Yeah, it was my birthday today. Happy birthday to me. I had brunch this afternoon with my parents who flew in from Florida and my brother, his wife and her parents. It was a nice place on the West side near Canal Street called Capsuto Ferer (or some similar spelling). Afterwards, we walked around SOHO where I treated myself to a rather nice birthday present. I got 4 lithographs of a new 'collectors' series from Michael Parkes. The series is a new companion series to the lithographs I already have in my home. I really like them and I'm only in mild post-buying sticker shock.
Here's the new lithos:
The Frog Collector
The Egg Collector
The Puppet Collector
The Seahorse Collector
Now I just have to get them framed, once they arrive, and figure out where to hell to put them...
Monday, August 13, 2007
Can't seem to catch a break
I went last night to the Good Look club, my favorite as always. And three nights in a row, might I add. I bought in for my usual $160 though that was a pretty short stack at the table. A player, whom I will affectionately call TM, was very heavily stacked with about 1,400 in front of her. I've seen her play before and she's a great player. She's willing to stab at uncontested pots and she bets nicely when she's got the goods. But last night, she couldn't lose. Seriously, she must have made every single draw she tried at the table. Yes, she fluctuated a bit up and down but she left decidedly up with 2,000. I'm sad to say that of the many players she felted at the table that night, I was one of them (though I got away luckier than most). The 'luck' she was having was in getting the nuts vs. another player with the second nuts. This is how you get paid. A prime example was when she flopped the wheel (45o in her hand) vs. a guy with pocket 3's. The pot had $100 in it when the set of 3's bet $315. TM called with the wheel (duh) and the poor guy couldn't boat up. I was a victim too when I raised on the button with KQo. About 5 people called and the flop came AJT with two clubs. Hello Broadway! I represented an Ace by making a continuation bet of $25. TM was the only one to call. Keep in mind that at this point I had doubled my $160 to $320. Just a reminder. When the turn came with the third club and she checked, my alarm bells rang. I checked and Darko saw a look of disappointment cross her face (I learned this later). The river, cruel river, came with a Queen. Now I had a Queen of clubs in my hand, so her odds of making a flush were slightly diminished. When the Queen came, meaning the board would need a King to make Broadway, she moved all in! The Queen on the river convinced me that she had a King in her hand but had not made the flush. I called, of course, and she flipped 8c9c. She had flopped the OESFD, so given our relative stack sizes, even if I had pushed on the flop, she would have called. Of course, it's stupid to bet your whole stack into what was a $60 pot, but that's another story. The only thing I could have done was stick with my original instinct that she had hit her flush draw and lay it down when she pushed. It was a tough hand all around.
Luckily, I rebought for another $140 and was able to run it to $285 before I had to leave, so I was nearly even on the night. The ironic thing was that I won the majority of the money on two hands where I happened to be behind when I pushed. Hand one, I had KJ and I called a preflop raise to $17 because of insane pot odds when 6 people called behind me. Flop came J high and when it checked to me, I pushed all in for $110 more. The woman to my left, not TM, folded what she said later was AJ that she had gotten in the BB. She was *not* happy to hear she had me beat, but she gave me a compliment on a 'good push' anyway. The second hand was when I had KQ and the flop came with JT. A guy bet out a decent amount and I obviously called with two overs and the OESD. The turn came with another Jack and when he checked to me, I pounced by betting $40 and he mucked disgustingly. Over pair maybe? That's what it smelled like.
Oh, another example of TM's good luck that night. She made a preflop bet to $20 with QQ and got three callers. She flopped Quads, and it checked all around to a poor guy with AA who moved all in. Oh, one more example. She had 8d3d in early position and limped in. There was a raise to $15 and then a re-raise to $40. TM calls with the raisers and the flop comes...ah, it doesn't matter. The point is that she made her flush on the turn, I believe, and then felted another poor guy. Unstoppable, she was. (And cute too). Killer combo.
Luckily, I rebought for another $140 and was able to run it to $285 before I had to leave, so I was nearly even on the night. The ironic thing was that I won the majority of the money on two hands where I happened to be behind when I pushed. Hand one, I had KJ and I called a preflop raise to $17 because of insane pot odds when 6 people called behind me. Flop came J high and when it checked to me, I pushed all in for $110 more. The woman to my left, not TM, folded what she said later was AJ that she had gotten in the BB. She was *not* happy to hear she had me beat, but she gave me a compliment on a 'good push' anyway. The second hand was when I had KQ and the flop came with JT. A guy bet out a decent amount and I obviously called with two overs and the OESD. The turn came with another Jack and when he checked to me, I pounced by betting $40 and he mucked disgustingly. Over pair maybe? That's what it smelled like.
Oh, another example of TM's good luck that night. She made a preflop bet to $20 with QQ and got three callers. She flopped Quads, and it checked all around to a poor guy with AA who moved all in. Oh, one more example. She had 8d3d in early position and limped in. There was a raise to $15 and then a re-raise to $40. TM calls with the raisers and the flop comes...ah, it doesn't matter. The point is that she made her flush on the turn, I believe, and then felted another poor guy. Unstoppable, she was. (And cute too). Killer combo.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
The Good Look club gets me
So I went with Darko tonight to get our money back. Once we identified our table/seat and how much we had in chips, we got the money back in cash without an issue. Of course we chipped up with it.
Darko and I sat at the same table next to each other along with a few faces we saw from the night before. I had my familiar $160 in front of me. It was slow going for me all night. For two hours in a row, I broke even by winning a few tiny pots and folding big hands when I knew I was beat. I was making good reads and I *always* made the right fold against monsters, but I was only earning Sklansky dollars. The real dollars would be harder to come by. Darko, meanwhile, got lucky when he called a pre-flop raise to $12 in early position with 23o. He flashed it to me, as if to say "one time", and the flop came 222. Quads! It checked around and a K came on the turn. A perfect card as it turned out. Seat 1 bet out and Darko did a bunch of Hollywood before finally calling. The river was a J, I believe. Again, seat 1 bet out after Darko checked and a third player, who had called the K, called. Darko promptly moved all in for another $80 or so. Seat 1 agonized but finally called while seat 6 folded. Darko yelled "Quads!" and Seat 1 showed a King, mucking in disgust. Seat 1 went on complete tilt after that, losing hand after hand until he was down to next to nothing. I would benefit from this later...
Meanwhile, Wendy showed up and sat at our table. My only good hand of the night had come previously when I was able to squeeze two big bets off of a loose player when i turned the second nut boat with AQ. But it wasn't a monster pot, just a smallish one. Still, I was keeping afloat. Finally, the big hand came. I looked down at KK. The UTG player raised to $15. Another player called. The action at the tale had been fierce, so I decided to call and hope to see a non-dangerous flop. Wendy called on the button and the flop came 9h7h2c. That was about as non-threatening as it gets. The original UTG raiser made it $35 to go. The middle seat called and I popped it, $60 on top. Wendy squirmed but flashed her cards to her seatmate asking for advice and then called! Now I was nervous. If Wendy was asking for advice and didn't raise, she must be on a flush draw. Then UTG guy goes all in! His preflop raise tells me he has a pocket pair. But I've been waiting hours for this, so if he flopped a set, so be it. I moved all in. Wendy, now pot committed, called. The turn comes with a heart and Wendy excitedly shows AhKh. UTG shows TT and the middle seat folded to all the big action. The river is useless, though it *does* complete a straight for TT, which makes my hand the third best! Ouch. I can't blame Wendy for this though since she was getting proper pot odds for her flush draw. She might have even thought she had two overs as well, which makes it a no brainer. I'm convinced that all the money would have gone in regardless of what I did. So I give kudos to Wendy. We were essentially even in odds going into the turn, while we had the TT crushed, so it could have gone either way.
I buy back in for $160 and two hands later I get AQ again. I raise preflop and get three callers. The flop is A23 rainbow. Mr. Aggressive in seat 3, who's been stealing quite a few pots, bets out $30. I raise to $90 and he moves all in. I have about $40 behind, so of course I call. He shows A2 and I don't improve. Boom! Just like that, I'm down $450 total (I had bought some chips from Darko earlier). But Darko hands me another hundred and I promply donk of half of it. I had called a small preflop raise with 78 and flopped the OESD. I moved all in and got one caller who had top pair. I offered to do business and he took me up on it. Too bad too, because I won the first run, but lost the other two. So now I was down to my last 50. And then the wierdest hand happened....
I had KQo. There was a straddle and Darko raised to $10 UTG+1. I moved all in with $50. The middle seat called, and Darko called! Mr. Aggressive at the end of the table asked me to flash the cards to him for good luck, so I did. Darko and the middle seat were still in the hand though. The flop came AA8 with two spades and I got up from the table, figuring I was done. Darko made a big bet, and the middle seat folded 99. But Darko turned his cards and just had KsJs! He flopped the nut flush draw but I was ahead! Amazingly, it stood up and I tripled up just like that. Sometime around this time, Darko was about to leave with Wendy to go to the Queens game and Darko got a loose girl at the end of the table to bluff allin vs. Darko's KK. He's good like that. The flop comes 884 and she turns over 8h9h! Darko's Kings get busted but he still leaves the club up a bunch.
