A quick post to recount one of the most memorable hands I’ve ever participated in.

Welcome to Hollywood Park, the place where the gambler’s dreams can come true. Any two cards will do, no matter what limit you’re playing. The game is $15-30 limit hold ‘em, and you just sat down in a loose-passive game where most hands have 4 or 5 players seeing the flop.

You’re in the big blind and watch as the pot is raised under the gun, and by the time the action gets to you, 6 players have called 2 bets cold. You throw in $15 and close the action, getting 15:1 on your call.

The flop: Kd 9c 6s

A young asian guy bets out, and a couple people call, include a middle aged black dude who keeps two dice on the table and rolls them periodically for luck. You chuck your trash hand, not catching a piece of the flop. There is now over $300 in the pot.

The turn comes the 7c, and asian guy bets out. Everyone folds to the dice man, who calls. The river is the harmless looking 2d, and asian guy bets, but dice man comes to life and raises. Asian guy looks puzzled and calls, turning over KTc for top pair. Dice man looks around the table, and rolls a 7 of hearts… and the 2 of hearts, scooping the $500 pot.

The table pauses for a moment, and the Asian guy awakes from his shock: “What the hell? How could you call with absolutely nothing on the flop?”

Diceman just stares at him.

30 seconds pass.

Asian guy: “That’s the worst play I’ve ever seen!”

The rest of the table hears tapping on the aquarium and grows restless.

Diceman just stares at him.

Asian guy: (continues whining) “How could you call on that flop? Seven-deuce??? Worst play ever.”

Diceman, finished stacking his chips, struggles with himself, showing a slight frown. He finally opens his mouth and calmly says, “That was not the worst play you’ve ever seen. Now look, I’m going to break my rule of not speaking at the table. I never speak at the table, but I feel like I have to explain why that was not the worst play ever. Now, you’re not going to understand this unless you’ve jumped out of a plane before, but I’m gonna say it anyway… When you jump out of a plane, you have to trust your parachute.”

The table sits in awed silence, and finally the asian guy says: “I don’t understand what that means.”

Diceman, getting up, says: “I told you, it won’t make sense unless you’ve jumped out of a plane. You have to trust your parachute. And now, since I’ve broken my rule, I have to leave this table.”

(groans from the rest of the players)

Diceman proceeded to sit in the $20-40 game and lose all of his money. Asian guy continued to call away most of his money, until he cracked my pocket kings by rivering a straight, at which point I was wondering what was wrong with my parachute.

Poker wisdom from Hollywood Park: You have to trust your parachute.

[thanks to dok1 and hdouble via cc]

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And so my cards continued to be a little bit cold tonight, although I was able to play 4 $3-6 tables comfortably for the first time ever. I squeezed the 4 tables onto my dual monitor solution in preparation for the laptop I ordered yesterday, on which I spent an extra $200 to max out the resolution at 1920 x 1200. I don’t know if I’ll be able to see the little PartyPoker avatars on the screen at that resolution, but I guess I could fit 6 tables on the 15.4″ wide screen. Yes, that’s right, I’ve gone and spent way too much money on a super laptop (I got an HP Pavilion). I feel a little bit guilty about it, because it’s not something I “need”, but hey, I haven’t bought anything for myself in a long long time.

I use the term “comfortably” lightly… after breaking even on 3 of the tables, I was rivered brutally on the fourth hand after hand. The worst two hands were back to back Big Slick, pairing my ace on the flop and losing to J6o on the turn on both hands. This was to the same player, who called a raise preflop both hands. Ahhh, PartyPoker.

One thing that seems to naturally happen when increasing the number of tables is an automatic tightening up– you drop marginal hands like QTo from your arsenal, since playing multiple hands simultaneously on 4 tables is difficult.

After an hour and a half or so, I found myself down $130.

But after getting rivered one too many times, thankfully a buddy popped in to one of my tables and bailed me out before I could lose much more. We took a field trip over to the NL $50 tables, which were about as much fun as watching paint dry. I’d rather play video poker; everybody sees the flop for a buck, waits for the nuts and goes all-in. I don’t know how people can play these games.

Of course, that lasted for about 20 minutes, before we took our chips over to the $5-10 6 max games, my buddy’s usual hangout. The first table I happened to check out was one which another buddy happened to be playing at, along with a maniac with 1K in front of him. I sat down, against my vows not to play with him, and soon after my buddy followed suit. I went up about $100 pretty quickly, and my buddy said goodnight.

