While on vacation in New England, I was fortunate enough to be able to hit up a local casino in Seabrook. They had a $100 tourny at 7pm and I made the hour trek to enter. The drive was amazing. There is nothing like it where I live. A massive gathering of trees, stone and water. Simply beautiful. I arrived at the racetrack/poker room with 15 minutes to spare. So I signed up for the local players card, which is needed to play, and handed over the entry fee. Then, I waited.

I was assigned table 1, seat 6. Perfect seat for me, right in front of the flop. Four hands into the tournament this old dude, who is a regular, sits down and calls the bet to see the flop. The only other player in the hand makes a 2/3 pot bet and the old guy says, “Does that B stand for bitch or Boston?” Stone face from the other player. The old dude speaks again, “Look at that face. I bet I’m beat.” then he folds. Now the other player breaks his silence. “Dont you ever call me a fuck’n bitch again.” The two exchange words for a few seconds then old man stands up and says, “I’m 65 years old and I’ll kicker your ass. You want to take this outside?!?” The guy in the Boston hat gets up and proceeds to walk out the front of the pokerroom. The floor was called over and the old dude was ejected from the tourney. Apparently, this has happened before.

As for the tournament, the first three levels, I played a total of four hands, at a 50% win rate. Right before the first break, a short stack pushed twice in a row and when I looked down I saw ATs and called. He flipped over AKo and I said “Nice hand.” The flop was all low cards and the turn brought a lovely T for a suckout/knockout.

Now I have T6500, a build up of T1500. The next level I’d pretty quiet as I steal the blinds once. Near the end of the next level, level 5, I look down at QQ and limp in UTG, knowing that someone would raise it up. The chip leader makes it 1200 and I re-raise to 2900. He re-raises me to where I am left with T100. I call. The flop is Q74 and I check, he bets 100 and I call. He shows AK and I table my QQ. I’m way ahead and when I win this pot I will have over 12k in chips and have a very healthy stack. The turn is a T and the river brings a J for the other player to get runner-runner straight. I shake his hand and make my way to the cash tables. 6 hands played in two hours. I will now drive longer to get to the poker room and back to the hotel than I played in that tourney. Sick.

Cash tables was more of the same junk kicking. Table full of donkies and I can’t win a hand. Everytime I play a hand the river kills me. I keep telling myself, “that’s poker”, but the past couple of weeks have been too much. I keep getting everything in ahead and lose. I’m really starting to doubt myself now. I’m not sure if the WSOP is a good thing now. Why waste $1500 on the suckout that I know will send me to the rails?!?

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Ok, so here is the post that I promised a few posts ago. During the Christmas Vacation, the wife and I made the trip to her parents house for a white christmas. I can understand why she says christmas isn’t the same in Southern California as it is near Tahoe. There’s just something about snow and christmas that goes together. Shorts, T-shirts and christmas do not mix.

My Mother-in-law loves to play poker, but her friends.. well.. don’t. So she doesn’t get the opportunity to play that often. Every time we visit, she gets a nice SnG or two every night, but unfortunately for her, we don’t visit that often. This time, one of my holiday gifts to her was a buy-in to a local tournament. So while my mother-in-law was out shopping with her daughters, I was calling up local casino’s looking for a nice tournament for us to play later in the day. When I told her what I was planning she tells me that she is very excited to play in her first poker tournament and that she believes that I will win the tournament. I tell her If we get heads up, I’m not going to show any mercy and we both laugh. After calling a few casinos, the Carson Valley Inn had just the tournament that I was looking for. Carson Valley Inn had a $35+$5 tournament that night and the top 3-5 players who cash, depending on the total players, got a T-shirt. How awesome is that. As an added bonus, if you log an hour of cash table time, you get an extra T$500. I called back around 4pm to sign us up for the tournament.

The in-laws and I arrived at CVI a little after 5pm and bought into the tournament. We also sat down at a 2-6 spread limit game to get our extra T$500. About 40 minutes into the session, I get pocket aces. I was in late position and I min-raised to $4 as the table was loose pre-flop. This may have been a mistake, but I wanted players in the hand and there were 2 players that I new would re-raise with any two cards. There was one caller, then the big blind, one of the players that I new would re-raise me, did just that making it $10 to go. It folded back to me, where I re-raised it another $6. LP called and the BB re-raised again. I called as did the LP player. Now the pot was $53. The flop came down 668. I can put any of the players on a 6 or and 8 based on the pre-flop action. The BB bets $6, I re-raise to $12 the LP calls and the BB raises another $6, where I call and the LP calls. The pot is $107. The Turn is a Jack and the BB bets out, I re-raise, the LP calls and the BB calls. The River is an 8. The BB bets out again, I call with my last few chips and the LP calls. The BB says, I hope you can beat a boat and flips over 85 off suit. I much my cards face up and just stare in awe as to how this jackass, would re-raise me TWICE pre-flop with 8-5 off. Of course he was boasting on about how great he was, but I was bent. What a donkey. I can understand the play AFTER the flop, as he had two pair, but to have his ass beat until he hit a two outer on the river just blows. Mimics online play for the past couple days. Heh.

