Hella Hold'em

It’s mid-winter in Chicago. After a brief snow melt (and nearly a month under snow cover), those white flakes are flying again. I missed the recent WPBT blogger convergence on The Mecca (aka Las Vegas), and I am jonesing - both for casino action and for warmth! The internet can’t much help with the warmth part, but it can help with the casino action. How about online casinos?

When it comes to gambling online, it “pays” to do your research - even if you’re playing for fun and not for money. Visiting a casino online and playing for free is a great way to branch out and learn new games. You can learn the rules in a no-risk environment before trying your luck in Las Vegas or at a casino online. It’s also a great way to practice and improve your skills in games you already know how to play. (Heaven knows I’m still “practicing” at no-limit hold’em!)

If you’re looking to research your online gaming options, check out the web site Online Casino Spotlight. There, you can find introductory lessons on a variety of games like video poker, hold’em, baccarat, and PAI GOW! (Crayola digestion is optional). Explore some new games and broaden your horizons.

You will also find recent online gambling news, with up to date and relevant information. For example, you can find information on a Help for Haiti poker tournament hosted by a UK online casino.

The site offers easy-to-follow navigation icons, categorized by the various casino games - poker, blackjack, roulette, slots, craps, and video poker. Explore these games, or use the global search box (with the magnifying glass icon) to search deeper. The Featured Online Casino area offers welcome bonuses for cash players, and the top 10 online casinos are listed with reviews, including features, contact information, languages supported, and currencies supported.

Scratch that gambling itch and check out a new online casino. You might even make some money, if online gambling is legal where you live.

Good luck!

I finally got out to play some cards last night. I haven't been to the casino in ages.

FYI - For anybody in the Vegas area, I will be in town March 24-27 to play some poker. It looks like my friend might not be accompanying me, so I'll be flying solo... meet me in Vegas!! Hell, I've got a room at Excalibur super-cheap, if anybody wants in.

Anyway, back to the Majestic Star trip... oh how I've missed that place! It really is my favorite place to play around here (Chicagoland) - though I haven't yet checked out the new Horseshoe Casino poker room, which I hear is a lot like a Vegas card room. Somehow, though, Majestic feels like "home." I've logged more hours there than anyplace else, and it's just a friendly sort of place. The down side: it's nearly an hour drive from home. That can suck. But the boat that is local to me (Empress) only has a few tables, and most of the tables run a limit game (5/10). I played that limit game for a long while, when I was playing limit. These days, though, I'm doing the NL thing for now, and the only NL table they run is a little over my head right now (as I basically am starting from a 1-buy-in bankroll). Back when I played there, they only ran NL on one table, and it always had a giant waiting list. Since I don't do any of the other gambling activities offered by the casino, waiting hours on end for a poker seat can be brutal.

So, I was glad to be back at Majestic.

Even moreso, it was almost like I was playing with friends. The guy to my right for most of the night was a dead ringer for Mr. Geek and Proud. Srsly. Since he's been posting all those pics of him wearing different t-shirts, his mug was fresh in my mind - and this guy could have passed as his twin. I knew it wasn't him, though, when he whipped out a lame ass non-smart cell phone. No way Alan would be caught dead using such a primitive device.

I played for a little over 4 hours. On the whole, my hands pretty much sucked. I saw a less-than-average number of flops, and saw even fewer showdowns. Still, I enjoyed the mental stimulation of observing the other players, pegging them as one sort of player or another, noting tells and nuances and quirks. That's something you just don't get in full force playing online. Sure, you can note things like, "blind steal attempts 4/5 times" or "will call down all the way with overcards," but those sorts of things are like observations of blatantly obvious facts. Picking up on physical subtleties is much more "rewarding" so to speak. It feels like you've become privy to information that few, if any, other people at the table have access to. (The $200 max buy in NL game is not the most sophisticated game in the joint).

I managed to profit a whopping 2.5BB per hour - enough to buy lunch. LOL! But I will not buy lunch with it. Hey now - that's a 5% increase to my bankroll!! I've got a date with poker come Thursday night, when my friend Ed will be joining me at Majestic (I think... haven't hammered out the details, but it's a tentative plan). A 5% increase. I'm not scoffing.

I lost two big hands last night, one of which has me irked. The one that doesn't have me irked is part of the risk in playing low to mid suited connectors and seeking a flush... sometimes, you're just going to be up against a higher flush. I lost the minimum possible, as I sensed the guy wasn't going away. I pulled a check-behind on the turn when my flush hit - glad to hit the flush but not wanting to play for an uber pot, as my flush was 4-high in my hand. Called his river bet and he had the nuts. That's whatcha get for being Tricky McTrickster, buddy. You certainly lost a bet there.

The other hand, I ** once again ** broke the advice that is pounded into my head from Harrington's cash games book: Big hand, big pot. Small hand, small pot.... and an overpair is NOT A BIG HAND!! It was a little more complicated than that, so maybe my reasoning was justifiable - though in retrospect, I still think I should have played it differently. I'm just not sure that I am capable of playing it the way it probably should have been played.

I had QQ preflop. The table was pretty wacky. We had a whole lot of 7 and 8 handed flops. On a previous hand, there were actually 6 people that saw a flop after a preflop raise of over 7xBB. These people just liked to see flops, regardless of the upfront cost. (Three of the people in the 7x hand went to showdown, and 2 pair got cracked by a straight - two of the players split the pot, having called the preflop raise with various flavors of 4-7 suited).

So, on the button, after 5 people had limped in, I looked down to see QQ. I deemed it impossible to push anybody out of the pot with a raise, and with SO many people ready to come to the flop with me, my instinct was to play this as any other smaller pocket pair. It's almost as bad as having JJ. It's just not the strongest hand in the world, and the tendencies of my table put it at even greater risk of getting cracked. So I stuck with a "small hand, small pot" mentality (even though that mentality is really designed for post-flop decision making).

The blinds came along, and we went to the flop 8 handed. (Yeah. Sigh). The flop came all hearts, undercards. I held the Q of hearts. The guy in the 10 seat said, "Hmm I think I have the Ace of hearts..." as he checked his hole cards. He was a very friendly guy - I enjoyed chatting with him - and he had a giant stack in front of him after a fantastic run of hitting 2 pair on the river with such cards as Q4 of clubs and A2 offsuit (out of the blinds). Several people at the table were actively pissed off at him and were gunning for him. (Poor Alan's Clone took a beating at the hands of Mr. 10 Seat, tilting so bad that at one point, he threw his cards into the muck with great force, hitting the dealer in the face).

The other oddity of my table (aside from the overwhelming tendency to see flops at any cost) was the extreme passive play post-flop. Many streets would check around, only to wind up at showdown with somebody who checked down top pair all the way. So when it checked around to me (ALL the way around - that's SEVEN checks in front of me!), I threw out a continuation bet. If there were hearts around, they'd stay, and I wanted that information. Surprisingly, the field thinned to all but one - Mr. 10 Seat, who had previously mused that he thought he might have the Ah. Now, he mused often about his cards, and in 3 separate instances had been musing the opposite of what he actually had (and in one instance, mused truthfully).

The turn came a black undercard, and he checked. I checked behind. I did not want to see a 4th heart. At. All. (Should I have bet there? I figured, if he did have the Ah, he wasn't going away, and I did not want to make this pot any bigger).

The river... a heart. Undercard. I've now got the Queen high flush, and 2 cards in the deck beat me - the King of hearts and the Ace of hearts. Mr. 10 Seat was fully capable of bluffing, and in fact liked to do it on the river after playing all passive-like. He was also sleep deprived and should have been in bed hours ago.

He bet the river, about the size of the pot. So many thoughts went through my mind. It was entirely possible that after my turn check, he figured he could push me off the hand. It was entirely possible that he was bluffing. It was entirely possible that he had a smaller flush. It was also entirely possible that he had it.

I cut out my chips behind the line, and said (while looking at my chips), "Two cards beat me, sir... are you holding one of them?" I then looked up at him and repeated myself. I REALLY wanted him to do something with his hands, because his hands were always shaking when he actually had a hand. But he wasn't moving, and he wasn't speaking.

In the end, I listened to the devil on my shoulder that was saying, "Only two cards beat you!!" And I called.

And he had the Ace of hearts.

I suppose I lost the minimum, with the turn check. But I think I could have lost even less had I abandoned ship at the flop. A continuation bet there makes more sense if there were fewer people to the flop, but practically the entire table was there with me. SOMEBODY was likely to have the higher hearts. Still, I don't think I could have come to the conclusion that it was OK to check that flop after the entire table checked around, and when the brick hit the turn, I'm not sure that either a) I wouldn't call somebody's bet in front of me, or b) I wouldn't bet myself if it checked around again. I'm fairly certain b) would have absolutely happened. So I was losing a bet on the flop or turn either way.

The river call is where I could have saved myself a chunk of change, but... hitting the flush, I'm still not sure I can envision any scenario whereby I'd actually lay it down. To an all-in bet, yes - I think I'd have folded. But not to a pot sized bet.

Should I have laid it down on the river? Would that have been too conservative a play?

I don't really feel that I have an answer for this one. Therefore, it will continue to irk me...

