Here nor There

So I went to Oceans-11 on Saturday night after mass and dinner with the family. I rolled into Oceans a bit before 9pm and the 20/40 game had already broken. So, I decided to go to Barona Casino instead to play some blackjack. I haven't been to Barona, since the robbery back in November.

I played blackjack, bought in for $4000, and never got up or down more than a couple thousand, when I played the following monstrosity. I was playing two hands, with $400 on each hand. Dealer upcard is a 6, and I get 4s on the first hand, split, get a 5 and double, get another split for a total of 3 hands, 1600 total on that hand. The other three hands are stiffs and I stay. Other hand is 8's which I split, catch a 3, double, catch another 8 and split, and the other two hands make an 18. 1600 total on that hand as well. Dealer opens, has a 3, catches another 3 for 12, and then hits a 9 for a 21. That hand really sucked.

I buy another 5k, and stay around even for the next hour or so, before I go on a fairly large rush, and then finally cash out after I clean out the tray of black chips, and cash out 16k, making me a 6k winner.

It was still fairly early, and on the way out I play this stupid game. I lost after getting up a little bit. How much? Don't ask, a silly ridiculous amount. However, before I left, I decided to play some craps. I walk up to the table, and bought in for $1500. There was a super hot shooter, but I didn't realize that at first, and so I was being conservative with my bets. I made a single pass-line bet, and one come bet, both with full odds. The shooter kept rolling numbers after numbers. If I had started betting more come bets, I would have made a killing. As it is, I was conservative in betting more numbers, but eventually, the shooter ended up making like 5 points and hit 3 or 4 come bets for me. I ended up cashing out $6800 from my $1500 buy-in, colored up, cashed out at the cage and went home.

Robbery!

Not much new to report, other than I was one of the casino patrons inside when this "Oceans Eleven" style heist went down.

I wasn't even aware of anything going on, until I saw a bunch of people running throughout the casino trying to hide. I had just double-down on my eleven, too. That hand never got resolved obviously. Don't think I will be going back to Barona any time soon.

Celebrity Poker Sighting?

Spotted Greg "FBT" Mueller in a restaurant sitting at the table next to mine in San Jose while I was up there on business. Guy looks still pretty buff, considering he's an ex-professional hockey player.

Bay Area 1-outer?

Got back from San Jose on Friday evening late. Got to play a bit at the Bay-101 before my flight left. The 20/40 and 40/80 limit games boards were extremely long when I got there a little after 6pm. I also put my name on the 8/16 game, and finally got called for the 8/16 game around 7:10 pm. The first hand I played, I raised a kill pot (Bay 101 8/16 plays with a half kill, which was odd to me, to be suddenly playing a 6 chip/12 chip structured game, but whatever), with two nines, flopped top-set, got 3-bets in on a 9 8 5 two tone board. Turn was the ugly 7, but it got checked through, and river paired the 5, and I got a river raise in.

Then the next substantial pot I played, I raised in the hijack with pocket jacks, again in a kill pot, with like 5 way action preflop. Flop comes K J 7 two tone. SB donks, BB calls, couple of folds, I pop it, SB 3-bets, BB calls 2-cold, I pop it again, SB calls, BB calls. Turn is T that completes the flush. SB bets, BB 2-bets, I call, SB calls. River is a 7. SB bets, BB calls, I think, make a small speech, 2-bet, SB smoke 3-bets, BB folds AQ faceup, I cry-call and get shown quad 7's, which along with K7 suited, is the only other hand that makes any sense. I suppose he could have had pocket kings, but from the preflop action, and from what I had observed of the player, he was not the type to slow play pocket kings pre flop.

So I guess in theory I got one-outed, but I wasn't technically even in the lead on the turn. So it's technically hard to say that I got a bad-beat.

10!

Don't ask me how, but I collected 10 W-2G's all in the span of about 5 hours. I hit 10 four of a kinds playing $10 jacks or better. Apparently, the law is if the payout is over $1200, they have to issue you a W-2G. I think that's kind of lame, because hitting a 4-of-a-kind in this game only pays back $1250 for a $50 bet. Including the bet of $50, the payout is exactly $1200. I would think that for larger bet amounts, they should increase the limit, to say something like max($1200, 300*x), where x is the amount wagered. So even though I "won" $12,500 according to all the W-2G's, in actuality I only won something like $5000, since I was recycling the money through the machine in chase of the elusive royal flush.

Bay 101

Was in San Jose last week on business. Got to play some pokers while out there. Played the 20 and the 40. Won $30 in the 20 game, and lost 1k in the 40 game. In the 40 game, I lost to a turned set of sixes and a rivered set of threes. Win both of those pots like I am supposed to and end up a little winner instead of a loser. I also ran into quad queens with my ace-king suited, where I made broadway on the river, and that got expensive. My river raise and call of a three bet was probably bad.

