by john | Jan 22, 2011 | Gambling, Poker
Where I’m not tied to the computer every moment that I’m not at work, sometimes I play poker. And since I’ve been getting killed online over the past couple of weeks, last Friday night I drove to the nearest place to play live poker with real cards.
In West Virginia.
Four and a half hours away.
Yep, that’s right folks, unless I want to play in a home game (which I enjoy, but it does sometimes feel like we’re passing the same money around the table week after week) or I want to play in an underground game (which I’m not fond of not just due to the illegality of it, but more due to the risk of robbery), I have to drive multiple hours through the mountains and rent a hotel room just to play cards.
Fortunately for me I still had a bunch of Marriott points, so the room didn’t cost me anything. Unfortunately for me, filling up my new truck with gas costs me almost $75. But I’m just whining, and that’s silly. I knew the deal when I hit the road. So after our mini-trade show on Friday, I rolled up I-77 to Charleston, WV, and checked into my room. I decided not to play Friday night, even though the games were probably pretty good. I had only gotten about four hours of sleep Thursday night, and may have consumed my body weight in wine, so after working all day and driving four hours, I was pretty well done in. So I finished off volume 1 of The Hunger Games, which is teh hawesome, and went to sleep.
I got up Saturday relatively early, wrote a little bit, then made my leisurely way to the casino. I got there about 1:30, and got on the list for a 1/2 game. It wasn’t an unreasonable time before they opened up another table, and I sat down with about $200 in front of me. And took off. I went on a quick heater, making some good reads and picking off a couple of bluffs from a guy in the 5 seat. He was a 2/5 player waiting for a seat, and showed all the earmarks of a player sitting in a game that was too small for him. He juiced the pots bigger than they needed to be, c-bet every hand, checked the turn if he got called, bet the river regardless of his holdings, etc. It’s not a terrible way to play, but when you do it every hand, and you’re in 80% of the hands, people are going to pick up on it. So I watched him get caught with his hand in the cookie jar a couple times, and then called him all the way down with second pair for my whole stack. I was good, and doubled through him.
I got off to a great start, but when the room opened up another 2/5 game, all the action left our table and it turned into the battle of the old nits. I couldn’t get anything going, and was starting to get frustrated. I looked at the $450 in front of me and decided that the next time it got to an even hundred, either $400 or $500, I was racking up.I never got there, racking up a couple hands later when I caught myself playing badly and cashed out $250 ahead. That was something I had really wanted to work on this trip – paying attention to when the table wasn’t any good and picking that time to take a break. I figured I’d go indulge my slot jones for half an hour or so, and put my winnings in my pocket.
Slots didn’t go so great, as I dropped a quick $40, so it was back to the poker room. I got seated right back at the same table, with the same old farts, and the same frustrations. I bought in short to start, only $100 this time, and blew through that in record time. Then a young Asian kid who I’ll stereotype later sat down on my left, and another new guy sat down directly across from me. I was in the 6 seat, so the Crasian was in the 7 and the other new guy was in the 9. A middle-aged ladynit was in the 8s, and she wasn’t crazy about all the betting going on. I reloaded to $200, and had about $150 in front of me when my key hand came along. The Crasian was in every hand, pretty much regardless, and was on his third or fourth buyin. I think he’d just come back from the ATM for buyin #4 and promised our end of the table that he was going to “play smart now.” The 9s had shoved his whole stack in over the top of Crasian’s raise for three hands in a row, and seemed to be really grumpy about something. It must have been something away from the table, because he hadn’t been sitting with us long enough to have any issues that I understood.
So I’m in the cutoff with KsQs, and it’s limped around to me. I make it $12-15 to go, I don’t remember which, but that was my standard opening raise. Crasian calls, Ladynit gets out, Grumpy calls, and we’re three-handed to a flop of Q-5-7 rainbow. Grumpy checks, I bet, Crasian calls, and Grumpy puts out a big check-raise. With top pair, 2nd kicker I think I’m ahead here, and I’ve seen him make big overbets several hands in this orbit, so I stick the rest of my stack in the middle. Crasian calls, which I’m flat amazed at, and then Grumpy calls, turning over AQ. Shit. Bad read, Johnny, you’re dominated.
Until the King hits the turn, which crushes Grumpy’s soul. River is a blank and Crasian mucks his hand, claiming 5-7 for a flopped two pair. I only half believe him, because he was a nutjob and might have made that call with QJ and been in third place the whole time. Grumpy leaves, Crasian rebuys, and I stack a $450 pot. I tread water for a little longer there, finally cashing out with a $50 profit when I’m called for a 1/2 PLO game.