At any rate, I won back most of the chips I lost to Mr. 10 Seat in a later hand, where I rivered a set of Aces with my pocket Aces. He was all apologizing as he cut out his chips to call my raise, because he had once again hit a bullshit 2 pair... but a set beats 2 pair, and that pot negated the damage from the QQ hand.

Mr. 10 Seat gave away half of his beautiful stack before the night was done, most of it trickling away on river bluffs in the last hour I was there. It was tough to leave. I was pretty sure all of those chips were leaving the station before long. But, I had a friend with me that wasn't playing, and I'm fairly certain he was bored out of his skull by that point. It was late, and with an hour drive home ahead of us, I waited until the next dealer change and then called it a night.

I didn't scoop a fortune, but I came out ahead and was VERY happy with how I felt at the table. There are times when I really shouldn't play poker. Sometimes, I'm just "off." I get nervous. I get afraid of monsters under the bed. I get paranoid. I doubt my instincts (which I'm coming to find that really, instincts are just our subconscious mind's way of feeding us information based on past experiences, and the myriad of patterns of hands we've seen over time). It's been a long time since I've played at a casino. It was entirely possible that I'd find myself out of my element - particularly since I was playing NL. If you recall, I pretty much retired from NL cash games years ago - in the same season as my KK Quandary hand. Yes, that was over 3 years ago - but it sure stung, and it spoke to weaknesses in my game and in my understanding of how cash games differ from tournaments. [For reference - KK Quandary Part 1 and KK Quandary Part 2]. I still can't tell you why I decided to fire up an NL cash game on Full Tilt a couple months back - and it has been a very positive experience online thus far. Somehow, though, I find myself back in the NL realm.

Spending most of 2008 away from poker has afforded me the opportunity to come back at it with fresh eyes... and though I wasn't trying to "change" my game, really, I am playing differently now. I can't really explain why or even what I'm doing that is different, but I feel different and I "see" things I didn't see before... almost as if some of that book knowledge has finally translated into "habit" or unconscious actions. An example: I don't forget to consider position when making decisions anymore. I don't even consciously think about it - whereas when I did remember it before, I would then stop and think, "OK, where is the button?" Now, somehow, I just always know where it is. My brain is logging that information without me having to think about it. That's just one example, but that's the sort of thing that's going on. Some of the basics are now out of the foreground of my thinking and into the background. It's allowing me to concentrate on the subtleties of the game and I feel like I'm noticing more things and making better decisions as a result.

At any rate, I'm going to try again on Thursday, so if any of you Chicago peeps find yourself out and about, hit up Majestic Star :) I'll be there...

I dropped 2 buy-in's at the baby game at Majestic last night because I played weak sauce. Weak, weak friggin sauce.

One hand is bugging the piss out of me, which is good because by the time I get over it, I will have thought about it so much that hopefully it will enter my mind every time I find myself in a similar situation - and I * will not * repeat it.

Back story: I'd been watching the guy to my left for about 4 hours. He mixed his game up really well and was unpredictable. I wanted to ask if he had a blog after watching him raise the hammer preflop under the gun, and then bet it all the way to the river with no pair/no draw. His opponent folded on the river, and he showed the hammer for a whole lotta red chips. Nice. I saw him raise preflop with anything from the hammer to suited connectors to AK to monster pairs. I also saw him limp with all manner of playable starting hands, and I saw him make good laydowns. He wasn't a maniac; he was just unpredictable - which, note to self, is something I need to work on.

The Hand: I've got AJ suited UTG. I hate AJ. It's my nemesis hand, and offsuit I'm pretty likely to pitch it to any heat, particularly in early position. Suited, I'd like to see if I can hit a flush draw. I limp for $2, and the guy to my left raises to $10. In a lot of situations, I'd lay this hand down to a raise. (More on this later). When 3 people called the raise ahead of me, though, I decided to see a flop in hopes of snatching some diamonds.

The flop came J-8-x rainbow. Here comes my play, drenched in all the foul goodness of weak sauce you could possibly imagine.

I checked. He bet. Everyone else folded.

Wait for it....

I flat called. (WTF? Dunk #1 in the weak sauce).

Turn came a blank, no diamond.

Check. Bet. Call. (Dunk #2).

River: Blank. I checked again. He bet $35. There is easily over $130 in the pot. I agonized for a moment, and because the bet was so small compared to the pot, I called.

He flopped 2nd pair, 8's, and rivered 2 pair, 8's and 7's.

Let's look at my thought process during that hand. It is spattered with the flavor of weak sauce all over the place.

Initially, I'm thinking, AJ is my nemesis and is very easily dominated by hands that people typically raise preflop with (AQ, AK, not to mention the big pairs). I'm not happy to play it aside from the flush draw possibilities to begin with.

On the flop, I'm thinking, if he's got AK, my hand could be good. But what if he has a big pocket pair?

Wiping Off the Weak Sauce: Lesson #1: Bet out on the flop with TPTK, or check raise. FIND OUT WHERE YOU ARE AT!!!! The check-call not only gave me zero information about where I stood with my pair, but it gave me no chance to take the pot right then and there.

Wiping Off the Weak Sauce: Lesson #2: Fear not monsters under the bed. Wanna know if there's a monster under the bed? See Lesson #1. Aside from the fact that I was check-calling weakly out of a fear of a monster hand, I was also ignoring the information I already had about the guy. Not once did I think about the fact that I had seen him raise preflop with all manners of hands, and that this particular raise was no different. It did not mean he had a monster. Sure, he could have - but I could have found that out on the flop instead of paying it off to the river.

As it turns out, my check-calling allowed him to catch up and beat my hand, which was good until the river.

I am very certain that a check-raise would have gotten him out of the hand, and if not, he'd have departed on the turn to any aggression from me. He was not a chaser, and he was capable of laying down hands. I'd seen him do it.

And that's why I'm so irritated at myself for this hand. This sort of play is much less a sin in low level limit holdem, but it's suicide in no limit - even at the baby limits. My play in this hand went against rules that I know to be true and effective (bet and raise to find out where you are, and for a chance to take the pot right there). It flew in the face of all of the mental notes I'd collected on this guy, as I ignored every one of them. It was chicken shit, monsters-under-the-bed weakness, the type of play I should be preying on and not exhibiting myself. I have no right to even sit at a no-limit table if that's how I plan to play.

And it's not how I plan to play. This hand has been naggingly haunting me for the last 24 hours. I won't do it again.

That hand cost about the equivalent of a buy-in. The other big loss I can recall was again a mis-play on my part, but more of a poor choice of plays and a little bit of un-luck.

I flopped a straight from the big blind in an unraised pot with 2-4 on a board of 3-5-6, two spades (I had hearts). 7 players in the pot. On such an ugly flop, I figured that betting out in early position wouldn't get me much action. With that many players in, I figured I could count on a bet from a late position player, at least, at which point I could throw in a raise. Most flop raises were getting called (then ditched on the turn, unless a monster developed). I planned to go for the check-min-raise.

To my dismay, play checked all the way around. BAH! The turn brought the third spade. Damn it anyhow. Sprinkling of weak sauce here - I probably could have bet out here to find out where I was, but with another card still to come, 3 spades onboard, and 7 people still holding live cards, I decided to take the conservative route. I checked. IT CHECKED AROUND AGAIN! Well, that was sick. The river was a blank, and as anxious as this table had been to bet even their flush draws (let alone made flushes), I figured I was probably good. I bet out, hoping someone with an odd pair would call.

Any-two-cards guy at the far left end of the table raised me, just over the min raise. Everybody else folded. I shook my head and looked at the guy and said, "You're slowplaying that flush on me, aren't you?" He was so drunk that his blank stare said absolutely nothing. Damn it anyhow. This guy was the kind of guy to call down with any two cards. As soon as he hit a pair (ANY pair - not just top pair), he'd come out betting. Any time he hit a draw (ANY draw, not just nut draws), he'd come out raising. He'd call river bets with absolutely nothing and show down Jack high. Was this guy raising the fact that he hit a pair of 4's on the river? Very possibly. Did he hit some lame ass two pair? Also possible, as he was hitting a LOT of two-pair's. Did he have the flush? I knew that was absolutely possible too, but because I could not definitively put this guy on a hand, I felt I had to call.

He had the flush. Straight no good.

I'm not sure the plan to check-raise was awful, and I can envision situations where I'd go that route again. It didn't work out this time.

Side note on the flush guy: he was 6 buy-in's deep by the time I ran into his flush, though he had won back $500 or so of it with ridiculously bad cards. By the time he left a few hours later, he had given all of it back, plus bought in for another $200 and lost that. He's the reason why I stayed on an extra buy-in... to try and grab some of that. 'Twas not my time.

After this yo-yo few weeks of poker, I'm up about $130. I go back to work in a few days. My debate now is: do I keep that bit of money in the poker box - aka, in my poker bankroll (which leaves me, again, one buy in from bust)? Or do I take that money, stick it in the bank. Pay a bill. Buy something for my camera. And chill on the poker for a while, knowing I'm going to be pretty busy with work for the next month or so.

I haven't yet decided.

DMB sure sings a sexy song about the end of the world, but as I drove home from the casino last night, the lightning show was so fantastic that I wondered if the world was ending and nobody told me.

