What would you do for a buyin?

Oh man, it's been so long since I made a post. My job's been making me crazy busy and I haven't had a whole lot of time to sit down and just write a post. Also, marriage, while wonderful in every sense of the word, is a huge time suck! I have a beautiful wife who always wants to spend face to face time with me and I'm not used to it. I mean, I absolutely choose her every time, and twice on Sunday. But it also means that my other pursuits get short shrift. Well, you can't have everything.

I actually did manage to get away for a poker weekend a few weeks back to Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. The wife was busy on Saturday with girly stuff and I somehow convinced her that I would be able to spend a weekend by myself at the casino. I couldn't convince anyone to come along except for The Slayer Slavin, who came up for Saturday.

I have no good stories to report, only that I had a terrible weekend. After quickly losing a buyin Friday night and Saturday morning, I managed to climb back to even Saturday afternoon. But by Saturday night, I was back down to zero, down two buyins total. The slide was long and painful. I was unlucky for some of it, but I was also playing way too many hands. I've noticed that after long layoffs from poker, I tend to want to capitalize on the few hours I get to play so I become very speculative. It's a leak for sure and I'm glad I can recognize it. Now to plug it up...

I'm leaving in a few hours for AC with Darko, W and Christine. I'm looking forward to a few days at the Borgata and, hopefully, some inspired playing and profit. We shall see.

So, back to the title of this post. I just had to share this link with everyone. Check it out. It's an article about how Johann Van Der Sloot was sentenced today to 28 years in a Peruvian prison for killing a woman in Peru a few years back. He's the douchebag who is widely suspected of killing Natalie Holloway in Aruba in 2005. He was the last person seen with Natalie but her body's never been found and he was never charged in that case.

The crazy part of the article comes at the end:

"Van der Sloot faces possible extradition to the United States in a matter tied to Holloway's disappearance and her family.

In June 2010, a federal grand jury in Alabama indicted him on charges of wire fraud and extortion after allegations surfaced that he tried to extort $250,000 from Holloway's mother, Beth. Van der Sloot offered to provide what turned out to be bogus information about the whereabouts of Holloway's remains in exchange for the money, according to the indictment.

He was allegedly given a total of $25,000, and authorities believe he used that money to travel to Peru and participate in a poker tournament, where he met Flores." (my emphasis)

So, after probably killing a girl, you call up the mother and offer to exchange knowledge of her body's whereabouts for a quarter million? How fucked up in the head are you? And then, you use the money to buy in to a poker tournament?!?

My mind reels....

My painful recollection

I did not watch the news coverage of the tenth anniversary of the attacks. During the entire day, and the days leading up to it, I maintained a defiantly flippant attitude towards the proceedings. "I'm so over it," I said. It had been ten long years since that horrible day and I had long since turned a corner. In my mind, it was so far away and I didn't want to remember any of it.

The reality is that I was, and still am, far too near to it. This feeling was confirmed for me when, prior to the start of the thrilling Jets/Dallas game, the TV camera panned to an image of a soldier in full dress uniform, located in Brooklyn Heights with a perfect view of Lower Manhattan. He was standing ramrod straight, a trumpet in his hand. There was no distracting crowd, or tourists, or any other human carnival to divert our attention. Just a soldier with a trumpet and a pristine skyline. And then, he raised the horn to his lips and blew 'Taps'.

Barely three notes had drifted out over the Hudson River and in a rush, the feelings I experienced that day welled up in me. I was alone at that moment in my apartment, my wife having gone to the game with her father, leaving me to complete some important work for my job. And in that second, I felt more alone than I had in a decade. Through a painful divorce, through a re-structuring of my life and friends, through the loss of my mother, I hadn't felt that alone and small. But watching this defender of our walls pay solemn tribute, not to other warriors, but ordinary citizens of the world who had lost their lives in horrifying fashion, made me feel naked and vulnerable as an innocent baby left alone in a forest, the sun setting behind him.

Walking through the streets of Manhattan on that day was at once a terrifying and life affirming experience. There was a thick shroud of fear and uncertainty covering the landscape as all of our touchstones were turned around. Everything we had known and taken comfort in was wrong, all at once. The avenues, always a rat's maze of north and then south and then north, were all moving in one direction. The people, throngs and hordes and teeming multitudes, were walking uptown like zombies, lurching and moaning. They streamed out of the buildings in Midtown, looking for an escape and joining with the dust covered downtown workers who were stumbling their way to safety. The hazy thoughts of the crowd floated up out of their heads, through their ears, until they joined in a cacophonous cloud of noise above the streets. A deafening roar of confusion. There was no clarity that day, or the day after. There was no water to wash away the dust and no drink to drown the empathy for those who burned. All we had was a memory of the life we had only a few hours before.

In the ensuing years, I only got closer to the events. I moved into Lower Manhattan and lived there for six years. I discovered that one of the victims was a High School classmate of mine. I worked in the World Financial Center for three years, looking down into the pit of rubble every day. The water has never come to wash away the dust. It has only been absorbed into the soil of our city and bonded with our bones. We breathed in the bodies of the victims and forged our resolve in the furnace of a burning pile of the rubble that was our previous existence.

We've moved on in the trappings of life now. Widows have re-married, posessions have been sold and address books have been updated. But in the mind of the generation that lived in it, and for the citizens of this great metropolis, the day will go on forever; a neverending hum deep behind the walls of our homes.

Inching closer...

Congress is seriously looking at legalizing online "gambling". In the wake of Black Friday, any move towards getting online poker legalized, and regulated, is a welcome step. However, I'm hesitant to lump 'gambling' in with poker. Those in the know (read: readers of this blog) know that poker is a skill game with luck playing a diminishing part as time goes on. That's why this article intrigues me when I see John Kyl, an adamant opponent to online gambling of any form, is making a clear distinction between poker and general gambling games like Blackjack or Craps.

The ultimate prize, in my opinion, would be for the public to finally understand the nature of poker, separate it from general gambling, and legalize it online along with heavy regulation. Even better would be if the rake online would be nationally capped at a decent amount that isn't onerous (10% to $5 max would be acceptable to me). Regulation helps avoid the cheating scandals that have marred the industry recently (UB, I'm looking at you), though online collusion is still an issue.

What's even more intriguing, however, is the idea that nationalized legal online poker on the Federal level might pave the way for legalized brick and mortat poker in every state. I salivate just typing that. I long for the day when, just as in California, legal poker with professional dealers is available within a 30 minute drive of nearly anywhere in the country. It remains to be seen if legalized online poker will lead to legalized B&M poker, and I have serious doubts it will. Nevertheless, just a chance of it happening is enough to make me anxious to see the outcome.

August 2011 trip (3 of 3)

I forgot a little detail in my last post; namely that I saw what I think might be the saddest sight I've ever seen in my drive from Harrington, DE to Charles Town, WV. Towards the end of the drive, maybe 20 miles outside of Charles Town in a remote part of North Western Maryland, there was a relatively desolate stretch of highway with a, shall we say, 'Gentlemen's Club' on the side of the road. Oh hell, let's just call it what it was, a titty bar. It was non-descript and kind of sad looking, all things considered. It wouldn't have registered a second thought for me had it not been for the marquee, which read:

'Appearing August 6th, Amy Fisher: "The Long Island Lolita"'

This is the saddest thing ever. Amy Fisher was 17 when she shot Mary Jo Buttafuoco in the face, launching herself into infamy. That was 1992. 19 years later, she is still trading on her infamy to scrounge a living by traveling to the middle of nowhere to work the pole for a bunch of working class fellows who probably don't remember who the hell she is. The sad part is not that she has hit the bottom of society, depending on the porn/stripping industry to keep her afloat. No, the sad part is that instead of running from her past and trying to pull herself up to be a decent member of society, she's completely embraced her sullied reputation. It would be as if O.J. Simpson and Lorena Bobbit got together to give paid classes on proper knife handling techniques. I mean, let's be honest. Amy Fisher is not, nor was she ever, attractive. At least not in the conventional 'porn/stripper' sense. So for her to be the headliner at a strip club, any strip club, is based completely upon the fact that she was famous once for shooting a woman in the face.

