To quote 2p2er Big Bad Babar, I am running like "God on a Scooter". For those of you unfamiliar with poker speak, "running good" means that the deck has been dropping onto the felt in your favor and you've been winning your share of pots or more. It is possible to play very well but still lose, and vice versa. The last three days I feel like I've been playing OK (I've made some mistakes, even more than usual perhaps, but I think I'm actually getting better at identifying my mistakes), but have in fact been running like God on a Scooter. To wit:
Saturday, 8/23
I decide to give Garden City one last chance and rewarded for my loyalty. In addition to flopping or turning two pair after a free look from the big blind no less than 3 times, the following hands occur:
First hand of truly hilarious awesomeness:
One player limps and a bad, straight-forward and unimaginative player with whom I have played many hours raises. He will play his hand almost face up post flop, checking and calling with unimproved high cards but betting and raising with sets and over-pairs. This is basically good strategy, but for some reason I just always seem to know exactly what this guy has, as well as what he intends to do with it. The small blind calls, and I look down to find J3 of clubs. Normally I require 1 more limper to play a hand of this caliber (that is to say...none), but the limper and the small are both also terribly predictable and I make a loose call.
4 handed we see a flop for 8 small bets
A45 of three suites with one club
The astute reader will notice that while I have actually flopped "nothing", I do have some chance of winning the hand. I have a gutshot at a 5-high straight (only a 2 will make it), and a back door club draw. A rule of thumb is that a back door flush draw is worth 1.5 outs, and my gut shot give me four more, so I put my hand at about 5-6 outs. Anyway, we all check to the raiser who of course bets his hand. The small blind folds. I look left and try to see if the other player has a raising look about him, see no such thing, and call. He confirms my suspicions and just calls, so we see the turn card with me having gotten 10:1 on my money (My hand needs only 9:1 straight away to continue. When you factor in my tremendous implied odds I could call this getting as little as 6 or 7 to 1 I think).
3 handed we see the turn for 5.5 big bets, and it brings....
A glorious 2
I now have basically the nuts (36 beats me, but neither of these guys can possibly have that hand. They are bad, but they both contributed to the pot voluntarily. For all intents and purposes, I have the nuts and my opponents are probably drawing dead). Here's where I opt to take a life....The safe and standard play here is to donk-bet. There is a chance if I check that my two opponents will follow suite and no money will go in. Also, the third player in the hand is stuck between myself and the raiser, so a donk bet would get one bet from him for sure, where as a check/raise will ask him for two, which he likely cannot pay. Nonetheless I tap the felt, indicating that I would not like to wager at this point. The next player checks (as expected) and the third player, whom I always seem to have a perfect read on, bets. I unleash my raise as slowly as I can, and much to my surprise the player in the middle calls fairly quickly. I glance at the board and realize that a flush draw has materialized, and take note that I should probably check any heart river. The original raiser is very upset, but calls anyway.
We see the river 3 handed, for 11.5 big bets and...
It's a blank. I bet, the man in the middle folds muttering "frush draw" or something in accented English (I'm not a racist, I swear, but that's honestly what he said. I call 'em like I see 'em), and the pre-flop raiser calls like he has no other choice. I table my hand (which, remember folks, is Jack-Trey SOOOTED) and he visibly shocked. For the rest of my session he can't stop talking about it, and he completely stops trying to steal my blinds (which is a fantastic benefit, given that he's in the cutoff for my big blind). 2 hours later, on my way back from the cage to say good bye to a friend, he is repeating the story for the 7th time to the floor man. "He called two bets with J3! JACK TREY!!!"
