Vegas Day 3

"Vegas Day 3"

Well, this sucks. I'm at Krispy Kreme and they seemed to have locked the WiFi network today. WTF? I can see the connection, but I can't get an IP. Fucking lame. And that's cuz I bought a donut and a juice from them because I didn't want to just mooch off their connection. I don't even like KK donuts all that much. Anyway, I'm writing this into Notepad for now. I plan to find a WiFi connection later and cut/paste it into blogger.

Friday was an All-Excal day. I've been having enough success that I thought, "Why fuck with what's working?" I mean, I want to play in bigger games for more money, but I also kinda don't wanna lose, you know? The 50c/$1 game here is ridiculously easy. So why not build my bankroll a bit? I'm not looking to get rich, right?

Session 1: Excalibur 50c/$1 NL Hold 'Em
This session started early. 8am. There is only a single table of drunks and hardcore low-limit poker addicts left. They're playing a short handed game with about 5 people. I don't actually remember a whole lot about this session to be honest. It was short. 45 mins according to my logs. My logs also say that I was in for $200 which means I busted and rebought for the full amount. Sooo, I guess that's what happened. About the only thing I remember is that in this game was there was a huge Asian dude (like muscle huge) that looked more than a little mentally challenged, and he never said a word. Hmmm, now that I think about it more. HE was the one that busted me. Yeah, I remember now. I busted to him on a bluffed AK that whiffed to his flopped baby flush. The other dudes were calling him the Silent Assassin. He said not one single word in 45 mins. It's coming back to me now. On my 2nd buyin I raised with JTs (remember this is like 5 handed) and Mr. Assassin called me. This wasn't too surprising. He had been catching big cards, and in my opinion he was not a bad player. But his one fault was that he called big bets (like my AK bluff) with marginal hands (like his baby flush when there were 4 diamonds on the board by the river.) The flop came JT4. I bet out $25 and he called. Turn came a blank. I went all in for like $100 more and he called. He showed QJ. River was a blank, and was back in the black. I ended up with $275... up $75.

The reason this game broke up is because two of the five players left the game to play the $20 9am tourney. Yes, $20 tourney if you can believe that. With no cash game left, I decided, fuck it, I'd play in a $20 poker bingo game.

Session 2: Excalibur $20 NL Hold 'Em Tournament
This went about as well as you'd guess: horribly. You started with $3000 with $25/$50 blinds and 15 minute rounds. Yay. The only nice thing about this was that since we were playing on Electronic tables, you got a LOT more hands per round. We figured that playing 15 min blinds on the electronic tables equated to 20/25 minute blinds at a live dealer table. Also, the casino took less for the house because they didn't have to pay any dealers. Still, the blinds came up fast, and I found myself going All-In with QJs with less than 10 BB's left. I got called by QQ. Haha. Oh, well. I actually flopped two hearts, but the flush was not to be. I think I finished in the high 20's with 40 people registered.

I've been keeping a log of all my expenses... for food, shopping, entertainment and transportation. I *nearly* put down that $20 buyin as entertainment because I really didn't consider it poker. :-) In the end, I logged it as a hit to my poker roll though.

After the tourney, there were enough people wanting to start a cash game. So there I went, right back into a 50c/$1 game.

Session 3: Excalibur 50c/$1 NL Hold 'Em
This wasn't too exciting. I basically played for 4 hrs and made a little over $100. I ended up leaving this game because they announced that a $1/$2 game was starting. I moved to the new $1/$2 table, but it ended up just being 3 dudes just looking at each other for 10 minutes. The game didn't make. I intended to go grab lunch, but ended up going back to my room and sleeping for about 9 hours.

I headed back downstairs around 11pm. Lo and behold... a $1/$2 cash game at Excal!

Session 4: Excalibur $1/$2 NL Hold 'Em
I sat down to a nearly full table. Biggest stack was just a hair over the Maximum $300. I decided to just buyin for the Max amount myself. I played rather conservatively for the first hour or so when the table was full, but the game slowly started losing players. I mixed it up with the short handed table for a while and was up roughly $40 or so. Then about 2 hours in I caught my first big pocket pair: two black Kings. I was on the button, and the aggressive player to my right raised to $17. I didn't feel like adverstising the big pair in my hand, so I just smooth called him. The blinds folded, and it was heads up. The flop came a pretty uninteresting 973. I don't recall the suits, but they didn't come into play, so whatever. The guy leads out for $25. I immediately raise to $75, and he quickly goes All-In for about $100 on top of my $75. Now, I know what you're thinking: "He's got Aces! It's obvious!" Well, it was NOT obvious. If you had played with this guy for 2 hrs you would have quickly called too. But, yes, he had Aces. He doubled up, and I was down to about $140 bucks from my $300 buyin. I added back on to bring myself up to $300 again, but now I was in for $463.50.