But he couldn’t stay away long, and made a return about 20 minutes later. Immediately a chat window popped up:

buddy: what happened to your bankroll?!

My favorite part about this quote is that  he actually spent the extra half second to add the exclamation point after the question mark to convey his amazement. Oh the humanity!

Ouch. I got burned a couple times by the maniac, being aggressive with big aces but not hitting anything, and was down about 200 since my friend logged out.

It only got worse from there– my friend started the downward spiral by raking in a big pot when his A8 paired his kicker on the turn, and beat my AT. He did have the flush draw though, so no complaints there. But the following hand saw my AJ go down in flames to the maniac’s AQ, when the board showd AAKQ9. The next hand the maniac raised my blind, and I called with A7. I had second pair on the flop, and went to the river, only to be shown AA by the maniac. My friend shut his eyes and logged out, claiming “I can’t watch!” I couldn’t either.

So that’s where I’m at now, trying to win back my $250 that I burned through in a short hour of play. With bourbon in hand (and in belly), I’ve got $70 of it back, and will try to win a couple pots before I pass out.

I’m excited for the new laptop, although if I didn’t have the tax return, I’d be worry about the cost after the last couple sessions.

But wait! As we speak, the poker gods have smiled on the bourbon-drinking, patient worshipper:

#510710387: Win $73 from the main pot with a full house, Twos full of sevens.

#510711113: Win$128 from the main pot with two pairs, kings and queens.

#510712742: Win$105 from the main pot with two pairs, kings and tens

And just like that, I’m back to my buyin at the $5-10 shorthanded game. At least my friend went to bed a winner, so I’m happy (ok, relieved is more accurate). Note: all 3 of these wins came against a player who was tilting like a pinball machine. Thank you, poker gods.

Well, that’s about it for me. I’ve switched to water.

[thanks to andyadontstop and hdouble via cc]

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The Good

• Caught some cards at this table in my short stay of 14 hands
• Table 3 | 13 minutes | +93
• $34 came from pocket kings, which I 3 bet a good player’s raise pre-flop, and no overcards came.
• $33 came from ATo… after a Ten came on the flop, the hand held up as a guy with K7 tried to bluff me off the hand.
• $29 came as AK suited held up on the river with high card ace in a heads up match with QJ

The OK

• 6.5 BB in my hour, I guess that’s pretty good… just solid poker here
• Table 2 | 55 minutes | +60
• $39 as ATo held up after an ace flopped
• $20 from a lucky river queen which gave me trip queens after an AK hit the flop. The loser had KJ, and let me see the river for free.
• $25 after flopping 2 pair with AJ and everyone folds on the turn
• $47 after flopping 2 pair with Q9s heads up… loser had QJ
• The important thing was that I had no big losses– biggest loss was $20 after my A9 was beaten heads up… no help from the board

The Bad

• Tough, tough table and a few mistakes made for a whoopin
• Table 1 | 36 minutes | -145
• (-$25) after trying to steal with JTs and trying to hit the gutshot after the flop
• (-$35) after flopping 2 pair with Q9 in a preflop steal raise, and the winner flopped the straight with KJ
• (-$20) after Q8 in the BB goes down to Q9s UTG when 2 queens flop. I was actually lucky here as my check-raise on the turn failed. An ace on the board too.
• My only real win ($23)at this table was on the first hand, when I flopped a Queen high flush in the BB, although everyone folded on the turn.

Looking at the above, I guess the 2nd two losing hands I played correctly, just got extremely bad luck… The first hand was just horrible. I should have ran away from this table after a few orbits after a few late position preflop raises stole the blinds…

Summary: A decent session, nothing to be ashamed of. My game is still tightening up, and I am still developing my ability to “feel” an opponent’s hand based on bets and raises. I think my biggest weakness is extracting the maximum number of bets in shorthanded play with a good, but not great hand. This is a product of the wild games at Hollywood Park– if you slowplay there, you are dead, and it’s carrying over to my online play. However, “letting people catch up” is extremely dangerous, and requires an excellent read on your opponent(s) in order to make it profitably, so I’ll keep playing straightforwardly for a while.