In blackjack exploits had a meltdown on Saturday night and shot it off into space.

A little recovery

Won a little less than 7k in my last session. As has seemed to be my recent custom, got buried early and had to make a comeback. Got up as much as 12k, before I gave some back and then colored up and quit.

The last 3 sessions prior to this one were pretty horrid. I decided to take a big shot in the two previous sessions to this one, and started betting really big to try and make a big score. Didn't work out so well.

Easy come, easy go

On a bit of a downward spiral. Still up quite a bit, but have had three horrid sessions in a row, where I have given quite a bit back. Hopefully next session I can turn it around and make a big score.

Heater of a life time?

I think so! 20k video poker jackpot. I got dealt 4 to the royal flush and had an open-ended straight flush draw and pulled the ace of diamonds to nail it! I was only playing since the pit critter decided it was time to change out the cards at the table I was playing. And I picked up 25k playing black jack too!

Bi-Winning!

Duh. I'm winning like a fool. I win over here and I win over there. $27k, minus the $500 I lost playing video poker while they where changing out the cards, makes Wacky a happy boy.

Another Shot!

Had another good night! Got all the black chippies again! Not quite as impressive as my other scores, but I picked up another 21k.

Amazing Run

I am beginning to sound like a broken record. But I did it again last night. I got all the black chips. In fact I got all the blacks chips multiple times. Each time I cleared out the dealer tray, I would color up $2500 and continue playing. Rinse and repeat until I had $20,000 in purple. I almost got all the black chips one more time to get to an all-time high, but then went on a down swing, and quit, cashing out around 40k. Not bad, eh?

I took a picture early in the session the first I got all the black chips, but it came out really blurry since I took it on my ancient cell phone.

In other news, I am on vacation this week from work. So I will see what kind of trouble I can get myself into, in and around the house.

Oops I did it again, I got all the black chips!

Some pictures I took here recently from my latest black jack exploits. Notice the dealer tray is lacking in black chips, because I have them all!

On Fire!

30k in two sessions? Book it!

Back in the Saddle

After going on a huge blackjack heater and a subsequent implosion, I have decided to give blackjack a break for a while. I am still up on blackjack after my short career, but the variance has just been huge. Also my bankroll has taken a fairly major hit. I took 25k out to pay for something, so I am working on a limited bankroll at this point, and I don't have the bankroll anymore to handle the blackjack variance.

So, I am back to playing poker only. Since June 1st, I have only played 8 poker sessions, totaling almost 32 hours of play. I have been running pretty well over this limited span, with an hourly rate of $139/hour.

Here's the summary of the sessions since then:

Jul 3 20/40 1187 7 hours
Jul 2 20/40 487 6 hours
Jun 17 20/40 1915 5 hours
Jun 17 8/16 -14 0.75 hours
Jun 4 20/40 216 5.33 hours
Jun 3 40/80 770 2.66 hours
Jun 3 8/16 -286 1.17 hours
Jun 1 20/40 100 3.5 hours

On Saturday's session I got bluffed out of a fairly large pot, holding pocket aces. I posted about it on 2+2 in this thread. I was certain that Helen, limped in with a hand like T9, J9, 98, 97, particularly after firing the river bet, and with another player still behind me, who I thought had a good chance of having pocket queens, I decided not to light my $40 on fire, and folded the river. Helen had KTs, while the other horrible player had AQs and of course paid her off.

Bye Bye Benjamins!

Took the family to the San Diego Fair last night. The family had a great time, my kids got to eat a lot of junk food, and I had a pretty good BBQ pork sandwich, along with a some samplings of the Taste of the Fair, which is a pretty good deal at $2.

I told my wife to bring two benjamins to the fair to pay for the expenses. Although I prefer the term fun tickets, now thanks to leo doc from 2+2.

In any case, after the fair I went to play blackjack at Barona and got absolutely destroyed.

Blackjack Heater

Finally. Had a session, where I just won from the get-go as opposed to getting buried and then having to claw my way back. 21.5k in a little over 3 hours. Ship it!

Totally Ridiculous!

So as my buddy and I are leaving the casino after a winning session of blackjack for the both of us, he convinces me to put $200 into a video poker machine, while he plays the machine next to me. So I played $2 Jacks or Better which has a return of %99.54. I ran it up to $400 and cashed out. Now he convinces me to play some new stupid game called Ace Invaders. I blow through my $200, plus $60 more, since I don't want to short bet. I tell my buddy, that he has to play this stupid game now too, since he made me play it. Well on the 3rd or 4th hand he plays, what does he do? Hits the fricking jackpot, with 5 aces for 5k. Ridiculous.

Go Kim!

One of my friends is playing the 6-max $2500 limit WSOP tournament. She's the chip-leader at the final table. They are on dinner break right now, and she has been chipping up all day long so far. You can keep up on the results here.