So there's that.

I woke up Sunday morning and tiptoed through the puddles to my car, which stood up well to the deluge of the previous night. The rain had stopped, but the smell of wet grass hung in the air and the sky was still threatening. Without even stopping for food, I got in and pulled onto the highway to meet my next destination; the Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs in Wilkes-Barre, PA. It was an uneventful 2.5 hour drive to get there. In fact, most of the drive was uneventful, which both excited and irritated me. I was excited that there was spectacularly little traffic during my entire excursion, which included some of the most heavily trafficked roads in the North-East. I was irritated that there wasn't more for me to see or do; not that I would have taken the time to do it.

I arrived at the casino and quickly found the poker room, which was essentially the basement. And when I say basement, I mean it. Try to imagine the basement of someone's home, largely expanded (think a Mansion's basement), but totally done up like a 70's man cave. Plush carpeting, a full wet bar, a foozball table, a pool table and, in the corner, about 15 poker tables. It looked and felt just like the basement of someone's home, which isn't the worst thing. It made the room feel comfortable and cozy, which I liked. I entered myself into a tournament which was starting in a few minutes; $60 buyin plus a $5 dealer add-on buys you $10,000 in chips. The structure is exactly the same as The Showboat in Atlantic City, which is widely considered to be the best daily structure in that town. I must say that the tournament was *extremely* well run, even to the point of the dealer at my table telling the floor that they needed to turn off the NASCAR event on the television to put up a tournament clock that she could see. Very professional. This is NASCAR country and most of the room was watching the race in progress, which was taking place at the nearby Pocono Raceway, so this was no small thing she was requesting. The floor changed to the clock immediately and we were on our way. 65 participants took the field and I did poorly. I was straight up outplayed on a few hands and my one opportunity to triple up and get some chips was thwarted by a good decision on my part.

I had T♣T♦ UTG+1. Blinds were 150/300 with a $25 ante. I had about $7,000 in my stack and I opened the pot for $750. I was called by Seat 6 and Seat 7 and then the Button min-raised to $1500. I contemplated giving it up but the body language of Seats 6 and 7 told me they were going to flat the raise, giving me enough pot odds to set mine. I called and Seats 6 and 7 did the same.

The flop was 8♣ 9♠ J♥. The flop went all around me, and while I missed my set, I managed to flop an OESD. But considering the pre-flop action, there was no way I could lead out at this extremely connected board. I checked, Seat 6 checks and then Seat 7 leads out for $2,000. The button, who had min-raised, pushed all-in for $5,000 total. It gets to me and I cry inside. There's a huge pot brewing but I have to consider my outs. A 7 is a perfect card for me and there are 4 of those in the deck. A Ten is a less perfect card, considering that QQ is well within the range of the button's hands and a ten would give him a straight. A Queen would give me a straight, but again, it was likely that is what the button is holding. Well, possibly KK or AA too. So, in the best case scenario, I have 10 outs (four Queens, four sevens and two tens), but in all likelihood, I have 4 outs (four 7's). Also, Seat 7 may have JJ, which means my 2 tens as outs are DEFINITELY dead. Given this analysis, I folded, flashing my cards to the person next to me moaning, "I'm gonna regret this". Seat 6 folded and seat 7 called. The turn was 7♥, naturally. I died inside. The river was a brick. The button showed QQ, which is what I feared and Seat 7 showed 89 suited for a flopped two pair that held up. So I made the right call, in retrospect, but it was tough to live with. I whittled down from there and didn't survive much longer, losing when my A♣J♣ lost to KQo.

I was disappointed that I had busted, very far out of the money, but I was happy to have participated in a well-run tournament. I didn't stay for cash games, mostly because I had one more casino to hit before a long drive back home to Connecticut. So I high-tailed it out of there and drove 45 minutes to my last stop at Mount Airy Casino in Mount Pocono, PA. Mount Airy is almost on top of the Pocono Raceway, and given this was a race day and approximately 100,000 people were descending on this spot, I was expecting horrific traffic. Fortunately, I had anticipated this and asked the locals at the previous casino if they had a route around the traffic and they did! I was given a local route which avoided the road closures that surround the races and happily pulled into the Mount Airy resort on time and on schedule.

The Mount Airy resort is a very impressive facility and not at all what I was expecting. If you grew up in the Tri-State area (NY, NJ and CT), as I did, you are familiar with the old Mount Airy Lodge radio commercials (~At beautiful Mount Airy Lodge, all you have to bring, is your love of everything~). These commercials were a desperate attempt to draw people to a fading resort that had it's heyday in the 1960's and was now a relic of it's time. But, as I learned, the old resort was demolished and a new one built in 2007, so the entire complex is brand-new. The casino, which is spacious, but not huge, reminds me very much of the Red Rock casino in Las Vegas. The casino floor is circular, and the poker room is in an antechamber off the side. The room is on the smallish side, but the brush desk was responsive and handed me a buzzer when they put my name on the waiting list for a $1-$2 table, a nice touch which allowed me to roam the casino floor while I was waiting for a spot to open up. It wasn't more than 15 minutes before I was called in and seated at seat 5. I sat with $200 and wasn't at the table for more than one hand when the large older gentleman to my immediate left looked over at me with a knowing look. When I didn't respond, he lifted up his sunglasses and said, "Hi there. Nice to see you again."

"Do I know you?," I asked politely.
"Don't you remember me? We played here last night.," he replied.
"Sorry," I said, "this is my first time in this casino."
He looked very disappointed and shocked.
"Really?," he sputtered, "But..but...you look *exactly* like this other guy I played with."
I joked with him, "Well you know, all Jews look the same."
That got the table to laughing and he put in the punchline by saying, "Well, he *was* Jewish!"

Of course he was.

After giving the table a nice laugh and establishing an easy comraderie with everyone, I proceeded to get hit by the deck. Everything held up for me in this short 20 minute run. Kings, Aces, AK, AQ, I couldn't lose. It got to the point where they stopped playing in pots with me because for 20 minutes I showed down the nuts every time. But I wasn't complaining. In the middle of this run, I got a text from my friend Lauren, who happened to be at the NASCAR race with her boyfriend Joel. She had seen my check-in at Mount Airy on Facebook and wondered if I wouldn't mind eating lunch with them. They would come up to the casino to meet me, and I happily agreed. I was up $250 at that point, only on the table one hour, and I welcomed the opportunity to rack up and keep my winnings. Besides, it'd give me a good opportunity to go home a little early and beat the race traffic. The race was only on lap 140 when Lauren showed up with Joel; turns out they didn't much care for the experience so they left early. I racked up at +$240, said my goodbyes and ate at the buffet with them. It was over-priced for the quality of the food and I wasn't impressed, but buffets can be hit or miss. After a too-short lunch, they left to go home to Manhattan and I stayed behind to digest. It was a 3 hour drive for me and I didn't want to go on a full stomach, so I donked off $60 playing pai-gow while I digested my heinous food. The dealer was on a tear, beating just about everything that came his way. I had JJJ22A*Joker*, a nearly unbeatable hand, which chopped to KKK44AQ. If you've not going to win with Jacks full and Aces on top, what the hell *are* you going to win with?!?

