Hip Hop is a dick

NH sir.

So Hip calls me with BOTTOM pair after I laid out what should have appeared to be a nice value bet. Well done. It was a prefect setup for later when the board was something like AA66x, and I had 99 in my hand. Hip was nice enough to pay me off with QUEEN HIGH. :)

Hip is now on my list of unbluffables, along with folks like Fireman Frank, Jamie, Ryan Sadd, drunken TK, Jack T-way, and Tony the Zombie guy. I don't think Tony could tell you what day it is, let alone lay down bottom pair to a pot-sized bet.

Motor City again

Forgot to mention, those were about the only hands I played in the 3.5 hrs I was there on Thurs night. I thought about rat-holing my profit and buying back in at the $1-2, but it was almost midnight and I was beat from the session the night before. Besides, I think that was my single-largest 1-session win, so it was time to go. I carried 4 racks to the cage.

Other items to note:

* They have free sandwiches, cookies, soda, and candy for the players, which is nice
* It's a very nice casino overall
* If you really want to play poker, they have a $300 min/no max $5-10 game. Just don't flop a set of J's, get your your $4k in with a 96% favorite, and lose to the 2-outer. I still have nightmares about that.

Detroit though is a burning powder keg. Unemployment is at 13% and all the radio talk was about the automakers going out of business. I made a wrong turn leaving the casino and just a few blocks from downtown there were burned out buildings and homeless people EVERYWHERE. They were basically just lying around all over the place.

Detroit rock city

Wow, what a trip. Here's a quick rundown...

Tues night, MGM:

Played tight/aggressive, patient, very solid poker all night. Built my $200 buy-in up to $550 over a few hours at $1-2. There was a drunk guy there throwing a party with his stack but I couldn't catch a hand against him. So I'm at around $550 and was going to be leaving soon. I come across KQ of clubs on the button and make it $15 preflop after a few players limped, and I got 2 callers. Flop is AKx, and it's checked to me. I make it around $40 and get min-raised by a guy who was pretty solid. He was in his mid 50's and had that Paul Newman/Color of Money look. I call. Turn is another K, and he sighs and checks, so I bet a hundo. He calls. River is a Q, boating me up. Sweet!!! He checks and I toss out another hundo, expecting a fold, but he pushes. He has me covered, and I insta-call, flipping over my boat. What's he have???? AA of course. PNWD. NH sir. I hit the road for the night, my spirit gone. He played it perfectly. No way I put him on AA...just a single A.

Wed night Motor City:

The computer system was down so the floor was scrambling to keep organized and doing an awful job, but they were still in better shape than Greektown. Got a $1-2 ($50-200 as they call it) seat after about 30 min. The place was hopping for middle of the week. BBJ was at $19k. A's full of J's cracked by quads.

Played the same solid game from the night before but was on a roller coaster after a couple hours. There was an old drunk guy that would build his stack to $600 and give it away, then he'd re-buy for $100, build it up, and give it away. He called every bet everyone made, and paid off everyone's hands. Except for ME. I put a bet out and he'd fold quicker than shit. I never once tried to bluff him either, knowing I just had to show any kind of a hand to get paid. Nope...I got a few bucks from him but not the hundreds everyone else was. I wish I could get that kind fo respect at my home games.

So I ended up adding on a hundo and went from being up around $375 to down $150, and played through the night. I just couldn't get up. Dozens of people came and went. I was in that seat for nearly 14 hours when I decided I'd better head back to the hotel to get a little rest and shower up. I left up around $300, leaving me up $100 for the trip so far. I'll take it I guess. Got back to the room, laid down for 45 min, showered, and went to class. I felt like TK in Vegas. Class was pretty tough to get through. VB scripting...loads of coding fun! I drank a ton of coffee to get through the day.

Thurs at Motor City:

Decided to head back to MC, since there were more tables going and plenty of action. The 1-2 list was pretty full, so I sat down at a $2-5 game until my seat opened up. Glad I did. 2nd hand, I raise to $50 preflop with QQ, got 2 callers, flop was K high, I bet $75, and everyone folds. I really tightened up for this table, as I only sat down with $300 and didn't have a ton of cash on me.

A half hour later, I get 33 in the BB and a few people limp in. I decide to make it $35. 2 callers. Flop is 10-8-3 with a couple of clubs. About time. I hadn't hit a set in a long time, and really felt due. I lead out with $50, and the guy 2 seats to my left adds a hundo on top. everyone else folds, and I go all-in. He calls fairly quickly with his slow-played AA, and my set holds up. He barely had me covered, so I double up. He re-buys.