Second hand of truly hilarious awesomeness:
This one is not nearly as good (few are) but is worth noting because it proves that I run like God on a Scooter. I end up in a 3-handed capped pot with pocket Kings, and the flop comes down all baby cards (nothing even above an 8 I think). The gentleman who is out of position (and who did the capping preflop) bets into me and I raise. The blind folds, and he 3-bets me. I tank for a second and decide against capping, as by now I honestly have to worry about aces but have to show my hand down because the pot already has like 400 dollars in it (40% of which used to be mine a few minutes ago). The turn brings an Ace (actually the best card in the deck I think, since it's pretty hard to believe he'd cap preflop out of position then bet/3-bet with AK) and he checks. I cannot hide my surprise, then compose myself, and then fire a bet. He calls. The river is a King, giving me a set that can only be beaten by pocket Aces. Now he bets!!!! This is the strangest line I think I have ever seen, and I raise, convincing myself that he may just have the worst played AK I have ever seen. He mucks his hand face up instantly, showing two red Queens that I was ahead of the entire time.
Third hand of truly hilarious awesomeness:
I raise a limper preflop with sexy red Aces and we see a flop 3 ways for 2 bets each.
QT2 with two hearts
I bet, a player check/raises me, another player takes 2 to the face, I 3-bet, the first raiser calls only and the other player calls 1 more bet. Got it? We've got about 8 big bets in the pot and it's 3 handed.
J (not a heart)
The both check to me and I bet. The first player calls all in, and the second player raises...I count down the pot and get 11.5 bets, decide that I have somewhere between 3 and 6 outs (leaning towards the high end...4 four the gut shot straight and 2 to make top set) and reluctantly peel off a call.
K (not a heart).
For some odd reason he bets into me and I raise with my nuts. He calls and disgustedly shows a set of 2s after I table my aces and say "Sometimes they hold up". He declares "You got real lucky there". Then the all in player reveals his hand: Pocket Kings!!! I actually only had 2 outs, since he was holding two and nullified the other 2 (by making a straight if I hit my set). I did get really lucky there, but I'd play the hand the same way 100 times in a row :)
Final Result
After 4 hours of play, I waddle to the cage carrying 3305 American Dollars worth of chips, only 1000 of which I purchased. I am happy.
Sunday 8/24
For this session I went back to Bay 101. I didn't get there until almost 5:30, as I had to take Tyson in for his shots at 3:30pm. I was very tired, only played 3 hours and 15 minutes, and cashed out up 644 dollars. I remember flopping a few sets.....or something.
Monday 8/25
Today I played about 4 hours at Bay 101 and again posted about a 500 dollar win (I lost 50 bucks at 6/12, then played solid 20/40 and again ran like white hot lightening). Three hands from today's session can be found on 2p2
Hand 1
Hand 2
Hand 3
I'm going on an actual vacation starting Wednesday, so there will likely be another lull in posts, but I promise to get back to it the moment I return. Also, I still owe everyone some stories from Reno, including how I lost 400 dollars to a stripper in a 1/2 NL game, then Steve won it all back from her once I went to sleep.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Session Report, 8/22
Yesterday I played just a shade under 5 hours at Bay 101. I first drove to Garden City to see the effect of the construction work they'd just done (they replaced the floors) and while the room was much louder (hard to believe I know...but that happens when you replace carpet with tile), it felt much cleaner. Now whether or not it was actually cleaner is up for debate, but whatever.
I get there and for the second time in 3 trips I have the following interaction with Ted, the short fat floor man.
Jesse: "Hi Ted, JMS checking in for 20/40"
Ted: "OK"
Jesse: "Can you put me up for 6/12 and 8/16 as well"
Ted: "Hold on I'm gonna start a game" (last time it was "You'll have a seat very soon").
Ted does not put Jesse on the 6 or 8 lists.
Jesse walks to main desk and puts self on said lists.
Last time it took fifty (that's five zero) minutes for me to get a 20 seat after Ted the floor man REFUSED to put me on wait lists I was asking for. This time his premise was that he was going to start another game. I look around. There are no tables. None. Not a single freaking table is available for the game. I look at the list. There are 11 names, 4 of which are call-ins who have not checked in and on which I am in 9th place somehow (despite having called in 40 minutes ago...this is a bad sign, as it means there's no movement on the list...probably because they have one game only).