Weekend Update

Friday : +13.3k
Saturday : +4.6k
Sunday : -7.4k
Totals : 10.5k

Not shabby.

Roller Coaster

Wheee! Up and down, up and down, finally up and then off to la la land.

On the Road to Recovery

Since my Vegas debacle, I have made $2370 playing a mix of 8/16, 20/40, and 40/80 at Oceans-11. In blackjack I picked up $2825 playing last night. The 20/40 game at Oceans has some new faces, and they are action players for sure. On Saturday night, the 40/80 wasn't running, but instead the action players got the 20/40 converted to a kill game, and had overs running as well. Overs didn't apply in kill pots, since I made the point that the table was not deep enough to support playing 80/160.

Vegas Slaughter

Not a good trip dollars wise. Got absolutely killed, was never winning the entire trip. Did have a nice massage that was comped by the casino. Ate a couple of $300 meals, one at Lemongrass for a late night dinner, the other at Olives for a mid afternoon lunch.

The dinner at Lemongrass was at about 1am in the morning, and we ordered way too much food. The lunch at Olives was good, and we impressed our waitress by actually eating everything, which included: 6 oysters on the half-shell, calamari appetizer, carpaccio, two different kinds of flat bread, and we both had scallops for the final entree. I had a couple of glasses of the Duckhorn merlot as well, which wasn't bad. Here's their lunch menu.

I also got to play the headsup IGT limit holdem machine. I beat it, and I personally didn't think it played all that well. But I probably only played like 100 or so hands, so that is clearly not enough to gauge how well it actually plays. It did pull off a river check-raise bluff successfully, in which I felt totally owned when I peeked at the computer's hand.

Other than that, it was a fairly tame trip, no wild outings or visiting the petting zoo. Just got my gamble on, and got my ass handed to me.

Epic Come Back!

So I got in real deep last night. I was down to my last dollars, and I decided to play some 9/6 jacks or better video poker. I washed through that, and then was about to go home with my tail between my legs, when I remembered that I could cash in my player points for money right at the machine. I did so, got my $40 or so, and ran that up to $1800 on the machine.

I then took 1k, and played blackjack and erased all my losses for the night, and even won a little bit for the night! A very nice come-back, and has me geared up for my upcoming Vegas trip. I hope I run super hot in Vegas and come back with like 50k. Although I will be happy if I come back with 25k too.

Solo

Do to a bizarre twist of events, it appears as if I will be making an upcoming solo trip to Las Vegas. I have never done one of these before (a solo trip), so we shall see how it goes.

Switch Hobbies?

I dunno, I am killing blackjack in San Diego County here recently. I haven't actually played any poker since April 13th. I have however killed blackjack at Barona and Pala here recently.

I prefer playing at Barona, because they have a much better double-deck game. A survey was done by the Wizard of Odds surveying the San Diego blackjack scene a couple of years ago. The double deck game at Barona offers resplitting aces and late surrender, while the double deck game at Pala does not. The resplitting aces does not really account for much, but the late surrender is a big deal. Even still you can find a better game in Vegas.

I went to Pala last night, because they were celebrating their 10th anniversary and were giving away a $100,000 in free drawings. No I didn't win any drawings, but I did pick up 6.4k playing their double deck game.

Zing!

Gambling is a funny thing. You can go on wild rides, swing way up and swing way down. If you are not careful, it can consume you, destroy you financially, and be a major problem in your life. I have a buddy, who has a major gambling problem, and I hope that he finds a way to get it under control. I have some feelings of guilt, in that I have been complicit in enabling him. I didn't realize how bad it really was for him until just recently, and I have loaned him money in the past. I now realize that I can no longer do this for a couple of reasons. For one, it puts strain on the relationship, and two it does nothing to actually help him resolve his problems, and worse just enables him to continue to gamble. So I have decided to no longer loan him any more money, and just hope that he will eventually be able to pay me back the rather large sum of money that he owes me. I know that I won't be getting it back anytime soon. Fortunately, I don't need the money, but that's not really the point.

In other gambling exploits, I have been on a major blackjack rush. I turned $400 into about 12,000 in one night. And another night, I got down to my last $100, that I turned into $11,600 in the span of about 90 minutes. Go figure, I am running way positive on the wheel of variance, while my buddy is running way negative on that wicked wheel of fate.

To Kill a Black Jack Dealer

A strange feeling came over me yesterday. I left work a bit early to go play some poker at Oceans-11. Lately, the 40/80 game has been going on Wednesdays, and since I haven't played that game in a while I figured I would knock off work a bit early and go play. I couldn't have been more wrong.