I’ll take the $8 and 100 more hands toward the Empire $100 bonus…

[thanks to peggydavis66 and hdouble via cc]

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After reading about a couple small Saturday tourneys at the Luxor and Mandalay Bay, we wander through Mandalay Bay as our eyes wander through fake breasts towards the poker room. We get there and are told that there are no weekend MB poker tourneys, although they have a daily weekday tournament, which we already missed. Strike 1. Undiscouraged, we hit the walkway to the Luxor, where I know there is a Saturday morning tourney. The guy at the poker desk tells us that there are tournaments at 10 and 12 the next morning, with only a $20 buy in, but if we want to play we had best get there early. M and I are unsure if this is good or bad news… even the noon tournament would require getting up at around 9 if we wanted to eat breakfast and make it from our downtown Hotel (Fitzgerald’s). We discuss the odds of waking up this early on our way to Excalibur, where we have heard that there is a nice friendly low-limit poker room. On the tram ride over, some girl’s ass inadvertently swallows M’s hand, and we take this as a sign of good luck.

We enter the small Excalibur poker room and ask what tables are available–the business-like manager tells us that it’s a 2-6 game, where players can raise $6 at any time, with a limit of 4 raises. I’ve never heard of this betting structure, and as I’m trying to figure out how this would change the game, I catch sight of the “money wheel,” a wheel of fortune type thing near the back corner of the room. I ask the manager what we need to do to spin the money wheel: Manager: “Either pocket aces beaten, or 4 of a kind or better.” I try to figure the probabilities, and figure that neither of us will hit it in the 2 hours or so we will play, but as people are spinning the thing every 5 minutes or so, optimism rears its pretty face and I wonder if M is also mumbling “mmmmonnnney wheeellllll” like Homer Simpson.

After only a couple minutes I get a seat, as M graciously gives me first shot at the table. Or maybe not graciously. I sit down at the friendliest table I have ever seen (we ain’t in Inglewood, Toto–no angry players like at my usual joint, Hollywood Park). The dealer is even laughing. I get lectured on the rules by the friendly old dealer (“Have you ever played here before son?”), and a hefty dude with a goatee, dark shades, and an upper lip full of dip is to my left. The hefty dude starts off immediately, pulling some sort of cool, talkative Chris Farley act, and I figure that this table is guaranteed money.

I put my $140 buy-in on the table and look at my first cards to find J-10 offsuit in late position, and even though I have no clue what is going on at this table, I figure the players as a bunch of tourist calling stations. I throw in my 2 chips for a call, hoping not to see any raises. But the lady on the blinds raises it 6 to make it 8, and 2 players call. I throw in my 6 to call, still confused by the betting structure. Great start–8 chips to play J-10 offsuit. The flop comes 9c-Qc-Qh and one lady bets 6, I call with my open straight, and the raiser calls. I figure someone has the queen, and I’m happy that I’ve got a shot at the pot, which is now up over $50. The turn is the 7 of hearts… first lady bets, second lady raises to make it 12, and I am ordering a drink instead of calculating pot odds, so I throw in my 12, making the pot huge at $76. The river comes Kh, and I should be happy to rake in the huge pot for my straight, but something doesn’t feel right. The first lady bets, and I call, and button reraises again. Pot is huge so I have to call, but warning bells are going off… I am the first to show, and the early bettor turns over… Ah 9h??? Pair of 9s? Ahh, I missed the flush! And to rub it in, the raiser turns over Q-9 for the full house. I am amazed at the horribility of this play, and I look at my previously full rack of chips–now half empty. First hand in Vegas, and I’m down $36.

Hefty dude with the shades keeps talkin it up, and we learn he is a construction worker from Minnesota. By this time, M has moved to my table, and judging from the height of his stack he is doing better than me… 3rd to act, M raises it 6 to Minnesota Fats, who reraises to 12. I ponder my A-7 offsuit, and decide to throw it away to let M battle it out with Minnesota. Everyone else folds, M calls and the flop comes K-A-A. I am hoping M has A-K, but i can never put him on a hand anyway, so I bail and try to figure out what Minnesota’s got. Fats thinks for a while, and surprisingly comes out with, “That’s a great raise… great raise” and mucks his hand. Matt turns over K-10 and takes the pot, and the woman to Fats’ left asks what he had. “I had an Ace, what do you think I had? That was a great bet, I can’t call that!” I tell Fats I would have called, and the woman says, “Why didn’t you make a great call then?” I tell them I threw away my Ace pre-flop, and knowing Fats style, I tell him that I don’t think he had the Ace. Fats doesn’t like this, and gets quiet, and I decide to move next to M, where a seat has just opened up, although I was barely able to leave the money seat the the left of Minnesota. Fats is quiet for the remainder of the night, and soon leaves, while M and I sadly watch him go. I am sure he didn’t have an Ace.

