably, and I was begging for a 15/30 seat to open. I raise in the CO with KJ, folds to the SB who 3-bets (uh oh) and everyone else folds, I call. We're HU to a flop of K96 rainbow.
The villain has been pretty tight so far, no real reads, but I'll generally respect a 3-bet out of the SB. He bet and I called. At this point I just wanted to showdown. I'm behind to AA-KK, AK, KQ and ahead of QQ-TT or any hands I want him bluffing with. I figured if I raise him I might lose him or he'll just re-pop me and I'd puke.
The turn paired the six, he bet again, and again I just called. Good card I figured, as it didn't change all that much...I wanted a King on the river or a baby card.
The river was a somewhat ugly Queen, the villain bet again, and at this point I figured I had to be beat, but of course called anyway. He showed pocket Queens and I just kinda smiled and mucked my cards. He said "you had a king didn't ya...sorry man, only way I can win is if I suck out." I kinda laughed it off and told him it was cool, he was ahead pre-flop and couldn't go anywhere. The table ended up breaking about an orbit after that and I was left waiting for the 15/30.
I got a seat for 15/30 about 20 mins and took the five seat (bleh). Wilson was in the six, this Asian dude wearing a hat that I kinda recognized was in the seven, Davin was in the eight, and the rest of the table were fairly donktastic. They were limping with some real junk, and I just remember hoping I could hit a big hand before all this money went away from the table.
I started off really slow, folding from the CO all the way to my blinds, playing those, and then folding some more. I think I lost my first three hands I opened and quickly found myself down a few stacks ($300). I rebought from seat seven who was leaving, and slid over into his seat. Wilson had also left, and the table was threatening to break. I got a couple hands to hold (JT of hearts on an 89T board, 9 on the turn, 3 on the river) and a small pot with AA (one raise pre, folded to a lady named Debra who called my raise all-in)...lame.
The game broke a little after that, and I cashed out down a couple hundred for the night (170 at 15/30, 35 or so at 9/18). I hung around the rail and watched the SD play for a little while and would have been open to playing a 4/8-Kill game, but after 20 mins on the list and still being a few names deep on the list, I decided to just bounce.
Slow night, but it was my fault for screwing around all day/night and showing up much too late. Maybe next week I can get my head out of my ass and actually go play, but to be honest, I'm having fun being on a semi-break from cards. It's August, it's hot out, poker will always be there, maybe at the moment having fun and being somewhat social is more important than the continuous grind that is LHE.
Sorry for the lack of playing/updates, if the motivation is there, I'll try and play/blog some more this weekend or later on next week. Thanks for reading guys.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Friday Night 15/30 (8/8)
Sorry I'm so late with the blog. Anyway, for a few different reasons (health, work, being lazy, actually going out for once), I didn't play for a couple weeks. Anyway, I rolled in kinda late, maybe 11pm or so, still feeling beat up from allergies or whatever kind of cold I had that kicked my ass for two weeks. Basically my body was fine except for my nose and at times my head. Every time I'd step outside my nose would run and my head would feel like it was in a vice, followed immediately by sneezing and hawkkkkkkking. For two weeks I'd wake up with a completely clogged nose, a sore throat (from breathing through my mouth all night), and a decently sized headache. Fun stuff, I know.
Okay, no more bitching, I rolled up and noticed my table was noticeably stronger than normal, not a good thing I guess. Seat five was Wilson, seat six was Davin, and seat eight was Sing. The rest of the players I semi-recognized as lpp-ish, and one maniac asian guy a couple spots to my left. Not a terribly strong table, but a little tougher than normal.
So as has been the case, I folded for my first couple of orbits with zero playable hands. I'd get the occasional T8s or 97s, but with an EP raise from Sing or another tight player, I couldn't do much with either of those hands.
Finally I get a playable hand in the CO with two limpers (both passive players) in front of me. One is an Lpp-ish Asian guy (seat nine) and an older black man, turned out to be somewhat tight/passive in seat one. They both limp, I raise from seat two, BB defends. Flop comes AJT with two diamonds.
Kinda nasty, but whatever. Check, check, black guy donks, I raise, fold, call, call.
The turn is an ugly ugly card, a black King.
Check, check, I fire to defend against diamonds and rep AQ or something that has a straight now. Both call. Blech.
River pairs the jack, basically making my hand useless now. Check, check, I check behind and seat nine says "missed" and mucks his cards, seat one shows AK and takes down the pot. Wow, no raise pre? Oh well, now I know.
The rest of the session after that wasn't all that interesting. It was kind of frustrating, we were playing seven handed alot, and most of my raising hands were coming in EP. I'd raise 88 or 77, get a nasty flop, and have to bet/fold to a lot of action behind me. Most of the hands went to showdown and hands like QJ and KT were just outflopping me, nothing much I could do.
In the same regard, I'd pick up AA OTB or UTG and I'd raise and everyone would fold. Just awful awful timing. They'd call when I had 77 or they'd fold when I have aces. I didn't see AK, AQ, KK-99 at all...
The game ended up breaking kinda early (230am-ish), so I grabbed some food with the Superdonk, and bounced out as soon as he got a 4/8-Kill seat. I didn't feel much like trying to win back $300 at 4/8 after having a frustrating 15/30 session. I just wanted to go home and sleep.
This week I look to play two good sized sessions at the bare minimum, stay tuned for updates.
Okay, no more bitching, I rolled up and noticed my table was noticeably stronger than normal, not a good thing I guess. Seat five was Wilson, seat six was Davin, and seat eight was Sing. The rest of the players I semi-recognized as lpp-ish, and one maniac asian guy a couple spots to my left. Not a terribly strong table, but a little tougher than normal.
So as has been the case, I folded for my first couple of orbits with zero playable hands. I'd get the occasional T8s or 97s, but with an EP raise from Sing or another tight player, I couldn't do much with either of those hands.
Finally I get a playable hand in the CO with two limpers (both passive players) in front of me. One is an Lpp-ish Asian guy (seat nine) and an older black man, turned out to be somewhat tight/passive in seat one. They both limp, I raise from seat two, BB defends. Flop comes AJT with two diamonds.
Kinda nasty, but whatever. Check, check, black guy donks, I raise, fold, call, call.
The turn is an ugly ugly card, a black King.
Check, check, I fire to defend against diamonds and rep AQ or something that has a straight now. Both call. Blech.
River pairs the jack, basically making my hand useless now. Check, check, I check behind and seat nine says "missed" and mucks his cards, seat one shows AK and takes down the pot. Wow, no raise pre? Oh well, now I know.
The rest of the session after that wasn't all that interesting. It was kind of frustrating, we were playing seven handed alot, and most of my raising hands were coming in EP. I'd raise 88 or 77, get a nasty flop, and have to bet/fold to a lot of action behind me. Most of the hands went to showdown and hands like QJ and KT were just outflopping me, nothing much I could do.
In the same regard, I'd pick up AA OTB or UTG and I'd raise and everyone would fold. Just awful awful timing. They'd call when I had 77 or they'd fold when I have aces. I didn't see AK, AQ, KK-99 at all...
The game ended up breaking kinda early (230am-ish), so I grabbed some food with the Superdonk, and bounced out as soon as he got a 4/8-Kill seat. I didn't feel much like trying to win back $300 at 4/8 after having a frustrating 15/30 session. I just wanted to go home and sleep.
This week I look to play two good sized sessions at the bare minimum, stay tuned for updates.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Friday Night 15/30 (7/25) Part II
Alright well I feel awful...fuck waking up at 1pm in the heat...damn AC going off for some reason lol. It's all better now though, just a little headache...slightly hungry...standard.
Okay so where I left off I was running pretty well, up close to a rack at 15/30 and up another $160 from 4/8, I was feeling good, but realized I had only been there for an hour and a half or so, and the blind structure makes the game like a rollercoaster. Being up a rack and then being even ten minutes later is not inconceivable.
So yeah, AJ of hearts, capped pre. I ended up calling for a gutty/over on the flop for one bet, having the turn get checked through, then fold after the girl in seat one made her straight and I blanked out.
About an orbit later I picked up QJ of spades UTG+1. We're seven handed at this point, I raised, called by the taggy guy (he only seemed to play pots with me for some reason) and then called by the laggy east-Indian woman in seat one defending her BB. The flop came T83 rainbow...a couple overs and a gutterball. Checks to me, I bet, tag calls, BB raises, I call, tag calls. The turn is a nine of hearts, giving me the nut straight and putting a heart flush draw out.
The BB bet into me, I raised, the tag folded, and she called. The river was a harmless ace of spades, she checks, I bet, she called. Sick suckout for a good pot...I guess she flopped two pair? Not sure, because she defended her BB with a very wide range.
Anyway, off to grab some food, I think I'll come back and update this later tonight or tomorrow morning after work.
Okay so where I left off I was running pretty well, up close to a rack at 15/30 and up another $160 from 4/8, I was feeling good, but realized I had only been there for an hour and a half or so, and the blind structure makes the game like a rollercoaster. Being up a rack and then being even ten minutes later is not inconceivable.
So yeah, AJ of hearts, capped pre. I ended up calling for a gutty/over on the flop for one bet, having the turn get checked through, then fold after the girl in seat one made her straight and I blanked out.
About an orbit later I picked up QJ of spades UTG+1. We're seven handed at this point, I raised, called by the taggy guy (he only seemed to play pots with me for some reason) and then called by the laggy east-Indian woman in seat one defending her BB. The flop came T83 rainbow...a couple overs and a gutterball. Checks to me, I bet, tag calls, BB raises, I call, tag calls. The turn is a nine of hearts, giving me the nut straight and putting a heart flush draw out.
The BB bet into me, I raised, the tag folded, and she called. The river was a harmless ace of spades, she checks, I bet, she called. Sick suckout for a good pot...I guess she flopped two pair? Not sure, because she defended her BB with a very wide range.
Anyway, off to grab some food, I think I'll come back and update this later tonight or tomorrow morning after work.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Friday Night 15/30 (7/25)
Well I guess I should title this entry "Capital Friday Night Session" since I played a couple hours of 4/8-Kill before jumping onto the 15/30 game, but whatever. I ran pretty well at 4/8, made a couple big hands hold and then hit some draws out of the blinds to leave that game +$160 before going over to the yellow chip game.
Once I got to 15/30 my cards slowed down considerably. I folded my first four hands, got raised off both my blinds, folded some more, finally saw a flop out of my 2nd BB, missed a flush draw/gutty combo that lost me a stack ($100), then folded some more. That brutal three orbit run all but killed my 4/8 profit. Oh well, that's how it goes I guess.
Finally I picked up a big hand UTG+1 (KK) sometime in my fourth orbit. I raise from the four seat, get called by a taggy player in seat six and an older white lady in seat seven...both the blinds fold. The flop was K98 rainbow. Bingo, about damn time. I bet, taggy guy raises, older white lady (who was very much lpp) 3-bets, and I cap. Wow...wtf do they have?
At this point I'm fearing basically any/every straight draw combo out there. The turn is a good card, something like a four of clubs. It puts the club flush draw out there, but I still have the nuts. I bet, call, and call. Okay...please please hold.