As it seems to have become more routine, Oceans-11 was dead. No 20/40 game, no 40/80 game, only 1 8/16 game when I arrived at around 5:30pm. I got into the 8/16 game and played for a little while, before they finally got a 20/40 game going around 6pm. I played for a while, and just seemed to be getting coolered left and right. I got into this game for 5 racks total. Around 10pm, my buddy shows up. Magically his car brought him to Oceans from Santee. We play a bit, and around midnight for whatever reason we decide to head on over to Pala casino to play some blackjack. At this point, I have recovered some from my low point and have about 2 and half racks in front of me. We play until our blinds hit and I see my buddy pick up two kings under the gun and lose.

We get to Pala and play some blackjack and we both book a small win in a double deck game. On the way out, I decide to play one shuffle of a double deck game before we leave. I quickly lose and decide to play one more shuffle. 2nd or 3rd hand of the shuffle this monstrosity played out. I played two hands, $400 each. First hand I get dealt two sixes with the dealer showing a five. I split, and get another 6, I split again and get another 6, split for a third time, and get dealt a 9. So now I have 5 active hands with $400 on each.

I stay on the 9,6 and get a 6,5 and double. At Pala in the double deck game, double downs are dealt face down and I don't usually peek. The next 6 I get a 4, and double again. The last 6, I get another 5 and double again!

My other hand, was guess what 6,5 as well, and I doubled on that one too! All together I had 5 active hands, with 4 of them having $800 bets riding on them and one having a $400 bet on it for a total of $3600 in action (THE MOST I HAVE EVER HAD IN A SINGLE BLACKJACK ROUND IN MY LIFE!). Also, I only had enough to cover the initial splits in chips, all the doubles I pulled hundreds out of my pocket and told the dealer that cash plays.

Now I am sweating the dealer's hand to collect a sweet penny. Dealer opens and he has 15, sweet! With almost all the sixes gone at this point, there is almost no way he can pull a 21. Fortunately the dealer pulls an 8, busts and I don't have to sweat any of my doubles, which as it turns out were all good cards anyways. I think I made 19, 20, 21, 21, but wasn't really paying attention after I saw the dealer bust and was doing my little happy dance!

Out on the Town

Saturday was a nice day. The kids went to their Korean class in the morning, while I watched the baby. My wife brought me home some lunch, and then took the kids off to a friend's going away party. After they got home, kids did their piano practice, and then we headed off the Balboa Park and visited the San Diego Zoo.

Did the zoo, and then went to Prado for dinner. Dinner was nice, we had a nice table outside on the patio near the terrace. My kids were able to run around and play on the terrace while waiting for dinner. I got a nice salad and an appetizer for dinner, since I didn't see any entrees that caught my eye. My wife got the seafood paella, which wasn't bad. One kid got macaroni and cheese, the other got macaroni with marinara sauce.

After we got home, I put the older kids to bed, and then headed out. I called Oceans-11 and there was no 20/40 or 40/80 game running! This is a fricking Saturday night! Sheesh, well that kind of ruined my plans for the rest of the night. So I stopped by 7-11, got a red bull, and mulled over my options for the rest of the night. I called a buddy of mine, but he was still working late.

So I decided to go to a casino I had never visited, before, Barona casino. It was a pretty large casino, and the poker room was packed! However, the biggest limit game they had was 4/8 and some smattering of no-limit. The lists were huge, like 20+ names on every game.

I decide to play some blackjack, which I have heard is the best blackjack in San Diego. I started off at a single deck game, but I didn't like it. At a full table, they only deal 2 hands per shuffle, which means there is constant down time due to deck changes. Plus, I like to start off betting a single unit, and each time I win a hand, I press 1 unit. However, at this game, I can never get above 2 units, since I reset at each deck change. I asked the floor man, if they had a shoe game available, and they said they did not at the moment, but they would open a game for me.

So eventually they opened a game for me, and I played this all night. I got in for 4k, and eventually ran it up to 8k+, before cashing out around 5.8k. Playing my normal game, starting at 1 unit, and pressing 1 unit whenever I won a hand, and starting over whenever I lost a hand. Most I ever got it up to was 8 units.

Nice room, nice floor people, and a VIP host even came and introduced herself to me.

Figures

So I was playing the 20 game last night at Oceans. I get there around 9pm, and don't actually get into a game until 10pm. Now that I have an iPad, it's actually not so bad, as I can play games, surf the web, watch movies, etc, while I am waiting. In any case I get into an 8/16 game and play 3 hands mucking all 3 preflop, before I get called for a seat in the 20/40.

I end up playing for 4 hours, get in for 3 racks total, and around 2 am as I am getting ready to quit I am up almost a rack. Then in my last hand under the gun, I pick up two kings. Oh boy, I was really hoping to get a lousy hand so I could just muck and go home, but no I have to get a premium hand and I end up losing to a turned two pair on a three heart board when I have the king of hearts. Here's how the hand went down:

I raise up the KhKd, Amir cold-calls next up (absolutely horrible, I know, but what are you going to do?), Guy over-calls, button calls, Tong in the big blind calls. Joy, I am now playing a 5-way pot out of position, but hey at least I have two kings right?