In a more perfect world, I would have gone back to the poker table and played for the rest of the afternoon. But I had had a nice run over the weekend and didn't feel the need to sully it with a possible loss. Not to mention that I was happy to be bright eyed and bushy tailed for the long drive home. Nothing's worse than driving in weekend traffic while you're tired.

Two last notes:

1. I would highly recommend Mount Airy Resort for a golf/poker weekend. There's a very nice 18 hole golf course on the premises and I can totally see a guys weekend where we get up early for a round, retire for nap, have a nice dinner and then play poker until the sun comes up. That would be a Saturday worth remembering!

2. I don't know when my next weekend away is going to come, but when it does, I have an itinerary set. I fly into Syracuse and play all night at Turning Stone. Then I drive in my rented car to Buffalo and play there, before driving down to Salamanca and then finally to Pittsburgh to play in the two rooms there before flying back home. I could easily accomplish this in a weekend and knock 5 more rooms off my tally.

August 2011 Trip (2 of 3)

I woke up Saturday, August 6th, in Harrington, Delaware at the Holiday Inn Express. Depressing. I wanted to be out of the hotel and on the road by 8am because I knew it would take approx. 2.5 hours to reach my next destination, which was Charles Town, West Virginia. I wanted to arrive well before 11am in case there was a tournament. 11am seems to be a common time for weekend tournaments to start and I was hoping to play in a cheap one. the one I *really* wanted to play in was the $150 'Survivor' tournament in Grantville, PA that was happening at 11am that same day, but it didn't work out for me to be in that area at that time. Really, I messed up the whole trip in terms of scheduling. If I had planned more thoroughly, I would have done the entire trip in reverse, which would have allowed me to:

A. Be in Grantville, PA for the 11am $150 'Survivor' tournament (The tournament ends when the money bubble bursts and everyone makes the same payout, hence 'Survivor').
B. Be in Maryland Saturday night for a real Maryland Crab Dinner.
C. Avoid the possibility of traffic caused by the Nascar Pocono Speedway race on Sunday.

Unfortunately, I did not plan the trip to this level of detail and ended up missing some of these great opportunities. Such is life, as my Mom used to say.

Where was I? Oh yes...Charles Town.

It was an arduous and boring 2.5 hour drive to Charles Town, but I did arrive when I wanted to, only to find there were no tournaments on Fridays and Saturdays. The good news is, the reason for this is that the room is *jumping*. The Hollywood Casino (a large 22 casino national chain) in Charles Town, WV is a racino, like so many others. In this case, they race thoroughbreds, and the track has a grand history to it. Up and away from the casino floor, in a wonderful niche that they've carved out that feels a bit like someone's attic, they've managed to place around 25 poker tables. By the time I sat down to a $1-$2 NLHE table at 10:45a, there were at least 15 or more tables going, including a few $2-$5 tables and a $5-$10 table. There were also more women playing at this room than in any other room I've seen on the trip. I made some inquiries and found out that the reason why the room was so busy is that it's the only viable option within a 2 hour drive, so it draws a lot of people who have no other place to go. It's a testament to monopoly, really. This is why Atlantic City has some dead poker rooms on weekends while you can get a completely full poker room during the week out in the middle of nowhere.
I was seated at a new table and bought in for $200. I was mostly up at the table, which wasn't particularly aggressive or difficult. I did get involved in one memorable hand, though. Here's how the action went down:

I was in MP with 5♥ 5♣. There is a raise to $12 from UTG+1 and I call. Seat 8 calls. Seat 10 min-raises to $24. The BB calls! UTG+1 calls! It gets to me and I start debating in my head. I'm 100% certain I'm behind here but a few factors make me think about calling. First, I'm positive the min-raiser has a monster hand that he might get married to. QQ, KK or AA is my range for him. 3 betting by min-raising in a multi-way pot is SUCH an amateur move that I can safely put him on these three hands and, more importantly, safely assume he will stack off if I flop a set. Second, there are so many callers that I can also assume that many high cards are already in play, making the odds of me flopping a set slightly better than normal. And yes, I know the *true* odds are the same, but if you know information about the cards in play, it affects the odds for that particular scenario.

With all of this in my head, I make the $24 call, fairly confident that everyone else will simply call as well. So I call. And then Seat 8 moves all in for $41! Crappies. After cold calling the first bet, he shoved with a small stack and re-opened the betting. Seat 10, who could now shove for $180 if he wanted to, just calls! Unbelievably bad play on his part. That leads BB, UTG+1 and myself to also call.

So now it's 5 way into a $200 pot pre-flop. I flash my cards to an Asian guy to my left who I've been chummy with and he whispers to me exactly what I've been thinking, "You're definitely going to hit this flop." The cards come out 5♦ 6♥ T♠. Bingo. UTG+1 checks to me and I hesitate for a second. I decide to try to represent AT and I float out a silo of $100, which covers all the remaining players except one. Seat 10, predictably, calls for his last $85. The BB, after a small tank, also calls for his last $70 and UTG+1 folds. My guess is that he had two high cards (Ak, AQ, KQ) or small pairs which missed. Everyone except Seat 8 shows their cards and I'm up against Q♦Q♠ from Seat 10 (knew it) and 9♠ 9♣ from BB. The board runs out with a K♦ on the turn and a K♥ on the river. I do a little dance and expect the $500 pot to be pushed towards me when Seat 8 flips over...K♠ 6♠. Ewwww. I'm lucky he was short stacked when he pushed and I was still able to make a profit from the side pot, but still. Ewwwww. When asked he just said, "They were suited so I said, Fuck it." I hate it when guys like that get rewarded. But this is why we love the game, right?

I left my Charles Town session after 4 hours at +$165, my high point for the session, which I was happy about. I had a two hour drive in front of me to get to the Hollywood Casino in Grantville, PA and I didn't want to dilly dally.
One note about the Charles Town area. Charles Town, WV is a very historic area, only 5 or 6 miles away from Harpers Ferry, the site of the famous John Brown's Harpers Ferry raid slave uprising in 1859. It is also the location of the place where West Virginia, Virginia and Maryland all meet in the Shenendoah Valley. It's such a pretty location that George Washington himself convinced most of his family members to buy property there and their descendents still live there to this day. In fact, Charles Town is named after it's founder, Charles Washington, who was George's Washington's youngest full brother. And, the Antietam battlefield is only a few miles away as well.

The reason I am expounding on these wonderful qualities to the area is not to convince anyone to visit. It's simply to point out that I did not get to see any of this great stuff. One of the great tragedies with my poker trips is that I am often pressed for time to the point that I cannot indulge in the sightseeing that I would like to partake in when I am in a particular area. This is my curse. With great power comes great responsibility. I'll avenge you Uncle Ben!

Sorry...I turned into Spider-Man for a second there.