I had the absolute best time playing poker last night. If only every trip to Majestic could be so wonderful. It's always nice to walk away a winner, but on top of that, my table was absolutely off the hook hysterical. Every once in a blue moon, the chemistry between the players at the table is just dead on. For once, I was sitting at the table that everyone wanted to be at - you know, the one with railbirds watching just to see why these people were having so much fun.

The day didn't start out so jovial. For the first couple hours, I was knee deep in quicksand. I was seeing playable hands, but redraws were killing me and I ditched a lot of hands on the turn - only after being the aggressor to that point. I was down a buy in pretty quick, but there was a LOT of money on the table and the guys were pushing it around with free abandon - definitely not protecting their stacks. I wanted me some!

To my dismay, the 3 big stacks at the table got up and left in short order, leaving a bunch of measly $100-ish stacks (rocks, no less). Oy vey. After an orbit or so, we got some new blood, and that is when the fun began.

My first surge was with QQ. I made it 12 to go from UTG+1 (1/2 blinds) and got 3 callers (d'oh! That didn't work!) As soon as the dealer noted, "4 players..." I immediately began the chant in my head: queen! queen! queen! And what to my wondering eyes should appear? A flop of K-Q-x. I doubled through one of the rocks, who quickly took to the streets.

Alrighty... back to even.

My next influx of chips came courtesy of the cute guy in the 10 seat. He was polite and funny to boot - but probably way too young for me. Late college age maybe? Mid-20's? I dunno. I'm awful at guessing ages. Anyhow, I was one off the button and limped with 6-7 of spades. One of the blinds raised it to 10, and with 2 callers after him, I called the extra 8. The flop came 4c-5c-x. Cutie bet 15 into the pot of 40. Hmmm... I needed one caller ahead of me to chase. Got one. 70 in the pot and 15 to me. Call. Turn gave me the spade draw. Cutie bet 20. All I could think was, "Boy, you are not betting enough to get me off this draw!" Other guy folded. 20 to me into a pot of 105. Sorry, buddy - you're giving me over 5:1 and I'm open ended with the flush draw. I called. Rivered the flush. Cutie bet 20 and I raised him (can't remember how much - probably to 50). He called. I showed. He mucked.

He mentioned the hand a few times over the course of the evening, and feeling bad for the guy, I eventually explained why I chased. He seemed like a decent player but not really a student of the game. The table was already on to me that I knew what I was doing, so I didn't feel like I was giving away information by showing that I understand pot odds. The table was so busy whooping it up that I'm sure nobody noticed anyway. Cutie seemed quite thoughtful after my explanation. I hope it helps him out someday.

I had a lovely chip stack at this point, chip leader for certain. That's when the fun began!

Side note: I collect penguins. It started back when I lived in Philly (1997-ish), working in computer repair. I was the traveling network technician, and I had a sticker of Tux the Linux penguin on the back window of my beater of a car. Most people don't know what Linux is, let alone that Tux is the mascot, so people assumed that I just liked penguins. Non-geek friends and even a few of my clients started buying penguin things for me - trinkets, figurines, etc. That is how my collection began.


Penguins in my home office

I have a little penguin figurine that I use as a card capper. He looks like baby Mumble from Happy Feet. Sometimes, people ignore him. Sometimes, he's the center of attention. Last night, it was the latter.

Cutie had some words with the penguin after my suckout hand. The 1 seat inquired as to the eye-pecking abilities of the penguin. There were occasional shouts of "Penguin Power!" from various table-mates whenever I was in a hand. The guy to my left (a regular - the one I sucked out on with 9-8 offsuit last week) borrowed the penguin once, and snagged a runner-runner flush off of a flop with no pair, no draw (unless you count a backdoor flush draw). At one point, I went to the bathroom and let Cutie borrow the penguin while I was gone. When I came back, the table told tales of debauchery and unspeakable things that were done to the penguin in my absence. I was mock-appalled, and the woman to my right performed CPR on my penguin in an attempt to bring him back to life. It worked, and the table rejoiced.

The other source of hilarity came from a phrase that the 1 seat threw out after sucking out on a hand. It went something like, "Even a blind chicken finds corn every once in a while."

WTF?? Blind chicken?? Do chickens even eat corn? I guess they do. But still, WTF???

By the end of the evening, we had blind chickens, deaf penguins, and all manner of senseless barnyard animals finding corn and green chips and who knows what else. We got a lot of mileage out of that one.

Unfortunately, after folding for 3 dealers straight (ie. an hour and a half), I decided that as much fun as my table was, it was time to go. I was up 215 or so, and the midnight hour was near. I bid farewell to my table and wished them well.

I'm sure nobody wanted to see my chips leave the table, but at the same time, the smart few must have realized that I wasn't going to part with them easily.

I had an absolutely great time. I wish I knew people's names to thank them (not that they read this). It was a lot of fun, and one of those rare times when you feel like you've made a table full of friends out of strangers.

And look who has a baby bankroll going!

This afternoon, I checked out the Chicago Charitable Game held in Tinley Park (my hometown) with my friends Armando and Patrick. It was a fantastic prospect to play some poker without having to drive an hour to do so. We met up at Olympic Star (a local Greek restaurant, aka diner) for some pre-poker fuel (I had the pizza burger) then headed over to the Tinley VFW hall for the event. There was a NLHE early bird tournament at 2pm, and we had pre-registered for it.

There were 50 people in the tournament - not bad, considering that the CCG boys were in the south 'burbs as a sort of "test market," and didn't advertise the event. I met Bert, one of the owners, who seemed hopeful to be holding regular games out in my neck of the woods. He mentioned the possibility of an upcoming game in Homer Glen, which would be even sweeter, as I could probably walk there. (I'm only slightly exaggerating).

The buy-in was $20 for 1,500 chips or $40 for 3,000, and an extra 1,000 chips if you either pre-registered online or paid another $10 to be donated to the charity.

I started with the 4,000 max chips, and blinds started at 25/50. Those chips go fast with 12 minute rounds, though, particularly when you don't see any playable hands. It looks like these fast tournaments require some gambling up front to have any chance to go deep. Still, playing only 2 hands the entire time (both all-in's after I was down below 6xBB), I survived almost half the field. I think I busted around 30th. Pat and Armando busted just before I did.

While I have no notable hand recaps, I can say that I was very pleased with how CCG ran the event. I've never attended any similar events (going on the assumption that the Rockford charitable games are similar), but I was impressed and will definitely play another CCG event next time one rolls through town. They used computers to display the timer/blinds/etc, and were very good with explaining the rules and keeping everybody informed of blind increases and such. The 3 dealers I had were good (faster than I had expected), and the table setup and chip distribution was easy to follow and went smoothly. I have no complaints. It was very well run, and Bert was very outgoing in talking to all of the players and showed interest in building the games in the south suburbs.

Thumbs up for Chicago Charitable Games. I'll definitely play with them again.

They had SnG's and cash games going as well, but I did not partake in those, opting instead to head over to Majestic Star. There's something about knowing that even if I lose, at least I'm earning a free sandwich that draws me to the boats. Free diet cokes don't hurt either (except for the cancer I'm sure they're giving me). If I wasn't on such a tight bankroll, I'd have stayed at the CCG games, but knowing that I'm still just a buy-in from bust, I wanted to head out to play against a crowd I'm more comfortable with. Next time, CCG, I promise.

Majestic ended up treating me well, though I thought I was going to be writing another grinder post. I blew over half of my stack on my first hand in the big blind - 45 of clubs, flopped the open ended straight flush draw and a pair of 5's. Turned 2 pair, but of course that made the straight for my opponent, who held pocket 8's. He min-raised me and I called, hoping at least for a club on the river. It didn't hit, nor did my straight, but I bet into him anyway and he flat called, thinking I had the nuts. (Seriously? I just sat down. Why does everybody think I have the nuts all the time? There's a big belief out there that girls only bet when they have a big hand. I need to exploit that more than I do).

Rebuy! Partially, anyway. Over the next 6 hours, I got my money back plus a little. It was slow going though. I had my little penguin statue with me (I use him as a card capper), and at one point, after folding for an insane amount of time, I picked the penguin up and turned him to face me and said, "Penguin, you are not helping me!" I had just folded my button, 95 of spades. Sure enough, the flop came 9-9-5, two hearts. The flush draw got there, and another guy had 9-2 and rivered a full house. I probably would have tripled up (as the one guy busted on the hand).

I will never, ever scold the penguin again!

Around 10pm, my table broke and I got moved to a full game. Normally, I'd just leave instead of changing tables, as to not mess with any juju, but I decided to stay (mainly because it was only 10pm, and my original plan was to leave between 11p and midnight). A couple hands in, I get AA and win a good sized pot. A few hands later, QQ wins me a couple bets preflop and on the flop. Not 20 minutes went by, and I was up another $100.

Then, the patented all-in-blind guy sat down. 5 hands in a row, he went all in blind. One poor soul with AA called him. Blind-pusher had 45 of spades. Flop came a 6. Turn came an 8. River came a 7. AA went home. When he finally quit pushing all in every hand, he became just your garden variety bully, raising preflop to $30 (the blinds are $1/$2), raising everybody's bets...

Sure, some people look at that guy and drool - and maybe if I had a bigger bankroll cushion right now, I would too. But it was late (I didn't sleep well last night and I didn't want to be sleepy driving home), and I was up a buy-in and a half. I decided to let the rest of the table try and knock off the maniac.