I kept playing well, but the short handed table was not very easy. It was probably one of the hardest tables I'd played on actually. Two of the guys were intently talking about their online playing habits. How they play 12-14 tables at a time, Poker Tracker stats, etc. etc. Definitely not newbies. While I didn't feel like the fish at the table, I knew it was going to be rough making my money back. Everyone had between $200-$700 on the table. I just had to wait for someone to make a mistake and pounce. I battled my way back to $414. Then I took a string of 3 bad hits to the same guy.

This guy was the weakest player by far. He wasn't bad, but the other 4 of us were clearly better than him. In hand number one, I raised with QTs. He calls. I flop an open ender. He checks and I make a 1/2 sized pot bet. He calls. On the turn, I hit my straight. He seems really disinterested in the pot, so I make a small bet. He calls. River comes, and it puts a possible flush on the board. He leads out for about 1/5th the pot. Yay. I make a crying call. He's made his flush. Very next hand. I have 33. I call the $2 blinds and the it's three of us to the flop. I flop the first set I've seen all day. 783. Everyone including me checks. Turn comes an 8. Full House! I lead out for like $7. The pot was only like $6. One guy folds. My nemesis calls. River card: 8. Yes, ANOTHER 8. I'm not left with 8's full of 3's. He leads out for $10. Great. If the guy had flopped a 7, I'm done. I make another crying call. The guy's got Quad 8's. :-/ VERY next hand. I get AKo. I raise to $10. My nemesis calls me again. I flop top two: AK9. I bet $15. He calls. Turn comes a J. He checks, and I check. River brings a 3rd heart. He checks, and I bet $10 and say, "I guess you can pay me a little back with my flush now." He says, "You really have a flush?" then calls. "Cuz I have a straight. Queen Ten." Ugh. WTF.

I'm down to barely $300 again. After some time, I end up with 24s in the small blind. Aggressive guy to my right (the AA guy) raises to $6 and I call. I flop a pair of 4's and a flush draw. Guy bets out $15. I call. Turn comes a blank. The guy bets $15. I call again. River comes a 2 for two pair. The guy checks. I bet $25, and he calls. He had flopped a pair of Kings. There's some of my money back.

About 20 minutes later I have AKo. Same aggressive guy bets out $15. I call on the button. We're heads up. Flop comes A55. He bets out $25. I call. This guys does all my betting for me if you haven't noticed. The turn comes a 9. He bets $25, and I call again. River puts three hearts on the board. He checks. I mention that I made my flush and bet out $50. He's agonizing about a call. I started thinking, "Why the fuck did I say anything?" Too late. After a couple of minutes, he makes the call. I win. He says "I had pocket Kings." Whew. He owed me though.

In the end, I cashed out $443.50... down $20. Of all my sessions, that was probably my hardest one so far. The player skill level was pretty high. I really had adjust my play. But I never went on tilt, and I felt I played passively, aggressively, loosely and tightly at mostly the right times.

After this game, I figured I'd try the 50c/$1 game again.

Session 5: Excalibur 50c/$1 NL Hold 'Em
This was a quick session. 45 mins long. Only one memorable hand. Fairly early on, I had KQs (spades). I raised to $4 and got a couple of callers. The flop came Js Ts Kd. Not a bad flop, huh? Top pair, Queen kicker and an open ended straight flush draw! I led out for $12, and got a quick call from a dude with about $130. I had started with about $100 myself. The turn was a dud: 2h. I bet out $25, and the guy's like "Fuck it! I'm all-in!". So I start thinking, I'm either way ahead or behind but drawing to the nuts. I call. He's got J7 of clubs. WTF? I end up hitting a 4s on the river to make my flush, but I didn't need it. I doubled up to a bit over $200 and stayed there for the rest of this short session. What an idiot.

So after 2.5 days, I'm up $533.25. Not bad. Nothing earth shattering, but I'm having fun and making a little money. Nothing wrong with that, right? :-)

Until next time... I keep hearing them adverstise the 50c/$1 NL game over the loud speaker. I'm sure there are pleny of casual players waiting to buyin for $20 and $40 just wanting to hand it over to me with J7s. ;)