For my part, I stuck around with my $160 and I got Ad8d. I had called a preflop raise to $17 on the button along with 4 other players (a loose table). The flop came 3d5d6s. I had the nut flush draw and two overs. I checked, intending to come over the top, but the raiser in Seat 1 bet $101 to go all in. It folded to me and I quickly called. Seat 1 had been moving all in with flush draws all night so I thought he might have KdQd or something like that. Instead, he had AA. I did't make my diamond, but I DID go runner runner to make the straight. W00t! I left soon afterwards after having won a big chunk of my money back. I am now only stuck $225 for the night after doing quite miserably. There will be other times, I'm sure...
Darko and I sat at the same table next to each other along with a few faces we saw from the night before. I had my familiar $160 in front of me. It was slow going for me all night. For two hours in a row, I broke even by winning a few tiny pots and folding big hands when I knew I was beat. I was making good reads and I *always* made the right fold against monsters, but I was only earning Sklansky dollars. The real dollars would be harder to come by. Darko, meanwhile, got lucky when he called a pre-flop raise to $12 in early position with 23o. He flashed it to me, as if to say "one time", and the flop came 222. Quads! It checked around and a K came on the turn. A perfect card as it turned out. Seat 1 bet out and Darko did a bunch of Hollywood before finally calling. The river was a J, I believe. Again, seat 1 bet out after Darko checked and a third player, who had called the K, called. Darko promptly moved all in for another $80 or so. Seat 1 agonized but finally called while seat 6 folded. Darko yelled "Quads!" and Seat 1 showed a King, mucking in disgust. Seat 1 went on complete tilt after that, losing hand after hand until he was down to next to nothing. I would benefit from this later...
Meanwhile, Wendy showed up and sat at our table. My only good hand of the night had come previously when I was able to squeeze two big bets off of a loose player when i turned the second nut boat with AQ. But it wasn't a monster pot, just a smallish one. Still, I was keeping afloat. Finally, the big hand came. I looked down at KK. The UTG player raised to $15. Another player called. The action at the tale had been fierce, so I decided to call and hope to see a non-dangerous flop. Wendy called on the button and the flop came 9h7h2c. That was about as non-threatening as it gets. The original UTG raiser made it $35 to go. The middle seat called and I popped it, $60 on top. Wendy squirmed but flashed her cards to her seatmate asking for advice and then called! Now I was nervous. If Wendy was asking for advice and didn't raise, she must be on a flush draw. Then UTG guy goes all in! His preflop raise tells me he has a pocket pair. But I've been waiting hours for this, so if he flopped a set, so be it. I moved all in. Wendy, now pot committed, called. The turn comes with a heart and Wendy excitedly shows AhKh. UTG shows TT and the middle seat folded to all the big action. The river is useless, though it *does* complete a straight for TT, which makes my hand the third best! Ouch. I can't blame Wendy for this though since she was getting proper pot odds for her flush draw. She might have even thought she had two overs as well, which makes it a no brainer. I'm convinced that all the money would have gone in regardless of what I did. So I give kudos to Wendy. We were essentially even in odds going into the turn, while we had the TT crushed, so it could have gone either way.
I buy back in for $160 and two hands later I get AQ again. I raise preflop and get three callers. The flop is A23 rainbow. Mr. Aggressive in seat 3, who's been stealing quite a few pots, bets out $30. I raise to $90 and he moves all in. I have about $40 behind, so of course I call. He shows A2 and I don't improve. Boom! Just like that, I'm down $450 total (I had bought some chips from Darko earlier). But Darko hands me another hundred and I promply donk of half of it. I had called a small preflop raise with 78 and flopped the OESD. I moved all in and got one caller who had top pair. I offered to do business and he took me up on it. Too bad too, because I won the first run, but lost the other two. So now I was down to my last 50. And then the wierdest hand happened....
I had KQo. There was a straddle and Darko raised to $10 UTG+1. I moved all in with $50. The middle seat called, and Darko called! Mr. Aggressive at the end of the table asked me to flash the cards to him for good luck, so I did. Darko and the middle seat were still in the hand though. The flop came AA8 with two spades and I got up from the table, figuring I was done. Darko made a big bet, and the middle seat folded 99. But Darko turned his cards and just had KsJs! He flopped the nut flush draw but I was ahead! Amazingly, it stood up and I tripled up just like that. Sometime around this time, Darko was about to leave with Wendy to go to the Queens game and Darko got a loose girl at the end of the table to bluff allin vs. Darko's KK. He's good like that. The flop comes 884 and she turns over 8h9h! Darko's Kings get busted but he still leaves the club up a bunch.
For my part, I stuck around with my $160 and I got Ad8d. I had called a preflop raise to $17 on the button along with 4 other players (a loose table). The flop came 3d5d6s. I had the nut flush draw and two overs. I checked, intending to come over the top, but the raiser in Seat 1 bet $101 to go all in. It folded to me and I quickly called. Seat 1 had been moving all in with flush draws all night so I thought he might have KdQd or something like that. Instead, he had AA. I did't make my diamond, but I DID go runner runner to make the straight. W00t! I left soon afterwards after having won a big chunk of my money back. I am now only stuck $225 for the night after doing quite miserably. There will be other times, I'm sure...
I got berated for my last post
And rightfully so. I'm still new to having this blog be public, and I'm learning, folks. I'm learning.
My last post used to have more detail on the raid. This included the name of the club (though not it's location) and some more detail about how the employees reacted while it was happening. I've edited out these details. In fact, I went back through all of my old posts and edited out the club's name altogether, replacing it with the euphamistic 'Good Look' club. If you already know the name of the club, this will make sense. If you don't, good luck trying to figure it out. And don't ask me. I don't know nothin'!
So what precipitated this bit of censorship on my part? Well, two things. One, the comments I got from people about my last post, when it had all the info, chastised me on giving out so much. Two, I went to the Good Look club tonight to get the money I left on the table, and the manager asked me about the blog. I fessed up to it immediately and apologized profusely. It really wasn't my intention to make anyone feel uncomfortable or to put anyone in an awkward position. So I've redacted all my previous posts. While I'll still be writing about my poker experiences, I will go to much greater lengths to keep innocent names out of it.
I'm very very sorry to everyone and I hope this makes us all square. My next post will tell you all how my karmic betrayal (unknowing though it was) came back to bite me in the ass.
My last post used to have more detail on the raid. This included the name of the club (though not it's location) and some more detail about how the employees reacted while it was happening. I've edited out these details. In fact, I went back through all of my old posts and edited out the club's name altogether, replacing it with the euphamistic 'Good Look' club. If you already know the name of the club, this will make sense. If you don't, good luck trying to figure it out. And don't ask me. I don't know nothin'!
So what precipitated this bit of censorship on my part? Well, two things. One, the comments I got from people about my last post, when it had all the info, chastised me on giving out so much. Two, I went to the Good Look club tonight to get the money I left on the table, and the manager asked me about the blog. I fessed up to it immediately and apologized profusely. It really wasn't my intention to make anyone feel uncomfortable or to put anyone in an awkward position. So I've redacted all my previous posts. While I'll still be writing about my poker experiences, I will go to much greater lengths to keep innocent names out of it.
I'm very very sorry to everyone and I hope this makes us all square. My next post will tell you all how my karmic betrayal (unknowing though it was) came back to bite me in the ass.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Good Look club raided (or visited...)...I was there!
I had band practice tonight, but I was feeling jazzed afterwards. So I texted Darko to see if he wanted to hit the Good Look or Salami clubs. He texted me back that he was already at Good Look with The Black Widow(BW) and Wendy! So I changed my travel plans and headed directly there, sitting down with $160 at about 9:40p. I played tight and uneventfully until about 10:45 pm. It was at that time that I noticed something was amiss...
The guy behind the counter was looking anxiously at the monitor with the security cameras. Some employees had also huddled by the door and they were whispering to each other anxiously. Actually, it looked like they were panicking. Darko and BW had gone outside for a cigarette break. When they left, two dealers sat in their seats to my left, and then undid their shirts. The pieces of the puzzle started clicking in my head. The dealers were trying to make themselves look non-conspicuous, like...players. And that could only mean one thing.
One by one, the players at the tables started whispering to each other. "Raid?" I immediately got up with my chips and headed to the desk, along with about a dozen other players. But the guy behind the desk, wishing to avoid a full blown stampede, told everyone he wasn't cashing anyone out just yet. We needed to wait, "a half hour or so". My eye strayed toward the monitor, and I could see that there was a cop holding the door open to the entrance of the building, obviously waiting for someone. I knew it would just be a matter of time.
The guy behind the desk told everyone to sit back down and keep playing quietly. I took my seat and mucked a few hands. Then the buzzer rang. It was happening. Darko and BW had already returned and we were all sitting together when the first two cops walked in. They told everyone to remain calm, put our ID's on the table, along with our hands. They did a full sweep of the place, looking for god knows what (probably money), but they didn't seem to find anything. The employees had all been frantically calling people on the phone to get instructions on what to do. I guess it paid off.