I chipped up and headed to the cage.

All in all, it was a very good day - except for the half hour or so I spent in a bit of terror. I have a weather reporting program on my Blackberry that sends me text messages when there are severe weather alerts. I have it set to alert me for my current GPS location, as well as for my home. A few hours in at Majestic, I got a message that there was a tornado warning in my neighborhood (home - the casino is about an hour from my house). Shit. I didn't realize it was supposed to storm today. Normally, I love storms. I've long said that someday, just once in my life, I want to spend a season chasing storms through the midwest. I'm usually the one standing out on my driveway seeking a glimpse of a funnel cloud - not the one afraid of storms.

But there's something different when the storm is threatening your home and you aren't at home to defend against it. It's not like I can stop mother nature, but I wasn't there to get the cats downstairs. I wasn't there to... I don't know, go down with the ship. I felt panicked and very worried - which is absolutely not like me, which made me fear the worst even more so.

I called my mom to tell her to turn on the TV (because the same funnel cloud that was spotted one town over from me was headed towards her town). I also told her to call me if there was any reported damage or tornado touchdowns.

It was a long half hour as my Blackberry continued to update the warning text.

Thankfully, the storm finally dissipated, though it was thought at the time that the funnel actually did touch down. I'll have to read the news tomorrow and see.

When I moved into this house last summer, I had no idea I was getting even closer to tornado alley. I've grown up with tornadoes, living on the outskirts of tornado alley my entire life - though it appears I've been just south of the real danger. I only moved 7 miles north of my old house, but in 4 years at my old house, the tornado sirens (meaning, funnel cloud spotted nearby) only went off twice.

They've gone off 4 times already this year at the new house.

Oy! Once upon a time, I'd have found that exciting, but it's a lot more worrisome when your name is on the mortgage! (Now I know a little bit of how my mom felt when she'd stand at the front door of my childhood home yelling for me to get in out of the rain and down in the basement... then my dad and I would come trudging in. hehehe - I think I got part of my storm chasing nature from him!)

I'd still like to catch a glimpse of a funnel cloud someday. I've been close, but not quite... though I think I'd rather see it someplace away from home!

I'm having deja vu, like I've written this in a post before. Probably last time the sirens went off....

Anyway, have a good night, all. I'm off to catch some zzz's.

Welp, it took a while (5 hours or so), but I doubled my buy-in tonight at Majestic. If ever there was a session that qualified for the label "grinding out a win," this was it.

No stories to tell really. If you were watching my Twitter stream, you caught about the only real tale of the night - that of my shaking hand syndrome. A few hours in, I was fold fold folding away, when suddenly I woke up with Aces in the big blind. It folded around to the button, who limped in. Small blind called, and wanting to make at least a little off of this hand, I checked. Flop came 8-high, rags, and the small blind bet out. Alrighty, enough of this. I went to count out my chips, and as I grabbed the stack and started to count it out, I caught the friggin shaking hand syndrome. Well fuck me. Trying to disguise my shaking hand, I stopped counting and threw out whatever was in my hand at the time, which was of course a pretty big overbet (I probably threw $30 out there into a pot of $15). Everyone folded, of course. Damn damn damn. Stupid shaking hand. I'm usually really good at preventing the shakes, but I guess when you see your first playable hand in an hour and it happens to be aces, some things are uncontrollable.

But damn damn damn anyway. Stupid hand.

I almost never worry about my hands shaking, since they rarely do anymore. What I worry about is when I'm sitting there with a big hand - I can feel my heart pound in my throat almost every time, and I always wonder... can everybody see my heart pounding in my neck? I feel like a cartoon with the arteries on the sides of my neck throbbing.

Watch, now all of my home game cohorts are going to be staring at my neck every time I'm in a pot. Time to start wearing turtle necks!

I probably won't make it out to the poker room again until next week. My Friday and Saturday nights are tied up. Thursday night is a maybe - but I think I'm going to take a break. Maybe Sunday... Next week is my last week off work. Boooo hiss.

I was so quick to diss limit (holdem). My most sincere apologies, oh limit holdem gods, as my dissing was rash and unjust.

I headed out to Empress Casino tonight, knowing that midnight was going to be about my bedtime tonight after crawling into bed at sunrise this morning. (I can get home from Empress in 18 minutes flat, even without moving violations... so so so so nice!) I wasn't "feeling" limit, with this NL binge that I'm on, but I know myself and it's just literally dangerous for me to put myself behind the wheel of a car for an hour when overtired. Poker is absolutely not worth wrecking my car, or worse, killing myself or someone else. But, being too stir crazy to sit home, I split the difference and went out to play limit at Empress.

I clocked just over 2 1/2 hours, +30BB at 5/10, and high tailed my ass out of there! It's just past midnight now, and I'm in my pajamas and ready to call it a night. Wheeee! (If anyone uses Twitter, I've been using it lately - I'm phlyersphan).

I had two very profitable hands:

#1 - 45 of hearts in the small blind. BB raised after I completed. 4 to the flop for 2 bets. Flop came 4-4-4. CHECK. 3rd to act bet, button RAISED, I called, and we lost the BB. Turn was bet and raised as well. 3 to the river. It went check (me) - bet - raise - re-raise (me). Lost the original bettor, and the button called. She had pocket 7's. Holy hell.

How do you play flopped quads?? I don't even know. I don't get much practice at that one.

#2 - I put a regular rock on tilt with this one, so much so that he threw his cards at the dealer, cursed at me, then grabbed what was left of his chips and left the table. I admit a tiny bit of guilt here, but I was very nearly justified in this chase. What do you think?

I've got QJ offsuit in the big blind. 3 limpers, then a raise, then 2 cold calls. 10 bets in the pot. I call the 1 bet, and the 2 behind me call. 13 bets in the pot, 7 people to the flop.

Flop comes A-K-x, no flush draw. SB checks, I check, check, check, check, bet, call, call (SB). 16 bets in the pot now, and 1 to me, with 3 people after me. I need 5:1 on my money to go for my gutshot. I'm definitely getting it. I call, as does 1 of the 3 after me. 18 small bets in the pot now - turn coming, so 18 small bets = 9 big bets. Turn is a blank, no flush draw. SB checks, I check, check, check (the original bettor!), bet (new guy betting!), SB folds. 10 big bets in the pot. It's definitely a close call (I'm barely getting the 10:1 to call to chase my gutshot), but with the guy after me, plus the original bettor in the hand, I'm hoping at least one of them call to solidify my chasing odds (lest I feel guilty later). I call.

The guy after me raises! Oy. Then the original bettor calls!!! Oy vey! And the turn bettor calls!! Well, there's now like 17 bets in the pot, and it's 1 more bet to me. C'MON, TEN!

The miracle 10 hits the river, and of course I checked. The guy after me bet. The original bettor raised. The third guy cold called the 2 bets, and I raised to 3 bets. The guy after me reluctantly called, and the original raiser capped it. The guy to my right (the regular rock that I pissed off) went on a tirade about how I chased a gutshot with Queen Jack. (Mind you, it's his turn to act, and there are still 2 people to act - me and the guy to my left. The hand was not over. Very bad etiquette. Here I am scolding the guy AND taking his money - I'm so going to hell). He folded. I called the cap bet as did the guy to my left.

By now, I figure I'm chopping the pot with at least one of these guys.

Nope. I was up against a naked Ace (wtf???), and AK for two pair. I'm not sure what the angry regular had, as he mucked before showdown, but I thought I heard him telling his friend at the other table a few minutes later that his set got cracked.

For the next half hour or so, I felt slightly shamed, as I wasn't about to explain to these people that I had mathematical odds to draw at the hand due to all the preflop raising and whatnot. It may have even been a borderline chase (this after I wrote here earlier that I pride myself in not chasing inappropriately). But I don't think this chase was inappropriate. It was close, but I was counting bets the entire time (which is the only reason I'm able to remember the hand to tell it here - the only hands I seem to remember are the ones I'm counting odds in. Go figure - the hands I'm paying attention to!)

After debating in my head for that half hour over whether or not I should feel bad about chasing that draw, I decided, hell no! I'm on the ass end of people sucking out on me constantly - people who have no business even being in the pot, let alone chasing their dumb ass two pair draws. I don't feel bad at all.

And it was sweet as all hell to walk a rack of reds over to the cage.

Now, I'm going to take my pajama'd ass to bed!

In my humble opinion...

Majestic Star versus Resorts East Chicago Poker Rooms:

Had a break-even night last night at Majestic Star. To say that leaving with $4 more in my pocket than I arrived with was "profitable" would be a gross exaggeration, especially considering today's gas prices. I so badly would like to be back at Majestic right now, but alas, they are filming the final table of a Heartland Poker Tour tournament, and the poker room is either closed to cash games or is only running on the outside ring of tables (I got conflicting information from various dealers), but undoubtedly the place is crazy-packed, and I'm sure the wait is long if they are running cash games.