The river is a three of clubs...a bit "meh," but unless the taggy guy has something like JT of clubs, I'm pretty sure my hand is good. I bet, taggy guy calls, and then the old lady goes in the tank and starts talking about how her two pair can't be good. I see her flash a King and then she tossed her cards in the muck. I guess since the taggy guy was calling me down (she knew how he played I guess?) that she knew she must be beat. I showed a set of kings, seat five showed a set of nines (wtf? I lose at least three bets on the turn) and the lady says she had both of our cards (K9)...what a sick sick hand. I dunno if I believe her, but she didn't seem like the player to be three-betting anything less that two pair on that flop...??? Whatever.
So yeah, I was almost even for the day before that hand was dealt, but after the hand, let's just say I was comfortable again. Very next hand seat three gets up for a smoke break so I posted the BB. Two limpers, small blind completed, and I looked down at JJ. Raise. Flop: AJ4 with two spades. Sick. I bet, older white lady calls, everyone else folded. Turn is a small card. Bet/call. River is a four and I boat up...I bet, and seat seven folds a couple spades face up. Good dodge...up close to $400 now. Heat check.
About an orbit later I win a couple more hands back to back...A9os from the cutoff I raise pre and fire a raggedy flop and turn and finally get the older white lady to fold to one of my turn bets. Very next hand it's folded to me in the hijack and this time I have AT of spades. I raise and the BB (cute Asian girl, married, in her 30s, short hair, laggish) defends her blind. Flop comes Q44 with a couple spades. She checks, I bet, she calls. The turn is a jack of spades, giving me the nut flush and a Royal Flush draw. She checks, and I debate checking behind to go for the $200 Royal flush bonus just in case she folds, but then I decide to just bet and hope she raises me with a naked four. Instead she folds...whaa whaa...oh well. I'd rather not check behind, let the board become a disaster and force me to lose the hand.
After that I lost a few smallish pots, then lost a hand where I had AJ of hearts capped pre-flop three ways and missed my over/gutty combo...I just felt like I played that hand badly...I might come back and blog about that tomorrow. I'll save that hand and my QJ of spades where I suckout huge on the turn to win a good pot for tomorrow's blog. Right now I gotta go crash.
Final tally on the day:
4/8-Kill: +$160
15/30: +$390
4/8: -$120 (lol whoops)
Anyway, I should post the second part soon, so be on the lookout, thanks for reading.
Once I got to 15/30 my cards slowed down considerably. I folded my first four hands, got raised off both my blinds, folded some more, finally saw a flop out of my 2nd BB, missed a flush draw/gutty combo that lost me a stack ($100), then folded some more. That brutal three orbit run all but killed my 4/8 profit. Oh well, that's how it goes I guess.
Finally I picked up a big hand UTG+1 (KK) sometime in my fourth orbit. I raise from the four seat, get called by a taggy player in seat six and an older white lady in seat seven...both the blinds fold. The flop was K98 rainbow. Bingo, about damn time. I bet, taggy guy raises, older white lady (who was very much lpp) 3-bets, and I cap. Wow...wtf do they have?
At this point I'm fearing basically any/every straight draw combo out there. The turn is a good card, something like a four of clubs. It puts the club flush draw out there, but I still have the nuts. I bet, call, and call. Okay...please please hold.
The river is a three of clubs...a bit "meh," but unless the taggy guy has something like JT of clubs, I'm pretty sure my hand is good. I bet, taggy guy calls, and then the old lady goes in the tank and starts talking about how her two pair can't be good. I see her flash a King and then she tossed her cards in the muck. I guess since the taggy guy was calling me down (she knew how he played I guess?) that she knew she must be beat. I showed a set of kings, seat five showed a set of nines (wtf? I lose at least three bets on the turn) and the lady says she had both of our cards (K9)...what a sick sick hand. I dunno if I believe her, but she didn't seem like the player to be three-betting anything less that two pair on that flop...??? Whatever.
So yeah, I was almost even for the day before that hand was dealt, but after the hand, let's just say I was comfortable again. Very next hand seat three gets up for a smoke break so I posted the BB. Two limpers, small blind completed, and I looked down at JJ. Raise. Flop: AJ4 with two spades. Sick. I bet, older white lady calls, everyone else folded. Turn is a small card. Bet/call. River is a four and I boat up...I bet, and seat seven folds a couple spades face up. Good dodge...up close to $400 now. Heat check.
About an orbit later I win a couple more hands back to back...A9os from the cutoff I raise pre and fire a raggedy flop and turn and finally get the older white lady to fold to one of my turn bets. Very next hand it's folded to me in the hijack and this time I have AT of spades. I raise and the BB (cute Asian girl, married, in her 30s, short hair, laggish) defends her blind. Flop comes Q44 with a couple spades. She checks, I bet, she calls. The turn is a jack of spades, giving me the nut flush and a Royal Flush draw. She checks, and I debate checking behind to go for the $200 Royal flush bonus just in case she folds, but then I decide to just bet and hope she raises me with a naked four. Instead she folds...whaa whaa...oh well. I'd rather not check behind, let the board become a disaster and force me to lose the hand.
After that I lost a few smallish pots, then lost a hand where I had AJ of hearts capped pre-flop three ways and missed my over/gutty combo...I just felt like I played that hand badly...I might come back and blog about that tomorrow. I'll save that hand and my QJ of spades where I suckout huge on the turn to win a good pot for tomorrow's blog. Right now I gotta go crash.
Final tally on the day:
4/8-Kill: +$160
15/30: +$390
4/8: -$120 (lol whoops)
Anyway, I should post the second part soon, so be on the lookout, thanks for reading.
A couple Extra from Wednesday Night (7/24)
Alright well like I said, I wanted to come back to this game and post some stuff I noticed. First off, a hand I remembered involving the maniac on my right (seat six) was just sick.
I can't remember the pre-flop action...probably raised pre-flop, but the flop was 345 with two clubs. Small blind was this older white guy in seat nine, he led out, raised by the pre-flop raiser who was seat five I believe (annoying Korean guy), seat six 3-bets, and the small blind capped.
Wow...right? The turn is a six (lol). So the board is 3456, small blind checks, OR bets, Maniac raises, Small-blind calls, OR just calls. Wow, looks like the maniac flopped a straight?
River pairs the board (five I believe). Small blind bets out, maniac starts talking about "ugh what a suckout", Korean dude calls, maniac calls.
Showdown:
Small blind has 33 for three full - nice hand
Korean guy has K2 of clubs (wtf? Nice raise pre)
Maniac has 78 for the turned nut straight (double wtf? Nice flop action?)
The maniac talks about the hand for awhile, and says "I knew if I hit that card I'd get paid off huge, I mean, look at that pot" and another gem "Man you sucked out on my hand, nice catch on the river...well, I got lucky on the turn I guess..."
lol...ya think? The maniac 3-bets a flop where he "knows" he's behind but he'll "get paid off huge" when he hits his gutterball that puts a four card straight out there? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. This is why I love live poker.
I can't remember the pre-flop action...probably raised pre-flop, but the flop was 345 with two clubs. Small blind was this older white guy in seat nine, he led out, raised by the pre-flop raiser who was seat five I believe (annoying Korean guy), seat six 3-bets, and the small blind capped.
Wow...right? The turn is a six (lol). So the board is 3456, small blind checks, OR bets, Maniac raises, Small-blind calls, OR just calls. Wow, looks like the maniac flopped a straight?
River pairs the board (five I believe). Small blind bets out, maniac starts talking about "ugh what a suckout", Korean dude calls, maniac calls.
Showdown:
Small blind has 33 for three full - nice hand
Korean guy has K2 of clubs (wtf? Nice raise pre)
Maniac has 78 for the turned nut straight (double wtf? Nice flop action?)
The maniac talks about the hand for awhile, and says "I knew if I hit that card I'd get paid off huge, I mean, look at that pot" and another gem "Man you sucked out on my hand, nice catch on the river...well, I got lucky on the turn I guess..."
lol...ya think? The maniac 3-bets a flop where he "knows" he's behind but he'll "get paid off huge" when he hits his gutterball that puts a four card straight out there? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. This is why I love live poker.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Wednesday Night 15/30 (7/23)
Ahh today was pretty good. Slept in, got some stuff done around the house, washed my car, and planned on going to play by 7pm or so. Well I rolled into Cap around 9:30pm (standard) and was first on the waiting list for all of seven seconds before being called over to the game.
A couple quick thoughts:
- The table was ridiculously passive for the majority of the night
- The regulars were running awful when I sat down and moved away to the 1/3 NL table before I got through a couple orbits
The table was pretty good, just different from what I was used to seeing at 15/30. At 15/30 I'm more familiar with aggressive monsters spewing chips, instead this table was full of passive Cache Creek-like players check/calling everyone to death. Quick rundown of key players at the table: Seat 1 - Taggy Asian guy getting sucked out on most of the night; Seat 2 - Older Black man, really LPP, just awful most of the night; Seat 3 - Middle aged reg named Bill...pretty LPP, he always seems tight at first to me, but turns out to be really passive/loose; Seat 4 - Old white man, really LPP, saw him hit three backdoor flushes tonight, and two of them I had flopped a four flush (wtf right); Seat 5 - Really annoying Korean guy, somewhat laggy; Seat 6 - Maniac white guy, late 20's, said he played a lot in the Los Angeles area cardrooms (and it showed). Really nice guy aside from all of that, sounds like he plays a lot; Seat 7 - Taggish chubby but brutally sexy Mexiwegian, smelled a lot like Dr. Pepper and In 'n Out; Seat 8 - Reg named Sing...stayed in his seat the majority of the night this time, easily my best opponent at the table.
I'm not going to lie...if I had the option of playing against Spewtards or Passive Stations all night, I'd definitely take the stations. They're much easier to guide through a hand and make the game much less stressful. Then again, spewtards make the game much more exciting/fun...oh well, both are win/win as long as the players play bad...
Okay so I know you guys are bored by now, so onto the hands. The first hand I won was 99 on a KT3 board with two diamonds. I was in position and HU with Bill (seat three). He check/called me on the flop, the turn was a lower card than my nines, a five I think. He check/called again, and on the river an eight of diamonds hit. He checked, I checked behind and he showed AQ for a missed gutterball and two overs. I really like my bet/fold lines I took on the flop/turn...I really don't want to check behind a turn and let my opponent get a free ride to hit his draw, bluff me off my hand or value bet my ass with middle pair on the river. I keep the pressure on, and if I get called on the turn, I check behind and showdown if I don't improve on the river. If I have AQ on the other hand, I like a check behind on the turn because bet/calling or bet/folding the turn with this board and AQ would make me cry. Of course, if your opponent has been floating a lot of flops and shutting down against turn bets, by all means continue firing.
Okay so after that hand I get dealt a couple hands I like to call "roadmaps." That is, even Stevie Wonder could play these hands.
Hero is dealt AK of hearts in the hijack. Limped in a couple spots, Hero raises, called by the button, the blinds and the limpers. Six to the flop (weeeeee). Flop: K73 with two spades. Checks to hero, hero bets, called in two spots, folded in two Maniac white guy raises (aww crap), Hero 3-bets, two folds after my 3-bet (sweet), maniac just calls (double sweet). Turn: Ace of clubs (this isn't even fair), check/bet/call; River: Nine of diamonds, check/bet and villain folds 75 of spades face up. Thanks for not letting him get there. Sweet pot.