Anyhow, Boo-Hoo to me. I can't always see the sights. Maybe I'll come back one day.
So on to Grantville, PA I went. Grantville, incidentally, is only a few miles away from Hershey, PA. Chocolate-town. I was expecting a lot of Hershey stuff but I didn't see anything. I guess it's restricted to the town of Hershey itself. The Hollywood Casino in Grantville is pretty nice, I have to say, even if it's poker room could use some stretching out. It's located near the track (another horse racino) and open to the casino floor. Also, there's no cage, which is wierd. You buy your chips from the brush desk. I got to the poker room at around 6:00p and was immediately seated at a $1-$2 table. This turned out to be my best session of the entire trip and I was able to cash out at around 10:30p with $750 for a +$550 profit!
The session started wierdly. I'm a pretty affable guy and I like to loosen people up sometimes by making table banter, just to get people in a good mood. On the wall opposite my view was a TV screen that was tuned to the TV show COPS, with the sounds turned down but the closed captioning turned on. If you've never watched the show with closed captioning, I think it lends an even more surreal quality to the proceedings. It was really distracting to me because every time I looked up, I couldn't help but read the captions and laugh at the transcripts that were occuring. For example, a woman was being arrested in some rural area (read: she was White, Tattooed and as Trailer Park as it gets) and the police were asking her about the drugs they had found in her car.

Cop: Do you know why we stopped you?
Drug Addled Girl: No, I have no idea.
Cop: There was a strong smell of Marijuana coming from your vehicle. Have you been smoking weed in the car?
Drug Addled Girl: No, I..
Cop: {Interrupting} Have you been smoking weed?
Drug Addled Girl: Just a little. Is that illegal?

I burst out laughing at the table. Some of the other players started watching it and also thought it was pretty funny. Except for Seat 1, who got real indignent with me. He said, "This show is really scummy, you know? To be making money at the misfortune of others." That kind of made me feel bad, although I tried to slough it off. But then Seat 1 said the magic words which made me feel a whole lot better: "I mean, I've been there before. Arrested. It's not fun."

Says you, my friend. For the record, after having thought about it for a bit, I do feel like some slack should be cut for people who are accused of crimes. But COPS doesn't show people who are accused, they show people RED-HANDED breaking the law. There's a difference, I think, between publicly humiliating someone based on a charge where only a court case can prove guilt and humiliating someone who's being filmed running from the police with a gun in their hands!

Anyway, back to the action. My run at this table was very very good and it helped that I got some decent cards to work with. I made a decent pot when I flopped a set of 7's vs. an AK where the flop had an Ace. I also got paid off on a river value bet with my KK vs. a guy's KQ where the flop was Queen high. When he paid off the river he said, "I just didn't believe you." That's what I love about weak tables and weak players. No matter how much you show yourself to be a solid player, they just convince themselves that you're bluffing (of course, sometimes you are!). And then, after two hours of playing and chipping up to about $375 from $200, the hand of the weekend went down.

I had 7♣ 9♦ on the button. UTG raises to $15, a strong bet from UTG from a super tight amateur player. I immediately put him on a big pair. Just like my previous big pot at the previous Hollywood Casino, I saw this guy as having a big pair that he just wasn't going to lay down. This informed my play later, as you'll see. Seat 4 calls and then Seat 5 in MP moved all in for $26. I asked the dealer out loud, "Does that raise re-open the betting?" This particular dealer was pretty awful (though the rest were perfectly fine) and I wanted to make sure he understood what I was asking. He blinked, like a deer, and I asked him again, "Does the all-in raise re-open the betting?"

The dealer replied, "Yes, that's an all-in".

I did the math in my head and then answered back, "Wait a minute. If the initial raise is $13, then shouldn't a valid raise be $28? ($15 + $13)"

The dealer, and several other table participants came back with, "No, the re-raise needs to be twice the raise. Since the all-in was $26, or twice the $13 raise, it's a valid re-raise and the betting is re-opened."

I knew I was right and I pressed the point again. "The raise was $13 up to a total of $15. Another $13 raise would make the total $28."

Finally, I got through to the dealer who finally agreed with me and announced that more raising was not possible. Actually, it was possible, by me and the SB and the BB, but not by anyone after that. But the point was the same, which was that if I called, I could expect that the original raiser could only call if it folds to him. After publicly announcing that I was trying to figure out if I could be re-raised if I flat-called, I made the call for $26 with 79o. The UTG raiser and Seat 4 both call and we see a 4 way flop.

The flop comes down 6♦ 8♣ 9♦. This is an almost perfect flop for me. Yes, there is a diamond draw on the board now, which worries me a touch, but I flopped top pair with an open ended straight draw to go with it. Now I have to figure out if the initial raiser has the premium hand I thought he did, or just AK or AQ. It checks around to me and my suspicion is that I am leading the field with top pair/OESD. I lead out for $25, thinking this will win me the pot right now. Also, it's a feeler bet. If the original raiser shoves on me, I can make a decision about what I want to do knowing exactly what he has. It gets to the original raiser and he min-raises me to $50! OMG, what an amateur play. Unless he flopped a set or a straight, min-raising is about the worst play imaginable. Seat 4 folds to the min-raise and it's left to me. It's a super easy call: $25 into a $175 pot with 13 outs to improve my hand (four 5's, three 7's, two 9's and four 10's). So the pot is laying me 7-1 on a 4-1 draw. The only hand I can worry about is TT, which I just don't think is in his range for the line he's taking and the read I have on him. I call and the turn is gin, 10♥. He doesn't even consider a 7 to be in my range, and I don't blame him, so he pumps out another $50 value bet. I shove for the rest of my chips and he snap calls for his remaining $85. He tables K♥ K♠, Seat 5 holds on to his cards (and later tells us it was AQ) and I show 79o and the table explodes! The river bricked out and I dragged a $475 pot. Seat 6, the *second* best player at the table (ahem...), is a middle aged Asian guy who's super impressed with my play. He can't stop gushing about it. "Wow, that was so great. So *that's* why you were asking about the raise"...etc, etc. An hour later, he's still deconstructing the whole thing with the guy to his right. Seat 1 (the guy with the arrest record who hates COPS) says, "Wow, I thought you were a lot more conservative than that!". Seat 6 says, "I gotta call you Tyson," and starts shadow boxing muttering, "Seven Nine, Seven Nine" while throwing allegorical punches into the air.

I found it kind of amusing. I'm glad the play was appreciated but it's not god-like or anything remotely close. Some of the crappier players at the table commented, "You play that crap? How lucky for you!", but the better players understood what the intention was. Stacking a weaker player. I don't mind calling a raise, or even a re-raise, to a player that I KNOW WILL STACK OFF for the right flop. The choice of opponent is critical here. A better player would have pushed me off on the flop (or tried to since I doubt I could fold given my outs and his stack size). An even better player might have folded his Kings given the pre-flop information I gave out about wanting to know whether the betting had been re-opened. I practically gave away that my hand was speculative and that straight type of flop could have (and did) hit me very well. But some would say the hand played itself and the Kings couldn't do much, other than shoving the flop. So I speculated and I mined some gold. It happens, but I'm happy at least that I had a game plan for calling, in position, that particular time.

The rest of the night went well for me and I finished +$550 on the session, finishing up around 11:30p when I started to get really tired. I drove to the Days Inn where I was staying, in the middle of a monsoon as the sky had opened up after three days of oppressive humidity, and fell asleep quickly, visions of big pots and adulation still floating in my brain.

Morbid is as Morbid does

Trip Report 2 of 3 is being written, but might not be posted for a few days.

In the meantime, I just want to comment how sad I am that the Wall Street Poker Dead Pool never got off the ground last year. I got a lot of private emails from people telling me how sick it was, but I just don't see it that way.