Meanwhile, I decided that the best thing for us to do was to make sure all of our chips were in perfect view for the cameras. So I stacked my $163 very neatly and made sure my green chips were visible.
More cops showed up and they started doing background checks. They were actually pretty quick about it. In the meantime, we started getting bored after 30 minutes of this, so Wendy and her seatmate next to her, starting playing War. They were in a very spirited game when the two people to their right started dealing Blackjack, for money!! All while 7 cops were in the room! Goddamn degenerates. :-) After another 30 minutes, we were told we could leave, one table at a time. I managed to convince one of the officers to let me get my guitar from the closet, which they did after I was able to perfectly describe the bag's contents. All of our chips were left on the table. I'm fairly sure we'll be made whole, just like the other times the club has been visited.
For the record, all of the dealers and employees were walked out, as well as the players. None of the chips were confiscated as of the time I left and there was no damage done to the place like the last raid. It seems to me that they must have gotten a call of some sort to preciptate this raid. When I left work this evening at 7:00, two cop cars actually closed down the west side highway, right in front of me, and started checking cars. In addition, there seemed to be a big police presence in every train station I was in. And on my way home from the Good Look club, my taxi was caught in traffic when the cops closed the entrance to the Holland Tunnel to do a vehicle check. Something must have been going on in the city today. And with all of that police presence, there must have been some big call made (Weapons?) to get the cops to move their actions to a damned poker club.
I guess this makes me a hardened New York Rounder now. I've popped my cherry and made my 'bones'. I am sooo Gangsta.
The guy behind the counter was looking anxiously at the monitor with the security cameras. Some employees had also huddled by the door and they were whispering to each other anxiously. Actually, it looked like they were panicking. Darko and BW had gone outside for a cigarette break. When they left, two dealers sat in their seats to my left, and then undid their shirts. The pieces of the puzzle started clicking in my head. The dealers were trying to make themselves look non-conspicuous, like...players. And that could only mean one thing.
One by one, the players at the tables started whispering to each other. "Raid?" I immediately got up with my chips and headed to the desk, along with about a dozen other players. But the guy behind the desk, wishing to avoid a full blown stampede, told everyone he wasn't cashing anyone out just yet. We needed to wait, "a half hour or so". My eye strayed toward the monitor, and I could see that there was a cop holding the door open to the entrance of the building, obviously waiting for someone. I knew it would just be a matter of time.
The guy behind the desk told everyone to sit back down and keep playing quietly. I took my seat and mucked a few hands. Then the buzzer rang. It was happening. Darko and BW had already returned and we were all sitting together when the first two cops walked in. They told everyone to remain calm, put our ID's on the table, along with our hands. They did a full sweep of the place, looking for god knows what (probably money), but they didn't seem to find anything. The employees had all been frantically calling people on the phone to get instructions on what to do. I guess it paid off.
Meanwhile, I decided that the best thing for us to do was to make sure all of our chips were in perfect view for the cameras. So I stacked my $163 very neatly and made sure my green chips were visible.
More cops showed up and they started doing background checks. They were actually pretty quick about it. In the meantime, we started getting bored after 30 minutes of this, so Wendy and her seatmate next to her, starting playing War. They were in a very spirited game when the two people to their right started dealing Blackjack, for money!! All while 7 cops were in the room! Goddamn degenerates. :-) After another 30 minutes, we were told we could leave, one table at a time. I managed to convince one of the officers to let me get my guitar from the closet, which they did after I was able to perfectly describe the bag's contents. All of our chips were left on the table. I'm fairly sure we'll be made whole, just like the other times the club has been visited.
For the record, all of the dealers and employees were walked out, as well as the players. None of the chips were confiscated as of the time I left and there was no damage done to the place like the last raid. It seems to me that they must have gotten a call of some sort to preciptate this raid. When I left work this evening at 7:00, two cop cars actually closed down the west side highway, right in front of me, and started checking cars. In addition, there seemed to be a big police presence in every train station I was in. And on my way home from the Good Look club, my taxi was caught in traffic when the cops closed the entrance to the Holland Tunnel to do a vehicle check. Something must have been going on in the city today. And with all of that police presence, there must have been some big call made (Weapons?) to get the cops to move their actions to a damned poker club.
I guess this makes me a hardened New York Rounder now. I've popped my cherry and made my 'bones'. I am sooo Gangsta.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
A travel epiphany
Dawn Summers has inspired me, I must say. On Dawn's site is a map of States she has visited. She's pretty high up on the list and only has a few states to go. More importantly to this epiphany, she takes the opportunity to cross off states as often as possible. This is inspiring to me because I feel I have been neglecting my travel in the United States.
All of my life, I've only been to a few states in the U.S. Those places are:
1. New York - Duh
2. New Jersey - I even lived in Randolph for 18 months
3. Connecticut - Multiple times to visit friends or go to Foxwoods
4. Massachussets - I was in Boston over a single weekend
5. North Carolina - One weekend to visit friends
6. Ohio - I visited Case Western Reserve University over a long weekend (It's in Cleveland)
7. Florida - Multiple times to visit family
8. Louisiana - Two vacation trips to New Orleans
9. California - Once for business for a long weekend and once to visit Friends
10. The Eastern Corridor from New York to Florida - I drove to Florida when I was 19 (never again!). I even stayed overnight in Georgia.
This is a pathetic list. I haven't stayed any appreciable length of time anywhere! I've stayed in Europe, for god's sake, longer than any specific spot in the U.S. (save for family trips to Florida).
Here is my European travel list, for comparison:
1. England - One week for business and one week for a vacation
2. Italy - 3 full weeks for my honeymoon
3. The Netherlands - 8 full days for vacation
4. The Czech Republic - 10 full days for vacation
5. Spain - Two separate trips totaling 18 full days
You see what I mean? So the question is, what is going to make me see my own country? The answer, naturally, is poker!
So my epiphany consists of this; From this day forward, I shall make it my goal to visit EVERY legal card room in the country (all 50 states).
A 'visit' shall constitute the following:
1. A low denomination chip, preferably a Dollar, shall be obtained for posterity.
2. At least one round (a full swing of the button) shall be played in a live, raked game at the establishment.
3. A picture shall be taken of the establishment, if at all possible.
As I visit the various casino rooms around the country, I'll mark it on a custom Google map so everyone can track my progress.
This is going to be a looong journey, though, because there are at least 280 cardrooms in the country, with about 80 in California alone! But I think this might give me the fire under my ass I need to finally start flying to places I would normally never visit (Wyoming, anyone?).
All of my life, I've only been to a few states in the U.S. Those places are:
1. New York - Duh
2. New Jersey - I even lived in Randolph for 18 months
3. Connecticut - Multiple times to visit friends or go to Foxwoods
4. Massachussets - I was in Boston over a single weekend
5. North Carolina - One weekend to visit friends
6. Ohio - I visited Case Western Reserve University over a long weekend (It's in Cleveland)
7. Florida - Multiple times to visit family
8. Louisiana - Two vacation trips to New Orleans
9. California - Once for business for a long weekend and once to visit Friends
10. The Eastern Corridor from New York to Florida - I drove to Florida when I was 19 (never again!). I even stayed overnight in Georgia.
This is a pathetic list. I haven't stayed any appreciable length of time anywhere! I've stayed in Europe, for god's sake, longer than any specific spot in the U.S. (save for family trips to Florida).
Here is my European travel list, for comparison:
1. England - One week for business and one week for a vacation
2. Italy - 3 full weeks for my honeymoon
3. The Netherlands - 8 full days for vacation
4. The Czech Republic - 10 full days for vacation
5. Spain - Two separate trips totaling 18 full days
You see what I mean? So the question is, what is going to make me see my own country? The answer, naturally, is poker!
So my epiphany consists of this; From this day forward, I shall make it my goal to visit EVERY legal card room in the country (all 50 states).
A 'visit' shall constitute the following:
1. A low denomination chip, preferably a Dollar, shall be obtained for posterity.
2. At least one round (a full swing of the button) shall be played in a live, raked game at the establishment.
3. A picture shall be taken of the establishment, if at all possible.
As I visit the various casino rooms around the country, I'll mark it on a custom Google map so everyone can track my progress.
This is going to be a looong journey, though, because there are at least 280 cardrooms in the country, with about 80 in California alone! But I think this might give me the fire under my ass I need to finally start flying to places I would normally never visit (Wyoming, anyone?).
Mixed game magic
Our first rotation mixed game at Wall Street Poker was an unqualified success. Ok, maybe I have to qualify it a bit...
