LetsRock
01-27-2004, 01:19 PM
Just got back from Reno yesterday and managed to find a few hours of time to play some Holdem. (I went up with a group of guys for other purposes, but planned to use most of the "my time' at the tables.)
Friday night, reach the poker room about 9:30 PM. 4 tables active, with the lowest stakes being 4/8 kill. I was hoping to play 2/4 or 3/6 (my BR isn't really big) but brought enough to play 4/8 if it turned out that that's what was available.
Got on the list for the 4/8 kill (I'm not a big fan of kill games - especially when I'm playing a little over my BR). Went to graba bite to eat and when I came back there were enough players on the list to start a new game. We were given the option to play any stakes we wanted and the table decided to play 4/8 with no kill so it wouldn't have to be a must-move table.
We started with 8 players. 1 guy (to my right) was clearly a regular. Maybe a pro of sorts, maybe an off duty dealer as he was actually assisiting with some of the floor duties (delivering fresh racks, running change for the dealers, etc). There were 3 or 4 absolute newbies (I mean "how do the blinds work?" newbie) and a couple others who appeared to have a little clue but weren't real threatening. Including myself and the obvious regular, I'd say there were 4 of us that had any chance of walking away winners.
Within the hour, the table was full and we were cycling through players in a few seats, but there were 2 clowns at the other end who were just catching cards left and right and were pretty loose calling stations that I was happy to see hanging around for most of the time I was there. the regular hung around for about 30 mins and moved on.
Unfortunately the cards were running very cold for me and didn't get a lot of chances to look at any flops for the first couple of hours. Right about the time I did start getting involved in pots the card catchers packed up and went home even, so I wasn't able to get into their stacks too much. I played pretty solid, didn't make any "mistakes" and didn't lose a single showdown when I was pushing the pot. I left feeling I had made the absolute best of what tools I had to work with. Up $100 in about 5 hours of play.
As a side note: The table we were playing at was a brand new table, and the rake drop box wasn't lined up properly with the slot so we were faced with delays every other hand while the dealers were calling the floor to bring a butter knife to jam down in the slot to get the chips freed up. I joked: "I guess they can't take any more rake since the box is full!" The table cracked up and the dealer smiled, rolled her eyes and said "I don't think that's gonna happen." For the first hour, it was mildly amusing; after that I found it quite anoying and coldn't figure out why they just didn't move us to another table.
Saturday, I made it down to the tables about 11 p.m. Keep in mind that my Saturday day activities involved heavy drinking and only got about 4 hours of sleep the night before. I "handle" my liquor very well and although I was very tired, I decided to "see what happens". I did consider the option of not playing, but I don't get to a live game very often and understood that my condition could cost me some money. Please - no lectures on this choice - I made a conscious decision and was willing to live with the consquences.
They had only 4 games going and had a seat at a must move 4/8 kill. Didn't care for the must move, but I took a seat. This table was a much tougher table than the one Friday night. There were 2 or 3 fishy types, 2 or 3 obnoxious/pushy rounder types and 2 or 3 older quiet regular types.
Again, the cards were pretty cold. Didn't get into many pots, but the texture of the table allowed me to buy a couple of small pots after an hour or so. The "obvious regular" guy from Friday made his way to our table and was seated to my left. He was fairly aggressive and I was happy to find an excuse (better view) to move to his left. I had the misfortune of getting popped pretty good on a couple of the pots I got involved with (KJ beat by K4, KJs beat by A2s) so I was into my second rack. But I felt pretty good about my read of the table and don't think I had made any glaring mistakes. One guy sat down trying to act like a know-it-all to impress his lady friend and was kind of holding things up as he was "teaching" her casino poker. He really wasn't very knowledgable, but caught a few cards before breaking even and left. I figured he was just on the make, but later I saw his lady friend at the 2/4 table (which I didn't even know they had running - brain fart) and he was no where to be found, so I wasn't quite sure to figure out what he was up to.
Of course about this time, I get called to move. Most of the guys there are from the must move game so most of my reads are still valid. Cards remained pretty cold, and there was one pretty fishy type that was catching cards "that even a monkey could play" (his quote) but I did manage to get a couple of decent pots including a huge kill pot that I raised PF with AKs where I lucked out with a gut shot river for the nut straight that busted out one of the rounder guys. (Kind of a funny side story: this guy was obviuosly friends with the guy sitting next to him. They were talking about game stuff between themselves and at one point his friend actually pulled out Helmuth's book at the table and started gushing about how great it was! They were leafing through it together and pointing at pages and nodding their heads in agreement. I've never seen this before and found it pretty amusing.)