August 2011 trip (1 of 3)

It's been a smidge over a year and a half since my last poker trip (to Arizona), and I have to say that I've missed it tremendously. I'm like an addict who's been sober for so long he's convinced himself that he no longer likes the taste of alcohol. But then, one night, he has a shot with an old friend and then another and then he finds himself laying face down in the gutter with a smile on his face. Poker, and poker traveling, is definitely an addictive hobby. It takes concentration and focus for me to remember that the life that I've chosen (married husband trying to build a family in the suburbs) is WAY WAY WAY more important to me than the excitement of seeing new place, meeting new people and dragging pots off of them. But that doesn't mean that I can't figure out a way to combine the two in a healthy manner. A level below "addict" is a "problem drinker", and a level below that is "social drinker". That's kind of what I'm aiming for; social poker at a frequency which can keep the interest up and yet not anger my wife.

This past weekend, I had the first opportunity in 20 months to make that balancing act happen. Ali has been going to Cape Cod every summer with her family for the last 20 years. They rent the same cottage, go to the same restaurants and visit the same beach for two or three weeks every single year. It's a comforting ritual, and exactly the kind of thing I'd like to do with my own family once I breed them. It's a wonderful thing for a family to have their own special place that they can go to where a different set of rules apply and you can escape the stress of your normal environment. But as the children get older and more entrenched in adult life, the ritual is starting to become harder to do. Alison, the oldest of three kids, is married now. She has also just gotten her first job as an attorney, starting August 15th when she returns from the Cape. Her schedule may no longer fit into the same narrow confines as her family anymore, and this may very well be her last trip up to the cottage with everyone else. So Ali left Friday evening with her family and left me alone at home. I am going up to meet them Wed. night, but am not taking the entire week off as it costs too much money for me to take this kind of vacation, as I am billing daily at my job (I'm a contractor) and do not get paid time off.

So as our schedules would leave me alone for a weekend, I decided to take a long awaited poker trip! I counted the days until my trip would arrive, getting feverishly anxious as the day drew closer and closer. Friday came and I leaped out of bed at the ungodly hour of 5:45a. Since I would be driving my own car on this trip, I decided to drive into work and then leave from Manhattan at noon. Wanting to avoid morning traffic into the city, I got up early and left my house at 6:15a to beat the rush. It was a good plan as it took exactly 60 minutes, with almost no traffic, to get from my place to my office at Madison Avenue and 23rd Street. I parked at a lot nearby, telling the parking attendant to have my car near the front because I'd be out by 12:15pm latest.

At work, I was anxious the whole time I was there. My mind could barely focus with the external stimuli of poker racing through my brain. Every sound I heard was the click of poker chips banging together. Every number I crunched turned into pot odds. Every chart I saw morphed into a dance of face cards. At 11:55a, I raced off to the Men's room to wash up, mumbled goodbye to my office-mate and raced out the door. To the parking attendant's credit, my car was easily accessible and after paying them an exorbitant fee, I was on the road.

It took me nearly 40 minutes to escape the city because I made the huge mistake of going to the Holland Tunnel rather than the nearby Lincoln Tunnel. There was no traffic through the tunnel, it just took me that long to get from one end of the city to the other. But I was forunate in that once I made it through, I had virtually no traffic for the entirety of the weekend. Fortunate indeed since I was planning on driving 800 miles in the next 59 hours and every second counted.
After an uneventful drive down I-95, I arrived at my first casino; Parx Casino just outside Philadelphia, PA. I parked in the outdoor lot and bounded inside with the energy of a 16 year old who's going out on his first date. The poker room at Parx is magnificent, with about 30 tables in a plush setting away from the casino floor in it's own area. It's the nicest poker room that I visited on the trip and I was very sad to not be able to spend much time there. Because I was so worried about traffic through the I-95 corridor, and because my final destination of the night was to be Harrington, Delaware, I had decided to push my way through the first few poker rooms in a hurried manner so as to beat the rush hour traffic as best as I could. So I unfortunately only spent 30 minutes in this fantastic room. I played $4-$8 and dropped $20 in a rushed half-hour session. The only thing that I don't mind about blowing through the room, though, is that given it's close proximity to Manhattan, I will surely be back.

I got into my car, still warm from when I left it, and proceeded to the next casino; Harrah's in Chester, PA. It took about 45 minutes to reach the Harrah's and I was somewhat disappointed. Like most of the casinos in Pennsylvania, this was a "racino", or a casino tacked onto an existing race track. In this case, the track features Trotters, otherwise known as Harness Racing. The poker room is upstairs off the casino floor and well spaced out. It's a Harrah's room, so it's predictably well run, but the lack of walls gave it a very open feeling, which is actually a negative in my book. Walls keep outside sound out and give a feeling of intimacy to poker rooms which I prefer. The sound wasn't terrible, however, given that the casino floor was downstairs. Though there were at least 20 tables running when I got there, there was a waiting list which I prefered not to be on (thinking about traffic again), so I collected my souvenir chip, saw a harness race and left.
Back in my car, I started out to my 3rd casino; Delaware Park in Wilmington, Delaware. The parking lot for Delaware Park is awful; long and narrow with space only in the far back, a solid 6 minute walk from the casino entrance. The building itself, also a racino, is also long and narrow. One thing I've learned from my poker trips is that, like your gate at the airport, the poker room is almost invariably located in the casino at the farthest point from the entrance. And so it was with Delaware Park. The building was so long, in fact, that it took about 15 minutes to walk from my car to the poker room. Quite annoying. Once there, however, I was able to get a $1-$2 NLHE seat fairly quickly and I sat down with $150. I was trying to work out the rust in my game, which is why I came in with so little, and I'm kind of glad I did. The table was sharky and they ate me up something good. I can't remember any memorable hands except to say that I put my last $40 in the pot with 3♦-5♦ on a board of 5♣-7♠-Q♦. I was on the button and I had limped in and when it checked around to me, I shoved with bottom pair, only to get called by 7♦-5♥ for a flopped two pair. The turn was a diamond, giving me some hope, but the river bricked and I got up and walked away. The main table shark asked if I was going to re-buy, a sure sign that you are the big fish at the table. I think I picked up speed walking away when he said that...
The news wasn't all bad, though, as I stopped in for some $5 Blackjack on my way out and picked up $40 in profit, cutting my losses somewhat. It made me feel a bit better as I took the long trek back to my car.

The next stop was Dover, DE for the Dover Downs casino. It was another 45 minute drive, which I took in stride and arrived at the casino at approx. 6:30p. The building is impressive looking from the parking lot and I strode onto the casino floor like I was looking for victims. The poker room, which is a small 15-18 table affair, was gearing up for a 7pm $75 $5,000 guarantee tournament, one I would have happily played in if I wasn't under time constraints. However, as nice as this tournament sounded, it threw the poker room management into an absolute tizzy. When I arrived, there was 5 people on the waiting list for $1-$2 NLHE and about 10 tables of cash games going. There was, unfortunately, no one behind the counter to add me to the list. I had to stop the extremely young room manager (seriously, he looked about 25) while he was flitting around to ask him to add me to the list. He did, to his credit, and went back to setting up his very important tournament. As time wore on, people started getting up from their tables in anticipation of the tournament, leaving plenty of open seats for cash game players. But as there were only two floor people in the room at the time (the manager and one other), no one was being seated at the cash games! There was no one behind the brush desk and our pleas to be seated at the empty seats were being ignored. After 15 minutes, the table participants started to wave us over, but when one person tried to sit down, he was shooed away by the manager. The official reason given was that the cash tables would be collapsing when the tournament started, which is reasonable enough, but surely he could keep track of the late comers and pull them off if necessary. As it turns out, it took 45 minutes (!) from that point for the tournament to start, leaving myself and a dozen other players steaming from not being able to play. One table did indeed collapse, but I couldn't help thinking that a bit more organization and one or two more staffers could have avoided this situation and the room could have been making rake from at least 10 more players for an hour.
At least I did well during my session. I was able to leave the room with +$155 off of some standard plays. Nothing spectacular to speak of and nothing memorable. I was so peeved with how the room was run that I put any memory of the game out of my head. Besides for which, I was starting to get very very tired, having been up since 5:45a and having driven hundreds of miles already. I was still a good 40 minutes away from the last poker room in Harrington, Delaware and I needed to stay awake.