We started out with Omaha Hi/Lo 8's or better, with $1/$2 fixed betting limits. When I started thinking about how to set up this night's games, I figured I would start with a limit game to warm people up and then gradually ramp up the betting limits until our last game was good old NL Hold'em. The Omaha game was rousing fun, with 10 players desperately trying to figure out what the hell they had! Luckily, Carol and Brian, our resident Omaha experts, were there to help. I stayed back and played dedicated dealer. For anyone who is interested in listening, I appreciate that you all wanted me to play. I appreciate even more that it was not out of sheer desire to take all of the host's money in a game he's not very familiar with. Most of you seemed to geniunely want me to enjoy the game I was hosting by playing. But what some of you may not realize is that I get great enjoyment simply in seeing the league prosper, and sometimes that means sacrificing. I routinely give up my own seat in order to have new players come in and play. And sometimes I deal if I think a dedicated dealer will make a night run more smoothly. Playing new games (3 in one night!) that we've never had before, definitely qualifies. So I was happy, ok? Let it go! :-p
Back to the action at hand...
The Omaha Hi/Lo limit game was great, with everyone just sort of getting their feet wet. Then we moved on to 7 card Stud, 1 to 5 dollar spread limit. This game was *not* well received by most players. Mostly, I got blank stares at the concept of a 1-5 spread limit betting structure. Even though the structure used to be quite popular in casinos, and is still spread on occassion, a table full of hardened gamblers had never heard of it. I was stunned. But as the game wore on, I think the wisdom of the concept started seeping through, if only barely. Darko summed it up best. "Oh, you can bluff in this game!" Well, yes, though it helps if the limits are somewhat higher. However, the same concept applies even at these lower limits. In normal fixed limit games, where the betting doubles automatically on the turn and river (or 5th, 6th and 7th streets for 7stud), a bet on the flop rarely drives anyone out of the pot since it is only a half bet and people often have pot odds to call. But in a spread limit game, where you can make a full bet on any street, you can drive people out by laying poor odds to the pot. It is still a limit game, and multiple callers will end up offering good pot odds to late position players, but at least you have a better chance of killing draws. We sped through the hour of 7 stud and then moved on to our first "big bet" game.
The game was Pot Limit Omaha. Something new I learned about Pot Limit was that when you raise "pot", the call you make to the bet is included in the size of the pot. For example, if the blinds are $1/$2 and 3 people call before it gets to you, there is currently $9 in the pot (3 $2 callers and the blinds). If you raise "pot", you need to first call the $2 (making the pot $11) and then you raise an additional $11. This is obvious in hindsight, but I never really thought about it before. This is where having a dedicated dealer really came in handy. I was busy counting pots, spreading them out so people could see them, etc... If I hadn't been dealing, this game might have been marred by multiple hands messing around with the chips in the center of the table, and we all know where *that* leads! Since Pot Limit allows the pot to grow exponentially, the pots grew quite large in relation to the size of the blinds ($.50/$1 in this case). The first pot had over $65 in it, and similar pots were dragged for the entire hour we played.
At about 10:30, we switched over to NL Hold'em. All the players, shockingly, agreed to play $1/$2 NL and we further agreed on a cap of $300. No one, through all of those limit games, actually had $300 in front of them, so most players chipped up to increase their stack size. After about 2 hours of play, there was no hugely profitable player, though some showed very healthy profits. Abbie, Mary and Joel all had nice takedowns, with Carol sitting on a decent stack. Paul, Wendy and Darko, the Wall Street regulars, were stuck for more money than they'd care for me to mention here. At around 12:30, most of the players left, but Carol was having none of it. She suggested, AGAIN, that we play $2/$4 limit Omaha and Wendy, Carol, Brian and Myself ended up slugging it out. I warned everyone that 1:30AM was the cutoff, but somehow that time came and went without a sound. (I noticed, by the way, that no one actually reminded me what time it was!). What time did I finally kick everyone out? How about 4AM? I am SUCH a rockstar.
There was a bit of panic at the end of the night when I went to pay everyone out. The stack of money I had in my hand was about $55 short. I was worried, at first, but then I realized that I had taken all the small bills (anything under a $20) and put it in the cashbox. There was easily $55 or so in small bills that had been paid to me, and that accounted for the shortfall. Whew! All is well.
At the end of our very fun, but long, Omaha Hi/Lo limit game, Carol had padded her stack to become the big winner for the night (+~350). Brian had a healthy +150 win as well. I was about even (down $16) and Wendy...we won't mention Wendy.
To all the Wall Street regulars who find themselves being felted by the newcomers, a bit of advice: Play this table like the Good Look Club. These are very good players, whom you don't yet have solid reads on. Respect them!
One other thing to mention. Brian G. made one of the *sickest* reads I've ever seen during the $2/$4 limit Omaha game. He and Carol were mixed up in a pot together. The board was KQ77rag. I don't remember the precise action on all street but they ended up reraising each other a few times on the rag river. Brian finally called without raising, saying, "I have a feeling you've got quads". Carol did indeed turn up quad 7's! What made it more impressive is the hand Brian stopped re-raising with. Pocket Kings for the second nuts on the board!! Given the number of hands Carol could have re-raised with (QQ, K7, Q7, etc...), it is *astounding* that Brian had the read in order to stop milking the pot. Unbelievable.
We started out with Omaha Hi/Lo 8's or better, with $1/$2 fixed betting limits. When I started thinking about how to set up this night's games, I figured I would start with a limit game to warm people up and then gradually ramp up the betting limits until our last game was good old NL Hold'em. The Omaha game was rousing fun, with 10 players desperately trying to figure out what the hell they had! Luckily, Carol and Brian, our resident Omaha experts, were there to help. I stayed back and played dedicated dealer. For anyone who is interested in listening, I appreciate that you all wanted me to play. I appreciate even more that it was not out of sheer desire to take all of the host's money in a game he's not very familiar with. Most of you seemed to geniunely want me to enjoy the game I was hosting by playing. But what some of you may not realize is that I get great enjoyment simply in seeing the league prosper, and sometimes that means sacrificing. I routinely give up my own seat in order to have new players come in and play. And sometimes I deal if I think a dedicated dealer will make a night run more smoothly. Playing new games (3 in one night!) that we've never had before, definitely qualifies. So I was happy, ok? Let it go! :-p
Back to the action at hand...
The Omaha Hi/Lo limit game was great, with everyone just sort of getting their feet wet. Then we moved on to 7 card Stud, 1 to 5 dollar spread limit. This game was *not* well received by most players. Mostly, I got blank stares at the concept of a 1-5 spread limit betting structure. Even though the structure used to be quite popular in casinos, and is still spread on occassion, a table full of hardened gamblers had never heard of it. I was stunned. But as the game wore on, I think the wisdom of the concept started seeping through, if only barely. Darko summed it up best. "Oh, you can bluff in this game!" Well, yes, though it helps if the limits are somewhat higher. However, the same concept applies even at these lower limits. In normal fixed limit games, where the betting doubles automatically on the turn and river (or 5th, 6th and 7th streets for 7stud), a bet on the flop rarely drives anyone out of the pot since it is only a half bet and people often have pot odds to call. But in a spread limit game, where you can make a full bet on any street, you can drive people out by laying poor odds to the pot. It is still a limit game, and multiple callers will end up offering good pot odds to late position players, but at least you have a better chance of killing draws. We sped through the hour of 7 stud and then moved on to our first "big bet" game.
The game was Pot Limit Omaha. Something new I learned about Pot Limit was that when you raise "pot", the call you make to the bet is included in the size of the pot. For example, if the blinds are $1/$2 and 3 people call before it gets to you, there is currently $9 in the pot (3 $2 callers and the blinds). If you raise "pot", you need to first call the $2 (making the pot $11) and then you raise an additional $11. This is obvious in hindsight, but I never really thought about it before. This is where having a dedicated dealer really came in handy. I was busy counting pots, spreading them out so people could see them, etc... If I hadn't been dealing, this game might have been marred by multiple hands messing around with the chips in the center of the table, and we all know where *that* leads! Since Pot Limit allows the pot to grow exponentially, the pots grew quite large in relation to the size of the blinds ($.50/$1 in this case). The first pot had over $65 in it, and similar pots were dragged for the entire hour we played.
At about 10:30, we switched over to NL Hold'em. All the players, shockingly, agreed to play $1/$2 NL and we further agreed on a cap of $300. No one, through all of those limit games, actually had $300 in front of them, so most players chipped up to increase their stack size. After about 2 hours of play, there was no hugely profitable player, though some showed very healthy profits. Abbie, Mary and Joel all had nice takedowns, with Carol sitting on a decent stack. Paul, Wendy and Darko, the Wall Street regulars, were stuck for more money than they'd care for me to mention here. At around 12:30, most of the players left, but Carol was having none of it. She suggested, AGAIN, that we play $2/$4 limit Omaha and Wendy, Carol, Brian and Myself ended up slugging it out. I warned everyone that 1:30AM was the cutoff, but somehow that time came and went without a sound. (I noticed, by the way, that no one actually reminded me what time it was!). What time did I finally kick everyone out? How about 4AM? I am SUCH a rockstar.
There was a bit of panic at the end of the night when I went to pay everyone out. The stack of money I had in my hand was about $55 short. I was worried, at first, but then I realized that I had taken all the small bills (anything under a $20) and put it in the cashbox. There was easily $55 or so in small bills that had been paid to me, and that accounted for the shortfall. Whew! All is well.