One thing that did bother me about these 2 guys is that they were "sharing" their hands when one of them was out and discussing options on how to continue in tough moments. It never happened against me, but I kind of thought they were breaking the "1 player to a hand" rule, but chose to mind my own business since no one else seemed to mind.
Anyway, as the night progressed, the fishier types started leaving and I suddenly (remember I was very tired), found myself facing only 3 others: the guy who dug the Hellmuth book out of his bag earlier, the obvious regular (I started getting the impression he was some kind of private loan shark) and one of the obnoxious rounder types. These guys were acting like they knew each other pretty well and started getting real aggressive - I mean maniac aggressive (raising with 24o kind of aggressive).
Now, before you tell me that I should have racked up and left (I was about even, maybe a few bets down), I wanted to really test myself - put my nerves to the test to see how I handled a very uncomfortable situation (short-handed against 1 player who was probably much better than me and 2 others who were equal/+ to my skill playing at stakes that were a little uncomfortable for my BR). I understood that I was probably the "sucker" at the table and had no problem with suffering the consequences. I wished I was in better condition, but I wanted the test.
We played this way for a couple of hours and, while I was pretty much holding my own, my chips were slowly bleeding away because the cards were still pretty cold. I drug a few pots, but I found that I was either being cheated (everytime "obvious regular" would raise and "obnoxious rounder" called - they had junk and were just gamblng it up; every time "obvious regular" raised, rounder folded and I called, regular had really good cards) or was just out of rythm. I got into my third rack (which is something I think I wouldn't have done in a better mental state) and just couldn't pick the right moments. The hand play that I think I may have done differently was this:
Rounder was UTG and was happy he remebered to straddle (since he kept forgetting to do this). Regular (BB) and he were bickering about how he should raise his BB in the dark.
I caught a JJ and open raised the straddle which made them all step back a bit, because mild manered little ole passive tourist guy was raising into their little side game. I don't think they liked this at all.
Sb foldes, regular called as did rounder who told me that I needed to give him a reciept for his call. (He was really obnoxious.)
Flop comes 6K4. Rounder checked, I bet and his chips were inthe pot before mine, BB folded. UTG checked the turn (2) and I just checked through, figuring he had stumbled across a crappy K in his hand and was going to cll me down. River brings a 3 and he bets and I call to find out that, of course, the free river filled in his A5 straight. I showed my JJ and they all gave me the requisite sympathy head shake and groan. Of course he told me that had I bet the turn he would have folded (which I'm not sure I believed) but it was the one hand that: I know would have played differently at lower limits, and not sure if I would have kept pushing with a clearer head.
That was the only hand that I felt I could have played better aside from guessing a little better on what the gamblers at the other end of the table were doing. The overall results of my session really did boil down to a little tough luck, very cold cards and couple of decisions that game down to guessing games that I guessed wrong.
On my last hand, I raised UTG with a ATo hoping to chase any callers on the flop. Got one caller who beat my unimproved AT with a 99. Was never ahead in the hand, but had tons of outs that just wouldn't hit. Called it a night after 5 hours down almost 3 racks.
I left the room in pretty good humor (I don't take losing sessions lightly), ironically laughing to myself about the cold cards and tough breaks and really trying to think of any real play mistakes I had made and honestly evaluating all of my decisions (to play in the first place and to stay after my first 2 racks vanished) and as I said before, I kind of wish that I hadn't donated that third rack, but really didn't have a big problem with it.
Sunday night, after another serious day of drinking and even less sleep Staurday night I decided to pass on poker (I was deep in zombie mode) and instead of playing poker in a very bad mental state I would get some dinner and get my poker money back from the stupid defenseless machines. My plan worked well as I managed to drop $200 in about 1 hour and decided to call it quits. Ironically, it's very unlikely I would have dropped that much in the poker room that fast even in my zombie state, so I did question my decision making that night (I should have just gone to bed), but I had no business being in the poker room that night. I did wander by the poker room to see 1 full table going (the Hellmuth book guy was there - he was pretty clearly a regular as well) and didn't even tempt myself by finding out what stakes they were playing.
All in all, I had fun (the 3 guys from Saturday night were pretty good about "putting on a fun show" for us tourists) and am hoping to talk myself into getting up there a little more often, just for the poker.
Sorry this is so long, but if you made it this far, I hope you enjoyed the tale, and won't be too hard on me for my questionable decision to play Sat. night. (I probably would have lost more had I wandered around the casino with my pals anyway.) I appologize for some of the other player stories, but I have fun trying to figure out "what's that guy's story" while I'm playing, so I thought I'd share my observations.
