Clarkmeister
02-03-2004, 01:31 AM
It was Saturday, and I had decided it would be a poker Saturday.
So I call up Majorkong and see if he wants to take a break from his labor of love and go do some “field research”. He’s game, and we decide to rendezvous at the Bellagio for some 15-30. I get there and the list is three and a half columns long, call it 150 names for 4 tables. I had waited through 2 columns a few weeks earlier when skp was in town, and that was 2.5 hours. No way was I doing that wait again.
So I call the Mirage and they have four 20-40 games with a list that is “about 1.5 columns long”. Sounds good to me. I call Eddie (majorkong) up and tell him we have a new meeting place.
So I get to the Mirage and I put my name on the list. Ed and I grab some grub and shortly thereafter I get called.
I sit in a 20-40 game that looks fabulous. The problem is that it wasn’t. The maniac was 2 to my left and the loose passives were sandwiched between the other 2 competent players. So I never had a chance to isolate, and couldn’t really limp either. I was basically reduced to playing way tighter than I prefer because of my seat situation and the overall table dynamics. I put in for a seat change and a table change. Eddie circles around and tells me table 6 is the livest of the 4, so we both get on a change to 6.
I win two pots at that first table, I get AA and open raise in the CO against the button’s KK. We cap it 3 ways preflop and I win with the nut flush. In another, I 3-bet preflop with JJ and win. I’m up a few bucks when I get called to Eddie’s table.
This game is pretty loose and passive. I lose a few hands. I call my girlfriend and she wants to play too, so I talk to Ed and he agrees to go to Mandalay. I tell her I’ll call when I’m ready. But I wasn’t ready yet because now I was stuck like $400 and no way was I leaving a good game stuck that much to go play in a 4-8 game with no shot of getting it back. But the luck gods were with me.
About when I have to call her to confirm departure time (and in this case, to tell her of a change in plan) it is folded to me on the button with 55. I raise and the SB asks me if I am trying to steal their blinds. I say “yes” and nod. He calls and the BB also calls.
The flop is T73 with a flush draw. SB checks, BB bets, I raise, SB coldcalls and BB calls. Chit. OK, gonna check this one down. I was, at least, until I hit a 5 on the turn and got paid off in both places on the turn and one place on the river.
So I get unstuck and let the girlfriend know that yes indeedy we are heading over to Mandalay Bay in a few moments. I call and put all three of us on the list, play two more orbits, and take off down the new Frank Sinatra Drive to Mandalay Bay.
We get there almost the same time as the girlfriend, and I get into a 6-12 rather quickly. Amazingly enough, majorkong was next and didn’t get called until about 75 minutes later. Fortunately, after my girlfriend got called to her 4-8 game, he found another nice looking gal to chat with.
My table is, as anticipated, terrible. I need to pause here and explain some of the Mandalay Bay game dynamics.
They spread primarily 2 games. 4-8 half kill holdem with $1 and $2 blinds, and on this night, three $6-12 half kill games with $1 and $3 blinds. Rake is 10% to $3 with a $1 high hand jackpot that is 5% to $1. So at $20 in pot size, the pot is actually $17. The high hand is quads or better, pocket pair for quads, both cards play for straight flushes.
So while the $4-8 games tend to be quite fabulous, with a win rate of $20 achievable because of all the novice players, the $6-12 tends to be terrible. See, the good players all play $6-12. While the novices couldn’t care less about rake and pot size, the $6-12 is usually very very tight. The blinds are equal to the rake, so there really isn’t any motivation to get involved against players who play decent postflop. I don’t mind the blind structure for the $4-8 because it keeps it less intimidating for the new players. But to keep that structure for their $6-12 game is silly. Kay (the cardroom manager) really needs to strongly consider making it $3 and $6 blinds.
Anecdotal evidence supports this as well. A few weeks prior, Ed and I were there playing in a horrible $6-12 and everyone knew it. I mean everyone. All the players were aware of how awful the game was. I convinced everyone at the table to make it a $10-20 with a half kill to $15-30 and the room was kind enough to oblige us. There was an added benefit that they don’t play that game with the high hand jackpot. The game went from horrible to fabulous, almost instantly. There was once again a reason to play hands.
Anyways, back to the story…..
I sit in a horrible game. At one point I say it’s the least fun I’ve had playing poker in a long long time. Ed tells me to drink faster and I think that’s a swell idea. In fact, a big reason I like the Mandalay room is that they have the fastest cocktail service of any of the poker rooms on the strip. By far. So I start downing my fair share of Coronas.
Then things start to get lively. A little bit of everything happens. All to me.
The game is terrible so I decide to steal the blinds. I raise without looking in MP. Of course, this time the blinds both call. In case you weren’t paying attention, that means I raised to $9 and the $1 small blind had to call $8 more. Like, come on, cough up the buck, dude. So the blinds both come and I look to see K3o.