PLO lasts about three orbits before I stack one player, who isn’t replaced, then I get it all in with the nuts on the flop against another with the same straight and a redraw to Broadway. There’s a third player in the hand who has a wrap Broadway draw, and I pick up the nut flush draw on the turn. River blanks and I chop the pot, but the game breaks because we’re only three-handed at that point. So I decide that at 11PM it’s a good time to grab some grub and head back to the hotel, banking about $350 for the day.
After I eat I wander through the pit because I’m a degenerate, and plop down with $80 at a $5 Let it Ride table. I make all the bonus bets and pick up a steady string of nothing-nothing-nothing, until I’m down to two hands’ worth of chips. I make all my bets, look at my cards, and I’m holding 6-7-6, so I’m already good for the $5 3-Card Poker bet. I pull back my first bet, because I need tens or better to make anything good, and tell the dealer to show me a six or a seven. He obliges, turning over a six. I wave off and leave my other two bets out there, since I’m a guaranteed winner this hand, and he continues the nice and turns over a seven for his other down card, giving me a full house! I’m pretty happy about the 11-1 on my $10 bet, but I’m even happier when I see that the payout for the $1 bonus bet on a full house is $200! The dealer turns over all the hands, gives me my chips, I toss him a redbird and head straight for the cage, certain that I have used up all my run-good for the day.
So it took me nine hours of poker to win $350, and in 15 minutes of Let it Ride, I won $250. Crazy world, right?
I crashed, got up Sunday and drove home, happy with a $600 profit and no worries about covering gas money for this trip. Not sure when I’ll b back up there, but it won’t be long, I guarantee.
by john | Nov 18, 2010 | Gambling, Poker
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by john | Dec 15, 2009 | Gambling, Vegas
That’s all you have to search on Twitter to find a whole lot of fun and good times this weekend. I was there, like I’ve been every December since 2005 (jeez, really? It’s been that long?).
There are some trip reports coming, but I wanted to touch on a few of the coolest moments quickly.
Thursday nights are always great – raging at the Geisha Bar with everybody is a blast, having Dave Schwartz (Roll the Bones) come hang out with me & Special K was extra-cool.
Chopping a tourney for first is always great – chopping it 20 ways is a great story, too. Then finishing the night with Steel Panther is the best idea EVER.
Finding myself drunk at the Geisha Bar and having good conversation with Iggy, Carter and CaityCaity until almost dawn was one of those moderately quiet, but ultimately cool moments.
Hanging out downtown with Suzy and the look on her face at the Fremont Street light show was worth the plane fare all by itself.
There will be more to come, I promise. Hanging out with dozens of my best friends reminded why I started writing a blog in the first place, and now it’s time to get back to actually writing a blog.
BTW – Friday is about the last day I can guarantee shipping by Christmas, so if you’re gonna order a book, do it now! Click the button, I dare you! Any book that’s Chilly-approved oughta be good enough for you, too.
by john | Nov 17, 2009 | Gambling, Poetry, Vegas
Does anyone have a good plugin or app to keep comment spammers off your WordPress blog? I’m by no means an expert on the format and I get tons of spam comments each day. So I’d love your help if there’s a solution out there that I just don’t know about.
Back in Atlanta this week, working (ish) ’til Wednesday afternoon. Got no plans tonight if you’re in the ATL and wanna get together, let me know. I’ve pretty much settled into a routine of staying at the Marriott Century Center, because it’s convenient to the interstate and thus my office in Midtown. It’s decent, and as of last night I’d locked up Marriott Platinum status until 2011, so I get the concierge level rooms. The nice bath mat and robe in the room is pretty spiffy, but I haven’t taken advantage of the concierge lounge yet. May check that out tonight.
Thanks for all the nice Facebook comments on my poetry contest win a couple weeks ago. It was pretty wacky to me to win the thing, since I’d never entered a poetry contest before. So I was shocked when I got the notification, and pleased because the way the poem came about was really neat. So I read the piece at the last meeting of the Writer’s Club, and it was very well-received. I kinda only started going to this club because my senior HS English teacher is on the board, so that gave it a measure of respectability in my mind. I gave her a copy of my book at the last meeting, and she was touched a little by the gesture.
Nothing really to report, since I had my crushing run at Omaha in West Virginia I’ve since given back $100 to the poker economy of Cherokee, NC on the electronic tables there, and dropped a gross $240 in my home game last week. I kept ending up second best, with draws that didn’t get there, or hands that wouldn’t hold up. I did manage to crack BadBlood’s aces with my kings in a hand that had we been playing deeper I could have gotten away from, but didn’t rake a significant pot for four hours after that.