Friday night, reach the poker room about 9:30 PM. 4 tables active, with the lowest stakes being 4/8 kill. I was hoping to play 2/4 or 3/6 (my BR isn't really big) but brought enough to play 4/8 if it turned out that that's what was available.
Got on the list for the 4/8 kill (I'm not a big fan of kill games - especially when I'm playing a little over my BR). Went to graba bite to eat and when I came back there were enough players on the list to start a new game. We were given the option to play any stakes we wanted and the table decided to play 4/8 with no kill so it wouldn't have to be a must-move table.
We started with 8 players. 1 guy (to my right) was clearly a regular. Maybe a pro of sorts, maybe an off duty dealer as he was actually assisiting with some of the floor duties (delivering fresh racks, running change for the dealers, etc). There were 3 or 4 absolute newbies (I mean "how do the blinds work?" newbie) and a couple others who appeared to have a little clue but weren't real threatening. Including myself and the obvious regular, I'd say there were 4 of us that had any chance of walking away winners.
Within the hour, the table was full and we were cycling through players in a few seats, but there were 2 clowns at the other end who were just catching cards left and right and were pretty loose calling stations that I was happy to see hanging around for most of the time I was there. the regular hung around for about 30 mins and moved on.
Unfortunately the cards were running very cold for me and didn't get a lot of chances to look at any flops for the first couple of hours. Right about the time I did start getting involved in pots the card catchers packed up and went home even, so I wasn't able to get into their stacks too much. I played pretty solid, didn't make any "mistakes" and didn't lose a single showdown when I was pushing the pot. I left feeling I had made the absolute best of what tools I had to work with. Up $100 in about 5 hours of play.
As a side note: The table we were playing at was a brand new table, and the rake drop box wasn't lined up properly with the slot so we were faced with delays every other hand while the dealers were calling the floor to bring a butter knife to jam down in the slot to get the chips freed up. I joked: "I guess they can't take any more rake since the box is full!" The table cracked up and the dealer smiled, rolled her eyes and said "I don't think that's gonna happen." For the first hour, it was mildly amusing; after that I found it quite anoying and coldn't figure out why they just didn't move us to another table.
Saturday, I made it down to the tables about 11 p.m. Keep in mind that my Saturday day activities involved heavy drinking and only got about 4 hours of sleep the night before. I "handle" my liquor very well and although I was very tired, I decided to "see what happens". I did consider the option of not playing, but I don't get to a live game very often and understood that my condition could cost me some money. Please - no lectures on this choice - I made a conscious decision and was willing to live with the consquences.
They had only 4 games going and had a seat at a must move 4/8 kill. Didn't care for the must move, but I took a seat. This table was a much tougher table than the one Friday night. There were 2 or 3 fishy types, 2 or 3 obnoxious/pushy rounder types and 2 or 3 older quiet regular types.
Again, the cards were pretty cold. Didn't get into many pots, but the texture of the table allowed me to buy a couple of small pots after an hour or so. The "obvious regular" guy from Friday made his way to our table and was seated to my left. He was fairly aggressive and I was happy to find an excuse (better view) to move to his left. I had the misfortune of getting popped pretty good on a couple of the pots I got involved with (KJ beat by K4, KJs beat by A2s) so I was into my second rack. But I felt pretty good about my read of the table and don't think I had made any glaring mistakes. One guy sat down trying to act like a know-it-all to impress his lady friend and was kind of holding things up as he was "teaching" her casino poker. He really wasn't very knowledgable, but caught a few cards before breaking even and left. I figured he was just on the make, but later I saw his lady friend at the 2/4 table (which I didn't even know they had running - brain fart) and he was no where to be found, so I wasn't quite sure to figure out what he was up to.
Of course about this time, I get called to move. Most of the guys there are from the must move game so most of my reads are still valid. Cards remained pretty cold, and there was one pretty fishy type that was catching cards "that even a monkey could play" (his quote) but I did manage to get a couple of decent pots including a huge kill pot that I raised PF with AKs where I lucked out with a gut shot river for the nut straight that busted out one of the rounder guys. (Kind of a funny side story: this guy was obviuosly friends with the guy sitting next to him. They were talking about game stuff between themselves and at one point his friend actually pulled out Helmuth's book at the table and started gushing about how great it was! They were leafing through it together and pointing at pages and nodding their heads in agreement. I've never seen this before and found it pretty amusing.)