Very next hand I get dealt AJos, two limpers, I raise. Flop comes jack high, turn is an ace, and I get called down by seat four (old man; lpp) who pays me off with A9. It's fun to remember those times where I have KK on the J-high flop and the old man turns me with A9 there, so this time I need to be thankful I turned Aces up lol ;-) Back to back Aces-up hands, and my chipstack is somewhere close to +$500.
Well, it's that time of the night where I'm incoherent and can barely keep my eyes open, so I guess I'll have to blog about how I shipped $350+ back to the table over the course of the next couple of hours either tomorrow or sometime later this week, because I'm falling asleep.
Basically all I have to say is I thought about leaving as soon as I was up a rack, but realized that the potential (i.e. the game was really good) to be up another rack was there. Part of playing this "high" is understanding that in reality, I'm only up a rack of chips, and I shouldn't leave just because my "luck might run out." Of course, the situation where three and a half stacks later I'm cashing out +$150 and feeling like an ass might get me to at least think about leaving when I'm plus five, but I'll still know I'd be wrong to leave.
No big deal, in a way, it felt good to ship back the money. To feel human again. To be reminded that I'm not always going to flop TPTK and have it hold against five people on a super drawy board. Also, it felt good to be reminded that sometimes I play bad and have things I need to work on such as missing a few raises in LP with some strong cards (yes I know, I missed a raise...wtf?) and I even missed my fold button a couple times and showed down a bit light (whoops). Live and learn I guess. Sorry for rambling more than normal tonight, thanks for reading.
A couple quick thoughts:
- The table was ridiculously passive for the majority of the night
- The regulars were running awful when I sat down and moved away to the 1/3 NL table before I got through a couple orbits
The table was pretty good, just different from what I was used to seeing at 15/30. At 15/30 I'm more familiar with aggressive monsters spewing chips, instead this table was full of passive Cache Creek-like players check/calling everyone to death. Quick rundown of key players at the table: Seat 1 - Taggy Asian guy getting sucked out on most of the night; Seat 2 - Older Black man, really LPP, just awful most of the night; Seat 3 - Middle aged reg named Bill...pretty LPP, he always seems tight at first to me, but turns out to be really passive/loose; Seat 4 - Old white man, really LPP, saw him hit three backdoor flushes tonight, and two of them I had flopped a four flush (wtf right); Seat 5 - Really annoying Korean guy, somewhat laggy; Seat 6 - Maniac white guy, late 20's, said he played a lot in the Los Angeles area cardrooms (and it showed). Really nice guy aside from all of that, sounds like he plays a lot; Seat 7 - Taggish chubby but brutally sexy Mexiwegian, smelled a lot like Dr. Pepper and In 'n Out; Seat 8 - Reg named Sing...stayed in his seat the majority of the night this time, easily my best opponent at the table.
I'm not going to lie...if I had the option of playing against Spewtards or Passive Stations all night, I'd definitely take the stations. They're much easier to guide through a hand and make the game much less stressful. Then again, spewtards make the game much more exciting/fun...oh well, both are win/win as long as the players play bad...
Okay so I know you guys are bored by now, so onto the hands. The first hand I won was 99 on a KT3 board with two diamonds. I was in position and HU with Bill (seat three). He check/called me on the flop, the turn was a lower card than my nines, a five I think. He check/called again, and on the river an eight of diamonds hit. He checked, I checked behind and he showed AQ for a missed gutterball and two overs. I really like my bet/fold lines I took on the flop/turn...I really don't want to check behind a turn and let my opponent get a free ride to hit his draw, bluff me off my hand or value bet my ass with middle pair on the river. I keep the pressure on, and if I get called on the turn, I check behind and showdown if I don't improve on the river. If I have AQ on the other hand, I like a check behind on the turn because bet/calling or bet/folding the turn with this board and AQ would make me cry. Of course, if your opponent has been floating a lot of flops and shutting down against turn bets, by all means continue firing.
Okay so after that hand I get dealt a couple hands I like to call "roadmaps." That is, even Stevie Wonder could play these hands.
Hero is dealt AK of hearts in the hijack. Limped in a couple spots, Hero raises, called by the button, the blinds and the limpers. Six to the flop (weeeeee). Flop: K73 with two spades. Checks to hero, hero bets, called in two spots, folded in two Maniac white guy raises (aww crap), Hero 3-bets, two folds after my 3-bet (sweet), maniac just calls (double sweet). Turn: Ace of clubs (this isn't even fair), check/bet/call; River: Nine of diamonds, check/bet and villain folds 75 of spades face up. Thanks for not letting him get there. Sweet pot.
Very next hand I get dealt AJos, two limpers, I raise. Flop comes jack high, turn is an ace, and I get called down by seat four (old man; lpp) who pays me off with A9. It's fun to remember those times where I have KK on the J-high flop and the old man turns me with A9 there, so this time I need to be thankful I turned Aces up lol ;-) Back to back Aces-up hands, and my chipstack is somewhere close to +$500.
Well, it's that time of the night where I'm incoherent and can barely keep my eyes open, so I guess I'll have to blog about how I shipped $350+ back to the table over the course of the next couple of hours either tomorrow or sometime later this week, because I'm falling asleep.
Basically all I have to say is I thought about leaving as soon as I was up a rack, but realized that the potential (i.e. the game was really good) to be up another rack was there. Part of playing this "high" is understanding that in reality, I'm only up a rack of chips, and I shouldn't leave just because my "luck might run out." Of course, the situation where three and a half stacks later I'm cashing out +$150 and feeling like an ass might get me to at least think about leaving when I'm plus five, but I'll still know I'd be wrong to leave.
No big deal, in a way, it felt good to ship back the money. To feel human again. To be reminded that I'm not always going to flop TPTK and have it hold against five people on a super drawy board. Also, it felt good to be reminded that sometimes I play bad and have things I need to work on such as missing a few raises in LP with some strong cards (yes I know, I missed a raise...wtf?) and I even missed my fold button a couple times and showed down a bit light (whoops). Live and learn I guess. Sorry for rambling more than normal tonight, thanks for reading.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Friday Night 15/30 (7/18)
Well like I mentioned in the last entry, I played 4/8 for a two to three hours and ran pretty awful. I outflopped QQ in a big multiway pot (88 in the BB, UTG raised, called everywhere) Flop was 863, CR'd QQ with everyone sandwiched in between. Turn: Q obv...:-(
Finally I got called away from that game and sat down at 15/30 in the four seat. A quick breakdown of the table was: seat 1 - older white dude sitting on a good amount of chips ($2k); seat 2 - Asian girl in her 30s, playing a bit Laggish pre/LPPish post; seat 3 - old Asian man, went on a sick heater while I was there, even made a diamond royal flush good for $500, Laggy; seat 5 - was Wilson for most of the night. He joined the table soon after I got there and seriously just ran bad. I said last time he didn't play too well, but today he just couldn't hold. His game looked pretty good today. seat 6 - Older Asian guy named Sing. Guy never stays in his seat, always smoking or playing Pai Gow; seat 7 - Can't remember seat 8 - older white guy...Italian-ish? Must've been card dead because I didn't see him play much; seat 9 - lpp-ish asian guy
Alright well I fold my first four hands or so and pick up QQ in the BB. Of course it's limped in five spots, sb complets, and then I raise. Wheeeeee. Flop was fantastic: 844...except seat two OTB had a 34os...lame. Great start.
About an orbit later seat two raises my BB from the button. She had been getting a bit ancy the last couple of orbits (opening with junk), seat three called, and I defended with KJ of clubs. The flop came down Q-high with a couple clubs; sb checks, I check, She bets, SB folds, I raise, she calls. Turn pairs the bottom card (a six I believe), I fire again and she tanks for a good while, stares me down a little bit, then folded. Phew. Had to earn that one.
After that I swung up and down a little bit, but mostly staying break even for three orbits or so. Won some small pots, lost some small pots out of the blinds, etc. A hand that finally propels me upwards was AKos holding in a pretty good pot. Seat two limped UTG, seat three called, I raised, folds around to the blinds in nine and one who call. Damn. Flop: A24 with a couple spades
Not bad. Checks to me, I bet, called in three spots. The turn is a three. Oh wtf right? Checks to me, I still fire, this time called by seats one and three. Both of these calls worried me a bit, considering they both had been somewhat ~solid on their turn calls up until this point. The river was a ten (non-spade) and it got checked to me. Not sure if I missed value here, but I wasn't sure what I was beating that could call me at this point. I'm almost positive no one had a straight (I would have been raised or donked into by now), but maybe a goofy two pair was out there? Whatever, I checked behind and took the pot. Seat two showed me his raggy spades as I took it down.
Orbit or so later I picked up Kings and won a good sized pot against seat two. There was a limper (seat one), seat two raised, I 3-bet, folded around, limper folds, and then seat two called and asked how I wanted to play it. I was kinda like "huh?" at first, since he spoke broken English, it took me a couple times to figure out he wanted to know if I liked checking pots down HU or if I liked the action. I told him as politely as I could that I appreciated the offer, but I always play my hands and encourage him to do the same. He had been checking down with the girl in seat two a bit (this has come to bug me less and less the more I watch people do it, because they do not force the action HU, but only check down if it happens to become HU). Anyway, he ended up having AK and he whiffed flop and check/folded the turn.
After that hand I took a breather and went outside to talk to the Superdonk and see what time he was coming by. I told him I had finally started to run good (he got my "4/8 IS MURDERING ME" texts earlier in the evening lol). I came back to the table after missing a full orbit and picked up a couple red Queens. Wilson raised UTG, folded around to seat three (who was up a rack and half since I left) seat three called, I 3-bet, Wilson capped (he's trying to go all-in at this point) and we're three-handed to a flop of KQ4 with a couple diamonds.
Sweet. Check, I bet, call, call. Turn is a J (uh oh). Check, I bet, Wilson calls all-in, seat three calls. I was a bit worried of the board getting coordinated, but the river was a four and I boated up, pretty much relieving me of any real anxiety. Check, bet, call. Wilson showed TT and said "nh, I just can't do anything right" as he re-bought (He did end up coming back before the night was over, when the game broke he was only down $300...pretty good compared to down $600).
After that big hand I was sitting on ~+$400-$500, and didn't move much from there. I traded some money back and forth around the table for awhile, the game got shorter and shorter, and JJ three times and at least eight or so walks in my BB later, the game broke and I cashed out up a rack for the second 15/30 session in a row. I think a big part of my win last night was the number of walks I got in the BB. Me and seat three were on a tear most of the night, so maybe that kept people from raising our blinds? Who knows, all I know is that chopping your BB every other orbit instead of choosing to defend or (most likely) muck makes things really easy.
If I get time, I'll blog about the quick psycho 4/8-Kill session I played with the Superdonk after my 15/30 game broke. Until then, thanks for reading.