In the AA v KK hand I had position on Blood, who was very early to act. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t UTG, but it was close. He raised preflop, his buddy Mike called and I three-bet. Now my preflop three-bet range is fairly narrow, and I need to work on expanding that, but I when I took his $3.25 raise to $8, I’d pretty closely defined my range as being a big pair or AK. Action folded around to Blood, who re-popped me to $31. Mike got out of the way and I thought to myself “He’s got Aces, but I don’t have any chips, I wish we each had a pile of money so I could get away from this hand.” But I had less than $40 in front of me, so I shipped it in. Blood called the five or six extra dollars, and I made a set on the turn to come from behind. I did have a bit of a sweat, as the Ks on the turn was the third spade, but I faded the flush and doubled up. It didn’t happen again all night, so I became the spewmaster. It wasn’t pretty.
Hopefully I can provide a better showing for myself in Vegas in a few weeks. I’m looking forward to seeing all of you there, and so is Suzy. We get in relatively early on Thursday and leave Monday, so we’ll be around to party and we’re both planning on playing the tournament. I bet I wouldn’t win a last longer with my wife.
A new episode of the Gambling Tales Podcast is coming up first of next week, with the inimitable Dr. Pauly as our special guest. We’ve got two more episodes in the can after this one, then we need to pick up more material for later shows. If you’ve got a great gambling story, drop us a line at gtpodcast@gmail.com. Thanks to everyone who’s downloaded and publicized the podcast, the response has been great and we’re having a blast doing it. I think starting in the new year we’re gonna try to do some promotional things, maybe with Cake Poker (bonus code GTpodcast!) in a shameless attempt to monetize the podcast and get more listeners.
by john | Nov 13, 2009 | Gambling
I had seen in him in the cardroom since I sat down, he was obviously a local and was in there a lot. You’ll have that when you’re in the only casino within a couple hours’ drive. I don’t remember his name, it was something obviously Russian or at least Eastern European. We’re gonna go with Andre, even though I know that’s not right, but it’s something in the same phonetic realm at least.
Andre was playing $1/2 No Limit when I sat down, and it took less than an orbit to figure out that he was one of the more dangerous players at the table. He could lay down a hand after he bet it, for one thing, which put him head and shoulders ahead of 70% of the room. He understood the strength of position, too, and had a talent for exploiting weakness in others. In short, he had most of the gears and knew when to use them. He was only at my table that first night for an hour or so before his name got called for a $2/5 seat and he moved on to play at higher stakes.
The next day, we ended up at the same table again, and this time it was for a longer period. I noticed he had on a different sweater, but the medallion was the same. It was a big medallion, and there wasn’t another good word for it. It was probably 3″ in diameter, with a young man’s picture taking up the whole face of it. It hung to the center of his chest on a thick gold rope chain, and it obviously had some significance, as he wore it everywhere. After we’d shared the table for several hours, and shipped a few pots back and forth between us, I finally asked him whose picture it was.
He got very quiet for a moment, and this 50-year-old man, who looked not unlike someone who you’d find drinking straight vodka in a fuzzy hat in a Cold War movie, got misty-eyed at the poker table. He looked down at the medallion and very quietly said “My son.” I let it go at that, not wanting to intrude too much on the real life of someone who I just happened to share the felt with for a little while, but by the mist in his eyes I could see the story of a man who died far too young and left a father behind who will never forget.
by john | Sep 22, 2009 | Gambling, Poetry
I’m trying to get back to blogging on a more or less regular basis, and for now I’m obviously leaning towards the “less regular” side of things. Back from Pensacola/Biloxi, and managed to recoup some of the losses I saw on my trip there earlier this year, picking up about a $400 profit on the trip. My bankroll is still pretty anemic, but that’s just the status quo for right now.
If you’re in Charlotte this weekend, and have any interest in seeing me read my poetry, come out to Festival in the Park. I’m reading Friday evening and Saturday morning on the Theatre Stage, and I’ll have copies of my book to sell as well. I’m reading at 6:30 Friday and at 11:15 Saturday, so I hope I’ll see you there. I also will be doing a special evening at Story Slam! later this fall when I read poetry with a couple of friends, so I hope you can make that as well.
As trip reports go, this one will be pretty boring, not many hands of interest, but a couple. I played the noon tournament at the IP in Biloxi (a significant upgrade over the property of the same name in Vegas) and busted shortly after the first break when it turned into a shove-fest. I moved over to 4/8 limit to get my feet wet for a little while and treaded water for a couple hours before I decided to go look for greener pastures. I think I cashed out up about $5 on the limit game, which means I was down about $100 for the day with tournament fees, some ill-advised time at a slot machine and a minor Pai Gow loss. But I did have a free buffet coupon, so at least I ate for free.