The next two hours prove relatively uneventful… I lose big with A-K when a King flops and a rock who has played about 5 hands in the 2 hours we’ve been there calls me down to the river, and turns over his pocket Aces. As I ponder my bad play, the rock informs M that he’s in the worst pain of his life due to a recent hernia operation. I feel better and win a couple small pots, while M goes heads up a couple times against a young Asian kid whose girlfriend is sitting behind him silently. He wins the first battle, when 3 Kings flop and he calls the kid’s reraises with his pocket Queens, and the kid turns over a raggedy 7-3 at the showdown. The kid’s bluff proves profitable later on when M refuses to lay down his K-J on the A-Q-7 flop, and the kid shows down A-K.

We leave at 12:40, with M up 20 after 3 hours, and me down 100, mostly on the 2 big hands I lost early. Neither of us spin the wheel, but the look in M’s eye tells me we will be back… the next hour sees us through the residential neighborhoods of downtown Vegas when we take a wrong turn coming off the exit ramp. After driving past the “Default Senior Center,” we stumble upon downtown and arrive at the Fitzgerald at 1:40 AM.

Check in: we discover that we’ve been given 1 king size bed, and of course it’s too late to switch rooms. I feel like the main character in Lolita, as the clerk tells us he can give us a cot for free, and I prepare to fight for another bed for M. Thankfully, the manager is there and comps us a free trip to the buffet, which is good enough for M, who will happily take the cot and the free food. We won’t be sleeping much anyway.

After dropping our bags off (the room smelled strangely of wintergreen Skoal), we grab a late dinner at Shamrock’s, Fitzgerald’s 24-hour restaurant. The fries taste like cardboard, and we discuss the possibility of getting up early enough to play. An 8:45 wake up is not appealing, and we decide to sleep late and try to get in the 7 pm tourney at the Orleans, since we figure to own the blackjack tables at this hour. M wakes himself up and we hit the Fitz double deck tables, which offer pretty good penetration (.6) and great rules. We get a table to ourselves, and the counting begins.

We’re back and forth with $5 and $10 bets for a while as I wait for a good count. M looks like the game has woken him up, but sadly for me, there is no longer much adrenaline contributed by Blackjack. However, I figure that once the $50 bets come out, things should be more fun. The dealer, a middle-aged Asian guy, shuffles, and M tries to ease his boredom, striking up a conversation. The dealer, Chung, says he plays craps, and seems genuinely friendly. The momentum swings from M and I against the table to include Chung, who nows seems to be honestly rooting for us. So it’s us 3 against the house, but the positive counts are few and far between. The count hovers around zero as the night slowly rolls on, despite Chung’s best attempts to break the house. M and I hover around zero, and Chung looks about as bored as I am… in my favorite dealer moment of the trip, I get a 15 against a face card with a $25 bet out. I ask Chung for a 6, and surprisingly, he turns over a 6, leans forward and nearly punches me in the face as he celebrates the win with a fist pump. Finally after 3 hours of uneventful play, M is down 100 and I’m up 45, and we call it a night. I ask M about his “rogue betting” tactics, as he threw out a few medium sized bets against negative counts. He mumbles an answer, which I interpret to be something about the game being boring, which I definitely agree with. Alas, my love affair with Blackjack seems to be over.

In perhaps the most bizarre moment of the trip, I hop in bed and shut off the lights, and say good night to M who is reading peacefully in his cot. The book has no cover, but looks pretty hefty. I close my eyes for 5 minutes and suddenly remember something M said on the ride to Vegas: H: “Ahhh, what are you reading?” M: (mumbles) H: “IS THAT HARRY POTTER???” M: (grinning) H: “YOU’RE READING HARRY POTTER IN VEGAS!” M: (wider grin) H: “That’s gotta bring bad luck.” M: “No way–it’s magic!”

Saturday we get up at 11:30 after 6 hours of sleep, and amazingly we both feel very awake. We missed the tourney, but we take comfort in the fact that we can play in the Orleans tourney at 7, when the BJ tables will be packed anyway. So we have optimized our gambling as far as beating the crowds. After using our comp for the buffet (of course we missed breakfast by an hour–who the hell makes it up for breakfast by 10:30 in Vegas???), and I force down some spaghetti and meatballs to provide fuel for the day.