At the end of our very fun, but long, Omaha Hi/Lo limit game, Carol had padded her stack to become the big winner for the night (+~350). Brian had a healthy +150 win as well. I was about even (down $16) and Wendy...we won't mention Wendy.
To all the Wall Street regulars who find themselves being felted by the newcomers, a bit of advice: Play this table like the Good Look Club. These are very good players, whom you don't yet have solid reads on. Respect them!
One other thing to mention. Brian G. made one of the *sickest* reads I've ever seen during the $2/$4 limit Omaha game. He and Carol were mixed up in a pot together. The board was KQ77rag. I don't remember the precise action on all street but they ended up reraising each other a few times on the rag river. Brian finally called without raising, saying, "I have a feeling you've got quads". Carol did indeed turn up quad 7's! What made it more impressive is the hand Brian stopped re-raising with. Pocket Kings for the second nuts on the board!! Given the number of hands Carol could have re-raised with (QQ, K7, Q7, etc...), it is *astounding* that Brian had the read in order to stop milking the pot. Unbelievable.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Last day in Florida
After the debacle from yesterday, I woke up at a decent hour (10:30AM) in order to meet Abbie back up in Pompano by Noon or so. But I felt guilty about not seeing much of my parents, so I spent a very leisurely morning having breakfast with them an discussing the real estate and equities markets. My parents think I'm a genius when it comes to these topics, working at Merrill and all, but the truth is I'm only more educated about it than they are. So I spent a few hours with them debating what the downturn in the real estate market meant to their portfolio, whether we could expect a soft landing and explaining the concept of a 'random walk' and how that related to stock price movements. Refreshing....
I left the quagmire of economics talk around the kitchen table and drove up to Pompano, making it there by about 2. I was immediately seated in a 3-5 limit game. I decided to stick to limit today because I had been running poorly at no limit and I usually play limit at casinos since I don't have the opportunity to play it anywhere else. I did fairly well, playing tight and being aggressive with good hands. I check-raised often when I had the nuts and was able to carve out a solid profit in my first hour. Then it hit me. I'm in Florida, playing a game where the max limit table is 3-5 and the max buyin is $100. This would be a great place to play some limit games that I don't normaly play. Namely, 7 stud and Omaha 8. I used to play stud all the time, but I stopped when Hold'em became the primary game and stud was relegated to just a table or two at the casinos. And I've NEVER played Omaha in a casino at all. So I got myself moved to the one stud table that was running at 2-4 stakes. I was on the table for maybe 15 minutes when I got called to the Omaha table. I moved immediately and greeted all the players.
The Omaha table was populated by a group of folks who knew each other. These were local players who had fun talking about their hands and mostly betting like crap. No tricky plays here. Just check-call all the way down to the river. The trick with Omaha is to understand that the minimum winning hand is almost always trips and to throw your hand away the *instant* it can't win. Otherwise, it will cost you 3-4 bets on a hand you can't take down. The other trick is to be able to read your possibilities quickly. In Omaha 8, you can win half the pot if you have the low hand, but you can only use 3 cards from the 5 card board. In addition, your highest card can't be above an 8. So if a flop comes down with 2 cards below an 8, you need the turn or river to be below an 8 to even have a chance of winning half. Ace-deuce in your hand is the best starting low, but if a deuce comes on the board, Ace-trey becomes the best starting hand. Because the situation can change with every card, you need to be mindful all the time when things change and what your chances are to improve. The good news is you almost always have pot odds to draw, EXCEPT that in many cases you will be splitting your half of the pot with someone else if you go low. This changes your pot odds drastically. If you're only fighting for 1/4 of the pot, the pot odds generally aren't there for you to draw. This is also a bit of a paradox, because if you fold, your opponent who holds the same low cards as you will be able to stay in correctly. It's the Prisoner's Dilemma (Google it), played out in Omaha. But you can't think about that, because your opponent will never fold to give *you* the right pot odds, so you can fold with impunity and not feel bad.
Since there are so many draws in Omaha, the pots usually get sizeable, even for 2-4. A typical pot was $70-$80, with some as high as $150. So 'scooping' the pot (meaning getting both the high and the low) was a big deal for your stack.
When I sat at the table, the players immediately told me this wasn't an 'all-in' table. Evidently, many people sit down with the idea that this is a 1-2 NL table. I told them I knew that, but that this was my first time playing Omaha in a casino. One player asked where I had played it before and I said at home. He then helpfully told me that 6 high is not the nut low, but the wheel straight is. I told him I knew that, though in hindsight I should have just nodded and said thank you. It didn't matter though. I ran the table with a run of good cards and good judgement. I won my first three hands and left the table a few hours later up about $125.
I had dinner with Abbie and her grandmother (who had come to play slots) at Myron's Jewish deli downstairs. After being told it would be 30 minutes for a table, we nearly went to McDonalds down the road, but they ended up seating us in 5 minutes instead. We ordered a smorgasboard of delicacies, from stuffed cabbage to blintzes and latkes and hot dogs. After stuffing ourselves like good Jews and engaging in very pleasant conversation, the check came. I instinctively went for it, but Abbie and her grandmother would have none of it. It was their treat. Who was I to argue, although I admit I've never been taken out to dinner by two women before. Really, it was my treat.
Abbie had to go to the airport right afterwards and we said our goodbyes. I high tailed back to the room and continued on with my Omaha game. All of my friends were right back where I left them. I played for another 3 hours before the table broke up and I couldn't get seated anywhere else. It was 10:30 on a Sunday night and things were starting to slow down. But not for me. I got in my car and drove south towards Hollywood with the intention of going to the Seminole Indian casino on route 441. They're open 24 hours and all the local hard core gamblers were going to be there. Going to the Seminole is an entirely different experience than going to the Hard Rock, it's sister casino. The Seminole allows smoking (though not at the table, thankfully). Still, it has a musty smell to it. There *used* to be smoking at the table, but they did away with it a few months ago and it makes it much more pleasant. Still, the cast of characters around the Omaha table at the Seminole was a sight to behold. There were two crusty old grandmothers, one black and one white. The black woman had a cigarette dangling out of her mouth like Sammy Farha. Actually, she looked to me like an old picture of Robert Johnson, the blues guitarist. That is, if Robert Johnson lived until his 80's and had a sex change operation. Rounding out the list of characters was a small drunken asian man who reeked of alcohol on his breath and had about 13 teeth in his mouth. A somewhat confused rastafarian looking old man with a shock of gray in his bushy beard who somehow knew the rules of the game better than the dealer (more on that later). A very annoying and talkative guy with a missing bottom tooth and a huge ganglia in his right forearm. Finally, an old man with white hair and a hole in his throat, with a little tab coming out of it. And me, the odd man out.
Play at the table was pretty good and these folks had obviously played a lot. Some interesting hands won and lost, though nothing to write about here. What's important is that I got a good education in omaha, even if I lost most of my Omaha profit from Pompano. I played until 5AM, with every single player staying until that time. I lost less than most and the old man with the hole in his throat won the most. Ganglia man was on a roll for a while but ended up losing most of his money. He also got the dealer to call the floor to throw him out because of some very annoying behavior. He was obviously a regular there and all the dealers knew he was a pain in the ass. His favorite move was to ask the dealers to push the cards dealt to be in front of him. Nevermind that the cards were dealt, no joke, two inches from where he asked them to be pushed. That was the final straw that made the dealer call the floor. He didn't get booted, but he behaved after the floor came and admonished him.
I was witness to one interesting call to the floor for a ruling and a participant in another. First, my participation. Action around the table moved fairly quickly and there was almost never a raise. So when action came around to the guy to my right, I called almost in unison with him, putting my single $2 chip out on the table about half a second after he did. It was only when my chip went in the middle that I realized he had raised. I did what almost every other table allows. I withdrew my chip and threw my cards in the middle to muck. At that point, the old man with the hole in his throat pressed a hidden button near his shoulder and croaked at the words, "That has to stay in the pot!". Evidently, you're not allowed to call, even out of turn, and then withdraw the money. I see the point of the ruling, but I don't agree with it. If you're going to make me call, I should have to call for the whole bet ($4), not half the bet. But the floor agreed with the old man and my $2 chip stayed in the middle. Later, after he left, the old man with the hole in his throat tossed me a $2 chip and breathed out the words, "no hard feelings". It was a nice gesture, but then he pursed his lips and blew me a kiss, which was creepy and pervy and left me feeling dirty.
The other interesting call to the floor involved bushy gray bearded rastafarian guy. A clean cut gentlemen was down to his last $1 chip and he was first to act in the hand. He said, "I'm all in for $1". The rastafarian objected to this move, saying the guy couldn't bet the $1 since it didn't meet the minimum bet requirements! We all assumed you could bet anything you have in front of you since all in was all in. But the floor confirmed that the guy couldn't open a bet with less than the minimum. He could *call* a bet for $1 all in, but he couldn't *start* the betting. It was the first time I'd heard that and it only applies to limit, from what I understand.
5AM came and I picked up my remaining chips and went home, exhausted but satisfied. I got up at noon and promptly went down to the beach for some well deserved rest. It was hot though, so I stayed by the pool area, under a shady canopy, looking at the ocean and listening to the surf. Lulled to sleep, I slept by the pool for about 3 hours before heading back upstairs and showering in preparation for my trip home.