I headed over to the Isle of Capri, which again was a decent enough place, if small. Most of the casinos around Biloxi felt small, and the thing that continued to screw me up was the fact that they were multi-level casinos. Not huge hotels with casinos, but two and three stories of gaming. So you took escalators to different sections of the gaming floor. I think it hearkens back to when they had to be built on boats or at least piers, so they needed to have a smaller footprint. I think the Belterra in Indiana was also two stories. But it was odd to me to have the machines and tables split up by escalators.
So I played 1/2 at the Isle and ended up with a good session, although it didn’t start well.I picked up a few small pots here and there and finally called a raise in early position with QJo against a loose player who was catching everything he went after. I know, even for me that’s a loose call, but the two other callers helped. The flop helped more, coming down Q-J-x rainbow. Gin! Even better gin when the guy in front of me, who was steaming a little after stacking off to the laggy chaser open-shoved for 80+ into a $45 pot. I put my $88 into the pot, and the laggy chaser called both our all-ins. He was getting about 2.5-1 on his money, so I could see where chasing the gutshot with unimproved AK seemed like a good idea. The guy who open-shoved tabled Q-8 for just top pair, and I tabled my top two.
You know the story, right? Not just a 10 on the turn, but the river as well, in case I missed the straight the first time. So there went my first buy-in. On the one hand, I bought in short so it didn’t hurt as much. On the other hand, if I’d had $188 in my stack instead of $88, I probably could have pushed him off the draw. Meh. Poorly played on all streets. Again.
So I reloaded for another hundred and went back to work. Now I only had a day, so I only took $500 with me to Biloxi, and it had all the makings of an early night, but I started to run a little better, read little better, and generally play a little better. I had developed a tight table image (not sure how that happened), so when I raised UTG to $11 with pocket eights, I was surprised to see a guy two seats down (we’ll call him Steamy) re-raise me to $40. He gets one guy to flat-call, and I look at my stack of about $120. I can’t call here, because I’m out of moves at that point, and I think he might be looking to exploit my tight image by pushing me around with Ace-paint. So I shove. Steamy folds, the flat-caller flat calls, and the board runs out J-J-5-x-x. I show my eights, the caller mucks, and Steamy goes apeshit about how he gave me too much credit and it wouldn’t happen again. I couldn’t resist trying to stick the needle in a little further, so I looked down and said “Tens?” He replied with “I folded the winner, that’s all YOU need to know.” As I was stacking the pot, I gave in to temptation again and said “Obviously you didn’t, because I’m stacking chips.” Dickish, I know, but it felt good. I also knew that if I got the chance I could double through him because there was no way I’d ever push him off another hand.
And I didn’t. I picked up two kings in early position, made the same raise to $11, and he three-bet me to $40. I shoved for a little over $220, and he quickly called. No ace hit the board, and even though I was a bit concerned that he may have flopped a set of queens, he quickly mucked and left as I tabled my kings. That hand put me at the high-water mark for the table, and I began to seriously think about leaving. I’ve gotten a little gun-shy about being the prohibitive big stack at the table, because of horribly mis-playing a big stack in Charleston and not racking up when I realized I had the entire table covered. So I paid a little more attention to what was going on and took care not to loosen up too much before I made the decision to leave. Not long before I headed out, a guy sat down who was obviously a regular, and obviously a player. He looked around the table, checked out the stacks, and made sure he had enough to stack anyone sitting there. Apparently there’s no max buy-in to most of the no-limit tables in Biloxi, because that wasn’t the last time I saw somebody sit down and buy in huge to a 1/2 game. I played a few pots, picked up a few chips, and then racked up when the blinds came around again. He confirmed my suspicions when he said “You can’t take all that money, it’s the only reason I put this much on the table!” I left him disappointed and took my profits off into the night.
Crashed at the Grand because I could use Total Reward points toward my room, and if I didn’t use them before November they’d vanish. The Grand doesn’t have a poker room, but the room was only $99, and I had enough points to cut it to $50 by the time it was all said and done. I spent a little time at the tables playing a game called Flop Poker, which I’d never seen before.
It’s kinda like real poker, and kinda like Let it Ride. You put $5 into the pot, as do all the other players at the table. Then you put a $5-$25 ante down. You get 3 cards, which you look at and decide if you want to stay in the hand. If you do, you match your ante with a flop bet. I gave up on trying to evaluate starting hands and just played blind, which means you put your $5 ante and flop bets out before you ever get cards. The dealer then turns over a 3-card flop, and you must use two cards from the dealer’s hand to go with your three cards to make a poker hand. You have to make Jacks or better to win the ante and flop bets, but the best 5-card hand wins the pot regardless, because that’s where you compete against the other players.
So I played that for about an hour, and hit a couple of big hands. A straight at that game pays out 11-1, so that was worth $55 on one hand, and then I made a full house, worth 30-1 or $150. After that I decided to toss the dealer a redbird and go on to bed.