Time to bomb some single and double deck tables downtown–the plan is to hit each one for an hour, and move on to the next one. We start at the famous Horseshoe, planning to check out the poker room where the World Series is held. But we do a cartoon character stop at an empty single deck table, and in an hour I drop 90 while M wins 15. I lose a couple big hands with true counts over 5, ignoring the young pit boss who is more concerned with the player betting 4 greens in seat 1. Unfortunately 2 players joined us, so most of the good hands were eaten up and each of us only got to see 2 hands before a shuffle. The tiny poker room is disappointing, although the aura of the World Series is faintly present. But present enough for M and I to agree that we will try to make it for next May’s tourney.

The next hour takes us through a couple Downtown joints (Golden Nugget and Golden Gate) for more uneventful BJ. M wins 20 more over the course of a couple hours, and I drop 20. We just can’t seem to get that high positive count that makes the big money, and the dealers are hitting 5 card 21s and some ridiculous draws. M deflects the little heat we might get from the pit bosses, as he cracks enough jokes to make the dealer laugh and the pit bosses back off. Perfect conditions, just no results.

We finally arrive at Lady Luck, which according to the BJ journals, offers the most profitable game in town with their single deck game. But we opt for a double deck game with one player after not finding any single deck games going on, and the penetration is excellent–once again, great conditions. The trend of slow games continues, although we do see a few high positive counts… the other player at the table busts out, and we welcome the new dealer–a short little guy of unknown ethnicity with a name tag labeled “VALE”.

Vale deals quickly, stone-faced as M and I hope to get on a run with this guy. I ask him where he’s from, but his lizard eyes only look at me and wait for me to hit or stay. I ask again, but he continues to deal, ignoring me. H: “I guess Vale’s not in the mood.” M: “He’s not much of a talker, I guess.” H: “That’s fine with me!”

The uneventful blackjack goes on, and the great conditions continue, but the counts hover around zero for what seems like forever. I try to occupy two chairs to fend off would-be players, but eventually an old Asian lady stops, stands behinds the seat and gets ready to sit down. M and I groan, hoping that the lady will change her mind, and Vale draws a 5 to his 16 to hit 21. She makes some exclamation at seeing the 21, and quickly runs in the other direction. Vale eyes her and looks at us, with what almost looks like a hint of a smile. M: “I guess she didn’t like the dealer!” The smile slowly creeps across the lizard face, and the floodgates are open. Vale waves her away with his 3-card 21, and says “Good riddance!” I smile at M, who has finally cracked the Vale after over an hour of playing in complete silence. The silent dealer turns into a stand up comedy act, faking blackjacks after checking the hole card, and just doing strange things with the cards.

M’s luck with the dealer does not continue on to the cards, where he drops 120 in our 3-hour stint. I am up 50 after hitting and missing a few big bets. We were hoping to hit the pride of the downtown meal, the Horseshoe steak and eggs for a pre-tournament (poker at the Orleans) dinner, but we just can’t leave Vale. Finally at 5:30 we drag ourselves away from the table and grab a quick bite at McDonald’s before heading out. M wolfs down a burger ordered “H-style” (he’s eating healthy this weekend!) and we wade through the humid desert air to the first cab to the Orleans. We decide on the cab, figuring it will be 20 bucks each way, but I will be allowed to drink and won’t have to fight traffic, etc. And our cab drivers sure made it worthwhile…

We hop in the cab and I start coaching M: H: “Remember that people play much tighter in the tourney. Even K-J is a weak hand once the tourney tightens up.” The cabbie, a middle-aged black dude pipes in, Cabbie: “Sounds like y’all are poker players!” M: “Yep, we’re going to play in the tournament at the Orleans.” Cabbie: “Yeah, they gotta lotta em there.” H: “Do you play?” Cabbie: “Yeah…” H: “Which game? Stud?” Cabbie: “Yeah, I used to play some, but not much anymore.” H: “How long you been in Vegas?” Cabbie: “17 years… and it’s the best place to be if you’re lookin for women” H: “Yeah, my buddy and I were just noticing that when we got here…” Cabbie: “Fuck yeah! Finest bitches in the world be up in here, that’s where all the suckers are at!” H: “Yeah, I guess a pretty girl can make a lot of money here…” Cabbie: “I know this one bitch, she say some sucker throwin her black chip every 20 minutes! I say bitch, why the fuck you hangin with me, you better go stand next to that sucker till his motherfuckin feet fall off! Shit, I’d stand there forever if he was givin me black chips! And it ain’t like the old rich guys ain’t getting their money’s worth… even if they ain’t getting pussy, they still get to walk around with a fine young thing on their arm. Money for the spendin! Like Tina said, what THE FUCK has love got to do with it???”