Flop comes 8h 5s 2h. Not too bad, I lead, Amir raises, folds to Tong, who cold-calls, I 3-bet, Amir and Tong call. Turn is the Th. Tong checks, I check, Amir fires, Tong calls, I call. River is a blank, Amir bets, Tong calls, and I agonize, and make a very bad river over call, and lose to Td8d.

So to sum up, I pick up the 2 kings and lose $180 to finish the night up $261.

Things that make you go hmmmm . . .

I've been looking over my yearly results so far and they look pretty good. One thing I have noticed this year, and granted it's a small sample size, is whether or not I should be playing the 20/40 as much as I do, and instead just play the 8/16 and the 40/80 when it gets short.

I am averaging $44.96/hour in the 8/16 game, $43.45/hour in the 20/40 game, and $236.76/hour in the 40/80 game.

The 8/16 is almost all full-ring, with a very small sample size this year. But historically, I have beaten that game for 1.5 to 2 BB per hour. The 20/40 is the main game that I play, and it's a mix of full-ring and short-handed player. The 40/80 this year, has been mostly short-handed play and I have just been killing it short-handed. Unfortunately, the 40/80 doesn't seem to go as much as it used to. Maybe couple days of week, and usually not on Saturdays. I usually try and play Friday night, and then maybe one other day during the week, typically Tuesdays night. But the 40/80 usually goes on Thursdays and Fridays, and recently on Wednesday nights too. So I might have to shift my schedule and start playing Wednesday and Friday nights. We'll see.

What makes me think, is if I can beat the 8/16 for 2.5 BB/hour then that's really close to my 20/40 win rate in terms of actual dollars, then it's probably more advantageous to play that given that the variance swings would be much less.

Deader than a door nail!

Wow, the state of mid-limit poker at Oceans-11 is pretty bad, if last night is any indication. I got to Oceans-11 a little before 9pm, granted the weather was bad, but they had a 3-handed 40/80 game running. The 20/40 never even got started that day. I sat down to make the game 4-handed, won some pots, and then I felted one player when I had pocket jacks against his pocket tens, where we got it all in pre-flop. He only had 3.5 small bets total. He left, and then the other bad player decided to sit out since she didn't want to play with me and Wayne.

So Wayne and I played heads up. At Oceans, for whatever reason, I am the heads-up limit holdem king. I have consistently beat almost everyone there. There are two people who have beat me, with Wayne being one of them. The other player, I haven't seen at Oceans in a while, and I would like a rematch with him.

Against Wayne, I think I have finally made the proper adjustments against playing him heads up, and last night I put a beat down on him for once.

Well that sucked

Just got back from Palm Springs, err, Desert Hot Springs. My family loves it there, particularly my kids. We always get a pool-side room, so that our patio leads directly out to one of the hot springs. That way we can still stay inside the room while still being able to watch our kids.

We went there this weekend to celebrate my wife's birthday which is coming up this week. We had a nice dinner, albeit a little rushed since the baby was being fussy, at Roy's in Rancho Mirage. I was looking forward to ordering some lamb chops, but they didn't have them on the menu for whatever reason. I ended up ordering the Hawaiian style Ahi Poke for an appetizer and the Lemongrass seared scallops for dinner, along with two glasses of J. Lohr cab. My wife had the duck leg for an appetizer, the seafood cioppino for her main course, and chocolate souffle for desert. Not a bad meal overall, I've had better at Roy's in the past. My wife and I for whatever reason really like Roy's. We went to the one in Maui for our honeymoon many years ago. Pretty extensive menu, and at least at the Rancho Mirage location, they have a pretty good Monday deal.

Also, I got to play some blackjack at Agua Caliente, casino. I got destroyed and that really sucked. In other news, I just found out last week that Caliente means hot in Spanish, and thus Agua Caliente means hot water, like duh, obviously. Sometimes for a fairly intelligent person, I seem to be pretty stupid at times.

That was easy!

My wife informed me what she wanted for her birthday present. It's not cheap, $2500 is what it looks like it is going to cost. So I tell her Friday night on the way out the door, ok let me go win you your birthday present.

No worries, I book a 5 rack win in the 40/80 on Friday night and a 4 rack win in the 20/40 on Saturday night. Saturday morning, I peeled off 25 Benjamins and handed them over to her, so she could get what she wants.

I was due

Figures. I was due to have a bad session here eventually I suppose. I have been running extremely well here lately, until I hit a massive road bump last night. Dropped 3 racks in a 20/40 game in a shade under 3 hours. Ugh. Let's not do that again any time soon.

Self-Destruction

It's bad. Didn't happen to me, but to Helen last night in the 40/80. She went off like a rocket ship.

Birthday Break Recap

Been a pretty good week this last week. My birthday was on Thursday and I had Thursday and Friday off of work. I'm in the office today writing performance reviews, but I have just finished that up.

