Happy New Year!

Hit a another royal flush on New Year's Eve for 20k. That's my second royal flush this year, so I think I am way ahead on expectation for hitting royals playing Jacks or Better video poker.

Haven't played any poker since the new year started. Will probably get my first session in tonight.

Got to play at Canterbury Park while out in Minnesota for the holidays. Played 3 sessions while I was out there. Won 374 in the 15/30 one night, had a big score of 5330 in the 30/60 followed up by a big loss of 3991 in the 30/60 a couple of days later. Overall ended up 1713 after leaving Minnesota, so wasn't a bad trip in the end. Mostly paid for the 4 plane tickets I had to buy for the family to get out there.

Going over the black jack results for last year, turned out kind of meh. I finished up, but not by a ton, relatively speaking. As I was going through the results, I noticed that if I had stuck to a 10k session loss limit, I would have ended up with a 65k positive swing. Not that it matters, as that is just looking into the past and data mining with a bias, which doesn't account for much.

In any case I have been on a mini-rush of late gambling wise. From poker since December I have picked up $1967, and in blackjack 27.5k, in video poker 20k, and in craps another 11k, or so for a total of 60.5k to finish off the year. Not too shabby.

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.