One thing that did bother me about these 2 guys is that they were "sharing" their hands when one of them was out and discussing options on how to continue in tough moments. It never happened against me, but I kind of thought they were breaking the "1 player to a hand" rule, but chose to mind my own business since no one else seemed to mind.
Anyway, as the night progressed, the fishier types started leaving and I suddenly (remember I was very tired), found myself facing only 3 others: the guy who dug the Hellmuth book out of his bag earlier, the obvious regular (I started getting the impression he was some kind of private loan shark) and one of the obnoxious rounder types. These guys were acting like they knew each other pretty well and started getting real aggressive - I mean maniac aggressive (raising with 24o kind of aggressive).
Now, before you tell me that I should have racked up and left (I was about even, maybe a few bets down), I wanted to really test myself - put my nerves to the test to see how I handled a very uncomfortable situation (short-handed against 1 player who was probably much better than me and 2 others who were equal/+ to my skill playing at stakes that were a little uncomfortable for my BR). I understood that I was probably the "sucker" at the table and had no problem with suffering the consequences. I wished I was in better condition, but I wanted the test.
We played this way for a couple of hours and, while I was pretty much holding my own, my chips were slowly bleeding away because the cards were still pretty cold. I drug a few pots, but I found that I was either being cheated (everytime "obvious regular" would raise and "obnoxious rounder" called - they had junk and were just gamblng it up; every time "obvious regular" raised, rounder folded and I called, regular had really good cards) or was just out of rythm. I got into my third rack (which is something I think I wouldn't have done in a better mental state) and just couldn't pick the right moments. The hand play that I think I may have done differently was this:
Rounder was UTG and was happy he remebered to straddle (since he kept forgetting to do this). Regular (BB) and he were bickering about how he should raise his BB in the dark.
I caught a JJ and open raised the straddle which made them all step back a bit, because mild manered little ole passive tourist guy was raising into their little side game. I don't think they liked this at all.
Sb foldes, regular called as did rounder who told me that I needed to give him a reciept for his call. (He was really obnoxious.)
Flop comes 6K4. Rounder checked, I bet and his chips were inthe pot before mine, BB folded. UTG checked the turn (2) and I just checked through, figuring he had stumbled across a crappy K in his hand and was going to cll me down. River brings a 3 and he bets and I call to find out that, of course, the free river filled in his A5 straight. I showed my JJ and they all gave me the requisite sympathy head shake and groan. Of course he told me that had I bet the turn he would have folded (which I'm not sure I believed) but it was the one hand that: I know would have played differently at lower limits, and not sure if I would have kept pushing with a clearer head.
That was the only hand that I felt I could have played better aside from guessing a little better on what the gamblers at the other end of the table were doing. The overall results of my session really did boil down to a little tough luck, very cold cards and couple of decisions that game down to guessing games that I guessed wrong.
On my last hand, I raised UTG with a ATo hoping to chase any callers on the flop. Got one caller who beat my unimproved AT with a 99. Was never ahead in the hand, but had tons of outs that just wouldn't hit. Called it a night after 5 hours down almost 3 racks.
I left the room in pretty good humor (I don't take losing sessions lightly), ironically laughing to myself about the cold cards and tough breaks and really trying to think of any real play mistakes I had made and honestly evaluating all of my decisions (to play in the first place and to stay after my first 2 racks vanished) and as I said before, I kind of wish that I hadn't donated that third rack, but really didn't have a big problem with it.
Sunday night, after another serious day of drinking and even less sleep Staurday night I decided to pass on poker (I was deep in zombie mode) and instead of playing poker in a very bad mental state I would get some dinner and get my poker money back from the stupid defenseless machines. My plan worked well as I managed to drop $200 in about 1 hour and decided to call it quits. Ironically, it's very unlikely I would have dropped that much in the poker room that fast even in my zombie state, so I did question my decision making that night (I should have just gone to bed), but I had no business being in the poker room that night. I did wander by the poker room to see 1 full table going (the Hellmuth book guy was there - he was pretty clearly a regular as well) and didn't even tempt myself by finding out what stakes they were playing.
All in all, I had fun (the 3 guys from Saturday night were pretty good about "putting on a fun show" for us tourists) and am hoping to talk myself into getting up there a little more often, just for the poker.
Sorry this is so long, but if you made it this far, I hope you enjoyed the tale, and won't be too hard on me for my questionable decision to play Sat. night. (I probably would have lost more had I wandered around the casino with my pals anyway.) I appologize for some of the other player stories, but I have fun trying to figure out "what's that guy's story" while I'm playing, so I thought I'd share my observations.