Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Canterbury Park Recap


Date : 5/12/2008
Place : Canterbury Park Card Club, Shakopee Minnesota
Mission: Pay for the family vacation
Result: Resounding success!

Man, the players at Canterbury Park were just horrible! It's like they just started spreading holdem, and nobody has figured out how to play the game properly! I won 1700 in like 2 hours of play at 15/30, when there was just an interest list for 30/60. It's not like I even played that many hands, but just about every pot I entered and played on past the flop I won. One example of a hand I played, I limped with KQs under the gun. Loose crazy Helen whom had been playing for like 45 minutes and in that 45 minutes I correctly had her pegged for loose crazy, unbluffable limps as well. Button pops it, small blind calls Doug -> weak tight, never folds, and big blind calls Dule -> reasonably decent player.

Flop comes Q, 6, 4 rainbow.
Following action:
check, check, bet(me), call(Helen), fold, checkraise(Doug), fold (Dule), reraise(me), call(Helen), reraise (Doug), call(me), call(Helen).

Turn K, still rainbow:

bet(Doug), raise (me), call (Helen), call (Doug)

River, offsuit deuce:
check-bet(me)-call(Helen)-call(Doug)

I got overcalled by Doug on the river. Guess the hands? Doug had AQ, for top-pair top kicker on the flop, but didn't 3-bet a field of limpers and a button raise preflop. I really didn't like his re-raise before the flop. His check-raise wasn't too worrisome, as I thought he probably just had a queen, reasonable kicker like a ten or jack. His 4-bet had me worried. Helen had K2 suited for a rivered two pair, plus a backdoor flush draw on the flop. Her call of 2-cold on the turn, plus my raise should have made Doug muck his hand, but oh-well. His overcall on the river is horrible.

After that I shortly moved over to a short-handed (5) 30/60 game. Game filled up reasonably quickly and was full for most of the 12 hours I played at the table. I made a straight flush with 56c about twenty minutes after someone else had made a straight flush with 56c as well. I got a free Canterbury Park cap for that. I made quad 7's on a pot with a live 60, and a blind 90 to start off with, with me first to act. I made it 4 bets to go, and it folded over to the blinds and the straddlers who all called. I flopped the set, and turned quads. No river payoff. I showed anyways. Would have flopped quad jacks, with QJd, but Dule open-raised UTG and I mucked even though he had been getting frisky lately. Player in the 1 seat 3-bet it, and eventually won it with pocket aces. Would've gotten max action from him if I had called preflop.

I played another interesting hand where on the button I had AQd, young wannabe-pro open raises from mid-position, next wanna-be pro isolation 3-bets. I call on the button. Flop comes Td, Jd, rag. Many bets go in on the flop. Turn is a rag, bet(donk1), raise (donk2), call (me), call (donk1). River is an offsuit queen. check-check-? (I took like 30 seconds before I decided what to do. At this point I thought did someone really play AK that way on the flop river the nuts and check it? I was 60% sure I had the best hand but wimped out and checked). donk1-KTo, donk2-KQs, I table AQd and take down the pot. It was like that all night, and I finished up 5900 after buying in for only 1500. I should move to Minnesota and play there professionally! :-)

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Back Home

Got back from Minnesota tonight. While in Minnesota, over the weekend the family drove to Wisconsin Dells in Wisconsin to stay at the Chula Vista resort. The kids enjoyed the indoor water park there. I went to the Ho-Chunk casino with my brother-in-law one night. The poker room there was pretty small-time. The biggest limit game that had going was 3-6, and they had a couple of 1-2 no limit games with a max buy in of 300. Didn't even bother to play, not worth my time to sit down in those games.

I got to play at Canterbury Park on Monday. I put in a long session, around 14 hours or so. Most of it in the 30/60, with a couple of hours in the 15/30. I made a killing, finishing up 5900 in the 30/60 game and up 1700 in the 15/30 game. Right now I'm pretty tired, so I will post more details later, including some memorable hands of the night.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Hitting the Road

Going to the land of 10,000 lakes tomorrow with the family to visit the in-laws. Don't know if I will get any time to play poker while in Minnesota, but they have a good (at least when I was there last time) 30-60 limit holdem game at Canterbury Park.

The second quarter of the year has been kind of slow for me. Haven't gotten out too much and right now I am 2479 in the red for the quarter, putting me into negative territory for the year. Maybe a change of scenery will help.