My poker-only friend LV (I have never seen her outside of Bay 101 or Garden City) and I have a little bitch session about how Garden City now sucks and how we should call Bay 101. LV is a solid winner in the games we play, and is a breath of fresh air in that environment I can assure you. Then I call Bay 101 and put both our names on the list. 10 minutes later she leaves, and 5 minutes after that I am called for the 6/12 game (no thanks to you, Ted, you big fat idiot you). I again check the 20 list and see it's as dismal as before, then note that the "biggest fish in the sea" has moved from the 20 game up to the 40. I pass on my 6/12 seat, get in my car, and beat LV to Bay 101 because she apparently drives like a Grannie.
I roll up to Bay 101 around 3:15 and check in for the list. I am about 18th, but there are four games going and some call-ins ahead of me that have not checked in. I find 2p2er Jack (the names have been changed to protect the innocent) and we talk shop, having just met last night in the 20 game (actually we met when I sent him a PM on 2p2 after he had described himself in the mid stakes low content thread and I realized I'd played with him). Then I get a beef taco, which is the only way to fly at Bay 101, and devastate it in about 47 seconds. Then LV shows up (WTF???) and we again commence to bitch about Garden City.
Suddenly we realize the tournament is down to the final 4, so we head over to railbird that thing. Another 2p2er (let's call him Joe) has made the final four, but is short stacked. I call Jack over and we triple his cheering section (one other player is cheering for him, as he has 10% of Joe's action from a deal they struck at an earlier table in this shoot out tournament when they were heads up). I can't really even get to a position where I can see all 4 player's actions, let alone the board cards or the stack sizes, so I quickly loose interest. Joe ends up coming in third and pocketing a cool 6K+ (nice hit Joe, nice hit) and then Jack, myself, and LV are all called for the 20 game in quick succession around 4:15.
Not much interesting happened in the session, although I spent the second half of it on Jack's right, which always makes it more interesting (I like to have the best player at the table on my left, as I figure I'm not getting any money out of him anyway so he might as well have position). I managed to post a win of 538 dollars, down from a peek of about 1000 because of the following three hands:
I open AQo and notice guy on my left had been fumbling for chips. He makes a speech "I guess I call" and I'm already a little concerned. We see a flop about 5 handed and of course it has an ace in it. The final board is about:
AJX-Y-X
He calls me down, I table what should be a nut monster....but wait! He rolls AK and scoops the pot. Wow, sir, wow. Thanks for saving me that 60 bucks.
Next hand of interest....
Myself and Jack have posted a pair of big blinds, and the game is only 6 handed at the moment. An average player open-raises, and an older white gentleman who puts in WAY too much action with his hands calls the two bets cold (as an example, he three-bet the river and paid off a 4-bet with the nut flush on a paired board...not one but BOTH of his opponents had full houses). I hold QJ of diamonds and call one more bet, and Jack calls as well.
QXX two hearts
I check, Jack checks, Preflop raiser bets, action-man calls, I now raise, jack folds, both other players call.
Q black
I bet, action-man now raises, and I go into the tank. Normally this is an easy call down, but against action-man I'm trying to see if I can find a raise. Eventually I decide he's pretty tight preflop and thus my kicker isn't very good with my Queen (he could have a J or a T, but most likely has a K or perhaps even an Ace if he holds a Queen). He could also have a full boat by flopping one of the little sets, so I just call.
X heart (3 hearts now).
Ah blessed heart I say. Thank you (unless he had a heart draw, in which case I'm very sad). I check and try to look suspicious. He confirms my suspiciousness and says "I check, I think you have hearts waitin' in the weeds over there". I roll my hand with low expectations. He turns over KQ to drag the pot. I own you sir.
Next hand....no ownage here....
One player limps. I've played with him before and don't regard him as good. He is short stacked to start the hand. I raise A9 both spades somewhere in the middle/late and we take a flop 3 or 4 handed. To make a long story short this limper calls me all-in on the river when a flush draw comes in on a board of:
AQX-A-X
His AT beats my A9, as both of the Xs were below 9.