What have I accomplished this week? Let's see.

Watched some movies, Karate Kid I and II, Jule and Julia. Started reading Julia Child's autobiography. Caulked the kid's bathroom tub, had a birthday dinner out with my family. Played multiple games of Monopoly junior with my kids. Got a new sweatshirt and a pair of Lucky jeans for my birthday presents. Got to eat an ice cream sandwich for my birthday treat. Oh, and I played poker.

Had a good week poker wise too:
Here's a summary of the week's results:

8 /16 532
20/40 -432
20/40 407
20/40 785
20/40 26
40/80 2480
20/40 247

The last 20/40 session was last night, where I played Helen heads up for quite a while. I started the match with about 50$ shy of $1500. Very quickly she decimated me and had me down 1k. In the first 4 hands I think she made straight, straight, flush, full house. Every time I had something reasonable to pay her off with too. However, eventually the deck started to run true, and I eventually won back all of my money, plus about $300 of hers before she quit at about 12:20am.

I have the day off tomorrow for President's day as well, and I am taking my daughter to an ice-skating birthday party. So maybe, I will get one more session in tonight after dinner. We'll see. February has been a pretty good month, poker results wise. January I was down 2.1k, but so far in February I am up 7.5k.

Oh Really?

52 bucks. That was my profit after playing for two hours and ten minutes last night. In the 8/16 mind you. Apparently the 20/40 game broke like 20 minutes or so before I arrived. They had two 8/16 games going, and I knew that I would only be able to play for a little while before the second game broke, so I went ahead and started to play.

Lost a little bit and the game got progressively shorter. Eventually I had to buy another rack, before I started to win a little bit. I played one hand kind of bad, but got lucky. Playing I think 6 or 7 handed or so, UTG+1 or so raises, gets two cold callers, I 3-bet the J9 suited on the button, everyone calls including both blinds, so 6-handed and we see a flop of J 5 2, 1 diamond. I had diamonds. Checked to me, I bet, BB c/r, everyone else clears out, I 3-bet, BB 4-bets, and I call. Turn is a J. BB checks?!? I bet, BB c/r, I call. River is a 9, BB bets, I raise, he calls and mucks AJ disgustingly. Ooops, guess I got lucky. His turn play seems rather bad however, he should have just bet. Why go for the check/raise there? Most of the time I am just going to check back most of my range. Whatever. Reanalyzing the hand, maybe I should check the turn there too, even after I make trip jacks.

Later the game continues to get short, and eventually they move another player and it's just me and a local sports radio personality playing heads up. It was his idea, not mine, honest. In any case, I was still a little stuck at this point, maybe down $100 or so. We played heads up for the next 15 minutes or so, and I never lost a showdown. I folded my button twice, and folded pocket 5's on the turn on 89Jx board on the turn after he limped the button, I raised in the big blind, I bet the flop, he called, and then I check/folded the turn. I won with K9o unimproved against his ThX, one heart on a 3 heart board, that I raised preflop out of position, bet the flop and turn, and then check/snap-called the river. Also won with A6o, against Q6o on the KTJxx board. By this time, he had wised up and smartly checked the river behind. Other than that I simply had the best hand every time, or he simply folded. He doesn't really know how to play heads up, and evidenced by him limping the button every hand, and never raising preflop.

He eventually got a seat in the main game, and I racked up, took my small profit and went home. I told the Steve the floor man, that he asked me to play heads up, not vice-versa, and he said, oh really? He knows that I like to play short-handed and he knew that I was a huge favorite against the player in question. I didn't expect him to play me to be honest.

My birthday is coming up this week. Will be taking Thursday and Friday off of work, and with Monday being a holiday, will have a five day weekend. Looking forward to it.

Kicking myself

So I won an absolutely monstrous pot last night with 67o against a no-limit player (NLP) playing 20/40 for some reason, and either overplayed it or failed to get max value, and probably a little bit of both. The dealer during this hand made multiple mistakes, but whatever.

Here's how the hand went down. Bad player raises, 2 cold-callers, including the NLP, and I call in the big blind with 76 offsuit, no club. Flop comes 2 3 5 rainbow. Bad player checks, NLP bets, cutoff raises, I call , bad player folds, NLP calls.

Turn is a 4c, now putting two clubs on board. NLP, bets out of turn, and dealer doesn't say anything or do anything. I announce, I guess I check, since the dealer is now looking at me, since I still hadn't acted. I officially check, drooler bets, cutoff calls, I check-raise, NLP 3-bets, cut-off folds, and then NLP and I get into a raising war for like 13 bets, with me just calling the last raise.

During all of this, the player to my right starts mentioning the free roll possibility 67 clubs. Now I was pretty sure that the NLP was just overplaying his 6, thinking I was an idiot overplaying an ace. Also technically, the betting should have been capped at 4-bets, since the cut-off was still in the hand and folded to the NLP's 3-bet. If the cutoff had folded to the NLP's initial bet, then we should have been able to raise endlessly. Either way doesn't really matter, since I had the nuts, and I forgot about this rule until I started to think about it later.