Finally I got called away from that game and sat down at 15/30 in the four seat. A quick breakdown of the table was: seat 1 - older white dude sitting on a good amount of chips ($2k); seat 2 - Asian girl in her 30s, playing a bit Laggish pre/LPPish post; seat 3 - old Asian man, went on a sick heater while I was there, even made a diamond royal flush good for $500, Laggy; seat 5 - was Wilson for most of the night. He joined the table soon after I got there and seriously just ran bad. I said last time he didn't play too well, but today he just couldn't hold. His game looked pretty good today. seat 6 - Older Asian guy named Sing. Guy never stays in his seat, always smoking or playing Pai Gow; seat 7 - Can't remember seat 8 - older white guy...Italian-ish? Must've been card dead because I didn't see him play much; seat 9 - lpp-ish asian guy
Alright well I fold my first four hands or so and pick up QQ in the BB. Of course it's limped in five spots, sb complets, and then I raise. Wheeeeee. Flop was fantastic: 844...except seat two OTB had a 34os...lame. Great start.
About an orbit later seat two raises my BB from the button. She had been getting a bit ancy the last couple of orbits (opening with junk), seat three called, and I defended with KJ of clubs. The flop came down Q-high with a couple clubs; sb checks, I check, She bets, SB folds, I raise, she calls. Turn pairs the bottom card (a six I believe), I fire again and she tanks for a good while, stares me down a little bit, then folded. Phew. Had to earn that one.
After that I swung up and down a little bit, but mostly staying break even for three orbits or so. Won some small pots, lost some small pots out of the blinds, etc. A hand that finally propels me upwards was AKos holding in a pretty good pot. Seat two limped UTG, seat three called, I raised, folds around to the blinds in nine and one who call. Damn. Flop: A24 with a couple spades
Not bad. Checks to me, I bet, called in three spots. The turn is a three. Oh wtf right? Checks to me, I still fire, this time called by seats one and three. Both of these calls worried me a bit, considering they both had been somewhat ~solid on their turn calls up until this point. The river was a ten (non-spade) and it got checked to me. Not sure if I missed value here, but I wasn't sure what I was beating that could call me at this point. I'm almost positive no one had a straight (I would have been raised or donked into by now), but maybe a goofy two pair was out there? Whatever, I checked behind and took the pot. Seat two showed me his raggy spades as I took it down.
Orbit or so later I picked up Kings and won a good sized pot against seat two. There was a limper (seat one), seat two raised, I 3-bet, folded around, limper folds, and then seat two called and asked how I wanted to play it. I was kinda like "huh?" at first, since he spoke broken English, it took me a couple times to figure out he wanted to know if I liked checking pots down HU or if I liked the action. I told him as politely as I could that I appreciated the offer, but I always play my hands and encourage him to do the same. He had been checking down with the girl in seat two a bit (this has come to bug me less and less the more I watch people do it, because they do not force the action HU, but only check down if it happens to become HU). Anyway, he ended up having AK and he whiffed flop and check/folded the turn.
After that hand I took a breather and went outside to talk to the Superdonk and see what time he was coming by. I told him I had finally started to run good (he got my "4/8 IS MURDERING ME" texts earlier in the evening lol). I came back to the table after missing a full orbit and picked up a couple red Queens. Wilson raised UTG, folded around to seat three (who was up a rack and half since I left) seat three called, I 3-bet, Wilson capped (he's trying to go all-in at this point) and we're three-handed to a flop of KQ4 with a couple diamonds.
Sweet. Check, I bet, call, call. Turn is a J (uh oh). Check, I bet, Wilson calls all-in, seat three calls. I was a bit worried of the board getting coordinated, but the river was a four and I boated up, pretty much relieving me of any real anxiety. Check, bet, call. Wilson showed TT and said "nh, I just can't do anything right" as he re-bought (He did end up coming back before the night was over, when the game broke he was only down $300...pretty good compared to down $600).
After that big hand I was sitting on ~+$400-$500, and didn't move much from there. I traded some money back and forth around the table for awhile, the game got shorter and shorter, and JJ three times and at least eight or so walks in my BB later, the game broke and I cashed out up a rack for the second 15/30 session in a row. I think a big part of my win last night was the number of walks I got in the BB. Me and seat three were on a tear most of the night, so maybe that kept people from raising our blinds? Who knows, all I know is that chopping your BB every other orbit instead of choosing to defend or (most likely) muck makes things really easy.
If I get time, I'll blog about the quick psycho 4/8-Kill session I played with the Superdonk after my 15/30 game broke. Until then, thanks for reading.
Friday, July 18, 2008
More 15/30 Fun
This was the first time the waitlist sucked...I played 4/8 for a good two hours (probably more) and lost with a couple sets...down $150ish
Then I sat 15/30, first hand I played was QQ out of the BB, seven-way action (wtf) and lost to a girl who flopped trip fours (34os OTB was her hand). Yay...
Enabled God-mode after that though. Had AK-high hold a couple times, AK then held on an A234T board, and then QQ > AJ > TT in a capped pre-flop, called down on the other two streets hand...
15/30 broke kind of early, so then I made back a rack I lost at 4/8 earlier that night, special thanks to a drunk Chi (dealer at Cap playing drunk) moving to my table and livening it up.
I'll report in more detail tomorrow, right now I gotta get some sleep, I'm exhausted (and after proof-reading this, incredibly incoherent).
Final Tally:
4/8: -150
15/30: +575
4/8-Kill: +100
Then I sat 15/30, first hand I played was QQ out of the BB, seven-way action (wtf) and lost to a girl who flopped trip fours (34os OTB was her hand). Yay...
Enabled God-mode after that though. Had AK-high hold a couple times, AK then held on an A234T board, and then QQ > AJ > TT in a capped pre-flop, called down on the other two streets hand...
15/30 broke kind of early, so then I made back a rack I lost at 4/8 earlier that night, special thanks to a drunk Chi (dealer at Cap playing drunk) moving to my table and livening it up.
I'll report in more detail tomorrow, right now I gotta get some sleep, I'm exhausted (and after proof-reading this, incredibly incoherent).
Final Tally:
4/8: -150
15/30: +575
4/8-Kill: +100
Saturday, July 12, 2008
About That Shitty Week... (15/30 Win)
Yeah well it just got a whole lot better. So I woke up today/yesterday/Friday (whatever) to a couple text messages, one from my friend Tony and another from the Superdonk letting me know they were playing at Capitol already. It was around 4pm...I just woke up, and my allergies were killing me. Seriously, I felt like shit all day, in fact, I still feel like shit, but I told them I'd come by later once I had a car to drive (mine's in the shop obv). I found out later Tony had been playing all day and was leaving around 8pm and the SD was leaving around 6pm, but going back later. I told the SD I'd roll with him after he was done running errands to get food and maybe play.
So we came in around 11pm or so, grabbed a bite, and since the SD was first on the list for 9/18 and 15/30 had a seat open, I decided to jump in and play. I was still feeling a bit foggy, but I figured it wouldn't affect me too much (I was wrong, the one thing it did affect was my memory for the session, I can barely recall any hands). So a quick rundown of the table would be Seat #1 - The Santi obv #2 - Slick Asian guy with shades and a $1500 chip stack (LAG) #3 - For some of the night (hour or so) would be filled by a white dude (Taggy)in a cap who I'd clash with alot and then later on filled by Davin Anderson (Laggy; he was on the '04 ME telecast where Raymer won it...I think Raymer may have ko'd him) #4 - Older Asian guy that never stayed in his seat (LPP) #5 - Older white guy who was pretty LPP #6 - Wilson (regular I talked about, played kinda shitty today) #7 - Oaffie (sp?) white floor man tall guy, hickish, Tony says he plays good but I thought he was pretty bad (LPP) #8 - Older Asian guy who couldn't stay in his seat and #9 - Asian tatted up guy named Vince who actually played a bit tight-passive...15/30, maybe he was playing higher than normal, because I barely saw him raise and he almost never defended his BB or completed the SB (one more $5 chip)
Alright so that's the table run down, I guess I'll get into some hands. The first hand I won was AJos after a limper and I'm OTB. I raise, get called by the small blind (seat two), the BB (seat three) and seat five (limper) calls my raise. The flop looks good with an Ace in the window: AQ4 two spades. SB checks, BB bets, limper calls, I raise, SB folds, BB and limper call. The turn is a pretty good looking card, a six I believe. Check, check, bet, call, fold. The river is an Ace of hearts, BB checks, I bet, he calls. I show AJ and am good...I figured he must have had a weaker ace...I was pretty confident throughout the hand I was good.
After that I folded a lot and watched the table play, observed everyone, etc. No one was showing me much of anything, and I was pretty confident I could make some money if I ran good. I think I won a couple small pots and found myself close to $250, but then I took a tumble as I lost with Jacks to an ugly flop and then I lost a hand with KJ after seat seven flopped two pair with Q2os (defended his BB against my raise and then played it really passively). KQ2 flop, he donk bet into me and the field, I raised, he called. Turn was an ace, he check/called and then the river went check/check after a blank hit. *yawn* nh
So after those hands and a couple more bad flops I found myself down $150...that's a helluva swing lol. I wasn't too worried though...soon enough a BB special hand helped me out. It gets limped around in three spots, sb completes, and I check my 63 soooooted in diamonds to see a flop.
Flop: J52 with two spades and one diamond. Meh, I'm ready to check/fold my hand when it gets checked around...interesting. "Diamond" I said to myself...turn: four of diamonds. Nice. SB led out and I raised, called in two spots behind me (oh shit) and small blind only called. The river was a good blank card (ten of clubs) so it went check, bet, call, fold, fold (seat two liked to look me up alot) and I showed the nuts for a sweet BB special pot.
Some more time passed, and we got shorter and shorter-handed, eventually playing five and six handed throughout my final hour at the table. This last hour is where I made most of my money, I'd say $300-$350 of it. One of the first big hands was pocket threes. Seat two raised UTG, called by the button, and then I defended in the BB. Flop was QT3. Check, bet, fold, I raised, seat two called. Turn was a king...I bet out and prayed it was an action card. Call. Damn..oh well. River: Q. Fuck me, that probably killed my action. I bet...villain tanked and then called.
A few hands later I was dealt a couple red aces. One limper, I raise, seat two three-bets, folds around to hero who caps, villain called. If I was in position I'd probably just call a three-bet, but OOP I just keep firing. Flop was kinda raggy: 864...bet, call. Turn was a Queen, bet/call. River paired the six (thanks), bet/call. "Nice hand."
Couple orbits later I get back from the bathroom/vending machine and was greeted by the Laker fan now sitting in seat six at my table (Wilson had slid over to the five seat). Wow, the night somehow just got better. My first hand back I was dealt A8 of diamonds and defended against Wilson's MP raise. It's a bit of an odd pre-flop call by me, usually I'd fold or three-bet, but I kind of had a feel for how Wilson was playing, and I know he's not necessarily stronger than me, but I didn't want to bloat a pot HU against him by 3-betting either. I figured I'd call, see a flop, and then make a balanced amount of folds/moves for the times I was going to miss the flop completely. Luckily I caught a good piece of the board with a K73 flop with two diamonds. I check/raised the flop and then led the turn when I paired my eight. Wilson folded the turn rather quickly...very next hand I was dealt KQ of diamonds in the SB...