Another hour or so later, I'm around the same amount and call $5 from the SB with A5 of hearts. Flop brings AJ2. I bet $30 or $35, whatever was in the pot, hoping to take it right there. I get 5 callers!! I am basically done with the hand and ready to surrender but the turn is a 5, so I lead out again, this time with a hundo. Girl to my left raises another $150. Everyone else folds, and I call. There was no preflop raise, so I am putting her on a single A, maybe A9, or even A2 for a smaller 2 pair. She would have raised with AJ/AQ/AK or a pocket pair.

River is a 3 or a 4. I check, hoping to keep the pot where it is. She goes all-in. She has me covered buy a few hundred. I just cant put her on a better hand, but think she may have caught the wheel on the river, but I call anyway. She lowers her head and says "I missed". Ship it. That doubled me to over $1700. She re-buys.

I'm up against the guy whose AA I cracked earlier and I have a baby A suited, I think it was A3, and called a small raise from near the button. I flopped a wheel, and the AA slow-player bets out, I raise big, he calls, and I push on the turn. He folds, showing 99 for an over pair. I show him I wasn't screwing around.

A few hands after that< i raise with AQ suited, and the girl who missed calls. I flop top 2, she bets, I raise, and she calls. Turn is a brick, she bets small again, and I push. She calls off the last of her $500 or so and mucks when I show my monster hand.

I played until the button got to me, folding everything, and cashed $2335 for a sweet little profit. Screw Greektown, Motor City is my new favorite.

Quick update

Heading to MI for a few days of training and poker tonight...wish me luck.

Saw G Love and Special Sauce again on Thursday night. Great show, but the acoustics at the HOB just suck ass. What an awful venue.

Last 2 cash games have been losses. Didn't play well on Wed and got sucked out all night on Saturday. Flopped nuts a couple times only to get beat down the stretch. Adam was there and I made a couple great calls against him, but he later sucked out. No way he was folding his 2 pair. Oh well, I'll get it back in Detroit, or the next time Adam plays. He bluffs more than just about anyone at the table.

For some reason, I thought the bounty tourney was last weekend but was 2 weeks off. Duuuuhh...

Lot of money on the table. I banked and everything worked out. No $500 shortages on my watch.

Happy belated Easter to everyone. My ham turned out great. Garlic and cheddar mashed potatoes were out of this world. Check out the pot rack I installed at the new place. It's really coming along and looks great. Email invites to a housewarming and also a dealer's choice game will be coming out within a couple weeks.

Thanks for the free dishwasher

Ugh..I've got another cold. This is like 3 in a month and a half. Hopefully it will go away as fast as the others. Good thing I dont smoke any more, colds were awful when I smoked. I'll have to make some crock pot chicken soup tonight. Easier than actually cooking it. :)

So, on to the poker. I played an awful tourney this weekend. Got into too many jackpots too early, then ran into Eskimo's set of K's after I turned 2 pr with an A4 sooooted. Aside from Julie, it was a table full of donkeys for the most part. Too many donkeys is a bad thing. They overplay hands, bluff too much, overbet the pot...you know how it goes. Hard to tell where you're at. I got frustrated and impatient, which is not a good combination. Bounty tourney next week...that should be fun. I took out a ton of people in the last one, which I think I won.

So, on to the cash game. Quaded up on the very first hand with J2 (from the BB) and took about half of Bill D's stack. Bill was in rare form Saturday. He had a shitload of great one-liners and I can't remember any of them, but he was pretty damned funny. He later went into lockdown mode and barely played any hands.

I had just won a couple of small pots and decided to play the rush and called $3 with J6, and then $8 more when it was raised. Pot was down to me, Jamie, and Lawyer Jen. Jamie was another main reason I played the hand. I totally had his number all night. So the flop is 336, rainbow. Jen pushes her last $24 or so, Jamie, calls, and I just flat-call. Turn is a brick for me, and we both check the dry side pot. River is a 6! I bet $40, but Jamie folds. Jen flips over AA, and I pull in a nice pot. I got ridiculed pretty good for the J6, but a win is a win. Jen sure wasn't happy.

We were playing the 7-2 game, and I won another decent pot with a pr of 2's with my 7-2. There were like 2-3 others in the hand with me.

