I gingerly test the waters

Last night, I got a call from W who was spending the weekend in AC at Harrahs trying to rape the WSOP tourney players as they busted out of their tourneys into cash tables. She was having mixed results, but the cash action was juicy, she promised. I weighed my options. It's true I just got out of surgery and yes the weather was supposed to be awful (possible snowstorm). And besides, W was lonely! Darko had gotten the same call and we decided together that we would go down. So I made sure to wake up early this morning (9 am thank you) and I was able to safely get on a 10:30 bus to the land of opportunity. It was raining a bit, but no snow, so I figured I was good. Darko would come on a later bus, having the privilege of being able to spend the night with W. I, unfortunately, had to come back that night to work Monday. So I had to get down at a decent hour to get some playing time in.

The bus was mostly empty going down and the ride was smooth as can be. I even got to hop out at Cheesequake for a quick bit of breakfast! I arrived at Trump Plaza, cashed my 20 coupon, and spent it on a cab to Harrahs to meet up with W. She was dead asleep, of course, even at 1:15pm when I walked into the poker room. Oh well, I thought, no time like the present. I bought into a 1-2 table for 200 and proceeded to get....nothing. Hardly a playable hand in the first 30 minutes. The one hand I got, JJ, I raised to 15 and got 3 callers. An Ace flopped, someone led out in front of me, and I was done. I was patient though. I didn't play many hands, giving people the impression I was tight, but really it was because I was getting NOTHING. I was actually playing lots of unsuited connectors and I even raised 9dTd because I was hoping to flop good. The gods weren't with me. I used my downtime to survey the table. There were two bull dykes (sorry, no other way to describe them) to my right and they SUCKED. There was one aggro guy in the 8 seat with a big stack and he was doing a little bullying. There was also a loosish dealer to my immediate left. Finally, after seeing a whole bunch of nothing for an hour, I get TsTc in the SB. It limps around to me and I raise it up to 16. Bully, to my left, calls and bull dyke to my right calls. The flop is Js7s2s. I check the scaryish board and everyone checks! The turn is a 6h. I should have led out but I check instead. Bully checks. BD bets out 25. She was scared of the flush so I hope that pushing big will get her to fold. She might only have 88 or 99 too. And I have the flush redraw. So I shove. Then, the unexpected happens. Bully calls! BD gets out of the way (I personally think she had A6). Bully shows QsJc. I'm crushed and find no miracles. This is also the first hand I saw him slowplay in an hour. My luck.

I rebuy for 200 more and play another 2.5 hours. I go on a run of 3 hands in a row with JJ, QQ and JJ, getting pais on the first two, but I can't make any more money. Byt the time W decides to go running and Darko suggests we hit Borgata, I'm at exactly 200 of my combined 400 buyin. We get up and leave, hoping Borgata will treat us better.

Darko and I take the Jitney to the Borgata, saving a few bucks on cabfare. It's a surprisingly easy ride for 2 bucks. When we get into the poker room, it's dead. I mean deader than Julius Caesar. Deader than Sharon Tate. Deader than Jerry Garcia (and that's pretty dead). There was open seating for 1-2 and Darko and I took seats next to each other at a table that, at least, was full of money. Two pretty women (straight), one with huge.....stacks, were seating two to my left. An asian guy, with his pretty girlfriend sweating him, was directly to my left. I posted UTG for the first hand and got nothing. The second hand, in the BB, I get KK. It limps around to me and I bet 20 on top. The UTG asian player, makes it 80 more to go. It folds around to me, naturally, and I hesitate. Conventional wisdom says he has AA, but there's an issue. One, he doesn't know me and may think I'm bluffing. He might only have JJ or QQ here and make the same play on a new player. Two, I don't know *him*. He might be a natural bully. He was big stack at the table and there has to be a reason he's that way. Third, he limped UTG. With AA? That's one way to play those. Bit JJ seemed more likely to me for some reason. Limp in and see a cheap flop, or try to bet someone off a raise, trusting that yoy're ahead if he calls. I decided, finally, that KK is just too good of a hand to be scared with. I pushed all in and he called. He flipped his cards over and at first I only saw an Ace. His other hand was blocking his other card. My heart leapt with the possibility he would be tabling AK suited, but he moved his hand and saw the other Ace. Whoops. 80/20, here we go. The flop I don't remember. I just recall being strangely calm somehow. Then the turn smacked me with a King and the river was a blank. Poker loses, I win! W00T!! I doubled up and was suddenly even for the day, a position I would stay in for the rest of my session. I eventually worked my stack up to +85 but gave some back in the final 30 minutes, finishing my day at +24. Better than being down!