These three hands were pretty frustrating, but in two of them my opponents allowed me to get away from my hand as cheaply as possible by playing incredibly passively.
I get there and for the second time in 3 trips I have the following interaction with Ted, the short fat floor man.
Jesse: "Hi Ted, JMS checking in for 20/40"
Ted: "OK"
Jesse: "Can you put me up for 6/12 and 8/16 as well"
Ted: "Hold on I'm gonna start a game" (last time it was "You'll have a seat very soon").
Ted does not put Jesse on the 6 or 8 lists.
Jesse walks to main desk and puts self on said lists.
Last time it took fifty (that's five zero) minutes for me to get a 20 seat after Ted the floor man REFUSED to put me on wait lists I was asking for. This time his premise was that he was going to start another game. I look around. There are no tables. None. Not a single freaking table is available for the game. I look at the list. There are 11 names, 4 of which are call-ins who have not checked in and on which I am in 9th place somehow (despite having called in 40 minutes ago...this is a bad sign, as it means there's no movement on the list...probably because they have one game only).
My poker-only friend LV (I have never seen her outside of Bay 101 or Garden City) and I have a little bitch session about how Garden City now sucks and how we should call Bay 101. LV is a solid winner in the games we play, and is a breath of fresh air in that environment I can assure you. Then I call Bay 101 and put both our names on the list. 10 minutes later she leaves, and 5 minutes after that I am called for the 6/12 game (no thanks to you, Ted, you big fat idiot you). I again check the 20 list and see it's as dismal as before, then note that the "biggest fish in the sea" has moved from the 20 game up to the 40. I pass on my 6/12 seat, get in my car, and beat LV to Bay 101 because she apparently drives like a Grannie.
I roll up to Bay 101 around 3:15 and check in for the list. I am about 18th, but there are four games going and some call-ins ahead of me that have not checked in. I find 2p2er Jack (the names have been changed to protect the innocent) and we talk shop, having just met last night in the 20 game (actually we met when I sent him a PM on 2p2 after he had described himself in the mid stakes low content thread and I realized I'd played with him). Then I get a beef taco, which is the only way to fly at Bay 101, and devastate it in about 47 seconds. Then LV shows up (WTF???) and we again commence to bitch about Garden City.
Suddenly we realize the tournament is down to the final 4, so we head over to railbird that thing. Another 2p2er (let's call him Joe) has made the final four, but is short stacked. I call Jack over and we triple his cheering section (one other player is cheering for him, as he has 10% of Joe's action from a deal they struck at an earlier table in this shoot out tournament when they were heads up). I can't really even get to a position where I can see all 4 player's actions, let alone the board cards or the stack sizes, so I quickly loose interest. Joe ends up coming in third and pocketing a cool 6K+ (nice hit Joe, nice hit) and then Jack, myself, and LV are all called for the 20 game in quick succession around 4:15.
Not much interesting happened in the session, although I spent the second half of it on Jack's right, which always makes it more interesting (I like to have the best player at the table on my left, as I figure I'm not getting any money out of him anyway so he might as well have position). I managed to post a win of 538 dollars, down from a peek of about 1000 because of the following three hands:
I open AQo and notice guy on my left had been fumbling for chips. He makes a speech "I guess I call" and I'm already a little concerned. We see a flop about 5 handed and of course it has an ace in it. The final board is about:
AJX-Y-X
He calls me down, I table what should be a nut monster....but wait! He rolls AK and scoops the pot. Wow, sir, wow. Thanks for saving me that 60 bucks.
Next hand of interest....
Myself and Jack have posted a pair of big blinds, and the game is only 6 handed at the moment. An average player open-raises, and an older white gentleman who puts in WAY too much action with his hands calls the two bets cold (as an example, he three-bet the river and paid off a 4-bet with the nut flush on a paired board...not one but BOTH of his opponents had full houses). I hold QJ of diamonds and call one more bet, and Jack calls as well.
QXX two hearts
I check, Jack checks, Preflop raiser bets, action-man calls, I now raise, jack folds, both other players call.