I'll be back soon, I hope. I love you Florida!
I left the quagmire of economics talk around the kitchen table and drove up to Pompano, making it there by about 2. I was immediately seated in a 3-5 limit game. I decided to stick to limit today because I had been running poorly at no limit and I usually play limit at casinos since I don't have the opportunity to play it anywhere else. I did fairly well, playing tight and being aggressive with good hands. I check-raised often when I had the nuts and was able to carve out a solid profit in my first hour. Then it hit me. I'm in Florida, playing a game where the max limit table is 3-5 and the max buyin is $100. This would be a great place to play some limit games that I don't normaly play. Namely, 7 stud and Omaha 8. I used to play stud all the time, but I stopped when Hold'em became the primary game and stud was relegated to just a table or two at the casinos. And I've NEVER played Omaha in a casino at all. So I got myself moved to the one stud table that was running at 2-4 stakes. I was on the table for maybe 15 minutes when I got called to the Omaha table. I moved immediately and greeted all the players.
The Omaha table was populated by a group of folks who knew each other. These were local players who had fun talking about their hands and mostly betting like crap. No tricky plays here. Just check-call all the way down to the river. The trick with Omaha is to understand that the minimum winning hand is almost always trips and to throw your hand away the *instant* it can't win. Otherwise, it will cost you 3-4 bets on a hand you can't take down. The other trick is to be able to read your possibilities quickly. In Omaha 8, you can win half the pot if you have the low hand, but you can only use 3 cards from the 5 card board. In addition, your highest card can't be above an 8. So if a flop comes down with 2 cards below an 8, you need the turn or river to be below an 8 to even have a chance of winning half. Ace-deuce in your hand is the best starting low, but if a deuce comes on the board, Ace-trey becomes the best starting hand. Because the situation can change with every card, you need to be mindful all the time when things change and what your chances are to improve. The good news is you almost always have pot odds to draw, EXCEPT that in many cases you will be splitting your half of the pot with someone else if you go low. This changes your pot odds drastically. If you're only fighting for 1/4 of the pot, the pot odds generally aren't there for you to draw. This is also a bit of a paradox, because if you fold, your opponent who holds the same low cards as you will be able to stay in correctly. It's the Prisoner's Dilemma (Google it), played out in Omaha. But you can't think about that, because your opponent will never fold to give *you* the right pot odds, so you can fold with impunity and not feel bad.
Since there are so many draws in Omaha, the pots usually get sizeable, even for 2-4. A typical pot was $70-$80, with some as high as $150. So 'scooping' the pot (meaning getting both the high and the low) was a big deal for your stack.
When I sat at the table, the players immediately told me this wasn't an 'all-in' table. Evidently, many people sit down with the idea that this is a 1-2 NL table. I told them I knew that, but that this was my first time playing Omaha in a casino. One player asked where I had played it before and I said at home. He then helpfully told me that 6 high is not the nut low, but the wheel straight is. I told him I knew that, though in hindsight I should have just nodded and said thank you. It didn't matter though. I ran the table with a run of good cards and good judgement. I won my first three hands and left the table a few hours later up about $125.
I had dinner with Abbie and her grandmother (who had come to play slots) at Myron's Jewish deli downstairs. After being told it would be 30 minutes for a table, we nearly went to McDonalds down the road, but they ended up seating us in 5 minutes instead. We ordered a smorgasboard of delicacies, from stuffed cabbage to blintzes and latkes and hot dogs. After stuffing ourselves like good Jews and engaging in very pleasant conversation, the check came. I instinctively went for it, but Abbie and her grandmother would have none of it. It was their treat. Who was I to argue, although I admit I've never been taken out to dinner by two women before. Really, it was my treat.
Abbie had to go to the airport right afterwards and we said our goodbyes. I high tailed back to the room and continued on with my Omaha game. All of my friends were right back where I left them. I played for another 3 hours before the table broke up and I couldn't get seated anywhere else. It was 10:30 on a Sunday night and things were starting to slow down. But not for me. I got in my car and drove south towards Hollywood with the intention of going to the Seminole Indian casino on route 441. They're open 24 hours and all the local hard core gamblers were going to be there. Going to the Seminole is an entirely different experience than going to the Hard Rock, it's sister casino. The Seminole allows smoking (though not at the table, thankfully). Still, it has a musty smell to it. There *used* to be smoking at the table, but they did away with it a few months ago and it makes it much more pleasant. Still, the cast of characters around the Omaha table at the Seminole was a sight to behold. There were two crusty old grandmothers, one black and one white. The black woman had a cigarette dangling out of her mouth like Sammy Farha. Actually, she looked to me like an old picture of Robert Johnson, the blues guitarist. That is, if Robert Johnson lived until his 80's and had a sex change operation. Rounding out the list of characters was a small drunken asian man who reeked of alcohol on his breath and had about 13 teeth in his mouth. A somewhat confused rastafarian looking old man with a shock of gray in his bushy beard who somehow knew the rules of the game better than the dealer (more on that later). A very annoying and talkative guy with a missing bottom tooth and a huge ganglia in his right forearm. Finally, an old man with white hair and a hole in his throat, with a little tab coming out of it. And me, the odd man out.
Play at the table was pretty good and these folks had obviously played a lot. Some interesting hands won and lost, though nothing to write about here. What's important is that I got a good education in omaha, even if I lost most of my Omaha profit from Pompano. I played until 5AM, with every single player staying until that time. I lost less than most and the old man with the hole in his throat won the most. Ganglia man was on a roll for a while but ended up losing most of his money. He also got the dealer to call the floor to throw him out because of some very annoying behavior. He was obviously a regular there and all the dealers knew he was a pain in the ass. His favorite move was to ask the dealers to push the cards dealt to be in front of him. Nevermind that the cards were dealt, no joke, two inches from where he asked them to be pushed. That was the final straw that made the dealer call the floor. He didn't get booted, but he behaved after the floor came and admonished him.
I was witness to one interesting call to the floor for a ruling and a participant in another. First, my participation. Action around the table moved fairly quickly and there was almost never a raise. So when action came around to the guy to my right, I called almost in unison with him, putting my single $2 chip out on the table about half a second after he did. It was only when my chip went in the middle that I realized he had raised. I did what almost every other table allows. I withdrew my chip and threw my cards in the middle to muck. At that point, the old man with the hole in his throat pressed a hidden button near his shoulder and croaked at the words, "That has to stay in the pot!". Evidently, you're not allowed to call, even out of turn, and then withdraw the money. I see the point of the ruling, but I don't agree with it. If you're going to make me call, I should have to call for the whole bet ($4), not half the bet. But the floor agreed with the old man and my $2 chip stayed in the middle. Later, after he left, the old man with the hole in his throat tossed me a $2 chip and breathed out the words, "no hard feelings". It was a nice gesture, but then he pursed his lips and blew me a kiss, which was creepy and pervy and left me feeling dirty.
The other interesting call to the floor involved bushy gray bearded rastafarian guy. A clean cut gentlemen was down to his last $1 chip and he was first to act in the hand. He said, "I'm all in for $1". The rastafarian objected to this move, saying the guy couldn't bet the $1 since it didn't meet the minimum bet requirements! We all assumed you could bet anything you have in front of you since all in was all in. But the floor confirmed that the guy couldn't open a bet with less than the minimum. He could *call* a bet for $1 all in, but he couldn't *start* the betting. It was the first time I'd heard that and it only applies to limit, from what I understand.
5AM came and I picked up my remaining chips and went home, exhausted but satisfied. I got up at noon and promptly went down to the beach for some well deserved rest. It was hot though, so I stayed by the pool area, under a shady canopy, looking at the ocean and listening to the surf. Lulled to sleep, I slept by the pool for about 3 hours before heading back upstairs and showering in preparation for my trip home.
I'll be back soon, I hope. I love you Florida!
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
A Weekend without sleep...
The Friday game went to 5:30AM and I got to bed at 6AM. Fine for a weekend except I had to be up in 2 hours to make it to Penn Station in order to meet my friend Scott L out on Long Island for an afternoon of fishing! Oh, the sacrifices I make for my poker games!
2 hours of sleep goes *really* quickly when you have to get up afterwards. Shockingly, I wasn't completely dead on my feet. Yes, I had to stand the entire train ride out to Long Island due to all the damn beach goers, but I was alert and awake on the boat. My catches on the 4 hour boat ride consisted of 2 crabs and 1 Robin-fish, which goes right back in the water on account of them being really small. Scott, on the other hand, managed not only to bag two Fluke, but the second one was the BIGGEST one caught on the boat for that trip. There were about 50 other anglers with us, so it was an impressive feat. So not only is his ego stoked over it (yeah, like there was any skill involved!), but he also won the Boat pool. The Boat pool is $2 collected from each fisherman which goes to the lucky guy lucky enough to bag the largest catch that trip. Ka-Ching!