The flop is JT3. Hey, I got a pair. They check, I bet, they call. Hmmm.
The turn is an 8. They check, well maybe they were peeling, I bet. SB calls. Chit.
The river is a K. Check-bet-call and he shows his bad beated Queen-Jack offsuit. Like he couldn’t have tossed that for $8 more preflop. Serves him right, after all, I did have the best hand preflop!
So I have a few more beers. Uber tight kid on my left who plays pretty solid mentions that he folded A2s and would have made a flush. I tell him I’d have never folded that (the game was crazy passive on top of tight). A few hands later, I get Ad4d and raise one limper as I flash him the hand. 3 of us see the flop and I make the nuts right away. They both call my flop bet, but fold when I bet the turn after the 4th diamond hit.
I play good.
The very next hand, the kid raises with Ah6h and the flop comes all spades.
He bets the flop, they both call. The turn is the 4th spade. He didn’t notice what happened on my previous hand obviously because he lost his heart and checked behind. To his credit though, he did bet the river when the 5th spade hit the river and managed to lose one of his two opponents and make money on the hand.
A little while later, I get 7c4c in LP and limp behind some others. Like 6 of us see the flop (the game slowly improved as I drank, hmmmmmmm). I yell out “FLOP ME THE NUTS!”. The flop comes down Qc 7d 3c. I say “good enough”. They don’t believe me however, as there is a bet and a caller to me. I raise, and get coldcalled by the button. The initial bettor calls and now the first caller call-3-bets me! I don’t particularly care because, after all, I have a pair and a flush draw so how wrong can it be to 4-bet. And 4-betting is fun! So I 4-bet. Button calls again, initial bettor calls and limp 3-bettor calls.
4 of us to a turn of 9c. Initial bettor checks, limp-3 bettor now bets out. I pee my pants and call, the other two fold.
The river is the 2d. I am bet into, I call.
I am shown the inexplicable hand of red KK. I gleefully flip my hand over. The dealer doesn’t see my flush and looks confused like I just turned over a pair of 7’s. I have bad eyes, and I’m now counting my Coronas in Spanish, so I peer to the flop again, and no longer see my flush! Fortunately, the dealer now does, so I read the board correctly the first time, but not the 2nd. She ships me the pot. I play very good.
A bit later, I limp with Kd4d. like 7 of us see the flop for $3 each and check a flop of A53. The turn is a 2. I peer at my cards to make sure my kicker is a 4, and sure enough! It is a four. Sweet. But a tight kid bets into me. I call, sneakily allowing fools to come along since I’m obviously chopping with tighty. They all fold though. The river is a 3 and he bets again. I’m definitely not raising him on a paired board, so I call and proudly declare “I have a four!” as I do so. I flip over my K4 for my straight.
Now Tighty says “you have a four??” and may as well have said “what the F are you talking about??”. I look back to the board and see the dealer pushing up my hand: AK333. Turns out the turn card was a 3, not a 2. Who knew?
Tighty disgustedly flips over his 68s that semibluffed a turned flush draw and bluffed the river. Ship it!
I play really really good.
I decide to shake myself and ask Ed to tack on some cheese fries to his food order right before he gets to the register. Better order another Corona to wash those down though.
A bit later, I decide to get tricky and limp in with my AJ UTG. So some joker in MP raises and like 4 people now coldcall. No way I’m folding. Heck, he’s probably raising with something like Ace Ten suited. So like 6 of us see the AAQ flop. Sweet. I’ll bet. Betting is fun. He flat calls with half the world behind him still to act (!). I pee my pants. Everyone else folds. I’m done with the hand.
At least, I’m done with the hand until an A his the turn. I checkraise. He calls. The river is a Q for a board of AAAQQ. I bet, he raises, I 3-bet, he calls with his quad queens. Ed, amazed that the guy raised the river, later commented “doesn’t he know that you don’t get to win the pot simply because you have four queens?”. So I win the pot, but he wins the high hand jackpot (must have a pocket pair for the quad bonus). The dealer looks really confused as he figures out that the jackpot hand actually lost the pot.
Man, I’m a poker genius.
After sucking out in the grandest of fashions all day, I then decide to make someone else pee their pants. I limp reraise like 5 people with Ace King suited, flop a K and win the pot uncontested. Man was that fun cranking their unsuspecting butts there. They surely deserved it for something they did in their lives.
Shortly thereafter, we decide that 2AM is plenty late to be out, what with the Superbowl on tap the next day and all, so we rack up and leave.
