The craziest game you've ever been in...

[Ulysses]

I'll go first, since I just had mine two nights ago. About 3am Saturday morning at Artichoke Joe's near SF.

The game is short-handed 6-12. 4 of us, waiting for the game to fill up again. A little aggressive, but mainly just some nice, fun poker. Then the 5th sits down. He is a pai-gow player, super-aggressive, who knows the rules of hold'em but not much else. He is also a super-bad actor. He's an idiot, trying to act like a bigger idiot, who thinks he's a really good player. Anyway....

Idiot raises and re-raises pre-flop blind. Most times he does the same on the flop. For three hours, every single hand is capped pre-flop and most are capped on the flop as well. Idiot will raise and re-raise on the turn or river w/ one pair or better.

First four hands the idiot plays, he has Q8o, J8o, J3o, and 88. The first two hands turn into full houses that win for him. The third hand turns into bottom two pair winner. The fourth hand holds up against QQ on a Q84 flop when he turns the quads! By the end of the first hour, he has turned his $100 buy-in into about $1200.

That's when I get my first shot at him. I have KK. We cap 4-way pre-flop. The flop is J32. It gets heads-up and we go 7 bets on the flop, then I decide to see the turn. The turn is a 9. We go 7 bets on the turn until I give him credit for a set. A Ten comes on the river and I check-call. He turns over TT!.

About 45 minutes later I get it all back when I flop the nut flush w/ AhKh. Once again we cap pre-flop and cap on the flop (this time 3-way on the flop). I get heads-up w/ him on the turn and we go 7 or so bets before he stops. We go another 6 or 7 bets on the river when he catches his second pair.

10+ bets on the river and turn combined was commonplace. One of the crazier hands was a paired board w/ straight flush possibility. Idiot went 7 bets on the turn and 8 bets against a normally decent, but tilting player on the river. I was sure the solid player had at least a big full house. Solid player went all-in and showed turned nut flush. Idiot showed J8o for the flopped bottom full house!

I left the table about 6am up a couple hundred but unwilling to gamble any more. Idiot had about $1000 at that point. At 9am he left, broke, but he busted three or four players along the way out of $200-400 each.

[J.A.Sucker]

Sounds like he had a good time. Compared to a thousand a hand pai gow, 6/12 ain't a big deal. Sounds like an interesting game.

My strangest games were when I first arrived in the Bay Area (fall 2000). There was a lot of action in most every game, at most any stakes. Gawd I wish I had a bankroll back then... then the .com's died. /forums/images/icons/frown.gif Now, there are some games that get crazy on occasion, like the time a guy comes over from double hand poker with 4K into a 15 game at Bay 101. He played hands blind all the way to the river. The funniest thing is that I saw him get some opponents to lay hands down after the flop when he would bet/raise on every street without looking at his cards! He busted in about an hour.

I also was in a game once where there was a live 30 and 45 straddled with 3 gambling guys. Every pot was capped preflop. Things aren't usually this good, though.

Another game I was in that was insane was the daytime Mirage 20 game a few months ago. I literally robbed those rocks blind for about 4 hours. It was unbelievable. I think I could have turned over my cards on the button, raised with [censored], and have won in a walk. They also would lay just about every hand down on the river. Just goes to show, nits can make a good game, too. They even tried to berate me for being such a sucker - which I am... Just Another Sucker.

[Ed Miller]

Another game I was in that was insane was the daytime Mirage 20 game a few months ago. I literally robbed those rocks blind for about 4 hours. It was unbelievable. I think I could have turned over my cards on the button, raised with [censored], and have won in a walk. They also would lay just about every hand down on the river. Just goes to show, nits can make a good game, too. They even tried to berate me for being such a sucker - which I am... Just Another Sucker.

My absolute favorite games... they lay down everything. I don't know quite what they are laying down, but some of it's got to be pretty solid given what I see in a normal game.

[J.A.Sucker]

Another question, Ulysses. Just curious why do you still play at AJ's with that ridiculous jackpot? The action IS good, but I think that the games are very slow - esp the 15 game where I recalled the SB being hit with the drop. Things have been very good down at Bay 101 lately since they changed limits about 2 months ago. They have a 9/18 that is getting good play - 3 bucks drop on the button (live). I don't like the fact that it has a half kill, since it just confuses everybody and slows things down a little, but it's pretty good anyway. Also, there's a very nice 20 game. Good luck!

[Ulysses]

I play probably 80% at AJs (50% 6-12, 50% 15-30) and 20% at Lucky Chances (25% 9-18, 75% 20-40).