I overheard a couple guys from out of town talking about the local poker rooms. They were managers from a casino in Arizona, in town to get a feel for how Majestic runs their Heartland tournaments, as they're hosting one themselves in a few months. They had been to both Majestic Star and to Resorts, and the one guy mentioned that he'd been talking to the MS poker room director, who he thought seemed to feel pressure to compete with the Resorts poker room down the road. The out-of-towners summed it up well, I thought. Majestic has a nicer poker room, but Resorts is a nicer casino. I think that just about hits the nail on the head. If anything hurts MS, it's that Resorts probably draws more casual players to its poker room due to the fact that more casual players probably choose Resorts over MS. Resorts does a lot more advertising on local TV as well. They definitely advertise their reputation of being a more upscale venue - the player's choice.

Having spent many hours at both poker rooms, though, as strictly a poker player, I prefer Majestic Star (now that I've gotten over my post-Trump-sale grudge). On the whole, I think the dealers at MS are better (read: more accurate, friendlier, faster). For a while, I preferred Resorts because I could listen to my iPod while playing, but now MS allows that as well. Resorts had the leg up with the electronic list queue for a bit, but now MS has the same thing - as well as a few new flat screen plasma TV's, which are gorgeous and a step above the TV's Resorts has. While Resorts does allow tableside dining, the deli/concessions area at MS is adjacent to the poker room, which is fine with me - and prevents me from having to deal with greasy cards and slobs who can't keep their food in their mouths at the poker table. MS also runs promotions that, while not a deal maker or breaker, I do rather like - such as, "Aces Cracked - Get a Rack!" From midnight to noon Mon-Fri, if your pocket Aces get cracked, you get a rack of whites ($100) on the spot. MS offers 24 hour sit n go's (as long as there's interest), and a solid schedule of tournament options. I think maybe I'll make a side-by-side table of what I like about these two casinos and post it, to follow.

Since I really don't care about the rest of the casino aside from the poker room, Majestic Star gets my vote.

Back to last night...

I had a much more enjoyable experience last night, sans grumpy gramps and the drunken maniacs. There was even some nice scenery to look at (read: attractive members of the male species). I didn't realize until later that I'd gotten a lovely glowing red sunburn on my nose earlier in the day, so I'm sure some guy is out there blogging about the crazy Rudolph girl who was flirting with him last night at the poker table. Nice. (I rule!!) Actually, I rarely flirt at the poker table. Sometimes I will be friendly, though (in contrast to the times when I hardly speak to anyone and just play my game in silence). Hey, I'm a rather socially awkward creature. I was friendly last night. That's about as close to flirting as I get.

It was a mostly unremarkable evening. The table was ripe for the picking (I am *really* liking this $100 max NL game. It's incredibly soft and incredibly predictable). I sat and watched a lot of chips move around the table for a while, folding my junk and silently cheering every time someone pulled out their wallet to rebuy. Eventually, I caught some of the action and was up 3 buy in's. And so appears a dilemma with no apparent answer:

Assuming you are "up" on your buy-in, when do you walk away from a juicy table?

Do you set a stop-win and walk away when you reach it, even if you're running well, catching good hands and winning pots?

Do you set a stop-loss that preserves a good amount of your profit, and walk away when you lose down to that amount (re-evaluating that stop-loss amount after a significant win)?

For me, this is a harder decision in no-limit than in limit. Or - I find it easier to set stop-loss amounts, because your involvement in a pot is, well, limited in price. When you can lose large portions of your stack (or all of it!) in any given hand, how do you measure an appropriate stop-loss amount?

For example, last night I hovered around 350 for a while. After hovering for a few orbits (and noting that it was well past 3am), I set a stop-loss of 300, with a departure time of "one more dealer" (a half hour). Of course, within that half hour, I ran into a big hand that set my stack back to 250.

I was well below my stop-loss. Leave? Or is 300 also my stop-win, meaning I should stick around and attempt to recoup back up to 300 (assuming table conditions and personal conditions are favorable - ie. I'm not sleepy, I'm not hungry, I'm still focused, and the table is still moving chips around in a satisfactory way).

I stuck around and pretty much got nowhere, leaving with 204 in my pocket (208 if you count the $4 hot dog I mogged around midnight).

I'd love to hear how you decide when to leave the table. For the record, my typical stop-win in limit holdem is doubling my buy-in (which would be a win of 20BB) and my typical stop-loss in limit is 30BB per session (though I don't always abide by the stop-win if I'm running well).

No limit? Psh. I don't know. I have yet to find something that works for me.

The highlight of my evening last night was losing the minimum possible on two hands where I felt that I made very good laydowns. Ironically, I can't remember the details of one of them - just that I remember commending myself for the decision to fold.

The one I remember wasn't anything spectacular, and can probably be critiqued by the NL experts as flawed play on my part earlier in the hand, but it indicates progress in an area that I've been weak in: over-valuing top pair in NL. That's the positive that I'm taking from the hand.
I had A9 of clubs on the button in a live-straddled pot with 2 limpers in front of me, plus the blinds and straddle to act behind me. I limped, and the blinds called, and we saw an unraised flop. The flop came 2 clubs. Straddler bet $15 into a $24 pot (=$39). 2 calls (=$69). Ballpark 2:1 odds on my flush draw (with no considering of implied odds), and I'm getting at least 4:1 on my call (though am at risk for a squeeze play raise behind me - though that was very uncommon at this table). I call. Blinds fold. $84 in the pot, and 4 players in (including myself).

Turn is an Ace of diamonds (no diamond draw onboard). I can't say that I like the Ace due to my weak kicker, but I still have the nut flush draw. Straddler bets $20 (=$104). Fold, fold. Action to me. He certainly didn't bet enough to get me off my flush draw (I need about 4:1 on my money to make the call with one card to come, and I'm getting about 5:1, plus the offhanded chance that my top pair is now good). But what did this guy bet on the flop that he can continue to bet on the turn? The Ace didn't scare him? This guy was a pretty straight-up player, though he had tried to get tricky against other players earlier in the game, and I'd seen him bet flush draws twice before.

If he's betting a flush draw, I'm golden. He straddled the hand and didn't raise it preflop, so I'm not putting him on a strong Ace, but honestly, I smelled something fishy. Two pair felt really likely here, and he bet so little on the turn it felt like he wanted me to call.

I called the $20 to see the river, hoping for a club and knowing that if one didn't hit, I had a decision to make.

The river was a brick. No club. Straddler pushed all in for $78 into a pot of $124.

I took a little while on this one. There's always that little devil on my shoulder saying, "But what if?!" - in this case, but what if my Ace was good? This is where I am commending myself on this hand - for stopping and thinking before acting. For avoiding impulse calls.

This is the hand that put me under my stop-loss. I had around 275 left on the turn. Surely I had enough chips to make the call on the end and still be even for the night. I thought about that. Then, I forced myself to use ALL of the information I had available to me. My thought process went something like this:

If I make this decision based on my desire to leave without a loss, I could still call.
If I make this decision based on the betting patterns in this hand, warning bells are going off and I should fold.
If I make this decision based on my cards and my cards only, it's a toss-up. I could call or fold.
If I make this decision on random bits of poker wisdom, I hear the mantra of "don't go broke with top pair" echoing in the distance, and I should fold.
If I make this decision based on my gut, I should fold.

The trick in any situation, I suppose, is weighing how much each of these angles is worth relative to the others.

I decided to lay it down. I had a friendly rapport with this guy, so when I acted, I said, "I'm going to let you have it," and folded my hand face-up, showing top pair. He shook his head and said, "Damn it!" with a grin on his face, and showed me A6 for two pair. He flopped middle pair and turned two pair. He shook his head and offered congratulations for a nice laydown. I considered the hand a $78 win.

I'm not sure I would do anything differently in that hand, other than possibly fold it preflop. When there are typically 6 or 7 people to a flop, though, I'm almost hoping to find suited Aces and suited connectors in the hole rather than a big pocket pair. I'm OK with seeing cheap flops in hopes of hitting a big hand or a big draw. Those seem to pay much better than the AA or KK or QQ. In fact, the old adage seems to play true in my world: you either win small pots or lose big ones with big pocket pairs. I'm comfortable enough these days with my post-flop skills (at least against the fishes) to trust myself to get away from a hand after the flop when appropriate. I don't chase ridiculous draws like I used to (you know, chasing your top pair draw with 2 overcards to the board, or chasing gutshots when the pot is laying you nowhere near what it should, or chasing a set with a pocket pair when you didn't flop it). I've been known to chase all of the above, usually due to the simple desire to win - even when there's no money in the pot.

Now, I can pretty much squelch those instincts and make decisions with my brain and not my emotions... most of the time. And I can lay down top pair. It almost feels like a milestone.

In other news... I've been running decently well on Full Tilt Poker and have decided that I'm going to attempt to withdraw some of what I've won to add to my brick and mortar bankroll. It's too typical that I go on a rush on FTP only to lose it back just as quickly. Online poker is not my specialty, and my problem seems to be that I just can't stay away from the cash games. (I do much better in the Sit n Go's, despite the fact that I much prefer cash games). So I'm going to try and outsmart myself and suck money out of my online pockets and into my B&M pockets while continuing to play SnG's online. We'll see how it goes.

That's about it for me. I've been hankering to check out Hollywood Casino in Aurora (about an hour from me, northwest instead of northeast). It looks like they only offer limit holdem, though (funny how I go through these phases - that would be a plus in my book a few months ago, and now it almost feels like a torture sentence). Someone mentioned Blue Chip Casino last night, but I think it's about 45 minutes from the Indiana boats, making it more like an hour and 45 minutes from home for me. Probably too far for a random Monday jaunt, and probably better suited for an overnight trip. Plus, I'm a little sleep deprived today and would not want to be in the position to drive that far home (the road is hypnotic when I'm sleepy).

