[Garland]

So I took a trip to Hayward, CA for the first time in about 15 months and went to the Palace Card Club. Here's my "trip report". I rarely play live anymore so I decided to go this one time.

The game

The game is $1-$2-$2 blind NL with no max buy-in, $5 to bring it in (sum of the blinds). There were stacks from $200-$300 to about $2500. Anyone from any position can "kill" the pot by posting $5 making it $10 to go and killer gets last to act preflop. Anyone else can "double kill" on top of the kill by posting $10 or just one person can just do the "double kill" and just be done with it making it $20 to go. Kills or double kills were occuring about 80% of the time in the first 4 hours I played.

This game was crazy loose, looser than anything I ever saw online or live for that matter. 4-6 limpers just about everytime. Preflop raises just made the pot huge. To give you an idea of how effective preflop raises and reraises were, I only saw one preflop fold in 6 1/2 hours: CO raised a "kill" pot limper to $30, I wake up with QQ in BB and reraise to $100 and take it down. Again, the only preflop raise that took it down (actually reraise). It never got folded around either.

Another example: Some other guy called a raise and reraise to $250 with 6[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]7[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] leaving himself with only $300 and there was another all-in player there too. 6[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]7[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] won of course. It didn't matter how much I raised or how tight I played. I was like a kid in a candy store; I kept getting premium hands and kept increasing the preflop raise and kept getting called in at least one spot. I raised a kill pot on the button with KK with 3 limpers to $100 and a shortstacked BB $300 called. Crazy action. Crazy suckouts. Crazy place.

The principle players

Crazy Jamaican (CJ ~$800) player who loves to gamble killing most pots and calling all raises when he was last to act stating "pot odds". He likes to bluff and call bets on pure speculation. This is not the type of player to bluff though. He will call. If I had PokerTracker running on him, I'd say he was a 70 VP$IP/8% Preflop raise type aggressive guy.

Old Passive Lady Who Never Raises (OPLWNR $600). She's loose. She's passive (not passive enough not to bet some of her hands though). She loves to gamble. Once she calls a hand, she will call any raise with it before the flop. She likes diamonds in particular. I should know, she bet her K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]5[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] draw into my AA with a 9[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]7[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]3[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] on the flop. I pushed. At least the money went in good [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img].

The hand

Anyhow on to the action. This hand was not a kill pot. There were 2 limpers, CJ limps, OPLWNR limps, I'm (~$1000) on the button with A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] and raise to $50 (This was before I realized that I could raise to $100 and still get callers. First loose limper folds, other loose limper calls, CJ calls, OPLWNR calls.

Pot = $210.

Flop comes J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]J[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]4[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. Loose limper checks. CJ player leads for $35, OPLWNR calls rather quickly. I get some bad vibes, think for about 10 seconds and fold.

Comments?

Garland