The man was a true vulgarian, and M and I thoroughly enjoyed the cynical diatribe on Vegas pussy. Unfortunately the cab ride was nearly 30 bucks with the tip, but hey, what the fuck has love got to do with it. We take our second-hand emotion into the Orleans, a big off-strip casino that supposedly hosts small buy-in poker tournaments. As we wander around looking for the poker room, the sheer size of the Orleans amazes me. The super high-ceilings and sprawling game room is overwhelming for an off-strip casino, and we finally are told that the poker room is in the back past the sportsbook.

Ok, we’re now off to the poker room, which is a small open room near the back of the casino. I tell the lady at the desk we are signed up for the 7 o’clock tourney, and she tells me to go to the desk. A sign says something about a 7-card stud tournament, and I get a bad feeling in my stomach… sure enough, I ask the desk man if the tourney is a Texas Hold ‘Em or stud tournament, and he exclaims “Stud!” and I want to pull an Ed Norton in fight club and punch myself in the face. I tell M, who wants to pull a Brad Pitt and punch me in the face, and we dejectedly turn to discuss our options. What a choke, I didn’t even ask what kind of tournament it was, even though all I had to go on was some lady at the Luxor’s guess that the tourney was Hold ‘Em. A $30 cab fare for nothing.

We decide that we have to hit a poker room somewhere, and the natural choice is to return to the soft games of Excalibur and try one last time to get a spin on the money wheel. M gets the first seat this time, and I join him a few minutes later, saying hi to the rock from last night who had the hernia operation. There are a few young, clueless looking players at the table, and the game looks pretty soft to me. The first hour is relatively uneventful, and I win a couple small pots to pull in $60, while M loses a couple to go down 35. The money wheel sits quietly in the corner, getting spun occasionally by some lucky tourists.

I’m dealt pocket 8′s in early position, and I pre-flop raise it the max to $8 to try to drive some players out of the pot. A couple players fold, and a young redhead girl on the button calls, along with one other player. She has been playing tight, so I think my pocket 8′s are in trouble, but maybe she’s got A-K. The flop comes rainbow 8-J-4, and I figure the pot is mine, hoping that somebody with A-J will call me down to the river. I want to slow play it, but I figure I should just bet, figuring that redhead won’t fold anyway. I bet out 6, and the 2 players fold to the redhead, who reraises me 6, to my delight and surprise. I put her on A-J, and everyone else folds, leaving us heads-up. I reraise it to 18, and she calls, and I can’t be happier. The turn comes 6, which I figure can’t hurt me, so I bet. Redhead immediately raises, and I start to get a little worried. Could she have pocket Jacks? I call her, and think about the odds of two sets on the same hand. But the dealer turns over a beautiful 8 on the river, and I actually feel a bit bad since I think she had me beat before, and I’m about to take all her chips. I bet and am called, and turn over my 8s, as the table “ooohhhs” and she mucks her cards angrily. Ah well… I rake in the big pot and realize that IT’S TIME TO SPIN THE WHEEL! The $60 she just contributed to me is probably a lot more than I’ll get from the wheel, but hey, IT’S THE MONEY WHEEL!

I stand up to spin and ask the manager if the wheel has to go around twice in order for the spin to count. “Yeah but it spins pretty easily, so don’t worrry about that.” I look at the wheel, which is full of $20 and $30 markings, but I want to hit the “Triple” mark, which gives you another spin at triple the value. I try to get 2 full rotations to the triple, and give it a soft spin at what I figure will be the only time I ever spin a money wheel. Click, click, click goes the clacker, and I retreat towards my seat with an eye on the wheel. The triple goes past 2, 3 times and the $20 approaches the pin. The pin goes over the $20s, and ends up anticlimactically at the $30. I groan, and collect my $30 chips from the floorman before sitting back down. Ah well, at least I got to spin!