River comes an offsuit ten. Now, here is where I am absolutely kicking myself. NLP is almost all-in, has about one stack left, and again he bets out of turn. For whatever reason, I convinced myself that he must have the same hand as me, and I just call, instead of free-roll check/raising, knowing that I will at the absolutely minimum getting my money back. NLP announces 6, I fast roll my hand, and the table is in amazement at how much action I gave on the turn, without the free roll backup. I had everyone convinced that I had the 67 clubs. I didn't see the NLP's hand, so I'm not sure if he had the 6 of clubs or not. The NLP busted out the very next hand and didn't rebuy.

So, one hand, in which I manage to completely misplay it on multiple streets, but still come out smelling like roses.

Running Good!

Since January 23rd, 2011 I have put in 27 hours of poker in the 20/40 game, and am up over that time period a bit over 6k. My last 6 sessions:

+2000
+2450
+178
+1107
-812
+1385

The last two sessions, I flopped quads. Last night in a 4-handed game, I opened UTG with pocket threes. Button 3-bet me, and the big blind ate two cold. I, of course call, and the flop comes K33. Checked to the button who dutifully bets, BB check-raises, and then I 3-bet. Both players fold and I take it down. I am questioning if 3-betting here is the correct play or not.

On Saturday, I flopped quad aces. Again in a 4-handed game, I open UTG with pocket aces. I forget if the SB called, or not, but the big blind called for sure. Flop comes AA8. I bet, only BB calls. Turn is a King. I bet, BB check-raises, I 3-bet, he 4-bets, I 5-bet, and he insta-folds. Here the 5-bet may be a mistake, but it's a small one if it's a mistake at all, as obviously my opponent shouldn't be 4-betting with a hand that won't call a 5-bet and a river bet. However, I have the deck crushed, and the only reasonable hand for him to have is 88 here to give this much action, and I know he's not going to fold that ever. There is I suppose an infinitesimal chance that he slow played pocket kings preflop, and then just check-called the flop, made his full-house on the turn, and then went crazy, but again he's never folding this hand either, and very likely may even 6-bet on the turn with this hand. After wards I talked to him about this hand, and he claims he had pocket queens, but I find this ludicrous given the play of the hand, but I suppose it may be true, since I can't find any reasonable hand for him to be able to play like this.

5 racker!

I like nights like that.

Oceans-11 was dead last night. I rolled in around 10pm and got into a short-handed 20/40 game that broke 45 minutes later. I stuck around for a little bit because I knew a player was on the way that would play me heads up.

We play heads up for a while, pick up a straggler here and there, before two drunk guys show up. And then an off-duty dealer sits down. Let's just say I massacred everybody last night, except the guy I started off playing heads up with, since he's actually a competent player.

Semi successful weekend?

Sort of. I got crushed on Friday for 3 racks in the 40/80 game. Then I played all day Sunday, because Oceans 11 was giving away all the football money. I got back half of it in the 20/40 game.

So overall, I had a losing weekend, but finally broke my losing session streak. It was overall not a too stressful session, and I never got down more than a couple hundred before I started steadily chipping up.

I do have a couple of hands that I think I misplayed that I would like to replay.

Real life Doom Switch Activated

So after reporting a resounding good start to the beginning of 2011, the real life doom switch has been activated. I played 7 sessions since then and only booked one winning session, a smallish win in the 8-16 game. Joy.

I hope my complaining about it will turn it around tonight.

Poker Interrupted

So, I was planning on going out to play last night. But I got interrupted by a book instead, Kitchen Confidential and didn't get off the couch. I downloaded it on my iPad over the weekend, but didn't get a chance to start reading it until my evening dinner around 8pm. I got through 75% of it or so, when before I realized it was already midnight.

My other hobby, other than poker, is cooking. I like to cook and try new techniques, ingredients, and other dishes. With our kitchen remodel done, and my new kitchen gadgets including a stand mixer, new blender, and other goodies I have been doing a lot of cooking these days, specifically baking.

Also, as a teenager in high school I actually worked as a line cook for a national restaurant chain, and a lot of what Anthony Bourdain describes in his book brought back a lot of memories of that job. Sometimes I wonder, if my true calling was be to an executive chef at some high-end restaurant. But then I remember that as soon as your hobby turns into a job, it's rarely as fun as you think it would be.