(more…)

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.. Means that I’m out. I’m down to a M of 3.4 and push my A8 and get called by AK, I do not improve. I still finished in the top 50%, but of course I wanted to do better than that. At least I’m having a good time.

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TSIA.

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Over the past weekend ( a few weekends ago.. ) the in-laws came down for a visit. Normally, most people cringe when they hear that the in-laws are coming for a visit, or at least that’s what Hollywood wants you to think. For me, it’s excitement. I love my in-laws and my in-laws like to play poker. Added bonus, my mother in-laws brother, loves to play poker and lives 10 minutes from The Bike. Guess how I spent my Saturday night?

After some lovely food from Chris and Pitts, my first stop at The Bike was the restroom. After that, it was to the welcome center to get me a new fangled players club card. Mine is nice and shiny, while my uncle’s is tattered and torn. My uncle, who is called Uncle_Columbo by the rest of the family because he looks like Uncle_Columbo (Peter Falk kind and not WPBT Columbo), has been playing poker for over 40 years. My mother in-law has never played at a casino before and I wasn’t bankrolled to play too high, so Uncle_Columbo slummed it up a bit and we all signed up for the $1/$2 limit tables. Eventually the list got big enough to open a new table, so all 9 players names were called and we all took our seats, with 4 of the 9 players being family. I took the #4 seat, my mother in-law took seat #5, Uncle_Columbo took seat #6 and R took seat #3. Let the games begin.

The table was quite loose pre flop with 6.5 players seeing each flop. Cold calling a raise and re-raise was the norm. The loose table tightened up a bit after the flop. Then there ware Newman. This guy hit on my wife while she was looking for her Dad and when a new tabled opened up that we all were to be seated at, he slithered his way onto the table, most likely seeing fresh meat since half of the table have never played at the Bike before. Newman was an over-actor. He would always call bets to the river, with the nuts and only raising on the river. He would wait to see what you had and then he would pout, cry say “What do you have as a kicker? Awe man.. I HAVE THIS!” I saw him do this twice before we got into a pot together.. I was holding AJs and with a J high rainbow flop, bet out and he called, same with the turn and river, where he raised. Now, there wasn’t a flush and a possibility of a straight, but I had top pair to I called and flipped over AJ for a pair of Jacks, Ace high. Newman stands up and asks, “What’s your kicker? Ace.. awe man. I have ACES!” As soon as he started his act, I knew I was beat. Newman was also a prick. Not once, but three times he threw his cards at the dealer when a bad card came on the turn or river. Instead of mucking and moving on, he just treats his cards as bullets and tries to shoot the messenger. Prick.

Uncle_Columbo didn’t like slumming at the 1/2 limit tables and moved to the 1/2 No limit tables and did rather well after a roller coaster ride he left up a few buyins. I opted to stay at the limit tables to enjoy a game of cards with my mother in law. She loves the game, but non of her neighbors like to play and doesn’t really want to visit the nearby casino’s, so this was a real treat for her and myself. While neither of us left on a positive note, we had a lot of fun. My mother in law lasted the longest out of all of us playing for 3.5 hours on the same buyin and leaving with 1/3 of her buyin. I left with 1/5 my initial buyin.

One point to note, after I played a hand with a lady who was uber tight where I made a bet on the river with Ace high, she thought for a bit and folded. Two hands later, she leaned over and asked, “What did you have that hand that I folded?” I told her that I had Ace high and she frowned. I assume she had me beat. She told the dealer that she wanted to sit out for a while and watch me. Holy shit. I do not claim to be a good player, but this lady wanted to devote her full attention to watch and study my actions. That shocked me, but I continued to play as normal and an orbit and a half she started to play again, but never took a pot from me. I do not think I played very well, cashing a lot oh hands that never hit by the turn and folded most of my buyin away. I plan on hitting up the Bike again, but I think I’ll donk it up at the no limit tables.

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