Now, I believe we were six or seven handed at this point...anyway, seat four raised, which kinda threw me off a bit. I had yet to see him play a hand...Laker fan called, I opted to just defend, and the BB came along for the ride as well. The flop came J-high with a diamond, checked around. Odd...I was likely peeling or raising the flop, based on who bet out I guess. Turn was a Queen, time to start betting I guess. I bet out and only seat four called. River was a blank, Bet, fold.
"What the heck, he just got back, he can't win two hands in a row...lucky smoke break?" asked the Laker fan. "Heh...lucky water break" I said as I pointed to the bottle of water and diet coke I had just got from the vending machine.
A couple more orbits passed, some blind steals, a couple c-bets, and then we got down to only five players. Meh...time to call it a night I decided. The SD had told me a few orbits before this that he was ready to bounce whenever, so I racked up and cashed out up a rack and some change (520).
After such a shitty week, it was nice to finally run good at something. Thanks for reading.
So we came in around 11pm or so, grabbed a bite, and since the SD was first on the list for 9/18 and 15/30 had a seat open, I decided to jump in and play. I was still feeling a bit foggy, but I figured it wouldn't affect me too much (I was wrong, the one thing it did affect was my memory for the session, I can barely recall any hands). So a quick rundown of the table would be Seat #1 - The Santi obv #2 - Slick Asian guy with shades and a $1500 chip stack (LAG) #3 - For some of the night (hour or so) would be filled by a white dude (Taggy)in a cap who I'd clash with alot and then later on filled by Davin Anderson (Laggy; he was on the '04 ME telecast where Raymer won it...I think Raymer may have ko'd him) #4 - Older Asian guy that never stayed in his seat (LPP) #5 - Older white guy who was pretty LPP #6 - Wilson (regular I talked about, played kinda shitty today) #7 - Oaffie (sp?) white floor man tall guy, hickish, Tony says he plays good but I thought he was pretty bad (LPP) #8 - Older Asian guy who couldn't stay in his seat and #9 - Asian tatted up guy named Vince who actually played a bit tight-passive...15/30, maybe he was playing higher than normal, because I barely saw him raise and he almost never defended his BB or completed the SB (one more $5 chip)
Alright so that's the table run down, I guess I'll get into some hands. The first hand I won was AJos after a limper and I'm OTB. I raise, get called by the small blind (seat two), the BB (seat three) and seat five (limper) calls my raise. The flop looks good with an Ace in the window: AQ4 two spades. SB checks, BB bets, limper calls, I raise, SB folds, BB and limper call. The turn is a pretty good looking card, a six I believe. Check, check, bet, call, fold. The river is an Ace of hearts, BB checks, I bet, he calls. I show AJ and am good...I figured he must have had a weaker ace...I was pretty confident throughout the hand I was good.
After that I folded a lot and watched the table play, observed everyone, etc. No one was showing me much of anything, and I was pretty confident I could make some money if I ran good. I think I won a couple small pots and found myself close to $250, but then I took a tumble as I lost with Jacks to an ugly flop and then I lost a hand with KJ after seat seven flopped two pair with Q2os (defended his BB against my raise and then played it really passively). KQ2 flop, he donk bet into me and the field, I raised, he called. Turn was an ace, he check/called and then the river went check/check after a blank hit. *yawn* nh
So after those hands and a couple more bad flops I found myself down $150...that's a helluva swing lol. I wasn't too worried though...soon enough a BB special hand helped me out. It gets limped around in three spots, sb completes, and I check my 63 soooooted in diamonds to see a flop.
Flop: J52 with two spades and one diamond. Meh, I'm ready to check/fold my hand when it gets checked around...interesting. "Diamond" I said to myself...turn: four of diamonds. Nice. SB led out and I raised, called in two spots behind me (oh shit) and small blind only called. The river was a good blank card (ten of clubs) so it went check, bet, call, fold, fold (seat two liked to look me up alot) and I showed the nuts for a sweet BB special pot.
Some more time passed, and we got shorter and shorter-handed, eventually playing five and six handed throughout my final hour at the table. This last hour is where I made most of my money, I'd say $300-$350 of it. One of the first big hands was pocket threes. Seat two raised UTG, called by the button, and then I defended in the BB. Flop was QT3. Check, bet, fold, I raised, seat two called. Turn was a king...I bet out and prayed it was an action card. Call. Damn..oh well. River: Q. Fuck me, that probably killed my action. I bet...villain tanked and then called.
A few hands later I was dealt a couple red aces. One limper, I raise, seat two three-bets, folds around to hero who caps, villain called. If I was in position I'd probably just call a three-bet, but OOP I just keep firing. Flop was kinda raggy: 864...bet, call. Turn was a Queen, bet/call. River paired the six (thanks), bet/call. "Nice hand."
Couple orbits later I get back from the bathroom/vending machine and was greeted by the Laker fan now sitting in seat six at my table (Wilson had slid over to the five seat). Wow, the night somehow just got better. My first hand back I was dealt A8 of diamonds and defended against Wilson's MP raise. It's a bit of an odd pre-flop call by me, usually I'd fold or three-bet, but I kind of had a feel for how Wilson was playing, and I know he's not necessarily stronger than me, but I didn't want to bloat a pot HU against him by 3-betting either. I figured I'd call, see a flop, and then make a balanced amount of folds/moves for the times I was going to miss the flop completely. Luckily I caught a good piece of the board with a K73 flop with two diamonds. I check/raised the flop and then led the turn when I paired my eight. Wilson folded the turn rather quickly...very next hand I was dealt KQ of diamonds in the SB...
Now, I believe we were six or seven handed at this point...anyway, seat four raised, which kinda threw me off a bit. I had yet to see him play a hand...Laker fan called, I opted to just defend, and the BB came along for the ride as well. The flop came J-high with a diamond, checked around. Odd...I was likely peeling or raising the flop, based on who bet out I guess. Turn was a Queen, time to start betting I guess. I bet out and only seat four called. River was a blank, Bet, fold.
"What the heck, he just got back, he can't win two hands in a row...lucky smoke break?" asked the Laker fan. "Heh...lucky water break" I said as I pointed to the bottle of water and diet coke I had just got from the vending machine.
A couple more orbits passed, some blind steals, a couple c-bets, and then we got down to only five players. Meh...time to call it a night I decided. The SD had told me a few orbits before this that he was ready to bounce whenever, so I racked up and cashed out up a rack and some change (520).
After such a shitty week, it was nice to finally run good at something. Thanks for reading.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Shitty Week
Alright well after a fun last couple of weeks of playing 15/30, I hit a bit of a roadblock that had nothing to do with poker. Fourth of July I was driving home from work and stopped by the store for a bag of hot wings (picking them up for a 4th of July BBQ my mom always does). As I get out to my car I put it in reverse, then go to put my car and drive and...nothing. Neutral. Fuck...tranny finally took a shit on me. It was over a year in the making, as when I bought the car I could tell the transmission wasn't all there. It's a good car, and hopefully replacing the tranny is the last thing this car needs for a long time. So yeah, that's going to be about 2.5-3k out the door.
Around the same time I noticed my phone charger must have started taking a shit on me, since my phone wasn't charging all the way for a couple days and lately it hadn't been charging at all. Sunday morning I got off work and the phone was completely gone...Oh well I thought, I'd just borrow one of my parent's cars sometime in the week and get a charger. I got a pretty cool deal on a charger through my friend's wife on Tuesday (cost me $5 instead of $30 lol) and was too stupid to check and make sure it was in fact the charger that was broken and not my POS phone before I left her work Tuesday. Well it turns out I get home and the phone's broken...boooooo, replacement phone yesterday ftw. So I went most of this week without a car and without a phone...pretty lame.
Hopefully next week the car will be good as new, the new phone will still work, and maybe I'll get a few good sessions in. I'll catch up with you guys then.
Around the same time I noticed my phone charger must have started taking a shit on me, since my phone wasn't charging all the way for a couple days and lately it hadn't been charging at all. Sunday morning I got off work and the phone was completely gone...Oh well I thought, I'd just borrow one of my parent's cars sometime in the week and get a charger. I got a pretty cool deal on a charger through my friend's wife on Tuesday (cost me $5 instead of $30 lol) and was too stupid to check and make sure it was in fact the charger that was broken and not my POS phone before I left her work Tuesday. Well it turns out I get home and the phone's broken...boooooo, replacement phone yesterday ftw. So I went most of this week without a car and without a phone...pretty lame.
Hopefully next week the car will be good as new, the new phone will still work, and maybe I'll get a few good sessions in. I'll catch up with you guys then.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
A forgotten 15/30 Hand (AK gets there)
So it's a beautiful Saturday morning, the sun is out already; it's definitely going to get hot later, and I'm pretty close to crashing. God I hate working graves sometimes lol...
Anyway, I have a couple coworkers who I would classify more as "gamblers" than actual cardplayers, but one of them used to play a lot of live lowball back in the day, so he loves hearing my poker stories from the nights before. So we were talking about Daniel Negranau (I always misspell his name, deal with it) and Rick loves the way that DN reads players, etc etc. First off, I have a ton of respect for DN, in fact, I try to exhibit the same table mannerisms (happy, fun, playful) that he exhibits, minus the metro lol. However, I do not think he "is the best reader in the game" or anything like that, I simply believe he is the most vocal about it. Guys like Barry Greenstein and Phil Ivey make the exact same reads, they just aren't on ESPN trying to show off that they can make those reads. Alright anyway, that being said, I was telling Rick this hand where everyone had me pinned on one hand, then incorrectly assumed I had sucked out on this other guy's hand. That sounds pretty confusing, so onto the hand.
I was dealt A:s:K:d: in the BB...15/30, full table, probably an hour or so into the session (I forgot to include this hand in my original write up, but this would be a hand that helped me get to about +$250 early on in the session). It gets limped in two spots, Russ (taggy Asian guy) raises, folds to me and I 3-bet, called by the limpers and Russ. The flop is something like J73 with two spades. I bet, and it gets called in every spot. Now throughout the hand people have been very talkative, and throughout most of the session people were trying to size everyone up and be like Daniel Negranau (call out other player's hands). Thankfully this went on only when it got headsup or when the person calling out the hand was in the hand (any other time is extremely rude obv). So everyone thinks I have a monster because I 3-bet out of the BB...let's examine why. I'm young, playing pretty tight, and it is 15/30. I've seen some older players simply call with AK or QQ in position against a raise, so I'm thinking very few of these players are aggressive and very few will put me on a whiffed AK after I fire the flop and now I'm about to double barrel this turn...
The turn is a four of spades. Really reaggedy flop, and now there's three spades on the board (and I have the Ace of spades). Unless someone out there has a Jack with a decent kicker, I don't see how they can really call my $30 turn bet. I fire out of the small-blind (I have no choice but to bet imo) and I get called yet again in three spots. "Son of a bitch" I thought to myself, "these players have seen me play...wtf are they calling me with? Guess it doesn't matter, give me a spade please." Queen of spades on the river of course, because Santi runs goooooooot (supposedly).