On the boat ride back, we were in the cabin eating our lunch. A group of large guys (and a large girl) were playing cards next to us. It turns out that one of them was a, ahem, cardroom proprietor out on Long Island. His own cardrooms (4 of them) had all been shut down, but he taught me quite a bit about cardroom operations. The most interesting tidbit is that Long Island cardrooms typically rake the pot rather than take a time charge. And what *he* said was that they often rake far above what they advertise in an effort to boost profits. He claimed, and I believe him, that the dealers would often rake an extra $10-$15 dollars from large pots because the players rarely noticed, and when they did the dealers could claim ignorance. Yet another thing to watch out for! Atlantic City and Vegas dealers sometimes rake the pot incorrectly but it's NEVER in the range of 2 to 3 times the regular rake. It's usually just an accidental dollar here and there. The reason, of course, is that the casino dealers are taped and the extra money doesn't even go to them anyway. So, if you're on Long Island in a raked card room, watch out!
The other thing this guy taught us was a new game called BALLS. Scott and I played it for about 30 minutes and it was a lot of fun (not to mention I took about $30 off these guys as a result). Here's how it works. You get a group of players together and each person contributes $1 into the middle. Each player is then dealt 4 cards (of an eventual 5 card hand). Starting with the player to the left of the dealer (whom we'll call player 1 for now), each player has to decide if their hand is good enough to contest the pot. Each player decides, in turn, if they're going to be "in" or "out". When everyone has decided, if there is more than player left, a 5th community card is dealt in the middle. This card is used by everyone and it's rank is also wild. So, for example, if it's a 5h and you have a 5c in your hand, you now have 2 wild cards. The best 5 card hand scoops the pot. The Losers of the hand have to match what the initial pot was ($1 per player). So, if the pot starts with $8 (8 players) and two players lose the hand, they each have to put $8 in the pot. The pot then starts the next hand with $16. But if a player loses the next hand, they don't match $16, just $8. This is so it won't get too expensive. If, at the end of a hand, only 1 player has decided to be "in", then they play against the deck. A four card hand is dealt from the deck and then the 5th card is dealt to be community and wild for the player and the deck. If the player loses to the deck, he/she has to match the initial pot. If the player wins, all players add another dollar and the game starts anew. The only other two rules are: 1. The player who first decides to be "in" or "out" rotates every hand. This is because the last person to decide has a built in advantage. 2. If you win a pot, you have to deal the cards until another person wins the pot.
It's a very fun game and we're definitely going to be playing it soon.
That night, Scott and I had the fish he caught for dinner. He mercifully let me catch a one hour nap while he cooked. It wasn't enough, but it was sufficient. Then we went out to see the new Die Hard movie. The move defies disbelief but it's enough fun and the action sequences are good enough for me to recommend it. It was much better than I would have given it credit for.
I got home at about 1AM, and instead of going to bed immediately, I decided to "quickly" read some blogs and catch up. Karol's blog, www.alarmingnews.com, had a request for breakup songs. So I decided to submit a few by scrolling through my Itunes list and seeing what I could come up with. 3 hours later (!), I had given her nearly 70 songs. Oh yeah, did I mention I had agreed to meet a date the next morning at 10AM at Grand Central?!? Whoops.
5 hours of sleep later, I took a shower and got to Grand Central at 10AM on the nose. We caught a 7 train to go out to Flushing Meadow park to see the Hong Kong Dragon Boat festival. The festival was much crappier than I had hoped for. It's basically a series of boat races, which were cool, and a small fairground with a few tents, which sucked ass. There were about 20 tents sent up, with about 15 of them offering credit cards or cell phone subscriptions. There were 2 offering cold chinese food and the other 3 were stuff strictly for kids. On top of that, it was hot in the sun! We sat under a tree eating cold dumplings, chatted a bit, watched a boat race and then headed back into the city. We decided to go to Blatt's Billiards so I could check out their poker table offerings but they turned out to be closed on the weekend's during the summer! Bummer. So we saw the new Bourne Ultimatum movie instead. It was awesome. The best yet and a great cast, with some ridiculous action sequences. Fun stuff.
We had a drink at a cool rooftop bar in Koreatown afterwards and then I had to say goodbye. The lack of sleep was catching up to me, and quickly. So home I went. I managed to stay up until Entourage (good stuff! 'Your wife cheated on you..with an exact duplicate of you?') but then fell asleep like a baby in a cradle. 6AM I was up and out to work by 7:15. Today is going to be rough, but I plan to come home from band practice by 9:40 and I'll be asleep in my bed by 9:42. Don't call me, please!
2 hours of sleep goes *really* quickly when you have to get up afterwards. Shockingly, I wasn't completely dead on my feet. Yes, I had to stand the entire train ride out to Long Island due to all the damn beach goers, but I was alert and awake on the boat. My catches on the 4 hour boat ride consisted of 2 crabs and 1 Robin-fish, which goes right back in the water on account of them being really small. Scott, on the other hand, managed not only to bag two Fluke, but the second one was the BIGGEST one caught on the boat for that trip. There were about 50 other anglers with us, so it was an impressive feat. So not only is his ego stoked over it (yeah, like there was any skill involved!), but he also won the Boat pool. The Boat pool is $2 collected from each fisherman which goes to the lucky guy lucky enough to bag the largest catch that trip. Ka-Ching!
On the boat ride back, we were in the cabin eating our lunch. A group of large guys (and a large girl) were playing cards next to us. It turns out that one of them was a, ahem, cardroom proprietor out on Long Island. His own cardrooms (4 of them) had all been shut down, but he taught me quite a bit about cardroom operations. The most interesting tidbit is that Long Island cardrooms typically rake the pot rather than take a time charge. And what *he* said was that they often rake far above what they advertise in an effort to boost profits. He claimed, and I believe him, that the dealers would often rake an extra $10-$15 dollars from large pots because the players rarely noticed, and when they did the dealers could claim ignorance. Yet another thing to watch out for! Atlantic City and Vegas dealers sometimes rake the pot incorrectly but it's NEVER in the range of 2 to 3 times the regular rake. It's usually just an accidental dollar here and there. The reason, of course, is that the casino dealers are taped and the extra money doesn't even go to them anyway. So, if you're on Long Island in a raked card room, watch out!
The other thing this guy taught us was a new game called BALLS. Scott and I played it for about 30 minutes and it was a lot of fun (not to mention I took about $30 off these guys as a result). Here's how it works. You get a group of players together and each person contributes $1 into the middle. Each player is then dealt 4 cards (of an eventual 5 card hand). Starting with the player to the left of the dealer (whom we'll call player 1 for now), each player has to decide if their hand is good enough to contest the pot. Each player decides, in turn, if they're going to be "in" or "out". When everyone has decided, if there is more than player left, a 5th community card is dealt in the middle. This card is used by everyone and it's rank is also wild. So, for example, if it's a 5h and you have a 5c in your hand, you now have 2 wild cards. The best 5 card hand scoops the pot. The Losers of the hand have to match what the initial pot was ($1 per player). So, if the pot starts with $8 (8 players) and two players lose the hand, they each have to put $8 in the pot. The pot then starts the next hand with $16. But if a player loses the next hand, they don't match $16, just $8. This is so it won't get too expensive. If, at the end of a hand, only 1 player has decided to be "in", then they play against the deck. A four card hand is dealt from the deck and then the 5th card is dealt to be community and wild for the player and the deck. If the player loses to the deck, he/she has to match the initial pot. If the player wins, all players add another dollar and the game starts anew. The only other two rules are: 1. The player who first decides to be "in" or "out" rotates every hand. This is because the last person to decide has a built in advantage. 2. If you win a pot, you have to deal the cards until another person wins the pot.
It's a very fun game and we're definitely going to be playing it soon.
That night, Scott and I had the fish he caught for dinner. He mercifully let me catch a one hour nap while he cooked. It wasn't enough, but it was sufficient. Then we went out to see the new Die Hard movie. The move defies disbelief but it's enough fun and the action sequences are good enough for me to recommend it. It was much better than I would have given it credit for.
I got home at about 1AM, and instead of going to bed immediately, I decided to "quickly" read some blogs and catch up. Karol's blog, www.alarmingnews.com, had a request for breakup songs. So I decided to submit a few by scrolling through my Itunes list and seeing what I could come up with. 3 hours later (!), I had given her nearly 70 songs. Oh yeah, did I mention I had agreed to meet a date the next morning at 10AM at Grand Central?!? Whoops.
5 hours of sleep later, I took a shower and got to Grand Central at 10AM on the nose. We caught a 7 train to go out to Flushing Meadow park to see the Hong Kong Dragon Boat festival. The festival was much crappier than I had hoped for. It's basically a series of boat races, which were cool, and a small fairground with a few tents, which sucked ass. There were about 20 tents sent up, with about 15 of them offering credit cards or cell phone subscriptions. There were 2 offering cold chinese food and the other 3 were stuff strictly for kids. On top of that, it was hot in the sun! We sat under a tree eating cold dumplings, chatted a bit, watched a boat race and then headed back into the city. We decided to go to Blatt's Billiards so I could check out their poker table offerings but they turned out to be closed on the weekend's during the summer! Bummer. So we saw the new Bourne Ultimatum movie instead. It was awesome. The best yet and a great cast, with some ridiculous action sequences. Fun stuff.