The ride to Harrington was uneventful. I stopped into my Holiday Inn Express first to check-in and then immediately went to find the poker room at the Harrington Raceway. I've hardly seen a more pathetic excuse for a 'casino' in my life. The casino entrance was nearly impossible to find from the road, which is unusual considering there are usually big bright neon lights everywhere pointing you to where you need to go. Nothing was lit at all. In fact, the whole thing was just a pathetic add-on to a worn down racetrack that looked closed. I found the entrance by wandering onto the grounds and following a car who seemed to know where he was going. I found the main raceway entrance and took an escalator up to a tiny 6 table poker room that had a whole two tables going on a Friday night. I put my name on the list and waited, like a fool, for 20 minutes until an opening appeared. It was a mistake because I was getting more and more tired by the minute, and I played poorly. By the time it was over, I had lost my initial $200 buyin and I headed back to the hotel. It was my fault for playing tired when I shouldn't be at all. Bad decisions cost you in poker. At the end of a very very long day, I laid my head down in my bed in Harrington, DE and crashed. Hard. I was down $225 on the trip and I needed a fresh start.

Hello boys, I'm baaaaaaack!

It's been...too long since I made a post. Oddly enough, the frequency of my posts has an inverse correlation with the major activity of my life. It's been about 10 months since I made a post and in that time:

1. I got married - Alison and I tied the knot in Aruba with a close group of family and friends and had a blast honeymooning in Hawaii on the Big Island.

2. I moved out of Manhattan - Manhattan and I had been growing apart for some time and finally she asked me to move out. It was around the time I got involved with Alison that Manhattan started growing suspicious. She got colder and less interesting and really, it was just a matter of time. It's for the best, of course, since Manhattan isn't going to settle down anytime soon, unless you've got major money. She's a great time, but really only for the single-minded amongst us. Anyway, I got a job with UBS in Stamford and moved out there with Alison just after our wedding. 4 months into the job, the group I was with (it was a contract position) was unceremoniously let go after my contract engagement manager managed to piss off the wrong people. I'm working now at Credit Suisse back in Manhattan (you cold bitch!). My commute is 90 minutes, but it's tempered by the fact that I can telecommute from home once or twice a week. I'm enjoying it tremedously. Also, my new townhouse in Stamford is more than twice the square footage of my old Manhattan apartment and is only a two block walk to the beach!

3. There was a flurry of Wall Street Poker alumni activity - Matty Ebs got married and had a daughter. The Slayer got married in a beautiful wedding at Bethpage State Park (Home of the ocassional US Open of Golf). Pauly Walnuts and Abbie M got married (to each other!) on the same day as the Slayer. That was a hell of a day. Their wedding was equally beautiful, on the shores of the Hudson River overlooking Wall Street (natch). Many Wall Streeters were in attendance.

4. Andy Frankenberger proves it's not a fluke - Franky, who I previously blogged about in my last post in October when he won the WPT 'Legends of Poker' tourney, ended up winning the WPT Player of the Year after winning another tourney and final tabling one or two more. Any other player would have called that a good year, but he then went on to the World Series of Poker and managed to win a bracelet in Event #28 ($1,500 NL Hold'Em) by beating out 2,499 other participants and taking home the $600,000 first place prize! So sick.

5. Alison passed 3 bar exams and got a job - In an effort to make herself more marketable in this difficult economy, Alison took the NY and NJ bar exams one after the other. Then she took the Connecticut bar exam six months later. This made her...interesting to live with while the stress took it's toll, but it paid off handily. Not only did she pass all 3 exams on her first try, but the results of the NY bar exam (probably the hardest one), came out on our wedding day. Some of Alison's law school friends, who had already found out their results that morning, pulled me aside during the wedding and said it'd be a fun idea to announce to Alison and the wedding party the results (only if she'd passed of course). Alison didn't even know the results had been released when I snuck away to our room to check her email. It made for a wonderful moment when I finally was able to announce to a puzzled audience (who didn't understand why I had hijacked the proceedings) that Alison had indeed passed! The whole party burst into applause and shouts and the mood, already lightened by the seaside wedding and plenty of alcohol, shot into the stratosphere. I can honestly say it was the most fun I'd ever had in one night. Alison just accepted a position at a small firm in Westchester doing civil litigation and insurance defense and she starts August 15th. I couldn't be prouder of her.

So that's what's been keeping me busy. My lust for poker remains strong but my opportunities remain relatively few. In the last year, I've played live poker maybe five times, with three losing sessions and two winning sessions. I played in Atlantic City and at the Mohegan Sun but haven't seen any new poker rooms.

Until this weekend....

That's right. This Friday, I will embark on my first poker trip since my Arizona trip in late 2009. Alison is going up to the Cape with her family for a week and I will be joining her Wed. night. But I'll have the entire weekend free and I'm using it plan a monstrous poker weekend. I will leave work in the early afternoon and hit these poker rooms in order:

1. Parx Casino, Philadephia, PA
2. Harrah's Chester, Philadelphia, PA
3. Delaware Park, Wilmington, DE
4. Dover Downs, Dover, DE
5. Harrington Raceway, Harrington, DE
6. Hollywood Casino, Charles Town, WV (Yes, West Virginia!)
7. Hollywood Casino, Grantville, PA
8. Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs, Wilkes-Barre, PA
9. Mount Airy Casino, Mt. Pocono, PA

Nine poker rooms in two and a half days spanning three different states. Not bad.

I'll have a full write up sometime next week. Oh, and I want to send a huge shout out to "DownTown" Michael Brown, who is turning 60 this year on August 12 (my birthday too!). He's having his party this same weekend I'm doing this and I was super conflicted about it, but I ultimately chose the poker trip. I *know* Michael* will understand!

Former colleague kicking ass!

So one of the guys I used to work with at JPMorgan, Andrew Frankenberger, recently won the WPT 2010 Legends of Poker tournament to the tune of $750,000! Wow.

When I knew him, he was not a particularly great player, though he wasn't terrible. He's also played a few times in my home game, way back when. Now he's taking down major tournaments!

Coincidence? I think not!

Florida Heat

Gaming opportunities are few and far between these days. My own poker game has dried up, Atlantic City is too far away for anything other than a weekend (which I can’t spare) and my job in midtown, coupled with the intense summer heat, has precluded me from playing competitive Backgammon with the usual crew. So what’s a gamer to do when the itch comes?