I fire out yet again, and this time it folds to Russ...last player to act, and obviously in the tank. "God man...you have Aces with the ace of spades don't you? Ugh what did I do this to myself?" He tanks some more and I just remember staring down at the board..."the pots way too big, I have to call you" he said as he flipped up the King of spades and put six yellow chips in the pot. I quickly showed him the ace of spades (so as to not even put it into anyone's head that I would slowroll) and then showed my King of diamonds along with it. I remember glancing at people to see what kind of reaction I'd get for playing AK so fast, and a couple players did have some puzzled looks on their faces. Turns out I think the way I played the hand may have helped me get paid off on those two flopped boats (Aces full of eights and Queens full of Jacks) later on in that session because everyone put me on a whiffed AK after that hand...
So yeah, after the hand, people were like "oh wow, I swore you had aces" and "man, I think you sucked out on Russ, I'm pretty sure he had Kings." "No---...yeah, I was pretty lucky to get there" was my response...
Now, first rule of live poker should be, do not talk about poker with your table mates. Talking about ranges of hands, what you put people on, how long you've been playing, etc. should be completely out of your table talk vocabulary. Talk about the Giants, talk about women, talk about goofy poker shit like your favorite hand or what your biggest pot won was, but leave the strat discussion for blogs and forums. I almost violated that rule and told everyone at the table that Russ did not have a pair of Kings with the King of spades because Russ is much too good of a player not to cap pre-flop and then not put a raise anywhere after the flop with Kings. It was pretty obvious to me that he had something like A:x:K:s: or KQ...something like that. I don't like the way he played AK to be honest, but I've seen players like him at Cap, and he must've figured he was either a flip (AK vs my QQ-JJ) or a complete dog (AK vs my AA-KK) and decided to see a flop before putting in anymore bets. After the flop he had a couple backdoor draws and couple overs to the board, plus he was last to act, so peeling a flop isn't bad at all. The turn gave him a couple overs and a K-high flush draw, so of course he's coming along, and he simply got unlucky by rivering the 2nd nuts vs. the nuts. So yeah...that's my read of the hand...whaddya think? He definitely didn't have KK, and thankfully, I didn't let any of my opponents know that they were wrong nor did I let them in on the fact that my deductive reasoning skills at poker are pretty good.
You're there to win money, not to show everyone how good you can "read people." DN gets paid to be that guy on tv, you don't. That's enough lecturing from me, be on the lookout for more big hands where I luckbox my way to win ;-)
Anyway, I have a couple coworkers who I would classify more as "gamblers" than actual cardplayers, but one of them used to play a lot of live lowball back in the day, so he loves hearing my poker stories from the nights before. So we were talking about Daniel Negranau (I always misspell his name, deal with it) and Rick loves the way that DN reads players, etc etc. First off, I have a ton of respect for DN, in fact, I try to exhibit the same table mannerisms (happy, fun, playful) that he exhibits, minus the metro lol. However, I do not think he "is the best reader in the game" or anything like that, I simply believe he is the most vocal about it. Guys like Barry Greenstein and Phil Ivey make the exact same reads, they just aren't on ESPN trying to show off that they can make those reads. Alright anyway, that being said, I was telling Rick this hand where everyone had me pinned on one hand, then incorrectly assumed I had sucked out on this other guy's hand. That sounds pretty confusing, so onto the hand.
I was dealt A:s:K:d: in the BB...15/30, full table, probably an hour or so into the session (I forgot to include this hand in my original write up, but this would be a hand that helped me get to about +$250 early on in the session). It gets limped in two spots, Russ (taggy Asian guy) raises, folds to me and I 3-bet, called by the limpers and Russ. The flop is something like J73 with two spades. I bet, and it gets called in every spot. Now throughout the hand people have been very talkative, and throughout most of the session people were trying to size everyone up and be like Daniel Negranau (call out other player's hands). Thankfully this went on only when it got headsup or when the person calling out the hand was in the hand (any other time is extremely rude obv). So everyone thinks I have a monster because I 3-bet out of the BB...let's examine why. I'm young, playing pretty tight, and it is 15/30. I've seen some older players simply call with AK or QQ in position against a raise, so I'm thinking very few of these players are aggressive and very few will put me on a whiffed AK after I fire the flop and now I'm about to double barrel this turn...
The turn is a four of spades. Really reaggedy flop, and now there's three spades on the board (and I have the Ace of spades). Unless someone out there has a Jack with a decent kicker, I don't see how they can really call my $30 turn bet. I fire out of the small-blind (I have no choice but to bet imo) and I get called yet again in three spots. "Son of a bitch" I thought to myself, "these players have seen me play...wtf are they calling me with? Guess it doesn't matter, give me a spade please." Queen of spades on the river of course, because Santi runs goooooooot (supposedly).
I fire out yet again, and this time it folds to Russ...last player to act, and obviously in the tank. "God man...you have Aces with the ace of spades don't you? Ugh what did I do this to myself?" He tanks some more and I just remember staring down at the board..."the pots way too big, I have to call you" he said as he flipped up the King of spades and put six yellow chips in the pot. I quickly showed him the ace of spades (so as to not even put it into anyone's head that I would slowroll) and then showed my King of diamonds along with it. I remember glancing at people to see what kind of reaction I'd get for playing AK so fast, and a couple players did have some puzzled looks on their faces. Turns out I think the way I played the hand may have helped me get paid off on those two flopped boats (Aces full of eights and Queens full of Jacks) later on in that session because everyone put me on a whiffed AK after that hand...
So yeah, after the hand, people were like "oh wow, I swore you had aces" and "man, I think you sucked out on Russ, I'm pretty sure he had Kings." "No---...yeah, I was pretty lucky to get there" was my response...
Now, first rule of live poker should be, do not talk about poker with your table mates. Talking about ranges of hands, what you put people on, how long you've been playing, etc. should be completely out of your table talk vocabulary. Talk about the Giants, talk about women, talk about goofy poker shit like your favorite hand or what your biggest pot won was, but leave the strat discussion for blogs and forums. I almost violated that rule and told everyone at the table that Russ did not have a pair of Kings with the King of spades because Russ is much too good of a player not to cap pre-flop and then not put a raise anywhere after the flop with Kings. It was pretty obvious to me that he had something like A:x:K:s: or KQ...something like that. I don't like the way he played AK to be honest, but I've seen players like him at Cap, and he must've figured he was either a flip (AK vs my QQ-JJ) or a complete dog (AK vs my AA-KK) and decided to see a flop before putting in anymore bets. After the flop he had a couple backdoor draws and couple overs to the board, plus he was last to act, so peeling a flop isn't bad at all. The turn gave him a couple overs and a K-high flush draw, so of course he's coming along, and he simply got unlucky by rivering the 2nd nuts vs. the nuts. So yeah...that's my read of the hand...whaddya think? He definitely didn't have KK, and thankfully, I didn't let any of my opponents know that they were wrong nor did I let them in on the fact that my deductive reasoning skills at poker are pretty good.
You're there to win money, not to show everyone how good you can "read people." DN gets paid to be that guy on tv, you don't. That's enough lecturing from me, be on the lookout for more big hands where I luckbox my way to win ;-)
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
15/30 at Cap...Round Two Part II
So yeah, God-mode. I picked up Aces twice, one hand I bet the river and didn't get called, the second one I flopped a boat vs an UTG limper and the small-blind (I was in the BB) and got looked up by A6 of clubs on a A88 flop blank blank board. Good times...comeback! *clap clap* comeback! *clap clap*
The next hand pretty much sealed the deal as I was dealt a couple black Queens UTG+2. I raise, get a couple callers behind me and one out of the blinds. We see a flop of QJJ rainbow. Ummmm...thanks? Checks to me, I bet, then prayed that someone would raise me. Instead the older Asian guy I told you about earlier (somewhat taggy) calls me. The turn is a great card...a nine of spades. Now there's a flush draw and a spade draw out. I bet, he raises, and I think for a second before three-betting. "please have QJ, please have QJ." He only calls the 3-bet and asks me "overpair?" I pretend not to hear him while also pretending to be interested in the river. The river is a two of spades.
I bet, Villain raises again (thank you Jesus), and I 3-bet. "Shit, pocket queens?! Dammit" as he folds his Ace-Ten of spades face up..."no point in calling you, I know you don't raise there without fullhouse"...damn, good read, but way too late. I already planned on not showing, but the guy, obv pissed at himself says, "you don't even have to show it, don't show" so I just left my cards face down and let the dealer scoop them into the muck after I raked in a sick pot. "Yeah I'm even now" I remember thinking to myself.
A couple more hands after that happened that I can't remember too well, both were some short-handed plays I made that got me up another stack, then yet another pair of aces I didn't have to show won me a smallish pot that put me at about +$200. Soon after a couple players left/busted, and the tags were left chopping the blinds up with one another. Jason said "man this game's no good now, time to go home" and I agreed with him. Turns out we got a couple new players, but they were unknowns at this point and I knew of at least four other good players at the table, so I just called it quits for the night. No point in grinding it out in a Tagfest, I told myself going into tonight that if the game wasn't good, I wasn't staying more than a few orbits to wait for it to get good again.
Some notes about the game:
- I really need to have good game selection and know when I should/should not sit down. There's a handful of guys on my list now (Wilson, Russ, Jason, Chris) that I feel like I can play against and not have it be a problem, but if there's a table of nothing but those guys, then obviously the game will not be profitable. Games like that end up as two to three handed flops and whoever gets luckiest (best cards, best cards hold, etc) will win...and everyone else will donate to the rake.
- I need to be more available during the weekend. The weekend seems to be the time where this game is the most profitable. Going on a Tuesday night was probably a bad idea in retrospect, but not really. I just need to know the crazier players will be out on Thursday - Saturday nights...
- NL players looking for some quick action before their seat opens up definitely need to be taken advantage of. They're calling raises and re-raises OOP with a WIDE range of shit hands, thinking they can outplay us lowly LHE players after the flop lol. Little do they know, the real players are in this 15/30 game, not the 50BBs shovefest they're used to.
- And one last note, playing a stake this high has really elevated my attention span. I know I should be concentrating all the time, but after a couple people came over and said hi to me that I normally would have probably seen first...I realized that maybe I need to pay attention more in my other games lol.
Anyway, that's all for now. I think I work the next five days, so updates may be scarce. Thanks for reading guys.
The next hand pretty much sealed the deal as I was dealt a couple black Queens UTG+2. I raise, get a couple callers behind me and one out of the blinds. We see a flop of QJJ rainbow. Ummmm...thanks? Checks to me, I bet, then prayed that someone would raise me. Instead the older Asian guy I told you about earlier (somewhat taggy) calls me. The turn is a great card...a nine of spades. Now there's a flush draw and a spade draw out. I bet, he raises, and I think for a second before three-betting. "please have QJ, please have QJ." He only calls the 3-bet and asks me "overpair?" I pretend not to hear him while also pretending to be interested in the river. The river is a two of spades.
I bet, Villain raises again (thank you Jesus), and I 3-bet. "Shit, pocket queens?! Dammit" as he folds his Ace-Ten of spades face up..."no point in calling you, I know you don't raise there without fullhouse"...damn, good read, but way too late. I already planned on not showing, but the guy, obv pissed at himself says, "you don't even have to show it, don't show" so I just left my cards face down and let the dealer scoop them into the muck after I raked in a sick pot. "Yeah I'm even now" I remember thinking to myself.