So, I'm not sure if there's any poker in my future today. Actually, I'm a bit hungry. I'm thinking Subway...

An addendum to my post re: Majestic last night:

Friggin' learn the rules of showdown!! Flip your friggin' cards when you're supposed to! (I'm speaking to the collection of fine poker players I encountered last night, as well as anybody else who doesn't know the rules for showing your hand at showdown in holdem).

The last player to bet or raise on the river shows his hand first at showdown.

Even if someone else was doing the betting and raising preflop, on the flop, and on the turn.

If nobody bets or raises on the river betting round (ie. it is checked around), the first player to the left of the dealer shows first, and showing of cards continues clockwise around the table.

Even if someone else was doing the betting and raising preflop, on the flop, and on the turn.

Please, please, please learn this rule and stop wasting time at showdown hoping your opponent will show first. There are rules for this. If you are supposed to show your cards first, SHOW YOUR CARDS FIRST! Just do it. It's the rules.

/end rant

Sorry, it's one of my pet peeves when a bunch of players just sit there like morons waiting for the other players to show first. It's a waste of time, and I hate wasting time at the poker table!

And, by the way, there is no TV table at $100-max NL.

/end snottiness

I spent the night at Majestic Star last night (literally, driving home around 6:30am). I got there around 8:45pm and had my name on the lists for 3/6 LHE and the $100 max NLHE games (planning to, worst case, play 3/6 until an NL seat opened up). After waiting in line for 15 minutes to check in, there was a seat immediately available in NL - sweet! - except that there wasn't. I'd gone to the cage, gotten chips, and headed to table 11, where I had been assigned - and there was no seat. 15 minutes of following the floor guy around later, he finally got me back on the list, though 3rd on the list instead of 1st, where I should have been. Whatever. This guy reminded me of Frankenstein.

A little after 10pm, I finally got seated. A qualifier tourney for the Heartland Poker Tour was just wrapping up, and the place was packed. I haven't been to Majestic (formerly Trump) in a while, and noticed that they put video poker machines in the little deli/concessions area just outside the poker room. Thanks a lot for the temptation, guys. (My general rule is to only play video poker - or any other casino games besides poker - in Vegas).

My table was a nightmare of troublemakers. We had the typical cranky old man, who called the floor every other hand (and was always wrong, despite his very loud declarations about playing this game for god knows how long and knowing the rules inside and out). There was the typical drunk and disorderly guy, talking way too loud, swearing constantly, and picking fights with other players (including the cranky old man), which of course resulted in more calls of the floor management. There was the token "I want you to review the tapes!" incident, invoked by a guy who then of course couldn't stop talking about the hand for the next four hours. (Lucky for me, he was seated to my right).

To get to the nut of the story before I go rambling on (for those who just want to know if I won or lost), I left up about $60, which was disappointing considering I was up a bit more and suffered some brutal rivers. (I am wearing my "F*cking River" t-shirt as we speak). It made for a quite awful win rate (I think I played for 8 hours or so), but what the hell. Up is up, right? I think I may be heading out there again Sunday night with my friend Ed (of Diamond Game and Nice Table game fame).

My first rambley point is that I think I prefer the raked NL game versus paying time in an NL game. My previous trips to Majestic (when it was Trump) to play NL were timed games. You paid $7 or something like that every half hour. (Looks like they currently charge $8/half hour on their timed games). I was playing in the baby-NL game last night (ya know, tippie toes when moving back into the NL cash games), with $1/2 blinds. $3/round is veeeery cheap for us rock-types who like to fold a lot, and it's also veeery cheap for us rock types that like to see cheap flops with Negreanu hands. (ie., it's veeery cheap for me!). It was also helpful NOT to be paying time, considering the number of times we had to sit with no action waiting for floor decisions and discipline of unruly players and other such interruptions. (Srsly, it was an AWFUL table in that regard).

The incident I mentioned re: reviewing the video tapes is one that warrants mention, if only for the lesson it teaches. I think we all need this reminder every so often, even if only to reinforce our current standards of practice.

Two guys were in a pot: I will call them Vic and Disorderly. Preflop, flop, turn, lots of betting. River. Vic bets out $40. Disorderly calls the bet. Neither man flips his cards. Dealer scolds the men and tells them to show their cards. (This had been going on all night, and I'm not quite sure how any of our dealers refrained from wringing the necks of these guys). Disorderly (who had called the river bet) waves his hands over his cards. I wish you could just see the hand motion I'm doing right now, but imagine that you're in a restaurant, and you've just tasted a mighty foul morsel of food on your plate. Imagine the hand motion you'd make to the waiter to say, "Get this nasty ass food away from me!" That sort of, palms-down, flick of the fingers sort of thing.

However, Disorderly didn't touch his cards when he did this. He waved his hands over his cards, as if to flick them away from him - but the never touched his cards and his cards never crossed the betting line.

Vic, taking this hand-flick to mean that Disorderly surrendered his hand, tossed his cards forward toward the dealer, face-down. The dealer immediately mucked Vic's cards and declared Disorderly the winner. Vic immediately protested, saying he had Ace-King for top pair, kings, and if the dealer would only look at the top two cards in the muck, he'd see that Vic was the winner. Disorderly then got out of hand, and lunged forward on the table, scooping the pot away from the dealer and into his own stack (despite the dealer currently working to resolve the situation with Vic, calling the floor).

In the end, of course, Disorderly won the pot, because Vic mucked his cards. Dealers are not allowed to take cards out of the muck. Hand mucked: Hand dead.

Lesson here: Never, never, never, ever surrender your cards to the dealer until the pot has been pushed to you. HOLD ON TO YOUR CARDS. No matter what the back story is, the baseline rule here is always the same: it is the player's responsibility to protect his or her own cards.

There are a lot of angles to this rule, including some peoples' preference not to show their winning hands after an opponent has mucked, but even in those cases - you should STILL hold on to your cards until the dealer has confirmed you as the winner and the pot is safely in front of you. THEN toss your cards to the dealer.

As an aside to this story - I really don't like to see players flip their cards up at showdown and toss them forward towards the dealer, especially when 2 or more players are in this habit. Heaven forbid your cards get mixed up with an opponent's cards, or unintentionally hit the muck. Your hand could easily be ruled dead. I've seen it happen with over-anxious players flipping up the nuts so quickly that they mistakenly muck their hands. Just stick to the golden rule: hold on to your cards. Flip them face up for showdown right in front of you. Don't toss them out into the open. Don't throw them to the dealer, even face up. Keep your cards in your possession until you know for certain the outcome of the hand. Do not release your cards.

There's a bit to be said for the "always show your cards at showdown" rule as well, particularly for newer players (or drunk players or half-asleep players), because your cards speak for themselves. You might misread the board or your hole cards and think you have nothing, when in reality you spiked that Ace on the river but were too sleepy to notice. You'll win the pot if you show the winning hand, even if you said "I've got nothing." If you think you lost and muck your cards, though, well, you lose. I personally don't always stick to this rule (thinking I'm so sneaky to conceal my starting hands from all of the donks who aren't keeping track of me anyway), but there are certainly times when I probably should.

Of course, most of you probably play online, where none of this is an issue.

This is one reason why I so much prefer playing live to online. There are so many intricacies to the game of poker when played live that just never come into play online. I find it so much more enjoyable to play live - even if it's a slower game than online.

There's definitely some money to be made in that baby-NL game. My first impression is that most players have no idea what they're doing (based on bet sizes and the atrocious hand selection practices of my table mates last night). There are a lot of people playing tournament-strategy (having learned poker by watching the WPT on television), and lots of all-in's with top pair and such. I'm highly pleased with my first trip to this game, even if the river did kick my ass.

Pocket kings did me wrong last night. I raised to $12 (the average "high" raise for the table, 6xbb) preflop and got one caller. Flop came 8-4-2 rainbow. I bet out $20. Call. Turn came a 2. I bet $60. Opponent pushed all in for $97 more (so, there was about $180 in the pot, and I owed $97 to see the river). Two spades onboard and the pair of deuces at this point. Did donkface call my PFR with a 2 in his hand? This was shortly after a table move, so I had no info on the guy. Pocket 8's or 4's? Straight or flush draw? $97 was about a third of my remaining stack, and I was getting around 2:1 on the call. I called.

He showed A-8 for top pair, 8's with top kicker.

And then the Ace hit on the river.

Blah.

Earlier in the night, I was involved in a big 3-way pot when I flopped a set of 3's and ended up getting both of my opponents all in on the turn. Well, actually my bet put one opponent all in, and the other had $38 left, which he pushed all in over the top of my bet. The board was A-3-J-10, and when he went all in, he said, "Please don't pair the board!" Of course, I knew he had KQ for the straight, but there was easily over $300 (probably closer to $400) in the pot at that point, and for $38, I'll try for the boat. In fact, he did have the KQ (the other guy had a naked Ace). That was a pretty big hit to my stack too.

I was pleased with the number of pots I picked up in position by betting because nobody else was. They're small, but I'm pretty sure those orphan pots add up over time, and why let them go to someone else's stack when they could so easily be in mine?