Q black
I bet, action-man now raises, and I go into the tank. Normally this is an easy call down, but against action-man I'm trying to see if I can find a raise. Eventually I decide he's pretty tight preflop and thus my kicker isn't very good with my Queen (he could have a J or a T, but most likely has a K or perhaps even an Ace if he holds a Queen). He could also have a full boat by flopping one of the little sets, so I just call.
X heart (3 hearts now).
Ah blessed heart I say. Thank you (unless he had a heart draw, in which case I'm very sad). I check and try to look suspicious. He confirms my suspiciousness and says "I check, I think you have hearts waitin' in the weeds over there". I roll my hand with low expectations. He turns over KQ to drag the pot. I own you sir.
Next hand....no ownage here....
One player limps. I've played with him before and don't regard him as good. He is short stacked to start the hand. I raise A9 both spades somewhere in the middle/late and we take a flop 3 or 4 handed. To make a long story short this limper calls me all-in on the river when a flush draw comes in on a board of:
AQX-A-X
His AT beats my A9, as both of the Xs were below 9.
These three hands were pretty frustrating, but in two of them my opponents allowed me to get away from my hand as cheaply as possible by playing incredibly passively.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Week 3 Results
A much cheerier outlook for week 3, Saturday the 16th until just now, Friday the 22nd. I didn't keep records of how long I played 2/4 limit (that's right) and 4/8 Omaha High/Low Split (again, that's correct) in Reno because I was really just playing for fun. I did lose money in the games and will count the losses in my totals, but won't be reporting the hours. This is what happens when you drink for 12+ hours straight for 3 days in a row....
Total winnings: 2640
Total hours: 19.5 (this does not count 6+ hours of messing around in small reno games with my buddies)
My plan was to play a lot of serious poker in reno, but after I won 6 racks in my first 6 hours in the 20/40 game, I decided to call that off and actually take a vacation. I donked off 400 dollars in a 1/2 NL game (I successfully called down with AQ unimproved out of position, only to be shown A9 that rivered a 9...then flopped a set and got it all in on the turn and was shown a flush...I got tricky on that one, but would have lost my whole stack anyway I'd played it).
The only "disappointment" of this week was that I did not hit my hours goal of 40. That was a conscious decision, however, and I'm glad I made it. I came back from Reno fully charged and put in 13 hours of live 20/40 yesterday and today (result: +~300).
The Reno trip made me realize that one of the biggest perks of this lifestyle is the ability to spend times with friends, either locally or by traveling. I basically took 5 days of my life to go hang out and drink with my buddies and was none the worse off for it. I actually considered extending my stay past when they all left, but thought it better to get "back to work" at Bay 101.
Total winnings: 2640
Total hours: 19.5 (this does not count 6+ hours of messing around in small reno games with my buddies)
My plan was to play a lot of serious poker in reno, but after I won 6 racks in my first 6 hours in the 20/40 game, I decided to call that off and actually take a vacation. I donked off 400 dollars in a 1/2 NL game (I successfully called down with AQ unimproved out of position, only to be shown A9 that rivered a 9...then flopped a set and got it all in on the turn and was shown a flush...I got tricky on that one, but would have lost my whole stack anyway I'd played it).
The only "disappointment" of this week was that I did not hit my hours goal of 40. That was a conscious decision, however, and I'm glad I made it. I came back from Reno fully charged and put in 13 hours of live 20/40 yesterday and today (result: +~300).
The Reno trip made me realize that one of the biggest perks of this lifestyle is the ability to spend times with friends, either locally or by traveling. I basically took 5 days of my life to go hang out and drink with my buddies and was none the worse off for it. I actually considered extending my stay past when they all left, but thought it better to get "back to work" at Bay 101.
Week 2 Results
I realized I never posted my week 2 results (I'm going to try and get caught up here but separate the posts logically). Here goes:
Week 2 of my trial run, from Saturday the 9th to Friday the 15th:
Total winnings = -123 dollars
Total hours played = 49.25
Unsuccessful 40/80 shots = 1 (total lost = 1856 in about 4 hours)
So in short, I continued to run well at 20/40 (about +1800 in a little under 40 hours), but got obliterated in the 40 game (and lost a little bit in some other smaller games) to round out a basically break even week. Bleh.