So somehow I make $300 in this awful $6-12 game that I was stuck $150 in at one point. Just goes to show that good play can overcome any deficit. /images/graemlins/laugh.gif
So I call up Majorkong and see if he wants to take a break from his labor of love and go do some “field research”. He’s game, and we decide to rendezvous at the Bellagio for some 15-30. I get there and the list is three and a half columns long, call it 150 names for 4 tables. I had waited through 2 columns a few weeks earlier when skp was in town, and that was 2.5 hours. No way was I doing that wait again.
So I call the Mirage and they have four 20-40 games with a list that is “about 1.5 columns long”. Sounds good to me. I call Eddie (majorkong) up and tell him we have a new meeting place.
So I get to the Mirage and I put my name on the list. Ed and I grab some grub and shortly thereafter I get called.
I sit in a 20-40 game that looks fabulous. The problem is that it wasn’t. The maniac was 2 to my left and the loose passives were sandwiched between the other 2 competent players. So I never had a chance to isolate, and couldn’t really limp either. I was basically reduced to playing way tighter than I prefer because of my seat situation and the overall table dynamics. I put in for a seat change and a table change. Eddie circles around and tells me table 6 is the livest of the 4, so we both get on a change to 6.
I win two pots at that first table, I get AA and open raise in the CO against the button’s KK. We cap it 3 ways preflop and I win with the nut flush. In another, I 3-bet preflop with JJ and win. I’m up a few bucks when I get called to Eddie’s table.
This game is pretty loose and passive. I lose a few hands. I call my girlfriend and she wants to play too, so I talk to Ed and he agrees to go to Mandalay. I tell her I’ll call when I’m ready. But I wasn’t ready yet because now I was stuck like $400 and no way was I leaving a good game stuck that much to go play in a 4-8 game with no shot of getting it back. But the luck gods were with me.
About when I have to call her to confirm departure time (and in this case, to tell her of a change in plan) it is folded to me on the button with 55. I raise and the SB asks me if I am trying to steal their blinds. I say “yes” and nod. He calls and the BB also calls.
The flop is T73 with a flush draw. SB checks, BB bets, I raise, SB coldcalls and BB calls. Chit. OK, gonna check this one down. I was, at least, until I hit a 5 on the turn and got paid off in both places on the turn and one place on the river.
So I get unstuck and let the girlfriend know that yes indeedy we are heading over to Mandalay Bay in a few moments. I call and put all three of us on the list, play two more orbits, and take off down the new Frank Sinatra Drive to Mandalay Bay.
We get there almost the same time as the girlfriend, and I get into a 6-12 rather quickly. Amazingly enough, majorkong was next and didn’t get called until about 75 minutes later. Fortunately, after my girlfriend got called to her 4-8 game, he found another nice looking gal to chat with.
My table is, as anticipated, terrible. I need to pause here and explain some of the Mandalay Bay game dynamics.
They spread primarily 2 games. 4-8 half kill holdem with $1 and $2 blinds, and on this night, three $6-12 half kill games with $1 and $3 blinds. Rake is 10% to $3 with a $1 high hand jackpot that is 5% to $1. So at $20 in pot size, the pot is actually $17. The high hand is quads or better, pocket pair for quads, both cards play for straight flushes.
So while the $4-8 games tend to be quite fabulous, with a win rate of $20 achievable because of all the novice players, the $6-12 tends to be terrible. See, the good players all play $6-12. While the novices couldn’t care less about rake and pot size, the $6-12 is usually very very tight. The blinds are equal to the rake, so there really isn’t any motivation to get involved against players who play decent postflop. I don’t mind the blind structure for the $4-8 because it keeps it less intimidating for the new players. But to keep that structure for their $6-12 game is silly. Kay (the cardroom manager) really needs to strongly consider making it $3 and $6 blinds.
Anecdotal evidence supports this as well. A few weeks prior, Ed and I were there playing in a horrible $6-12 and everyone knew it. I mean everyone. All the players were aware of how awful the game was. I convinced everyone at the table to make it a $10-20 with a half kill to $15-30 and the room was kind enough to oblige us. There was an added benefit that they don’t play that game with the high hand jackpot. The game went from horrible to fabulous, almost instantly. There was once again a reason to play hands.
Anyways, back to the story…..
I sit in a horrible game. At one point I say it’s the least fun I’ve had playing poker in a long long time. Ed tells me to drink faster and I think that’s a swell idea. In fact, a big reason I like the Mandalay room is that they have the fastest cocktail service of any of the poker rooms on the strip. By far. So I start downing my fair share of Coronas.
Then things start to get lively. A little bit of everything happens. All to me.
The game is terrible so I decide to steal the blinds. I raise without looking in MP. Of course, this time the blinds both call. In case you weren’t paying attention, that means I raised to $9 and the $1 small blind had to call $8 more. Like, come on, cough up the buck, dude. So the blinds both come and I look to see K3o.