After all the donkified play, I actually got focused and started making decent decisions. I tossed 2 pr against Colin, who had a straight. I called Jamie on a few bluffs, and pissed him off. He tried to bluff on the river after I checked my pair (2nd pair on the board), and he just had to fire. He did this all night, playing every hand. I got him for close to $200, but he still managed to cash with a nice stack. He really got into Monsignor's kitchen, finally sending him home after cracking Monsignor's QQ with A3. It was $16 preflop. Even I can lay that down. Not Jamie. He called cold.

So at 4:15 am, after we finished playing showdown during the cashouts, I cashed in $785 on a single buy-in of $100. Not bad for a $1-1 game. It's gonna pay for a portable dishwasher for the new apartment.

Woo hoo!

Nautica is so great. The play is just awful. Doubled my buy-in, and could have been WAY up if I'd caught a couple of hands at my last table in the last hour.

So anyway, this is what I do at work...

No cash game for me this weekend

I busted out of Dave's tourney early, and decided to head home. I had moved a bunch of stuff into the new place that afternoon, and was pretty whipped, so decided to head home. Too bad, I am sure it was juicy.

So in the tourney, I was out early, but I did manage to pick up a great tell from Julie. I had a strong hunch last week when I almost stacked her, but this week I'm sure of it. I am hoping to get he back at my table for the next one. Unfortunately, this weekend, it cost me my stack in the long run. Earlier, I raised with KQ, flopped a K, bet, and Julie raised. I was certain I had her on the flop, but just called. An A fell on the turn (she plays every A unless there is a big raise, which I only raised small), and I bet out this time, and she pushed. This is where I knew she had hit her 2 pr, and I had to fold, even though her all-in wasn't much more. I got her to show her A7 (2-pr) and was pretty happy about the fold, but I should have raised on the flop. Next time... So anyway, my read seems to be dead-on, so it should pay off in the future. Julie, I know you read my blog...come play the cash game! :)

I went to the rail after hitting my nut straight, which also gave Julie her nut flush. No re-buys...damn.

Had a great night at Dave's cash game last week, so the cash game win streak is at 7 or 8 in a row I think. I'll be checking out Nautica on Thursday this week if anyone wants to join me. TK had a great story about Chan at Nautica this weekend. Maybe he'll post it on the board. Apparently, Chan sat and played tight for a few hours, and the only hands he showed were bluffs with a 3-5, until he finally went all-in with a 9-4 and got called by AA. The bullets held up and Chan lost his stack. NH sir. I cant wait to sit at his table again. He never did get back to me on the heads-up challenge. I am ready when he is.

What a night

Had a great time last night at Dave's...lots of laughs. Had to get this photo up. I'll post about a few hands ASAP and explain the pic.

Nautica...donk-a-licious!!

Chalked up a $200 win last night. Awful hands almost all night. Was down about $300 at one point, then got AK 3 hands in a row and hit a K twice and got paid. All you need is a few decent made hands to hold up there. Later, I took a huge pot when I flopped 2 pr with a K4 from the BB in an unraised pot. Cracked the slow-played AA, who didnt really decide to play the hand until the turn, when he finally raised. By then, there wasn't much of a draw out there, so I put him on big slick and acted accordingly. He put me all-in on the river to double me up and put me back in the black. 2 hands later I won another pot with QJ suited against Q3 suited. Cashed and left. The heater continues, although most sessions will be disappointing compared to the hands I was dealt last week. Wow.

The play at the $1-2 was pretty bad overall. Lots of bluffing, which I had to refrain from after I got called (just after I sat down) by a guy with 3rd pair. Calls a pot sized bet on the turn and river. Oh well, I got it back. I also had a guy call me with zero draw and hit a 7 on the river (K7 he had) to beat my pocket 6's. He was old and a little slow I think, and made string bets every hand. We had to keep him in line with the betting, and he never did quite comprehend it.

Sweet tourney win

1st place at Dave's over the weekend. I got hit with the deck like you wouldn't believe. Pocket pair after pocket pair held up, then people started folding to me just because I was on a heater. Until the final table, every bust out at my table resulted in more chips for me. Gotta love it. I even won a hand with 7-high when my opponent (forget who it was) had a small pocket pair with a 2-pr board. The $310 win puts me back on top of the POY race. I will not be denied!! :)

The heater continued into the cash game. I played every cheap flop I could, playing every suited face card, 2-3 gapper, and generally any 2 cards that added up to 5 or more. I was up about $275 at one point, but finished up $215 after (gasp!) I chased a flush draw that missed.

We played some showdown for $1-2 while everyone was cashing out, and I pulled in about $20 from that as well.