A couple more hands after that happened that I can't remember too well, both were some short-handed plays I made that got me up another stack, then yet another pair of aces I didn't have to show won me a smallish pot that put me at about +$200. Soon after a couple players left/busted, and the tags were left chopping the blinds up with one another. Jason said "man this game's no good now, time to go home" and I agreed with him. Turns out we got a couple new players, but they were unknowns at this point and I knew of at least four other good players at the table, so I just called it quits for the night. No point in grinding it out in a Tagfest, I told myself going into tonight that if the game wasn't good, I wasn't staying more than a few orbits to wait for it to get good again.
Some notes about the game:
- I really need to have good game selection and know when I should/should not sit down. There's a handful of guys on my list now (Wilson, Russ, Jason, Chris) that I feel like I can play against and not have it be a problem, but if there's a table of nothing but those guys, then obviously the game will not be profitable. Games like that end up as two to three handed flops and whoever gets luckiest (best cards, best cards hold, etc) will win...and everyone else will donate to the rake.
- I need to be more available during the weekend. The weekend seems to be the time where this game is the most profitable. Going on a Tuesday night was probably a bad idea in retrospect, but not really. I just need to know the crazier players will be out on Thursday - Saturday nights...
- NL players looking for some quick action before their seat opens up definitely need to be taken advantage of. They're calling raises and re-raises OOP with a WIDE range of shit hands, thinking they can outplay us lowly LHE players after the flop lol. Little do they know, the real players are in this 15/30 game, not the 50BBs shovefest they're used to.
- And one last note, playing a stake this high has really elevated my attention span. I know I should be concentrating all the time, but after a couple people came over and said hi to me that I normally would have probably seen first...I realized that maybe I need to pay attention more in my other games lol.
Anyway, that's all for now. I think I work the next five days, so updates may be scarce. Thanks for reading guys.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
15/30 at Cap...Round Two (7/1)
After a couple nights off, I decided to go back to Cap and expected to jump into a 9/18 game. Like I wrote about in my last entry, I tried their new 15/30 game, but really expected that game to just be a weekend game. The place was way busy, especially for a Tuesday it seemed...anyway, I walk up to the podium and Sam immediately said "hey nick, you're first up for 15/30"...alright then haha. I talked to Sam for a bit about the Laker fan that killed us last session...guess he was getting stacked left and right at the NL game...oh well, "convince him to sit 15/30" I joked...
I was first on the list, so it only took me 10 minutes to get on the table. I recognized one guy I played with from the last session...he was the NL-donk (indian guy from seat eight...he left soon after for the NL table). I knew a few of the other players from previous sessions, one guy reminded me a bit of Wilson from last session (solid 9/18 player, asian guy, mid 30s), an older asian guy who played alright, and a dealer named Jason from Cache ended up sitting to my direct right in seat six an orbit after I sat down (taggy player as well). Needless to say, the table wasn't as crazy as Saturday, but the rest of the players were bad enough to keep the game good.
My session couldn't have started out any better. Very first hand I raise with AKos and get called by the solid Asian (I'll just name him Russ) and a looser player wearing a hat. The flop comes Ace-high, and I bet every street and get called down every street by the guy in the hat. One hand...up a stack. Nice. A few hands later I get 99, open-raise, take down the pot with a c-bet...wow...too good to be true? Of course. Orbit later I pick up a couple Aces and get a few callers, end up getting run down by a straight on the river. Luckily the guy donked the river once the board looked ugly enough, so it cost me $30 on the river to win $35...lame...
One thing I noticed about the 15/30 game is that your stack is constantly swinging...even if you don't play any hands. The blinds are 15/10 (vs. 9/3 in the 9/18 game), so that's five chips every orbit vs. just four in 9/18 and just three in a 10/20 game (10/5 blinds)...it's good for the game/action I guess, but it drove me nuts for a while as I constantly had to ask myself the question (where the f are my chips going? :-P) It really encourages you to not defend the BB with junk (not that you should be doing it anyway), because if you are, your chips will straight disappear before you know it. I found myself being a tad more aggro if it folded to me in LP as well, so I picked on the blinds with some connectors and such before people started catching on. A 3/2 blind structure makes stealing the blinds in position a lot more worthwhile/fun. Very few players know how to play well out of the blinds imo, so make them pay.
Anyway, I had an absolute dismal middle part of my session where I couldn't seem to do anything right. I went from up close to $240 at one point to down $350ish. AQs, JTs, JJ, 99...nothing could hold or hit. I took an orbit off, grabbed some water, ordered food, and came back to the table feeling okay about it all after missing a couple orbits of play. God-mode soon followed...
I'll post part II when I wake up tomorrow, see ya then.
I was first on the list, so it only took me 10 minutes to get on the table. I recognized one guy I played with from the last session...he was the NL-donk (indian guy from seat eight...he left soon after for the NL table). I knew a few of the other players from previous sessions, one guy reminded me a bit of Wilson from last session (solid 9/18 player, asian guy, mid 30s), an older asian guy who played alright, and a dealer named Jason from Cache ended up sitting to my direct right in seat six an orbit after I sat down (taggy player as well). Needless to say, the table wasn't as crazy as Saturday, but the rest of the players were bad enough to keep the game good.
My session couldn't have started out any better. Very first hand I raise with AKos and get called by the solid Asian (I'll just name him Russ) and a looser player wearing a hat. The flop comes Ace-high, and I bet every street and get called down every street by the guy in the hat. One hand...up a stack. Nice. A few hands later I get 99, open-raise, take down the pot with a c-bet...wow...too good to be true? Of course. Orbit later I pick up a couple Aces and get a few callers, end up getting run down by a straight on the river. Luckily the guy donked the river once the board looked ugly enough, so it cost me $30 on the river to win $35...lame...
One thing I noticed about the 15/30 game is that your stack is constantly swinging...even if you don't play any hands. The blinds are 15/10 (vs. 9/3 in the 9/18 game), so that's five chips every orbit vs. just four in 9/18 and just three in a 10/20 game (10/5 blinds)...it's good for the game/action I guess, but it drove me nuts for a while as I constantly had to ask myself the question (where the f are my chips going? :-P) It really encourages you to not defend the BB with junk (not that you should be doing it anyway), because if you are, your chips will straight disappear before you know it. I found myself being a tad more aggro if it folded to me in LP as well, so I picked on the blinds with some connectors and such before people started catching on. A 3/2 blind structure makes stealing the blinds in position a lot more worthwhile/fun. Very few players know how to play well out of the blinds imo, so make them pay.
Anyway, I had an absolute dismal middle part of my session where I couldn't seem to do anything right. I went from up close to $240 at one point to down $350ish. AQs, JTs, JJ, 99...nothing could hold or hit. I took an orbit off, grabbed some water, ordered food, and came back to the table feeling okay about it all after missing a couple orbits of play. God-mode soon followed...
I'll post part II when I wake up tomorrow, see ya then.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Revisiting the 9/18 Game (Failed Turn Semi-Bluff)
Alright well I know sometimes blogs get boring to read, especially if it's just a bunch of preaching or talking, so here's some action! I'll try and give you some hands as they happen chronologically in the session. I'll set this hand up for you real quick: I had been pretty quiet up to this point, folding a lot for a few orbits...still very early in my session.
All of a sudden I find myself in a Kill Pot, stakes are 18/36. Villain1 has been on a sick heater. He's had aces twice, kings twice, and is raising garbage from every position and hitting. He's also been shown to bluff alot and has yet to call down super light...so he's playing a bit like a maniac, but still trying to find folds on the end (i.e. he's not gonna showdown a-high or a pair of threes). I felt like I could exploit him on the turn/river in this hand.
Hero has KJ of spades in MP...there is no kill-blind...the stakes simply double
Folds to hero, hero calls (no point in making it $36, usually if you play it like that you'll win the $9 in blinds...(if there is a kill-blind, I raise here), folds to button who calls, Villain raises from the BB, Hero and Button call.
Flop: 993 one spade
Villain checks, Hero checks, Button checks
I thought the flop check was a bit odd...but I had seen villain take this line with air once and with a hand once, so either was possible I guess.
Turn: T of spades
Bingo...good card I think. Villain leads out, and I think for a second before I say "raise" and throw out 24 chips into the pot. Gutterball, K-high flush draw, and two overs...I like my hand right now for the most part. The button folds and the action goes back to the maniac who asks "how much is it more to call?" The dealer tells him it's 12 chips or $36...shit. Now I know villain has an actual hand and not just some whiffed connectors or even ace-high. He tanks for a bit, and then finally calls. Bah.
River: K of clubs
Orrrrr not bah? Villain checks, and this time I push out 12 chips and think I'm value-betting vs. QQ-TT, maybe even 88-66 with the way this guy had been playing. Unfortunately villain thinks for a little while longer before saying "well alright man, I know you got a nine, nice hand" and calls. I showed Kings up only and he took a deep sigh as he showed a couple red aces...again. Mother^&*^*&Hbre...of course this guy plays like a jackass throughout the time I'm there, but picks up Aces in a kill pot against me. I really wish he could find that fold button on the turn...at Cap, there's a $35 aces cracked jackpot (not nearly as awesome as Cache Creek's $100), so the $35 back when it costs him $72 to call down in that spot isn't that great...but it definitely helps I guess. That's a tough laydown to make, especially since he under-repped his hand a bit.
All of a sudden I find myself in a Kill Pot, stakes are 18/36. Villain1 has been on a sick heater. He's had aces twice, kings twice, and is raising garbage from every position and hitting. He's also been shown to bluff alot and has yet to call down super light...so he's playing a bit like a maniac, but still trying to find folds on the end (i.e. he's not gonna showdown a-high or a pair of threes). I felt like I could exploit him on the turn/river in this hand.
Hero has KJ of spades in MP...there is no kill-blind...the stakes simply double
Folds to hero, hero calls (no point in making it $36, usually if you play it like that you'll win the $9 in blinds...(if there is a kill-blind, I raise here), folds to button who calls, Villain raises from the BB, Hero and Button call.
Flop: 993 one spade
Villain checks, Hero checks, Button checks
I thought the flop check was a bit odd...but I had seen villain take this line with air once and with a hand once, so either was possible I guess.
Turn: T of spades
Bingo...good card I think. Villain leads out, and I think for a second before I say "raise" and throw out 24 chips into the pot. Gutterball, K-high flush draw, and two overs...I like my hand right now for the most part. The button folds and the action goes back to the maniac who asks "how much is it more to call?" The dealer tells him it's 12 chips or $36...shit. Now I know villain has an actual hand and not just some whiffed connectors or even ace-high. He tanks for a bit, and then finally calls. Bah.
