My First B&M Experience (experiment - melt-down..,) LENGTHY

[webiggy]

I thought I'd share this with you so you could laugh with me at my expense.

I've been playing on-line hold-em for about a month or so.., about 2k hands at least. I've done reasonably well. I've won a hand full of sit-n-go's at Party and have played mostly low-limit games. I'm up a couple of bucks.

There's a local card room here in the SF Bay Area called Califonia Grand Casino that has some decent multi-table tournaments so I thought I'd go and check it out. It was a $50 buy-in w/ $1000 added. I kinda figured I'd get my head handed to me but, I wanted to check it out to see if B&M was for me.

Let me say that I have never played poker in a card room and I'm also a fairly clean-living soul. Most of my gambling has been of the 21 and craps variety. I am fairly methodical in my play, and thought I'd take the same approach here.

So here's the story. I arrive about 45 minutes ahead of time. Demand for the tournaments at this place is quite high, so they seat on a lottery basis - the players have to draw bingo chips. On this day, the top 30 players get seated. Now, this being my first time, I had no idea what was going on. I saw a short queue near the entrance, which looked like a maitre'd station at the local Denny's, so I walk up, and get in line. After about 5 minutes, I'm politely greeted by the harried maitre'd guy and I pull a number out of the jar of chips. Lucky number 13. I'm in, as I am told that numbers 1-30 will definately be seated. Great! Now all I have to do is stand around and watch and take it all in.

Interesting folks at the ol' B&M - retirees, thugs, frat boys, and true gamblers. I wasn't sure I fit in, and I started to feel a little intimidated, which eventually showed in my play.

After waiting around for what felt to be an eternity, we were finally sat at our table. I was positioned between a very vocal Filipino and an elderly, retired white male.

The dealer gave me my chips; 8 yellow; 8 blue and 3 green. I had no idea what the value of each was and was too embarrassed to ask. After play started, Ifigured out the yellows were $10, the blues $20 and greens $100.

I lasted an hour, and won two hands. I tossed KXs on the lb on a hand that eventually flopped a four flush and hit on the turn; a 5-7s that ended up making a gut-shot straight. On one hand I was dealt KJo. I called a raise that had 5 players in. The flop came K9J. The board seemed to miss everybody but me, but my head was swimming too much to be strategic. The bet was checked to me where I bet and got two to call. The turn (K9J) J. I didn't realize that the BB checked - it checked to me again, so I calmly say "RAISE". Oh, GOD! Of course everybody folded - I showed and got chastised for betting too fast on what was incorrectly diagnosed as the nuts.

It went to hell from there and I was gone within an hour. My sole triumph was that I stayed around long-enough to come in 21st.

Well, I learned that I should have at least one drink, try to relax and enjoy myself. Having said that, I think I played 5 hands all day.

Courious to hear from others about their first B&M experiences and how to get over being slightly intimidated.

Thanks for hanging with this.

[StevieG]

OK, I'll share my first B&M experience, which happens to be my first card room experience. Happened just over a month ago as I'm rather new to poker. It was at the Bay 101 Club in San Jose. It might have been a similar crowd to yours - multi-ethnic, all across the economic spectrum, but I found it attractive. Not many places in the U.S. you sit down a to a table with that kind of makeup (which means not many places anywhere like that).

I asked the woman who was running the wait lists if I could just take a seat, but she said she would place me. I'm glad she did. I got the most helpful and friendly dealer I could ask for. His instructions were clear, and I needed it early on. Soon enough I got the hang of it.

After handing the woman who seated me $60, she returned with
60 one dollar checks (a royal blue with the club's dolphin-on-club-suit logo in the white center) and I was off.

Despite the help and a moderately paced table, I was all kinds of nervous. Early on I paid to see flops, but bailed out if things looked poor. Then I was dealt a pair of 5s in middle position. The flop came A-8-3, but I hung in there when no one raised. I got the turn for free, a deuce, and so I felt good going in for four more and having people drop out. The river was a blank, and I felt OK. The first player bet, someone folded, and I called. Why not? Any ace, 8, or pocket pair would have raised on the flop, right? I'm in. He shows 4-5 for the straight. Never saw it coming. I considered that a lesson.

I started playing a little tighter, and I won a few pots. But I was no longer paying to see any old cards through.

At two points I deviated from tight play because of nice starts. One was A-9 suited that I should have dropped when the board flopped a K in a different suit, the other was a pair of Queens when the board flopped an ace. In hindsight though, I may have advertised myself as a weak player,
which may have helped for this hand I'm about to describe.

I have KQ unsuited in late position. The flop comes AJ3. I call. The turn is a blank, and I call a $4 there, too. Not a lot of raises, so again I do not fear Aces, and maybe I'll catch that straight. A lot of people call, and the pot looks nice. That's when you stick with these hands, right?

Right. I get the T on the river. Someone bets, next remaining player raises, I reraise. Original folds. Next guy comes all in. Big stacks.