For me, I try to take the time to enjoy my wonderful relationship with my fiancé and spend the bulk of my remaining free time planning our wedding and honeymoon. The wedding date is November 6th, in Aruba, and even though the hotel takes care of a lot of details, there’s still so much more to plan. Finalizing the guest list, the music choices, the flowers, the cocktail hour details, etc… is pretty close to a full time job. A pleasurable one, but a job none the less. On top of all that, Alison is busy spending her time looking for work. It’s a miserable job market for newly minted law school graduates, which is only driving her to work twice as hard to find a position.

Incidentally, if anyone out there knows of a job for a Dartmouth undergrad, a Fordham law grad, and a super hard and organized person (all Alison, natch), please give me a buzz!

In the midst of all of this craziness, my father has been bending my ear for months to come see him down in Florida. He’s been alone since my mom passed in November, but there hasn’t been enough time to fly down for a trip, until now. Ali and I took a JetBlue flight from JFK to Fort Lauderdale this past Thursday night, returning the next Monday night. My dad was in great spirits and we had a good time together. My parent’s condo is on the beach in Hollywood, and beach going would normally be a priority, but the temperatures were in the mid 90’s and the humidity was oppressive. Ali and I managed a few hours here and there to go in the ocean (bath water temperature) but it was in the late afternoon, when the sun was low on the horizon and the beach was shaded by the 30 story buildings lining the beachfront. We ate Golden garlic crabs at the Rustic Inn in Dania (a huge favorite and highly recommended), really good Cuban food at Little Havana in North Miami and had some kick ass breakfasts at the local bagelry.

But one thing was missing from my usual Florida frolics: Poker. I had already warned Ali in advance that since Florida has recently approved No-Limit Poker, there would be ZERO chance that I wouldn’t sample it for at least one session. I saw my chance Saturday night when we came back from our Cuban dinner. Ali was sated with food and it was about 9:30p. I announced my intention to go play cards and got surprisingly little resistance, only an admonishment from my father not to ‘stay out all night’. My legendary (in my parent’s mind) all night session of 10 years ago (where I came back at noon of the following day) had still not been forgotten. I promised I would try my best, but I never made any guarantees and I headed out.

I debated going to the Hollywood Hard Rock hotel for my one and only poker session of this short trip, but discounted it for two reasons. One, it was a 30 minute drive to get there, which meant I’d be shaving off a precious hour of playing time. By comparison, there were three other poker rooms within an 8 minute drive, allowing for much more time on the felt. The other reason was that the Hollywood Hard Rock is, by far, the most popular poker room in South Florida and likely to be the most crowded. I envisioned a long waiting time for a table, and I would have been pissed if that occurred. I opted instead for the Mardi Gras racetrack and casino, a greyhound pari-mutuel facility which had recently, according to news reports, moved its poker room downstairs and expanded it. I wanted to check it out anyway so I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone.

I was inside the poker room within ten minutes of leaving my father and Ali and I have to say the room is impressive. It’s about 35 tables with nice tables, auto shufflers and plush chairs. The room is on the dark side, but the tables themselves are lit up quite nicely and the dealers were way above average in skill and friendliness. The opponents were also nice people and, more importantly, not particularly good players (more on this later).

Even though it was Saturday night, the room was not as busy as usual according to the local players. I can only imagine the Jewish holidays had something to do with that. Even so there were still 16 tables going with 1-2NL, 2-5NL, 2-2 Limit, 1-2 Limit and 2-5 O/8 spread limit games going. After a short wait, a seat opened for me at a 1-2 NL table and I took my seat in seat 2. The man who was in the seat got up and moved to seat 7, a glum look on his face. I knew the look. "The seat is that bad?," I asked. He just grunted. "You’ll see. Of course, now that I moved, you’ll probably win every hand!"

His prediction wasn’t far off. My second hand, I was dealt ATo in early position. I was new to the table and wary of the other players, so I wasn’t about to get cute and raise with a middle Ace. I limped and a few people limped as well. The button raised to $6 and everyone who limped called. Pot builder. The flop was TT6, as good as it gets. I checked and it checked around. Turn was 8♣, putting a club flush on board. I bet out $20 and got a call from the button raiser. Curious. Club draw? I couldn’t tell. The river was a harmless 2♦. I bet out $40 for value and he squirmed but finally made the call showing pocket Queens. I tabled my trips and he grimaced. Congratulations on your marriage to Queens pal, now ship the candy.

The hand after that, I got 2♦3♦ and limped with it but folded after a mid table raise to $15. One of the risks of limping in early position with speculative hands is that you will lose a lot of limps having to fold to raises which will almost be in position on you. But I’ll do it early in a table because I assume most 1-2NL tables are limpy. Until I’m proven otherwise, I stick with the game plan of limping with suited connectors and hoping to flop big. The flop was 33A! As it turns out, I would have cracked a guy with AK. The next hand, I got 66 in the BB and saw a flop of 633. This time, I fired out and got no takers. I had hoped somebody would have a three, but no go.

So my first few hands were definitely successful but then it quieted down. I was up about $80 on my $140 buy-in about 2 hours in when a very pretty Cuban girl sat down to my left. My standard playbook on pretty girls is that they can’t play poker very well, but this girl proved that first impression wrong. She was active pre-flop, made plenty of c-bets and was taking down pots with alarming frequency. We got to talking and it turns out she was here with her boyfriend, who was at another table. They had met about a year ago at a Miami poker room and were only here in Hollywood because of some friends they were visiting in the area. She was nice enough to tell me about some great authentic Cuban restaurants in the Miami area and I was trying to be friendly. I was also looking to move seats to get position on her. I don’t mind putting up a friendly façade with a strong player, but I’m still looking for an advantage. And it worked because we got involved in a bunch of big pots during the session. I had lost half of my profit on the session at this point trying different things on the table and not getting any traction. Finally, I’m dealt JJ in the hijack seat (button minus 2). It limped to me and I raised to 8 and Cuban Girl re-raised me to 15! This was the first pre-flop three bet that I had seen at this table so far so I immediately put her on a big hand. I was absolutely ready to give up the hand except that three other players cold called and the pot odds were quite heavily in my favor to set-mine. The flop was a very beautiful J♠6♦3♦. I would have slow played if the flush draw wasn’t on board, so when it checked to me, I fired out $25. When Cuban Girl smooth called, I immediately put her on an over pair. Which one, I didn’t know, so I was praying quite heavily for small cards on the turn and river. Unfortunately, the turn was a King. Ouch. It was on me and I froze for a moment. My brain snapped me out of it quickly and I fired out $35. She called again. I was hoping she hadn’t noticed my hesitation on the King peeling off on the turn and luckily she didn’t. A better player would have shoved on me and I almost definitely would have laid down my set considering the situation. But she wasn’t world class, merely a good player. The river was a blank and I was feeling better about my situation. I had to figure out what she’d call and I saw her stack at about $135. I put out $45, probably too small as it turns out, but she called quickly and showed me QQ. I scooped another nice pot and she re-bought for another $100.

A little later on, her boyfriend sat down at the table next to her. They were a nice chatty couple and he seemed to be a slightly better player than her, but they weren’t too dangerous in my eyes anymore. I was on the button when the UTG straddled to $4 (yes, straddles are allowed in Florida now!). One weak player limped and it folded to me. Perfect time to steal, right? I had KJo, which is a reasonable hand and could even be best at this point. I raised to $20. Cuban Girl, whose stack had been knocked down to $93, smooth called. So did the straddle and the limper! I wasn’t expecting this at all. Then my mind got the better of my instincts. I was less worried about the straddle and the limper and more worried about the SB Cuban Girl, who probably wouldn’t call a $20 PF raise without a real hand. The flop was A84, rainbow. It checked to me and I decided to represent the Ace on an otherwise non-threatening board. I bet out $55 and the SB immediately re-raised to $73 all in. The other two players folded and it was $18 for me to call. $18 into a pot of $210. A clearer call I’ve never seen, but I STILL contemplated folding, knowing I was trapped perfectly. But I decided to make the call and try to talk up my attempted bluff. Cuban Girl was surprised to see my total bluff and happily showed AA for top set. It happens sometimes. Soon afterwards, I was able to move into position on Cuban Girl and her boyfriend and plotted getting my chips back.