After 3 hours at the Excalibur, the BJ tables are calling, and after M takes a big pot down with 5s full of kings, I cash out up 100 (miserable after hitting that 4 of a kind), and M down 16. Both of us were doing fine until a kid from Seattle sat down and not only was dealt pocket aces 5 times, but won with them all 5 times. He demolished the table, but M and I managed to avoid most of his Aces, except when I was whooped with my pair of queens after he put a straddle (a blind raise without looking at his cards) on the table. Anyway, I’m back even in poker after last night, and we head towards the front to catch a cab downtown. Feeling good (and at this point heavily buzzed after 3 hours of continuous cocktails), we look for the cab line outside, but can’t seem to find the entrance. Finally we see the “taxi line” sign right in front of the outside of the hotel, and I hop in line, fast-walking to get in front of the guy with the suitcase and his wife. I thought my fast-walk was a fair deal, almost a cut, but we had position, so no big deal. We grab a cab after a short wait, and we’re headed downtown…

M: “Did you hear that guy?” H: “No… what?” M: “He said–did they just cut us?” H: “Yeah we just beat them to the line.” M: (smiling) “Ahhh, no, there was a MASSIVE line going into the hotel.” H: (laughing) “What? No way!” M: “Yup, it was stretching wwwwwaaaaay into the hotel…” H: “That’s hilarious!” M: “Yeah, I wanted to see if the guy said something. He didn’t so I didn’t move.” H: “That’s great.”

We were then in for the ride of the trip, greeted by a jolly foreign driver by a string of “yo what’s up homies!” and other technical slang terminology. M: “Do you gamble?” Cabbie: “No, I used to play poker, but I got kicked out of MGM.” M: “For what?” Cabbie: “Counting cards n shit.” H: (pause) “In poker?” Cabbie: (pause) “…Poker, 21, everything” H: (smelling a rat) “What count system do you use?” Cabbie: “What do you mean?” H: “For counting… you know, Hi-Lo, Halves…” Cabbie: “There are different systems? I just use the one my dad taught me!”

We stepped out of the cab baffled and happy that the cabbie would lie about counting cards, which apparently was a cool thing to do. Yeah, we’re cool!

**********************************************************************

But alas, these 9 pages of trip report must end here. You will not hear of the losing battle that our young narrator and his faithful friend waged that night. The gods of chance were not kind to our heroes that night, and left them beaten mentally and spiritually. You will not hear of how far below the normal curve their results fell. Our narrator doesn’t have the energy to tell you how he placed 3rd in a Sunday Hold ‘Em tournament at the Luxor (yes, our heroes finally made it to a tournament), winning $75 on his $20 buy-in. You will not be given details of the 7 hour ride home, where our narrator played 3 hours of single deck blackjack against his dealing friend, and he was down nearly $2000 fictional dollars. You also can’t be sure that he won all this back and more at card roulette, Dostoevsky style. You won’t hear of the invention of a new casino game, “Find the Joker,” developed by our heroes, and mastered by our non-narrator. What you will hear is that our duo went to sleep that night, not saddened by the money they lost, but strengthened by the experience, and dreaming of the next time the chips are on the table…

[thanks to http2007 and hdouble via cc]

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8 Players at Table

Seat 4 (Early Position) – KC (7,150 in chips)

Seat 8 (Big Blind) – Villain (10,000 in chips)

Pre-Flop:

With 7h7d, I decide to take advantage of my tight image and raise 3x to 450 from early position. All fold to the villain – a loose, aggressive player – who raises to 900 total. The blinds fold and there is 1,425 in the pot. With only 450 to call, I’m getting better than 3:1 odds to call and make the call. There is now 1,875 in the pot.

Flop:

Jh Jd 6c

Villain checks. Normally, I would take a stab at the pot, but with the small pre-flop re-raise made by an aggressive player, I have a feeling my pocket 7s may not be good and the villain is slow playing. Besides, a bet here may not actually give me any information if he only calls. While the villain may have a strong ace that I currently have beat (AK or AQ), he would probably call with two over cards to the board (hoping to hit), a jack, or even a six (he is capable of re-raising with A6). Therefore, I check and hope for a blank on the turn.

Turn Card:

3s

With a blank on the turn, I’m planning on taking a stab at this one, but the villain beats me to the punch and bets 600. With such a small bet, I’m not sure if he is bluffing or slow-playing. I decide the price is worth finding out and call. There is now 3,075 in the pot.