Again, I'm faced with the luck factor: playing against a bunch of scoobies can feel like taking candy from a baby - but, the more scoobies you have at your table, the more crazy hands you're up against. The more chasers you play with, the more likely it is that they'll outrun you with their lucky catches.

So, which is better? To play with people that don't play well, or to play with more experienced players?

I waffle back and forth with this one a lot, but for now, I'm going to get out my scooby snacks and swim with the fishes. Just call me sharky! (Ha!!)

A strange phenomenon has been going on for the past month or so. I've been playing a lot of NLHE sit n' go's. That's not suuuuuuuper-strange, but usually I'm running a 3/6 limit table alongside my NL SnG's. Not so.

Lately, I've been running a .50/1.00 NL table alongside my NL SnG's... and doing alright.

I played 9 hours of 5/10 limit holdem at Empress Casino the other day. It was such an unspectacular session that I have no stories to tell - except for this one WPT-wannabe kid who had been a poker room rat for the past 6 weeks, spending 20 hours a day playing poker. He was up $1,800 that day (I admit being jealous), but said that with that day's win, he was only up $200 for the past week. Yowza. (Where do these kids get this kind of money?? He couldn't have been much over 21... though I guess living with the parents is an option at that age). Anyway, he kept yammering on about every single hand, giving advice and explaining how he would play various hands. He was an alright kid, though it took all of my willpower not to correct him every time he referred to a bet on the flop from a preflop raiser as a "Continuous Bet."

A continuous bet... ahhh, the kids these days.

9 hours of limit holdem would normally throw me head-first into a huge desire to play MORE limit holdem. However, all I can think about is hitting up Majestic Star II for... their NL cash game.

I know, I know - believe me, the KK Quandary (and its resolution) is still fresh in my mind - a year and a half later.

Could it be that I'm just cyclic in my desires for limit vs. NL?

I hit up Empress today, hoping to continue the string of good vibes I was on from last night. Things started out well, and I was up $100 quickly. Then, I ran into the worst player at the table... again and again and again.

AQo. I hit the flop with TPTK. I turn trip Queens. I lose to Scooby's runner-runner flush, which he chased from the flop with no pair and only the backdoor draw with 2-3 of hearts.

ATs. I hit the flop with top pair, tens. I lose to Scooby on the river when he hits his 2nd pair with the T5 soooooted.

Another ATs. I hit the flop with top two pair, aces and tens. I lose when the board comes 3-4-5, and of course Scooby's K2 makes the straight. I mean, seriously? What are you chasing on a flop of A-3-10 when all you have is a backdoor straight draw? There's not even an overcard to hope for.

The guy was an absolute moron. By the time the afternoon ended, he had bought in for $1,100 at 5/10 limit. Unfortunately for me, he also moved a hell of a lot of my chips around the table as well.

I rarely went to showdown with less than two pair, and I just got picked off left and right. The Scoobys were biting back today.

I did get an opportunity to hang out a little bit with my friend Tilty McTilt. I haven't seen her in a while. It seems, though, that my reformed version of tilt (reformed from the Shellmuth days) is at least predictable. The primary symptom of my reformed tilt is that my starting hand selection opens up to include suited one-gappers ranging from 4-6 to 8-T. I don't know why, but that's me on tilt. Lots of limping with one-gappers.

I saw a ridiculous number of one-gappers late in the day today.

Needless to say, yesterday's profits are now just a frivolous memory, and my wounded pride will limp through the weekend pondering my fate.

I could really use a weekend in Vegas right about now.

Who's house? Run's house...

Yeah, that's right. I'm back in black.

I finally got seated at the 5/10 limit holdem table at Empress around 11pm. It turns out that I waited for a seat almost as long as I actually played, leaving somewhere around 3am. I'm glad I waited, though. Had I gone to Indiana, I would be sitting in a traffic jam on the Indiana toll road right now. (Even iPass can't save me in that case). Instead, I'm not only already home, but I've made myself a snack, pet the cats, and got into my pajamas. Life is good.

My night didn't start off on this chipper note. By the time I'd gotten seated, most of the table had turned over and players weren't nearly as loose as when I'd been observing. I was glad to take the 1o seat, though, as it had done well for the aforementioned sharky regular.

Since the table was a bit tight, I was playing a bit loose, and unfortunately for me I was nailing second-best-hand after second-best-hand (the ol' flopped straight losing to a flush bit, etc). By the time dealer Don arrived, I was on my way to coughing up a buy-in. With dealer Don, though, also came the proverbial loosening of the belts, and we were seeing a lot more people to the flops. Nice.

As I got low on chips, I weighed my options. The table had money on it. The money was moving around. It was definitely not time to leave. I hit up the ATM and stopped by the cage to get me some more reds. The cage cashier remembered me from my first buy in and asked, "What are you playing?" I said, "Poker." He said, "That's your problem. You should be playing blackjack." I said, "Oh hell no!" He informed me that he had given me the "lucky ones" this time, and sent me on my way.

I got back to the table just in time to play under the gun, and I took the hand. Bang bang! Bullets it is! I made out in a sick way, turning a full house against a couple opponents who called me down. I wish I could be more specific, but all I remember is patting myself on the back for my glorious timing as I scooped a nice $150 or so pot. Huey Lewis was on the radio.

That's the power of love, baby.

The family pots continued, and a few of my hands managed to hold up, bringing me to a 10BB profit for the night over 4 hours of play. Hey - I'll settle for "average." That's perfectly fine with me! Give me 2BB/hour any day and you'll see me dance a little jig through the tunnel and out of the casino. (This blog's namesake was on the radio as I departed this evening - and yes, I really did dance a little bit of a jig).

In the "plugging leaks" category, I only paid off one hand tonight that I shouldn't have paid off, where I knew I was beat but paid to see it anyway. In that same vein, every time I laid down a decent hand like TPGK to a coordinated board, I was right on and was absolutely beat. I went a little too far a couple times with low pocket pairs, but when it's 2 or 3 bet preflop with 8 people in, it's hard not to justify seeing the turn for five bucks.

Those Aces were the only big hand I saw. Lots of baby pocket pairs did a whole lotta nothing for me, but I'd rather that than get sucked out on.

All in all, a good night. I have to wake up in 6 hours to attend a webinar for work, and my hope is that I can get my ass moving early enough to get to Empress early enough to make it worth my while. (They close the poker room at 6pm on Fridays). It is so lovely to play poker 15 minutes from home. Hallelujah!

With that, I am off to dream of dancing sugarplums and Broadway on Fifth Street.

Cmon, someone leave! I'm next!



A guy that checked in AFTER me (though we both were on the board for the same time) just got seated before me, which kinda sucks, but we were chatting poker a bit over the past 3 hours and I fully expect to be holding a sizable chunk of his chips an hour from now.



The any-ace regular is still at the table, as is one of the sharky regulars. There's your usual "I'll pay ya off cuz I like you" guy, and a WPT champ with the hellmuthian shades.



If all remains as is, I'll be the only girl in the room. That's generally the way I like it.



The Bangles are on the radio. Hazy shade of winter. It certainly is.



Damn I just got all excited. They called a name... For 10/20, booo! Hehe



I am ready to rumble! My ass is going to appreciate getting off this wooden bench. My brain is going to appreciate something slightly more challenging than playing Brick Breaker on my Blackberry. My thumbs are going to appreciate not typing on this thing anymore!



I do <3 my Blackberry. Most certainly.



C'mon, chant with me: Give Shelly a seat! Give Shelly a seat! Throw me some mojo!



You guys rule. :)

One might think that my extended silence indicates that I've been seated at the only 5/10 poker table at empress.

Nope.

I'm 13th on the list now. There are a bunch of low stacks and cranky old men who look ready to leave.

Looks like I'll be pulling the poker night shift.

I originally hoped to be seated by 10pm, but I think I'm going to have to bump that to 11pm.

I've been waiting too long to give up now!

They just flew thru 3 names on the list. There is hope. Always hope.

I couldn't read any blogs. The cell signal in this dungeon is too intermittant to permit comfortable web browsing. So I'll type till my thumbs fall off.

There are an average of 7 people to each flop on the 5/10 table. Squishy! And the donkeys keep reloading. Normally that would be a good thing, but not now! I don't have a seat!

I'm 18th on the list after an hour. It's likely that a lot of the people on the list are phantom names, so realistically I'm probably 12th or so. Still, nobody is moving. My only hope is that these guys have wives waiting at home that will kick their asses if they don't make it home to tuck the kids into bed. My hope is that, come 9pm or so, the turnover will begin. I mean, hell - these people have to get up for work in the morning, right?

Chances are slim that I'll play poker tonight. I'm sitting at Empress right now, on the list for 5/10 holdem. Ninteenth on the list. 1-9. 19. They're running ONE table. Uno. 1. One 5/10 table, that is. The no-limit game is running, taking up what is normally the 2nd 5/10 table.

I could get in my car, drive the hour to indiana, and probably be seated and playing cards faster than I'll get my seat here.

I thought of going to indiana instead after work, but the lure of a quick drive home post-session sucked me in. Now I wonder if I'll get a session in at all.

I see some familiar faces at the table. I like that, because I've been rather successful at Empress in the past, and I'd love to see that nothing has changed in that regard.