I live in the city and my ideal session length is 4-6 hours. Which makes the difference between a 15 minute drive to AJs and an hour+ to San Jose a big deal... I'll have to try out Bay101 next time I have a reason to be down south...

At AJs, the game can definitely be pretty slow sometimes and the two drops don't help that out any. However, there are so many regulars there who never vary their play and who I have great reads on that it's hard to give that up. Plus the unknown players who show up are in general just terrible. When you play bad like me, you need lineups like that! /forums/images/icons/cool.gif

The 15-30 is actually pretty good wrt the drop slowing down the game. When the game is full of halfway decent players, everyone makes change for the drops, so things move pretty fast. When the game is full of people who don't know what's going on, it definitely slows things down, but when the game is that live, who cares....

I think the fact that most of the 15-30 regulars wanted to be part of the jackpot says a lot about why it's such a good game.

[PokerPrince]

I played in a 5/10 game last night that was triple straddled the whole night. Yes you heard me, triple straddled. The pots were sickly huge. Two guys were really pissed at each other and just pounding away at each other through sheer spite. I walked out after 6.5 hours with $1340 profit. I played ultra tight and just hit everything.

PokerPrince

[haakee]

Hey, I was playing $6-12 at AJ's on Friday night/Saturday morning from 10:30-3:30. I must not have been at your table because there were 2 good players and several loose passives with not a too much aggression.

[Ulysses]

I re-read my post and I actually was wrong re: the date. The crazy table was table 4 on Sat night/ Sun morn. I was playing on table 3 (6-12 table closest to the desk) on Fri night / Sat morn for a few hours. An older loose-passive lady was in Seat 1 or 2. You'd probably remember her. That might have been the table you were playing at, the lineup was pretty much as you described. Not a bad table...

[Howard Burroughs]

Two days before the first Sklansky & Malmuth Q & A at the Mirage (April 2001), I find myself in a $4-$8 game at the Regent in Las Vegas (they no longer have a cardroom BTW). Like most games at the Regent from this time period, the money on the table is very deep. Four players in the game decide to cap it on every betting round (yes, including the river) without ever looking at their hands. After the final river bet, they all would turn over their hands to see what they were betting on the whole time. They did this on every single hand for about four hours. No, they did not run out of money :-)

In fact two of the players went on a run of a lifetime (I don't think anyone would believe me if I said how much they won). BTW, I did not fare so well that night, oh well.


Needless to say my question for Sklansky at the Q & A less then 48 hours later, was about this game.

If I remember it right, I believe he said a suited ace is where it's at in this game or words to that effect. I think he let Vince elaborate and Vince said that you will drop some big numbers in a game like this but when you do book a nice night ......It's going to be a Monster!

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


Crazy Game of all time #2 (for me anyway)............

Regent Las Vegas again. April 2001 again. For about 6 weeks (most of March, part of April), a very rich & very nice young Asian couple would play $1-5 stud almost every night. They would always buy-in between $500 to $1,000 each.
After a few hours they almost always would have to buy-in for more. They played in a style as if they were trying to see how fast they could go through their money. Both of them played in this manner. They always had fun. Always had multiple cocktails in front of them. And loved to gamble. One time when the wife was on the waiting list for poker, her husband sent me to go give her a message in the Pit (where she was playing blackjack). I found her in the pit at a table by herself. She was betting yellow ($1,000) chips at blackjack and she had a ton of them in front of her. So losing $800 to $2,000 every night in 1-5 stud must be some sort of recreational diversion for them.


For some reason they took a liking to me and would call me at my house to let me know what time they were going to be at the card room when they played. They wanted to play at my table. I liked them a lot too (and not just because they put more gamble into a 1-5 stud game then the world has ever seen).

I hope they are doing fine wherever they are.
After about six weeks we never saw them again but they became something of a legend in the cardroom.


PS,


I remember one night when a card room floor man (Garry) from Palace Station stopped in on his way home from work (March 2001). It's 4:00 am. There's just one stud game going. There's a list. And everyone at the table has over $800 in front of them. Garry said he's been in the poker industry for decades and he's never seen a 1-5 stud game that had that kind of money on the table!
All thanks to that crazy Regent game infused by that friendly young couple from the far east.


Best of Luck

H.B.

[haakee]

I was at table 3 that night as well, sent you a private msg since we're sort of getting off-topic.

[andyfox]

"I played ultra tight and just hit everything."

You should enter a post entitled, "How I Make a Living Playing Limit Poker" and just put the above sentence in the body of the post. /forums/images/icons/smile.gif