River Card:

7s

Bingo. I don’t have to worry about him bluffing. If he happens to have a bigger full house than my 777JJ, so be it. The villain bets 900 and I immediately move all-in for my remaining 5,650. After about 10 seconds of thought, the villain calls, shows his AJ, and I take down a 14,375 pot.

[thanks to boinger and kc via cc]

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Heres some life updates, I have graduated from college with my BA and now in search of a job. Graduating was one of my life long goals and feels so great to have reached it. As for the job search I’m really hoping we don’t have to relocate, but I live in Michigan, enough said.

Poker has been so so at best. I play live and online at Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars, and have been in a terrible down streak. Online I’ve been playing 3 tables of 6-max NL .10/.25, I was a level higher. I find that I’m doing great at chipping up, but losing the monster pots of say QQ vs AK all in pre. That has been making it tough to be profitable.

Live poker much of the same. I went to some of the local charity poker rooms and have done well in the past, but man when I don’t, I don’t. Played a 50 man KO tournament for $40. I stayed quite for most of the early levels, but as soon as level 4 or 5 kicked in I built a big stack snapping of two players. I then just played my position and kept chipping up, it was almost too easy. So I made the final table 3rd in chips and they paid to 7. I made one bad play and let a guy get there, but couple hands later won a nice hand to get me back as one of the leaders. I don’t know how I like my play here:

• Blinds 4k/8k (8 handed)
• UTG shoves for about 22k
• 3 folds
• I have 99 in the Hi Jack with about 48k, I re-shove
• Button folds
• SB reships and happens to be the chip leader
• BB tanks and folds
• UGT QQ, Breeze 99, SB JJ
• Flop 10 8 6, Turn 5, River K

Since the UTG was the shorty he doubled and the chip leader broke me. Welcome to bubble bursting land. After completion of the hand two players mentioned the hole cards the Button folded 55 a turned set and the BB folded 77, which were two of my outs.

Do post a comment on this post if you wish to discuss the hand, I feel its pretty standard, but am open to discuss.

I have also been trying to find the best way to follow this years World Series of Poker, and Twitter is it. I use some other poker reporting sites, but mainly been trying to keep up on Twitter. I also have been able to catch a couple of the live broadcast of final tables this year. Bummer not all events will be carried by ESPN. They are focusing on the main event.

[thanks to dpstyles and midwest donkeys via cc]

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It turns out, AIOF means “All-in or Fold”.  Every person at the table is expected to start with $40,000 in play money and sit out until the table is full.  Then, all players join the game and may only make one of two moves – move all-in or fold.  To quote former tennis professional, John McEnroe, “You cannot be serious!” Players are supposed to move all-in or fold pre-flop?  That’s it?

I wonder if these players realize the bad name they are giving poker.  Yes, I know it is only a small group (at least I hope it is a small group) of players who do this, but do they not see that they are turning a game of skill into a complete game of luck in which the only necessary skill is to be able to recognize the strength of a starting hand?  Do they not realize that it is this very sort of thing that lawmakers can point to when they try to determine if poker is a game of skill or luck?  How can they even consider this game a form of poker?

I contacted PokerStars support to see if they had an official stance on this mockery of a game.  I received the following statement from them regarding AIOF:

We understand that some players like to play these rules, however please understand that PokerStars does in no way endorse or enforce these “special” games.  You are under absolutely no obligation to play in any other way than you seem (sic) fit – nor to leave the table.

Well, at least PokerStars doesn’t endorse this type of behavior in its players.  I’d rather see them do something to prevent such shenanigans, but I understand that they have better things to do than to police play money poker tables.  In fact, I suppose that these people are technically not doing anything wrong if all players at the table agree to change the game of skill into a total luckfest; however, the second they ask a player to leave, they have stepped over their bounds.

The tables are there for poker players – anybody who wants to play poker should be welcomed at any table on the site, provided they have the funds and meet the sites terms and conditions of play.  When people become so inconsiderate as to claim a public table for their own, they cross a line of decency.  Asking players to leave a table because you want to play a game other than the game being dealt is rude, indecent, and pathetic.

Can we put these AIOFers at the same table as the people who get indignant when somebody dares to raise pre-flop and let them fight amongst themselves?  Maybe, between the two extremes, they can reach the happy median of good play and sportsmanship….well, at least the good play part.

[thanks to elihodapp and kc via cc]

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