Make up your Mind!

It was a busy week at work, and I didn't play any poker all week. I finally got some free time yesterday after the kids were put to bed. I head up to Oceans-11 and they have a 20/40, a 40/80, and a 50/100 game going. There's an open seat in the 20/40 while the 40/80 has a long list and I am 1st or 2nd up for the 50/100. I go to the cage and get some chips from my player's bank and put my chips on the table for the 20/40 game. I talk a walk to the restroom and when I get back to the table, they are calling my name for 50/100.

So I pick up my chips from the 20/40 table and head back over to the cage to change my chips into quarters when I find out that they decided to change the stakes of the game from 50/100 to 100/200. Ok, whatever. It's not on the board as 100/200, but I don't really care. It turns out everyone was playing overs anyways, so it was really 100/200 with mini-blinds anyways.

I did all right and booked a $4300 win in a shade under 7 hours. At one point I was down to 7.5 big bets and was about to buy another rack when I went on a rush and started winning.

Eventually the game got shorthanded and the main proponent of getting the 100/200 game going got super lucky on me like 5 hands in row. Here's a small smattering of the preflop matchups:

Qh3h versus Ah9h
Td8d versus AdKh
Ks9s versus KhTh

She is one of the more emotional players in the game, and she swings like crazy. She was felted more than once and had to rebuy a couple of times. I was getting frustrated and I quit around 3:30am since I wasn't having fun anymore. And according to Tommy Angelo, if you're not having fun anymore you should quit doing the unfun activity immediately. So I did.

Good Start

Off to a nice start for 2010. Since January 1st, I am up 10500 and change. I have been really lazy lately and haven't been tracking my hours or results by session. Guess I'll start again next time. I'm actually up more than that, but since I never deposit into my players bank anything less than an even hundred, and I just pocket the rest for daily spending money, I don't know the exact amount I am up for the month. I got my players bank transaction report the last time I played, so that's the only reason why I know my approximate net winnings for the month. Although I already had a good idea of where I was obviously from just buying in and cashing out.

A win is a win, I suppose

Booked 2 shortish sessions over the weekend.
Saturday won $1460, split over 3 games. $880 in the 50/100, 75/150 and 580 in the 20/40.
Yesterday won $30 in the 20/40, against some of the biggest fish ever. Didn't seem like I got my fair share . . .

The Customer is right?

Sometimes Oceans-11 confounds me. They don't seem to let the players play what they want. For the past couple of months or so, we have been playing bigger limit holdem games than 40/80. We have gotten a 100/200 game spread, usually on the weekends.

Now recently, the floor has been reticent to start this game. Why? Presumably to protect the player base. Since there is a limited player pool of high limit players, I guess the floor doesn't want the better players to bust the weaker players faster . . .

But, I mean we are all adults here. Everybody knows the risks involved and should know how to play within their means, and if they don't well then that's their fault. I've heard that Commerce is so much better in this regard. If two players want to play a heads up match, they have a dealer and a table, and the players are willing to pay the house fee, away they go.

Now, get this on Saturday night, they get a 50/100 game going. Don't ask me how or why, but whatever. I eventually get a seat in this game, and everyone but some spaceship wants to kick up the stakes to 75/150. I don't say anything, but I don't care either way. Eventually the spaceship does bust, and supposedly Chuck the casino operations manager, said as long as there was no list and no objections, we could kick up the stakes. So as soon as the spaceship busts, the table captain tells the dealer that we all agreed to play 75/150, and they take the blinds as such. Now two hands later, the oblivious incompetent floor man comes over and says what are you guys doing? And tells the dealer that we are playing 50/100. We of course object, and the floor man goes back into Chuck's office again to sort things out. Clearly, since we have already started a round of 75/150, at the very least we have to finish the orbit to make it fair for the players who have already posted the blinds at 75/150. We sort of all agreed that we would sit out and just break the game if Chuck didn't acquiesce to our demands. He eventually said ok, let them play.

So we continued the game. Now get this, they wanted to charge us $12/half hour per person to play! That's the same time charge we were paying for 100/200? And back in 2007 when they spread the game they took $5 per hand! WTF? They should have charged us like $10/half hour and I think everyone would have been happy with that. Obviously the game broke pretty quickly after that.

Funny

Hours, hours, hours

Oceans-11 started their Racing for Dollars promotion back on November 1st, 2009. I think it will be a stretch for me to reach 800 hours this year before the money runs out. I am somewhere around 180 hours or so, since November 1st, and I have some things happening in my personal life that is very likely to prevent me from logging any significant hours later this year . . .

Zig-Zag

So last week was interesting. I came back from Minnesota early to work, and the family stayed back there. So I was essentially a bachelor for the entire week, until my family flew back into town last night.

I had to work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but had Thursday and Friday off. So I got to play every day last week.

Monday -> win small
Tuesday -> win small
Wednesday -> win medium
Thursday -> win small
Friday -> lose big
Saturday -> win big
Sunday -> lose medium to big

Overall, I am up for the week, but not by a whole lot. Makes me wonder that's for sure. I have jury duty this week on Thursday, we'll see if I get assigned a trial. I have never had an opportunity to actually serve on a jury and I think it would be an interesting thing to do.