B&M virgin - much easier than I thought - trip report (long)

[threadkiller]

<font color="blue">I'm writing this for those of you that have only played online and aren't sure about playing B&amp;M. Go do it. </font>

I've always been afraid to play B&amp;M because of two reasons. One, I was uncomfortable about the limits, and Two, I was sure that I'd have enough tells that somebody would eat my lunch. A year on and off of playing microlimits and SNGs offline and reading the various 2+2 series books took care of the first enough to know that I'd probably lose less on a 2-4 table than on a mediocre run at $10 blackjack, but I was still worried about the second. After reading enough in this B&amp;M forum and getting $350 from my parents that I had completely forgotten that they owed me from a vacation last year, I figured I should take a shot.

My destination: Potawatomi 2-4, Friday 2/18
My bankroll: $350 minus the $70 for the hotel overnight and $20 for gas and tolls.

I left my office in downtown Chicago later than I planned (5:30) but traffic was surprisingly light and I reached the Hampton Inn MKE Airport at 7:20. (For budget players, there's an Exel Inn across the street for $39/night). A quick change out of work clothes and back in the car and I reached the casino at 8:10pm. By the time I waited for valet parking, coat check, and made my way to the poker room, it was 8:35. There were probably 55 names ahead of me for the 2-4 table. Online, I play .10/.25 limit and 5NL, so this is a serious finanical jump for me, but one I can handle pretty easily. The wait was "2-3 hours" and since I had a players card they gave me a pager and sent me on my way.

I went downstairs and played some $10 blackjack. Lost a hundred, won it back, wasted some time. I went back to the poker room at 10:15 and watched some of the 2/4 tables to get a feel for the mechanics, and finally at 10:50 I sat down with a $100 rack of $1s.

The game was not as loose as I expected, but loose enough. There was a full kill, which I had never played with before, and that meant that a lot of kill hands were 3-handed. I got absolutely no cards for the first 90 minutes. I mean nothing - KQo twice and A2s against a kill PFR once. There were two LAGs, including one that was 70% VPIP/30% PFR, including almost always raising when he had won the last hand. I lost one hand to him when my KQ lost to his PFR KT with two pair, but I felt that I had played it the right way. Non-kill hands were usually 4-5 to the flop. There were usually two completely useless players at the table at any point in time (e.g. buying in for $20 at a time...), two loose-passives, two maniacs, and two players that had a clue.

In retrospect, 50 hands of garbage was the best thing that could have happened to me. I just sat and focused on my routine preflop - making sure that I picked up the cards the same every time, put them down in the same place, didn't touch them again until I called or folded, etc.

One funny hand: The aformentioned maniac raises UTG, and UTG+1 (a seemlingly strong player directly across from me) reraised. I had 33, and would have called the maniac because he was raising with any face card. But the UTG+1 meant it was an autofold. When it came to me, I gave him a mock scowl staredown which cracked up the table. I folded my pair: it turns out he had JJ, and the cards came TT33J. Since there is no limit to raises on the river here, I'd have doubled up. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] I told him I had folded the pocket threes, and by his reaction either I completely scared the heck out of him or he's a very good actor.

At that point, I was down to $54 and was planning to buy my second rack when I hit $40. But after that hand, it was as if the seas had parted. By the time I walked out of there after four hours of play, I had $212. I just focused on hand that flopped a pair on the board and using those hads to make sets and boats, and picking off the maniac when I flopped TPGK and there was no AKQ on the board. Out of 150 hands, I won my normal average of 5% (see 20% of the flop, win 25% of those), but people were going to the river with any piece of the flop.

The most interesting thing was that when I got to about $175, I had a solid TAG table image. In my second to last orbit, I decided to open things up a little and played 54o on the button to 5 limpers. Flop 556. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Turn 4. River 3. Since it was clear that I hadn't played anything less than a 7 all night, the guy with 87o who raised me on both the turn and the river didn't have a clue that my boat had indeed pulled into the dock. [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

Since it's a two hour drive each way and I need to stay overnight because I hate driving in the dark, this is not something that I'll do more than six or seven times a year. But the experience makes me feel much more comfortable about my trip to Vegas in a couple of weeks and that I can hold my own at the 2-4 games at the Aladdin and IP.