We had a drink at a cool rooftop bar in Koreatown afterwards and then I had to say goodbye. The lack of sleep was catching up to me, and quickly. So home I went. I managed to stay up until Entourage (good stuff! 'Your wife cheated on you..with an exact duplicate of you?') but then fell asleep like a baby in a cradle. 6AM I was up and out to work by 7:15. Today is going to be rough, but I plan to come home from band practice by 9:40 and I'll be asleep in my bed by 9:42. Don't call me, please!
Sunday, August 5, 2007
New members, good times
The last few session of the Wall Street Poker league have been eventful. There was the brutal dismantling of Tommy Drama by Scott St. G in heads up play on Wed. night. The brutal suckout by The Slayer with 27 on the first hand vs. myself. Also, we entertained an exciting new member of the league, Carol, who promises to expand all of our horizons with regards to higher limit play and other games, Omaha in particular.
Friday was Carol's first time in the league. She comes to us via the F-Train poker blog (look it up). F-Train is a friend of the I Had Outs crew (Karol and Stephane) and, as such, is considered a FOAFOAF (Friend of a Friend of a Friend). Close enough for my tastes if you ask me. She is also part of a new group of members we are getting via writeups on other blogs. Most of those members have been successfully integrated into our Borg-like collective with one notable exception (see recent past blogs for details). Carol, suffice it to say, was fantastic and we hope to see much more of her in the future for reasons I will detail below.
Before I go into those details though, I want to quickly recap Friday's tourneys. These were exciting to me for the sole reason that I actually cashed twice, breaking a long drought for me! I feel like A-Rod hitting his 500th HR (which happened tonight actually). I played conservative but aggressive and I got paid off on my good hands. Like when my AA flopped an Ace and I checked called all the way to the turn by Eric D. When he checked the river and I value bet 700, he had to pay me off though I didn't see the strong hand he had (KK?). It was a few hands like that that kept me afloat, but then I ran into a dry spell of cards. Instead of pushing with hands like QT suited, I was patient, folded middle pocket pairs in bad position and waited for good spots. It worked, though by the time I got into second place heads up with Stephen P., I had a serious chip defecit I couldn't overcome. But I was happy enough to cash. The second tourney was more of the same and I got very lucky getting Scott St. G. to double me up twice in the later rounds when he ran 7c9c (or something similar) against my QQ when I pushed all in on the button vs. his big blind. He also pushed all in with 55 vs. my 99 in the opposite situation later on which put me into first place while simultaneously crippling his stack. Anthony C. took him out and we battled it out for a while. I emerged from a chip defecit to pull nearly even when we decided to chop and start a cash game.
Here's where my praise of Carol begins. We had a few cash game dropouts (curse you Darko!) and we only ended up with 5 willing players for a cash game. 5 is too few for a game of Hold'em and I was about to disband the effort when Carol said, "5 isn't too few for Omaha! Let's play that." I thought about it and since we're going to be spreading Omaha for the first time in a cash game on Tuesday, I thought this would be good just for practice. We agreed on $1/$2 stakes ($.50/$1 blinds) and we played Omaha Hi/Lo 8's or better until 5:30AM! Carol came out way ahead, of course, with Scott St. G making some money, Stephen P. breaking even and Paul H. and I losing some buyins. But the experience was great and playing with Carol was an eye-opener. She was also very helpful in teaching us how to read boards, split the pot in the expectation of Hi/Lo and decide what good folding/calling/raising hands were. Carol frequently plays in $15/$30 or higher limit games and sometimes 5/10 NL games, so for her to have the patience to endure our micro stakes and actually take the time to teach us, keeping in the spirit of this League, was saintly. We're thankful for her time and wisdom.
Incidentally, she also happens to be a fascinating person. Just a few nuggets I'm sure she wouldn't mind if I share...
1. She's Asian - Korean to be precise.
2. She's Jewish - From her father.
3. She's Mennonite - From her mother.
4. She's Adopted - Her parents adopted her from Korea when she was a baby.
5. She's a Corporate Lawyer (Corporate Finance)
6. She *used* to be an investment banker
7. She plays high stakes poker - at least for us. The stakes she plays are *just* below what a professional would play, though most semi-pros would play the same stakes.
8. She's very attractive - Not a nugget per se, just an observation. ;-)
9. She's extremely nice, generous AND *funny* - Another observation
For those of you who know me, the above list is almost exactly tailored to my wishlist of the perfect woman. It might be too early in our budding relationship, though, to propose marriage. (jus' kiddin'). The other obstacle there would be her boyfriend, who is most likely a large athletic man (an assumption based on the fact that he played Division I football for Florida State). :-)
All in all, a credit to our table.
Ok, now that I'm through with the placing on the pedestal, it's time for us to figure out how to felt her. She's a good player!!!
P.S. Carol had the best quote at the table given in some time. Here it is:
Scott St. G - "How can I get some of those chips from your stack?"
Carol - "More suckouts"
Friday was Carol's first time in the league. She comes to us via the F-Train poker blog (look it up). F-Train is a friend of the I Had Outs crew (Karol and Stephane) and, as such, is considered a FOAFOAF (Friend of a Friend of a Friend). Close enough for my tastes if you ask me. She is also part of a new group of members we are getting via writeups on other blogs. Most of those members have been successfully integrated into our Borg-like collective with one notable exception (see recent past blogs for details). Carol, suffice it to say, was fantastic and we hope to see much more of her in the future for reasons I will detail below.
Before I go into those details though, I want to quickly recap Friday's tourneys. These were exciting to me for the sole reason that I actually cashed twice, breaking a long drought for me! I feel like A-Rod hitting his 500th HR (which happened tonight actually). I played conservative but aggressive and I got paid off on my good hands. Like when my AA flopped an Ace and I checked called all the way to the turn by Eric D. When he checked the river and I value bet 700, he had to pay me off though I didn't see the strong hand he had (KK?). It was a few hands like that that kept me afloat, but then I ran into a dry spell of cards. Instead of pushing with hands like QT suited, I was patient, folded middle pocket pairs in bad position and waited for good spots. It worked, though by the time I got into second place heads up with Stephen P., I had a serious chip defecit I couldn't overcome. But I was happy enough to cash. The second tourney was more of the same and I got very lucky getting Scott St. G. to double me up twice in the later rounds when he ran 7c9c (or something similar) against my QQ when I pushed all in on the button vs. his big blind. He also pushed all in with 55 vs. my 99 in the opposite situation later on which put me into first place while simultaneously crippling his stack. Anthony C. took him out and we battled it out for a while. I emerged from a chip defecit to pull nearly even when we decided to chop and start a cash game.
Here's where my praise of Carol begins. We had a few cash game dropouts (curse you Darko!) and we only ended up with 5 willing players for a cash game. 5 is too few for a game of Hold'em and I was about to disband the effort when Carol said, "5 isn't too few for Omaha! Let's play that." I thought about it and since we're going to be spreading Omaha for the first time in a cash game on Tuesday, I thought this would be good just for practice. We agreed on $1/$2 stakes ($.50/$1 blinds) and we played Omaha Hi/Lo 8's or better until 5:30AM! Carol came out way ahead, of course, with Scott St. G making some money, Stephen P. breaking even and Paul H. and I losing some buyins. But the experience was great and playing with Carol was an eye-opener. She was also very helpful in teaching us how to read boards, split the pot in the expectation of Hi/Lo and decide what good folding/calling/raising hands were. Carol frequently plays in $15/$30 or higher limit games and sometimes 5/10 NL games, so for her to have the patience to endure our micro stakes and actually take the time to teach us, keeping in the spirit of this League, was saintly. We're thankful for her time and wisdom.
Incidentally, she also happens to be a fascinating person. Just a few nuggets I'm sure she wouldn't mind if I share...
1. She's Asian - Korean to be precise.
2. She's Jewish - From her father.
3. She's Mennonite - From her mother.
4. She's Adopted - Her parents adopted her from Korea when she was a baby.
5. She's a Corporate Lawyer (Corporate Finance)
6. She *used* to be an investment banker
7. She plays high stakes poker - at least for us. The stakes she plays are *just* below what a professional would play, though most semi-pros would play the same stakes.
8. She's very attractive - Not a nugget per se, just an observation. ;-)
9. She's extremely nice, generous AND *funny* - Another observation
For those of you who know me, the above list is almost exactly tailored to my wishlist of the perfect woman. It might be too early in our budding relationship, though, to propose marriage. (jus' kiddin'). The other obstacle there would be her boyfriend, who is most likely a large athletic man (an assumption based on the fact that he played Division I football for Florida State). :-)
All in all, a credit to our table.
Ok, now that I'm through with the placing on the pedestal, it's time for us to figure out how to felt her. She's a good player!!!
P.S. Carol had the best quote at the table given in some time. Here it is:
Scott St. G - "How can I get some of those chips from your stack?"
Carol - "More suckouts"
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