During the end of week 2 I definitely had a few days where I didn't want to drive to the casino to play poker. I forced myself to play though, and didn't take any days off, because I knew I was goingn to Reno for 5 days and wanted to be able to make the most of it with a clean conscious. More on that to follow...but the lesson was that I can't just mindlessly play hours. I need at least my B game in order for it to be worth carrying on in a session.
Week 2 of my trial run, from Saturday the 9th to Friday the 15th:
Total winnings = -123 dollars
Total hours played = 49.25
Unsuccessful 40/80 shots = 1 (total lost = 1856 in about 4 hours)
So in short, I continued to run well at 20/40 (about +1800 in a little under 40 hours), but got obliterated in the 40 game (and lost a little bit in some other smaller games) to round out a basically break even week. Bleh.
During the end of week 2 I definitely had a few days where I didn't want to drive to the casino to play poker. I forced myself to play though, and didn't take any days off, because I knew I was goingn to Reno for 5 days and wanted to be able to make the most of it with a clean conscious. More on that to follow...but the lesson was that I can't just mindlessly play hours. I need at least my B game in order for it to be worth carrying on in a session.
I am a Terrible Blogger
So last Saturday morning I left for Reno and just returned on Wednesday afternoon. I was in Reno to hang out with some friends from college (one of whom lives there, 3 of whom were in town from the east coast, and two of whom rode up from the Bay Area with me). I learned a few things.
In Reno, it is 1994. All the people act as if it is 1994, the music is at least 10 years old, and the buildings and decorations follow suite. If you ever need to get back to 1994, just go to Reno. In keeping with the spirit of 1994 (a fine year in which I reached my peak as a competitive swimmer, scoring a silver medal at the Eastern Zones Swimming Championships with a 30.42 in the 50 yard breast stroke), I chose not to turn on my lap top for 5 days.
Stories from Reno are going to be sprinkled throughout my next few posts, but first the business of the matter. I planned to put in some heavy hours in the Peppermill 20/40 game during the trip (by the way, if you're going to Reno and need a hotel, the 'Mill is your best bet), but ended up only playing about 6 hours. The reason, you ask? After six hours I was up 2800 dollars and decided the rest of the trip would serve as an actual vacation. The game itself was superbly soft, with much less aggression than I'm used to. That combined with me running like God basically left everyone to assume I was a complete maniac, which by local standards I suppose was almost true.
After deductions for various other gambling losses (I dropped 400 bucks in the 1/2 NL game), food, beverages, and strip club expenditures, I returned to the Bay Area up a healthy 4 racks. Yahoo!
In Reno, it is 1994. All the people act as if it is 1994, the music is at least 10 years old, and the buildings and decorations follow suite. If you ever need to get back to 1994, just go to Reno. In keeping with the spirit of 1994 (a fine year in which I reached my peak as a competitive swimmer, scoring a silver medal at the Eastern Zones Swimming Championships with a 30.42 in the 50 yard breast stroke), I chose not to turn on my lap top for 5 days.
Stories from Reno are going to be sprinkled throughout my next few posts, but first the business of the matter. I planned to put in some heavy hours in the Peppermill 20/40 game during the trip (by the way, if you're going to Reno and need a hotel, the 'Mill is your best bet), but ended up only playing about 6 hours. The reason, you ask? After six hours I was up 2800 dollars and decided the rest of the trip would serve as an actual vacation. The game itself was superbly soft, with much less aggression than I'm used to. That combined with me running like God basically left everyone to assume I was a complete maniac, which by local standards I suppose was almost true.
After deductions for various other gambling losses (I dropped 400 bucks in the 1/2 NL game), food, beverages, and strip club expenditures, I returned to the Bay Area up a healthy 4 racks. Yahoo!
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