Poker in the New Year

I have resolved to make 2011 my best year ever in terms of always playing my A game. Here's what I resolve to do:

a) Don't drink and play
b) Pick up when the game gets short and it's no longer good
c) Stop mindlessly triple-barreling
d) Stop putting people on hands that I can beat, just so I can call
e) Value-bet relentlessly
f) bet-fold more and raise-fold as opposed to bet/call and raise/call
g) Give players, particularly the fish, respect for the hand that they are representing. Yes, sometimes no matter how ludicrous the pre-flop and flop play is, they actually did flop a full house on a 9 2 2 board when they capped preflop with 92s.
h) Limit my sessions to no more than 8 hours in a day

So far I have been doing good on all of these, and I hope to keep it up throughout the year. For once, I finally have plans for the money I make while playing poker. For quite a while, and I still do, play poker just as a hobby, I never really bought or did anything with the money that I won. But now I am saving up for something.

So far in three 20/40 sessions since 2011, I have done extremely well and am up 4k in 9 hours of play. I haven't run particularly hot or cold either, just about normal so that makes me feel pretty good about the results so far.

Vegas Recap

So my buddy and I headed out to Vegas on Sunday, leaving San Diego around 9:45pm. We arrived in Las Vegas a little after 2am. Checked into our hotel at the Aria, and hit the tables. I pretty much played craps and a little blackjack this trip. My buddy who I play poker with at Oceans-11 pretty regularly, is a blackjack player and a heavy sports bettor.

My first craps session, I lost a little over $500, and then I made a quick stop at the blackjack tables, played one shuffle in a double deck game, and made $500. Then it was off to the petting zoo.

Fast forward 4 hours later, my friend and I make the walk of shame, coming out of the club into bright morning daylight. We cab it back to Aria and he crashes in the hotel room, while I play a quick craps session and lose 1k very quickly. I head back up to the room to "crash". Now I can never sleep in strange beds very well, no matter how tired I am. This hotel was no different. After getting into bed a little after 9am, I was up at noon.

My buddy was still sawing logs, so I showered quickly and left the room for him to sleep. I hit the craps table, and finally went on a nice run and won 1k. My buddy finally is stirring and we hoof it over to Planet Hollywood, because he wants to bet the ATL-NO game and the line at the Aria is ATL - 3, and he wants to get a better a number. At Planet Hollywood he gets the game at ATL - 2.5.

At this point we are both starving and I am dead tired. We head back to the hotel room and order room service. It takes them forever to deliver our food. It wasn't bad, I just got a club sandwich and some french onion soup.

I then crash hard. I wake up in time to catch the last 11 minutes of the MNF, and get to see NO come back and win the game. I head back down to the casino, put in a craps session and finally go on a long heater and win 3k. We head out to Mastros for dinner in Crystals.

Our appetizers were good, we got a selection of oysters (which I don't eat), mussels, and tuna tartare. The mussels were good, the tartare - eh, I didn't like the mayonnaise based sauce they used. Then the waiter screwed up our entrees. I order 12 oz filet, medium-rare, no butter, no parsley, with a pepper corn sauce, and sauteed asparagus. My buddy order some fish, no oil, and a twice baked potato.

What shows up? A 12 oz bone-in filet, with butter and parsley, sauteed spinach, fish with oil. The only thing right, the twice baked potato. We send everything back, and 15 minutes later our correct order shows up, but they gave us the same potato. They must have just put it under the warmer, and sent it right back out to us. Horrible. When we got our check, we made sure they took it off the bill, even though everything was going to be comped anyways. Just the principle of things.

After dinner, we play some blackjack, I win $700, and then head out to the petting zoo again. In the taxi line, we get a rookie driver, who we find out later that this is his first night on the job, that won't take us there for free. For those who don't know, at most places if you arrive by cab, there's a twenty dollar cover per person, that gets kicked back to the driver. Every cabbie in the city, will normally take you for free since the kickback covers the fare plus some. The idiot driver must not have known how it works, since he refused to take us there for free, so we got out of his cab, and got into the cab behind him. He knew how to play the game and we got a free ride to the club.

Many hours later, we our doing our second walk of shame. We crash, and this time my buddy snores like a frickin' wildebeest, and I get like two hours of sleep before I can't stand it anymore and take off. I play some craps, get some lunch at Julian Serrano's. Lunch was not bad, I got the Spanish tortilla and the seared Ahi salad. The tortilla was a little salty, and the Ahi salad had way too many Spanish olives.

I also decide to get a massage at the Aria spa. Not bad, very relaxing, but my massage therapist was ahem can we say plus sized?

After the massage, I am very relaxed, but for some reason can't sleep. So I end up playing craps and losing 4k after like 3.5 hours of playing. Plus I loan my buddy 4k for some sports betting. I then end up crashing in the room around 9pm. I wake up the next morning around 6am to find out that my buddy has self-destructed in a big way. So with both of us cash poor, we get the hell out of dodge and are on the road before 7am. We hit bad rainy weather and the drive takes us almost 5 hours to get home. That's it, I haven't been to Vegas in over like 2 years or so. It was fun, but I think next time I need to take it a little easier, I am not a young man anymore, and my body can't handle 24+ hour benders anymore.