Darko, who was mostly card dead through his session with me, still somehow managed to get up to plus 100, mostly on the strength of a flopped set of Kings (on of his few good hands that I saw. Then came a series of events I'm sure he won't soon forget. A few new players had been sat at our table, including a long legged beautiful Irish girl and two middle eastern looking friends. The Middle eastern types looked aggressive, with their black comp cards and sunglasses, but only bought in for maybe 130 each (pussies). In late position, Darko comes in for a raise to about 15 and gets a few callers, including long legged Irish girl. The flop is AA3, with two diamonds. It checkes to Darko who C-bets 25 without blinking. Irish girl calls with some hesitation. Darko flashes me his cards, QT offsuit, no diamonds. A pre bluff. He immediately goes into Hollywood mode. "C'mon, you small Ace is no good here". He's certainly representing the Ace but she doesn't look at hom, she just stares at the board. The turn is a brick and she checks. Darko fires out 65 and starts up his Hollywood again. This time she starts squirming and I can see the hesitation in her mind. I start reasoning that she doesn't have the Ace, she has a flush draw. Sure enough she mucks and mutters about not getting the odds to call with her nut flush draw. Little did she know she was ahead. Darko mucked without showing but the Russian guy to his right starts goading him to show his cards. "You were bluffing! I know you had nothing". Darko proclaims his innocence that he had an Ace but he laughs while he says this, which PERFECTLY sets up the next hand. There is a raise preflop, which a few people call, including Darko. The flop is 347 rainbow. One of the middle eastern guys, in the BB, bets out about 20. Darko flashes me his cards, 5d6d. Holy shiite! Nut straight on the flop! It folds to him and he re-raises to 65. Middle eastern guy seems perplexed. He goes into the tank. Darko, scared he might fold, does some more Hollywood. "Your AQ is no good," he says. "My baby Ace takes this one down!". Middle eastern guy is being played like a banjo. He's listening to this and I can almost see him go red in the face. He starts pawing his chips and I know he's gonna bite. He's thinking about Darko's move the last hand and what the russian said. He just sat down recently amd he thinlks he's being bullied. It's brilliant. Finally, after just a little more verbal needling by Darko, he snaps. "All in," the middle eastern guy declares. Darko cackles with the glee of a man who's taken down his prey and laughs, "I call!". He shows the nut straight and the guy melts back into his chair, showing 79o! Lol! He has top pair with a 9 kicker and got suckered into thinking he was being bluffed by a bully. The dealer deals the turn, it's a 3. The dealer deals the river, it's a 7! The table erupts when we realize the donkey sucked out runner-runner boat! Darko laughs it off and we all have fun with it, mostly because it was only about 90 more to call and because he (Darko) made a brilliant play, regardless of the outcome. Sick sick hand though.

I got up at 9;00pm to cash out and say my goodbyes. I was able to get a cab to Claridge for the 10PM bus but I arrived about 35 minutes early. I decided to kill the time playing 10 dollar PaiGow (yay low limit PaiGow!) and managed to score an additional 35 dollars in profit before heading onto the bus. All in all, a fun little day jaunt and a good appetizer to the Vegas orgy-feast to come!