River: K of clubs
Orrrrr not bah? Villain checks, and this time I push out 12 chips and think I'm value-betting vs. QQ-TT, maybe even 88-66 with the way this guy had been playing. Unfortunately villain thinks for a little while longer before saying "well alright man, I know you got a nine, nice hand" and calls. I showed Kings up only and he took a deep sigh as he showed a couple red aces...again. Mother^&*^*&Hbre...of course this guy plays like a jackass throughout the time I'm there, but picks up Aces in a kill pot against me. I really wish he could find that fold button on the turn...at Cap, there's a $35 aces cracked jackpot (not nearly as awesome as Cache Creek's $100), so the $35 back when it costs him $72 to call down in that spot isn't that great...but it definitely helps I guess. That's a tough laydown to make, especially since he under-repped his hand a bit.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
A New Yellow Chip Game (15/30)
So after an absolute awful showing at Cache, I decided to play some 9/18 against the Saturday night drunktards at Capitol. It's rare that I have a Saturday night off, so I figured I should take advantage of it. I rolled in around midnight or so and saw a 9/18 interest list with a handful of people on it, two super huge 4/8 lists, and then noticed their main table was taken up by players with stacks of yellow $5 chips. "Wow, no way...they actually got it to run" I thought to myself. Sam says "no 9/18 game, but we do have 15/30." I had seen signs saying they'd start spreading it, but no way I thought it'd run. Maybe this game would pull the NL players away from their 50bb max buy in shove monkey game ($500 buy in over there...sick gambling).
There were two open seats so I took the two seat and surveyed the table. The one seat would be open the first half of the night, the second half would be a young, muscular Asian kid with a mohawk and gangster like persona, came from the NL game. Seat three was this Asian player who kept getting coolered, it obv affected his game play and turned him super-passive. Eventually he went busted and was replaced by Sam the Floorman who plays pretty decently. Seat 4 was Chris (dealer, floor) from Cache Creek. Good player for the most part, tad more timid than I'd like a player to be, but he was def a solid thinking player. Seat 5 was this nerdy white guy wearing a practically see-through hanes t-shirt, glasses, and a Laker hat. I think his entire point of being there was to tilt me...he was the maniac at the table...played like absolute dogshit. Seat 6 was this reg Asian guy named Wilson...I overheard him say he enjoys higher staked LHE games "like this one" and it pretty much showed...he played pretty well most of the night. Seat 7 was a Slappish (slightly loose/slightly passive) Asian guy who was obv a NL player first, lhe player second. Seat 8 was empty for the first half, then later filled by a NL player (not very good at limit) and seat 9 was a mixture of people, but toward the end was this Mexican looking East-Indian guy who talked way too much and played almost as bad as seat 5. If I had to rank everyone...I'd say it'd go:
1. Wilson(6)/Me(2)/Chris(4)
2. Sam(3)/Nit(3)/Slappy(7)
3. Mohawk(1)/NLdonk(8)
4. Laker(5)/Douchebag(9)
The first couple of hands I'm going to talk about are a couple tough beats I took. I started the table off pretty slow, but I won a big pot with AK of clubs early on that eased the pain of being card dead while the Laker fan went on a murdering spree. He raised every hand with absolute shit and won every hand. He had about $2k in front of him when I left...after being down to about $400. I lulled alot, then these two hands came up within two orbits and sent me from +$300ish to down a couple hundred.
The first hand I was dealt AKos UTG+1 and raise, I get called by three spots behind me (Laker, Slappy, Nldonk) and the BB in front of me (douchebag). Flop comes A97 rainbow, checks to me, I bet, get called in every spot. Meh...Turn is a red deuce, good card. I bet, called by Laker and d-bag. I'm thinking "deuce, deuce" for the river and hear seat 5 ask for the same. "huh?" River is a two, checks to me, I bet, Laker raises and I say "wow, I thought I heard you say deuce." He gets all jumpy and starts acting nervous "haha yeah I did blah blah" so I call and he turns over 92 of spades. Ummm...yeeeeah. "He had a backdoor flush draw" I hear seat nine say...lol. Nice cold-call pre, nice flop...nice turn...lol. Sam just looks at me and says "wow, I thought that'd be a perfect river for you in a 15/30 game." No kidding man.
The next hand is probably an orbit later where I raise with a couple black kings. Laker 3-bets me (good), Slappy calls (wtf?), NLdonks calls, seat 9 calls from the BB, I cap, we're 5-handed to a flop of T-high...T64 I believe. Checks to me, I bet, all call. Turn is a J...definitely ugly...but still. Checks to me, I bet, all but slappy call. River is a 4. Great river card. Check to me, I bet, call, call, seat nine starts tanking/talking and talking about if he raises and I re-raise he pukes blah blah, he might have me blah blah...I just start praying he has AJ and thinks TP might deserve a raise. He finally just calls and I show the black Kings. Sam says "oh man that's way good" until seat nine says "that's not good enough" and shows 43 of hearts. LOL. I just hear Chris say "wow, wow wow, this is your guys' main game? I played at Bellagio vs. guys waiting for their 100/200 game who played like this, but this is your guys' main game and they play like this hahahaha." Sam says "man that's two rivers now that looked good for you" and I just respond with a "yeah, guess I just need to start asking the dealer to only deal flops and turns, no rivers :-)"
After those two hands I was stuck a couple stacks and was seriously debating hanging myself with my belt in the nearest bathroom, unfortunately the beams they have in their stalls aren't all that sturdy. I went three or four more orbits, winning a couple smallish pots and getting pretty close to even, then I started to feel the exhaustion setting in. I only slept maybe three hours after the night at Cache, so I could feel myself coming close to dozing off at the table. The Superdonk finally came over to me and said he was ready to bounce whenever I was ready, so I told him a couple more orbits and I was good. Nothing exciting happened after that as I cashed out $420 of my original $500 buy in...things definitely could have gone worse, but they also could have gone much better. Oh well, shit happens, especially playing against window-lickers in a 15/30 game. Hopefully I take a couple racks off the table next time. Thanks for reading.
There were two open seats so I took the two seat and surveyed the table. The one seat would be open the first half of the night, the second half would be a young, muscular Asian kid with a mohawk and gangster like persona, came from the NL game. Seat three was this Asian player who kept getting coolered, it obv affected his game play and turned him super-passive. Eventually he went busted and was replaced by Sam the Floorman who plays pretty decently. Seat 4 was Chris (dealer, floor) from Cache Creek. Good player for the most part, tad more timid than I'd like a player to be, but he was def a solid thinking player. Seat 5 was this nerdy white guy wearing a practically see-through hanes t-shirt, glasses, and a Laker hat. I think his entire point of being there was to tilt me...he was the maniac at the table...played like absolute dogshit. Seat 6 was this reg Asian guy named Wilson...I overheard him say he enjoys higher staked LHE games "like this one" and it pretty much showed...he played pretty well most of the night. Seat 7 was a Slappish (slightly loose/slightly passive) Asian guy who was obv a NL player first, lhe player second. Seat 8 was empty for the first half, then later filled by a NL player (not very good at limit) and seat 9 was a mixture of people, but toward the end was this Mexican looking East-Indian guy who talked way too much and played almost as bad as seat 5. If I had to rank everyone...I'd say it'd go:
1. Wilson(6)/Me(2)/Chris(4)
2. Sam(3)/Nit(3)/Slappy(7)
3. Mohawk(1)/NLdonk(8)
4. Laker(5)/Douchebag(9)
The first couple of hands I'm going to talk about are a couple tough beats I took. I started the table off pretty slow, but I won a big pot with AK of clubs early on that eased the pain of being card dead while the Laker fan went on a murdering spree. He raised every hand with absolute shit and won every hand. He had about $2k in front of him when I left...after being down to about $400. I lulled alot, then these two hands came up within two orbits and sent me from +$300ish to down a couple hundred.
The first hand I was dealt AKos UTG+1 and raise, I get called by three spots behind me (Laker, Slappy, Nldonk) and the BB in front of me (douchebag). Flop comes A97 rainbow, checks to me, I bet, get called in every spot. Meh...Turn is a red deuce, good card. I bet, called by Laker and d-bag. I'm thinking "deuce, deuce" for the river and hear seat 5 ask for the same. "huh?" River is a two, checks to me, I bet, Laker raises and I say "wow, I thought I heard you say deuce." He gets all jumpy and starts acting nervous "haha yeah I did blah blah" so I call and he turns over 92 of spades. Ummm...yeeeeah. "He had a backdoor flush draw" I hear seat nine say...lol. Nice cold-call pre, nice flop...nice turn...lol. Sam just looks at me and says "wow, I thought that'd be a perfect river for you in a 15/30 game." No kidding man.
The next hand is probably an orbit later where I raise with a couple black kings. Laker 3-bets me (good), Slappy calls (wtf?), NLdonks calls, seat 9 calls from the BB, I cap, we're 5-handed to a flop of T-high...T64 I believe. Checks to me, I bet, all call. Turn is a J...definitely ugly...but still. Checks to me, I bet, all but slappy call. River is a 4. Great river card. Check to me, I bet, call, call, seat nine starts tanking/talking and talking about if he raises and I re-raise he pukes blah blah, he might have me blah blah...I just start praying he has AJ and thinks TP might deserve a raise. He finally just calls and I show the black Kings. Sam says "oh man that's way good" until seat nine says "that's not good enough" and shows 43 of hearts. LOL. I just hear Chris say "wow, wow wow, this is your guys' main game? I played at Bellagio vs. guys waiting for their 100/200 game who played like this, but this is your guys' main game and they play like this hahahaha." Sam says "man that's two rivers now that looked good for you" and I just respond with a "yeah, guess I just need to start asking the dealer to only deal flops and turns, no rivers :-)"
After those two hands I was stuck a couple stacks and was seriously debating hanging myself with my belt in the nearest bathroom, unfortunately the beams they have in their stalls aren't all that sturdy. I went three or four more orbits, winning a couple smallish pots and getting pretty close to even, then I started to feel the exhaustion setting in. I only slept maybe three hours after the night at Cache, so I could feel myself coming close to dozing off at the table. The Superdonk finally came over to me and said he was ready to bounce whenever I was ready, so I told him a couple more orbits and I was good. Nothing exciting happened after that as I cashed out $420 of my original $500 buy in...things definitely could have gone worse, but they also could have gone much better. Oh well, shit happens, especially playing against window-lickers in a 15/30 game. Hopefully I take a couple racks off the table next time. Thanks for reading.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Return to the Creek
Not as good a return as I had hoped...down 50bbs much? Yup, dropped about $400 after running just god awful. I flopped a few sets that got beat, lost a few significant kill pots to a couple nasty rivers...oh well.
I'd talk about the session some more, but just thinking about the hands are making me go on life tilt. I'd say the dirtiest beat I received was a running straight from this older asian lady to crack my aces in a kill pot...aside from that, the hands I played weren't overly nasty or exciting...standard beats I guess you could say.
I actually have a few different days off from work this week than normal, so I may be playing a few more sessions here in the next five days or so. Stay tuned for updates.
I'd talk about the session some more, but just thinking about the hands are making me go on life tilt. I'd say the dirtiest beat I received was a running straight from this older asian lady to crack my aces in a kill pot...aside from that, the hands I played weren't overly nasty or exciting...standard beats I guess you could say.
I actually have a few different days off from work this week than normal, so I may be playing a few more sessions here in the next five days or so. Stay tuned for updates.
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