I was back to even at my initial buyin of $140. Three hours down the drain. {Sigh}.

My stock oscillated for the next hour. I was down $85 at one point and I picked up J♠8♠ in the cutoff. Cuban girl raised to $6 after a few limps and I decided to see a flop. 7 players saw a flop of A♠K♠6♦. Cuban girl bets $10 and I’m the only one to call, in position on her now. Turn is 9♠. She checks to me and I bet $15. Her boyfriend laughs and says, "Oh no, no checking here!". I was kind of pissed because he obviously put me on the flush and seemed to be gently communicating that to her. To my surprise, though, she check-raised me to 30! Given her pre-flop raise, I couldn’t put her on a Queen flush since the Ace and King were already on the board and I held the Jack. Would she raise PF with Q♠T♠?!??! It didn’t seem like a possibility given what I’d seen of her play. So I put her on a set or two pair (AK) and opted to call, hoping the board wouldn’t pair. I was in position, after all, and could possibly lay it down if the board did pair and she shoved. I had $47 behind. The river is 7♥, a harmless card in my eyes. She checks to me! At this point, I’m legitimately confused and I said so. I muttered out loud about how weird her play was. She check raised me on the third spade but opted to check the river when I called her min-raise. After about 30 seconds of this, I gently put the rest of my chips in and she quick called, showing A♥9♥ for a turned two pair. Her boyfriend yelled at her when I showed the second nuts. I guess my Hollywood had convinced her that I couldn’t beat two pair, or I was bluffing with a busted draw, but her boyfriend knew better early on. The two pair which gave me the flush kept her in and she didn’t want to believe me when the river bricked for her. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; most of the profit in this game comes from your opponent’s mistakes, not your own skillful play (although one sometimes begets the other).

After my double up and a few more smallish pots, I was back to about $220, or +$80 on the session. I picked up AKo UTG. I raise to $6 to pot build and immediately curse myself for not making it $11. A loose older foreign man, rocking an awesome white ‘stache, called from UTG+1 and that drew in three more callers. The flop, though, was a very pretty A♠8♦6♦, rainbow. I bet out $25, intending to take it down right there given the diamond draw but the ‘Stache called me. $25 was considered a pretty big bet on this table, so I was concerned he had flopped something big. A set, maybe, or two pair. I didn’t know if he would cold call on a diamond draw, but it was a possibility. There are plenty of 1-2 NL players who will call on a flush draw heads up even though common sense says they probably won’t get paid off if the draw hits, putting the pot odds against them. Good players will call in position knowing they can bluff successfully if a diamond hits, but this guy wasn’t good. I had already seen him crack JJ with 84o when he called a raise PF and flopped two pair. So I knew he wasn’t beyond playing trash for a raise. The turn was 4♠. Now there were TWO flush draws out there. I figured I’d better lead out again for a substantial amount and maybe he won’t want to draw again. I bet out $45 and he instantly called "all-in" for $190 more! He had me covered and now *I* was the one squirming! I started to talk it out loud, "two pair? Set? 5-7?" In my mind, all I was beating was a pure bluff and I just didn’t see this guy bluffing. It took me a full minute to come to the conclusion to fold but I finally remembered Doyle Brunson’s maxim of ‘Don’t go broke with just top pair’ and I kicked in my cards. He tabled his 5-7 for the nut straight and said, with a heavy greek accent, "I show you, so you no feel bad". He gave me a fist bump and then asked what I had. I told the truth, hung my head and slogged on. I was back to my starting stack of $140.

It was now 2:45a and I was thinking about just picking up and leaving, calling this an even session. But the play was so crackable and I hadn’t played poker in so long that I couldn’t bring myself to leave! I started to chip back up, finally getting back to ~$220 again. I ground it out and it was a small profit, but two hours later I was finally ready to leave. I decided I’d play until UTG for a straddle and then leave after that hand. At this point, the table was down to 5 players (Cuban girl and boyfriend left) and it was definitely late. People were starting to make small errors due to fatigue and I was trying to take advantage. It got to me UTG and I made the straddle, which every player called. I looked down at A3o and checked my option. The flop is a pretty nice A♠K♦4♥. It checks to me and I decide to check because a weak Ace might be best here, but almost any other Ace beats me. I wanted to see what the table would do. Fortunately, it checked around. The turn was the 3♠. Beautiful. I now had top and bottom pair, and probably the best hand. George, a strange looking local with a crazy bad case of lazy eye, bet out $20. He was called by a youngish kid in the BB who had $45 in his stack, leaving him with $25. I figured him on a spade draw. I decided that with one card to go, I would isolate the spade draw. There was all this dead money in the pot, so if I bet huge, I should knock out everyone in the pot except the kid on a draw and I’d get my bet back minus $45. So I put out a silo of $100. A 30’ish loose guy, who had taken ‘Stache’s seat an hour ago, surprised the heck out of me by shoving for $179! Wow. George, who had been counting out his chips to call me (!) folded. The kid I put on a draw, naturally, called for the remainder of his small stack. It was now up to me for $79. If I folded, I’d be nearly even on the session. Calling and losing would leave me with a big loss relative to my starting stack. On the other hand, I was getting 4:1 to make the call. Still, I couldn’t figure what the guy had. I looked at the board and it hit me like a ton of bricks: Darko. The Darko, named for everyone’s favorite former Wall Street Poker player, Johnny Darko, is 2-5. The Darko would have given this guy a turned wheel. And he *did* get to see the turn for free after all. It totally made sense to me. He calls my straddle because, what the heck, it’s late and this might be our last hand. He flops a gutshot and fills it in when the flop is checked. Every instinct told me to fold the loser. But then I started to debate it in my head. Literally, I got up and started pacing the floor. If he had the wheel, I still had outs. Plus, he might only have an inferior hand of some sort. But I couldn’t figure out what that hand would be. I tried to fish for information verbally ("You got a wheel?") but the floor person told me to be quiet since there were other people still in the hand, even if they were all-in. Finally, after two or three minutes, probably out of sheer frustration but certainly egged on by my 4:1 odds call, I pushed my chips over the line. He asked, "You have a set?" Hmmmm, that’s nice to hear. "No," I said, "just two pair". "Me too," he said. He showed a 4 at first, and I fully expected him to turn over an Ace with it, but no! He had K4 for a slow played two pair that turned into disaster! I turned over my better two pair. The kid whom I thought had a draw actually had A9o. George told me after the hand was over that he, wisely, folded K3 for yet another inferior two pair! He told me, also, that he would have called me if the other guy had folded, which means the pot would have been for nearly all my chips no matter what. I had to dodge a 4, 9 or King to scoop the entire pot and I was elated to see the T♣ peel off on the river! What a last hand!

The table broke up immediately, after having busted two players, and I racked up. After my tip, I had $460, for a $320 profit on the session! W00t!!!!

Finally, at 5am, I got into the car and drove back home, visions of my next session already dancing in my head. I love a good win.