The flop is JT3. Hey, I got a pair. They check, I bet, they call. Hmmm.
The turn is an 8. They check, well maybe they were peeling, I bet. SB calls. Chit.
The river is a K. Check-bet-call and he shows his bad beated Queen-Jack offsuit. Like he couldn’t have tossed that for $8 more preflop. Serves him right, after all, I did have the best hand preflop!
So I have a few more beers. Uber tight kid on my left who plays pretty solid mentions that he folded A2s and would have made a flush. I tell him I’d have never folded that (the game was crazy passive on top of tight). A few hands later, I get Ad4d and raise one limper as I flash him the hand. 3 of us see the flop and I make the nuts right away. They both call my flop bet, but fold when I bet the turn after the 4th diamond hit.
I play good.
The very next hand, the kid raises with Ah6h and the flop comes all spades.
He bets the flop, they both call. The turn is the 4th spade. He didn’t notice what happened on my previous hand obviously because he lost his heart and checked behind. To his credit though, he did bet the river when the 5th spade hit the river and managed to lose one of his two opponents and make money on the hand.
A little while later, I get 7c4c in LP and limp behind some others. Like 6 of us see the flop (the game slowly improved as I drank, hmmmmmmm). I yell out “FLOP ME THE NUTS!”. The flop comes down Qc 7d 3c. I say “good enough”. They don’t believe me however, as there is a bet and a caller to me. I raise, and get coldcalled by the button. The initial bettor calls and now the first caller call-3-bets me! I don’t particularly care because, after all, I have a pair and a flush draw so how wrong can it be to 4-bet. And 4-betting is fun! So I 4-bet. Button calls again, initial bettor calls and limp 3-bettor calls.
4 of us to a turn of 9c. Initial bettor checks, limp-3 bettor now bets out. I pee my pants and call, the other two fold.
The river is the 2d. I am bet into, I call.
I am shown the inexplicable hand of red KK. I gleefully flip my hand over. The dealer doesn’t see my flush and looks confused like I just turned over a pair of 7’s. I have bad eyes, and I’m now counting my Coronas in Spanish, so I peer to the flop again, and no longer see my flush! Fortunately, the dealer now does, so I read the board correctly the first time, but not the 2nd. She ships me the pot. I play very good.
A bit later, I limp with Kd4d. like 7 of us see the flop for $3 each and check a flop of A53. The turn is a 2. I peer at my cards to make sure my kicker is a 4, and sure enough! It is a four. Sweet. But a tight kid bets into me. I call, sneakily allowing fools to come along since I’m obviously chopping with tighty. They all fold though. The river is a 3 and he bets again. I’m definitely not raising him on a paired board, so I call and proudly declare “I have a four!” as I do so. I flip over my K4 for my straight.
Now Tighty says “you have a four??” and may as well have said “what the F are you talking about??”. I look back to the board and see the dealer pushing up my hand: AK333. Turns out the turn card was a 3, not a 2. Who knew?
Tighty disgustedly flips over his 68s that semibluffed a turned flush draw and bluffed the river. Ship it!
I play really really good.
I decide to shake myself and ask Ed to tack on some cheese fries to his food order right before he gets to the register. Better order another Corona to wash those down though.
A bit later, I decide to get tricky and limp in with my AJ UTG. So some joker in MP raises and like 4 people now coldcall. No way I’m folding. Heck, he’s probably raising with something like Ace Ten suited. So like 6 of us see the AAQ flop. Sweet. I’ll bet. Betting is fun. He flat calls with half the world behind him still to act (!). I pee my pants. Everyone else folds. I’m done with the hand.
At least, I’m done with the hand until an A his the turn. I checkraise. He calls. The river is a Q for a board of AAAQQ. I bet, he raises, I 3-bet, he calls with his quad queens. Ed, amazed that the guy raised the river, later commented “doesn’t he know that you don’t get to win the pot simply because you have four queens?”. So I win the pot, but he wins the high hand jackpot (must have a pocket pair for the quad bonus). The dealer looks really confused as he figures out that the jackpot hand actually lost the pot.
Man, I’m a poker genius.
After sucking out in the grandest of fashions all day, I then decide to make someone else pee their pants. I limp reraise like 5 people with Ace King suited, flop a K and win the pot uncontested. Man was that fun cranking their unsuspecting butts there. They surely deserved it for something they did in their lives.
Shortly thereafter, we decide that 2AM is plenty late to be out, what with the Superbowl on tap the next day and all, so we rack up and leave.
So somehow I make $300 in this awful $6-12 game that I was stuck $150 in at one point. Just goes to show that good play can overcome any deficit. /images/graemlins/laugh.gif