I'm stunned. Is this a replay of that early straight I lost to with my pair of 5s? I check the board. There are not three cards of any suit. No board pair. I can't get beat by trips, and there is no chance for a flush or full house. Holy [censored]! I have the nuts, I KNOW I have the nuts and this guy just came all in to me.

"How much is that?" I ask. The dealer counts. $62. Remember, I bought in for $60. That's all I was planning to play with, and if I lost it, chalk it up to education. Now I was looking at betting more than that on one hand.

But like I said, I have the nuts. I figure he must have KQ, too, and this is a trivial exercise in chip counting before we split the pot in two. I push my chips in, the dealer counts 'em up. We show em. My KQ, his AT.

He must have seen that river card, got juiced about his new two pair, and missed the straight, like I had early on.

My heart was going so fast as I pulled in that pot I could not think straight. Probably lost me some money, too, as I stayed in some more pots than I should the rest of my time there.

But now I'm hooked. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[skaboomizzy]

It's better than my first B&M experience.

I went to the Seminole casino in Tampa. Waited nearly two hours to get seated at the only hold-em table they were running. It'd been so long since they'd given me my beeper that the shifts changed and they tried TWICE to seat me at 7-card stud tables. By the time they figured out what game I'd signed up for 2 hours ago, the seat was gone. I gave up and went home.

[mosch]

My first time at a B&M was at the trop in AC. I had no idea about anything, so I went with $2k in my pocket, to play some low limit poker. (I had no clue what a good bankroll was, so I figured better safe than sorry)

I was seated at a 1-5 stud table next to a drunk who was on speed, and who loved to tell me how badly I played. I think I only put up with it because due to one of those freaks of chance, I was winning, but I was playing so badly that even I knew I didn't deserve it. The speedy drunk had me so off kilter I could barely think about anything other than my desire to be anywhere else at that moment.

I got sick of the stinky, drunk speed freak, so I wandered over to the blackjack tables and started playing black chips, and stopped that when I hit about $4k.

I went back to the poker room and started playing in the 7.50/15 HE game, and I started actually enjoying myself. The players were amiable and didn't seem to mind that for the most part I was content to sit quietly, drink water and lose money.

I was losing, but it was casino money, and after five or six hours I realized that I could get to enjoy that... It was fun, even though I was completely and utterly outmatched.

The only good news was that I had shown up too late to join the $200 NLHE tourney, else I probably would've ended up making your story sound like the very picture of grace.

[daryn]

this post confused me a little bit. were you playing in a no limit game? or were you just reraising over and over again heads up on the river? another thing, you really shouldn't be calling the flop and turn looking for an inside straight. i didn't know if you were joking or not but that's wrong.

[StevieG]

[ QUOTE ]
this post confused me a little bit. were you playing in a no limit game? or were you just reraising over and over again heads up on the river?

[/ QUOTE ]

At Bay101, once the game is heads up it becomes no limit.

[ QUOTE ]
another thing, you really shouldn't be calling the flop and turn looking for an inside straight. i didn't know if you were joking or not but that's wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

Like I said, this was the first time playing in a cardroom for real money, B&M or otherwise. I saw a high straight draw, I had company that was not aggressive (yet) and I hung around. May be weak, but not the most egregious thing a rookie could do.

But let's say this happens again. Shouldn't situational information come into play?

I'm sitting in LP with KQ with a rainbow flop showing AJ. There were no pre-flop raises, so I'm ruling out AA, AK, KK. There's already a couple callers. 12 cards help me improve, 4 give me the nuts. I really can't remember pot numbers involved because I just was not skilled enough to capture all that (and maybe I'm still not) but don't implied odds favor hanging around?

[punkass]

12? I count 4 cards for the nut straight. Your 6 other cards that give your pairs suck. They don't even get factored into the equation.

So, you have 4 cards out of 47. ~11:1. Sucky.

[CrackerZack]

Rule out AA, AK, KK all you want, have you ruled out AQ-A2? All are way ahead of you.

[StevieG]

yeah, I doubt that I was getting 11:1 from the pot at that point. Thanks.

[StevieG]

[ QUOTE ]
Rule out AA, AK, KK all you want, have you ruled out AQ-A2? All are way ahead of you.

[/ QUOTE ]

another instructive point, thanks

[PrimeRoll]

I can relate about Seminole in Tampa. I had to wait 2 hours the last time I was there. It's been like that since they passed the new law that you can play $1-$2 Hold Em. To them, this a big deal, live action. Others around probably can't believe it, but that's the highest game there, $1-$2. The first time I played Hold Em there a couple months ago was in one of their single table tourneys. Everyone pays $40, winner gets $150, 2nd $50, 3rd $whatever. I was nervous, even though I loved it, and don't think it affected my play. Got 2nd place. I've went there a few more times since then, before you could get a table easy, now it's too packed. I've been playing Party hard the last few days. I win some and lose some. Makes me think I'm very a very average player who will win if I happen to get the cards. I really want to be good, I would love to be able to play for a living, but this Sklansky book is too complicated, and I think it's really boring to read about other people's hands and what they could've or should've done, so I don't know what that says about me.