So, poker is much more fun when you aren't getting your ass handed to you. For the record, I never said I was going to completely stop blogging, nor have I ever said I was the best player and actually meant it. I am certainly better than average. Sure, I bitch and moan when things aren't going my way. I criticize people that play some of the same hands I do (I'll play any hand, but not in every situation), and complain when they hit, but I don't brag about donkey moves that I make. On the other hand, every time I win, it isn't pure luck. 2 summers ago when I chalked up 17-18 straight wins was not luck. Winning about 90% of my sessions from Jan-June and turning $700 into $13k+ was not luck. Losing $4k in one hand with a 96% favorite and 1 card to go WAS luck. Bad luck. I play as smart as I can but also play on instinct, and it has worked well for me. You know how you just FEEL that your gutshot is going to hit on the river and you call that big bet? (And if you don't believe in feel/instinct, ask any pro. None of them play by math alone) Over the last few months, while I was getting stomped and nothing was holding up, I rarely had that feeling, but chased anyway. That was poor play. Rebuying in bad games where I had little chance of getting my $$ back was bad play. One thing I have never lost...the guts to put $$ into the pot.

Chili cookoff pics

Misc pics from the chili cookoff...BTW, Meats was the only judge that knew anything about chili.

Also, my chip stack from the casino night I went to down in C-bus while at a conference for work. I started withe 5 black chips and took most of the $$ from 2 tables. I flopped quad 10's at the fisrt table with 10c-7c, and people were betting into me, and re-raising. I took out 3 or 4 people with that hand. You got a raffle ticket for every 1000 chips you turned in. I didn't win a damn thing.

Speaking of Meats, he's been back in the game and doing pretty well. 2 tourney cashes and a couple of cash game wins for him. It's good to see him back, he needs to get outta the house more.

OK, back in the saddle

After taking some serious beats over the last month, I seem to have played through it. I'm up over $1000 this week. No real details, but hopefully the slump is over. I did pretty well at the NLHE/crazy pineapple game last night. I kinda like pineapple, it's donk-a-licious!!

You know you're through the slump when your pairs hold up and your kicker is good. The occasional nut straight on the flop always helps too.

We did have some other interesting goings-on last week at Dave's. Theo shorted the bank $500 (yes, $500) and then claimed he was robbed at knifepoint at McDonald's while returning from the ATM to cover the shortage. Sure he did. WAY too many holes in that story, and he didn't even file a police report. He even claimed he was cut up, and HE DIDN'T FILE A POLICE REPORT!!

The fun part? After stealing from and lying to the group (for the 3rd time that we know of), he will most likely NOT be banned. Unreal.

I will not sit at a table with him, and he will certainly never be invited to any event I ever host. Fool us once, shame on you, fool us 3 times, you should be banned for life. Besides, he needs help. That is a gambling problem. His wife calls his phone all night and he just shuts it off, while he's out spending the rent money. He has 5 kids.

So anyway, we will begin moving into a new place soon. We should be getting the keys this week and have plenty of time to get out of our house. We found a great place on Washington Ave in Elyria, pretty much right downtown. Overlooks the east falls (which have been featured on the news recently due to flooding) and it's 1500 sq ft. 2BR and a den/parlor. Just a block from the park and library, and a few blocks from my mom, brother, and cousin, who all live on 5th and 6th streets. I'll be sending out invites for a house-warming party sometime in early May. I'll probably host a few low stakes games as well.

We're putting the house back on the market for a short-sell if necessary. First offer pretty much takes it. Not a problem, it's way too much house for 2 people anyway, and we're tired of spending every penny we make on the place. There's always something that needs to be fixed/replaced.

Look at this suave guy

Poker sucks

I really don't even want to talk about it. Ask Matt G, Meats, or Colin, they saw the couple of brutal beats I took on Saturday night. Twice, I had RR Dave right where I wanted him. Drawing nearly dead with 1 card to come. He was drunk and on tilt.

Meats had a decent night at the cash game. It was good to see him stacking some white chips. It was a strange night too, there was almost a fight.

Anyway, I'm done posting to this blog for a while, at least until the game is fun again.

Yeah Yeah Yeah...

I know, it's been a while between updates. I was in Columbus last week for work and haven't been feeling well this week. Waaahhhhh!!!!

Not much to report anyway, but I am hoping to post some chili cookoff pics and summary ASAP. Meanwhile, check out this oldie but goodie

See you all at Dave's tomorrow.