This place is still smokey as hell. The air quality is atrocious. I can almost feel the cancer growing in my lungs as we speak. Anything for a juicy card game, though - right?

A rather bored and frustrated looking poker regular just shuffled by. He must be on the list, too.

If the 10/20 list was any better, I might ponder tiptoe-ing into that game for a swim... But that list sucks too.

I just burped out loud. Whoops.

I had a turkey sandwich down at the Empress deli when I got here. Besides being a little pricy, it wasn't a bad sammy.

I haven't heard a single name called for the poker room in 20 minutes. This is not good.

I think I'll read some poker blogs. I'll be back, if I don't die of boredome first!

With a new year comes a new poker spreadsheet.

For 2007, I decided to do a bit more analysis on my data. In my 2006 spreadsheet, I had the ability to view how much money I had won or lost on any given weekday as well as a $/hour rate for each weekday. For 2007, I further broke this up into locations. So, I can see how much money and $/hour I won at Resorts on Fridays, or at Empress on Wednesdays, for example.

I got to play around with the conditional sum wizard in Excel - something new for me. Aside from the apparent inability to just copy/paste a cell that was developed using that wizard, it worked quite well.

I hacked on my 2006 spreadsheet to make sure my formulas were working correctly, and in doing so I had some numbers to ponder.

My overall win rate at 5/10 limit holdem (brick-and-mortar, not online) in 2006 was $15/hour. At Empress, my win rate was $29/hour, and at Resorts, it was $-12/hour.

Hmmm.

That would seem to say to me, stop playing at Resorts! I do love the atmosphere there, and the joy of using my iPod is a big selling point.

What if... What if... I went back to Majestic Star (formerly Trump)? I've been boycotting them ever since Trump sold to MJ. In fact, I don't think I played at MJ a single time in 2006. I hear they have $5/10 limit now, though I haven't confirmed. I was in the black at Trump, too, back in the day.

That sure would mean a lot more hacking on my spreadsheet.

Well, that's not how I wanted to ring in 2007 on the poker front.

I couldn't resist the urge to play yesterday. I went and bought an iPass (the device that lets us use the open-road tolling on the tollways around here) and headed out to Resorts East Chicago (since Empress closes at 6pm on Fridays).

I have to say, I tend to fare better at Empress. I'm not sure exactly why. The Resorts $5/10 game has the same mix of fish and regulars, but I think as a whole the regulars are of higher quality at Resorts. Some may play very loose-aggressive, but they don't give their opponents action when they're on the defensive. I suppose that is the way to play LAG poker, but I certainly hate not getting paid off when I manage to spike a hand against them. I also seem to get much more unlucky at Resorts than at Empress. That's an intangible and probably a myth in my mind, but it seems real all the same.

I ended up dropping the requisite 30 big bets over 10 hours of play before calling it a night at Resorts. At one time, my final rebuy allowed me to earn back 10BB, but that dribbled away as I tried to catch a comeback wave. Howard Lederer once said, if you lose 30 big bets in a session, it's time to get up from the table. It's just not your day. That is my rule of thumb. Sometimes, I'll walk away at even a 20BB loss, but if the table is ripe... I'll stick around and use 30BB as my stop-loss.

This table was indeed ripe, particularly towards the wee hours of the morning. There's definitely something to be said for the strategy of showing up when the pool of players is good and drunk. I watched several people go from being decently solid players to absolute fools over the course of 10 hours.

The cast of characters remained relatively stable for my entire stay at Table #4. To my left was a guy named Patrick, who started out quite gentlemanly but seemed to be rather blatantly hitting on me by the end of the evening. Then came Bob in the striped shirt - a solid player who succumbed to what might has well have been an IV tap of Miller Lite into his veins. The 10 seat was a revolving door - but always had a girl in it. To my right was an old cranky guy (eventually replaced by Patrick), and to his right was "the west side" of the table.

The West Side was a bunch of apparent misfits who liked to chat it up. The 1 seat started off with a guy named Jesse, who was buying drinks for the entire table. He was on quite a roll to start out the night, but ended up felted by a guy I referred to as Earl in my head. Have you ever seen the show "My Name is Earl?" Yeah, Earl. You know. Jason Leigh's character. This guy looked just like him (a bit older and a bit less attractive, but there was a resemblance all the same), and he acted like Earl, minus the mission to become a better man.

To Earl's left was a guy whose name I cannot remember. He was a fireman and had apparently been in an accident of some kind, as he had horrible scars from apparent burns on his face and hands. He became the juiciest of them all as he got more and more drunk as the night wore on. Jim sat to Fireman's left - a quiet, sort of nerdy guy who quickly proved to be your garden variety calling station.

I don't think any of my opponents were particularly good poker players. Bob and Patrick were probably the best at the table, though Bob got worse as his eyes glazed over in alcoholic bliss, and Patrick got worse as he went on tilt from bouts of awful luck.

Jesse was a crafty player, and probably fared better at no-limit. In one hand, he raised preflop, and 4 of us saw the flop. It came an uncoordinated bunch of blanks, for which I'd flopped 3rd pair. It checked around, and the turn brought an Ace. When everyone checked to me, I bet out, representing the Ace, and Jesse raised me. I laid my hand down with a grin, smirking, "Nice AK. You got an extra $10 out of me." Sure enough, he showed me his AK. I said, "I know! Why do you think I folded?" with a smile. Most of the time, I think crafty play is wasted at these low buy in limit tables. Jesse did manage to get me to position-bet that Ace, though.

Earl racked up a sick number of chips throughout the night. Eventually, the guy was raising nearly every hand he was in, and was making mad hands with 45o and other such gems. It was his night, for sure. He was responsible for cracking my flopped set of 7's with 94o on a board that looked like 7-8-K-T-6. He went a long way for that gutshot, but like I said - it was his night. If I was hitting like crazy as he was, maybe I'd chase everything too. He also cracked my AA and my QQ - once with a straight with 86o and once with a wacky 2 pair. Earl was drinking CC and ginger ale like it was water, and I really wanted to stick around and get some of those chips back from him. His luck started to slow around 3am, and if only I wasn't ready to pass out from hunger, I might have played a little longer. Earl had about $800 in front of him when I left at 4am.

My table was a bit feisty. Patrick and Earl got into verbal sparring matches a few times, as Patrick took beat after beat from the Jason Leigh look-alike. After the cranky old man felted, we got a loud and proud African American fellow named T. He sure was fired up! He had some booze in him, and I'd venture to bet some wacky tobacc-y as well (since the aura of scent that surrounded him sent me back in my mind to many a Dave Matthews Band show). He was constantly yelling at Earl, and chattering about how the people at this table were idiots, raising preflop. "Why would anybody raise preflop?" he asked. "You have no idea what cards are coming! Why waste your money when you don't know if you're gonna hit it! Raising with 66. You people are fools!" (sprinkle in some F-bombs for flavor). Eventually his taunting turned to tilt, and he started raising every hand. I would have loved to consider him a blessing to the table, but he literally talked so constantly and so loudly that my left ear was ringing. (He sat directly to my left after Patrick moved to my right, trying to change his luck). Nothing against T - he was generally a very polite guy (aside from the repeated F-bombs) - but man... shhhhhhhhh!

I thought I was going to leave last night with a phone number in hand. Patrick was a nice guy, and I enjoyed chatting with him throughout the evening. He started out very polite, apologizing when his leg would bump mine under the table. By the end of the night, one of the dealers had assumed we were dating, and Patrick was making efforts to find reasons to squeeze my leg under the table. It was harmless flirting, but I was admittedly playing the cool-as-a-cucumber thing, maybe a little of the hard-to-get thing (maybe because I'm neither looking for any sort of serious relationship right now nor a poker room bootie call).

He was asking all of those get-to-know-you questions throughout the night, and at one point was trying to wrangle my words into some sort of invitation to come over to my house. To that, I laughed and said something like, "I don't know about an invitation, but if you're nice enough, I'll let you call me." heheheh I have to laugh out loud at myself sometimes. I was definitely acting like I was all that and a bag of chips, but what the hell. He was all about the Pringles.

At the end of the night, Patrick was down on his luck, and I really had to hit the road (as my commute takes a good 45 minutes, even with the glory of open road tolling). Around 4am, Patrick felted and went back to the ATM, and the big blind got around to me, I announced my departure from the table. I gathered my things and headed towards the cage to cash in my remaining chips. I ran into Patrick on the way. Here's where I thought he'd ask for my number, but instead he said, "Get home safely," and kept walking. I continued on, and as he passed me, he hesitated and said something like, "I'd hug you..." I'm sure there was supposed to be a "but..." on the end there, and as I looked back he looked awkward and confused. I waved and kept walking.

Maybe if I was looking for love at the casino, I'd have taken the lead and given him my number. The irony is not lost on me, however, that the last time I found love 4 years ago was also at a casino. That didn't work out so well. (Randy and I remain great friends, but I honestly thought I'd get a husband out of that deal - not just a friend). So, I'll paint myself flattered that Patrick was interested in me, and apologize to no one in particular for not at least giving Patrick an out there. I wouldn't have minded exchanging numbers with him. He seemed like a nice guy, and good looking for my taste. There's a tiny bit of guilt in the back of my mind for leaving him high and dry like that.

But not too much guilt. Here's a tip for the guys: I know it's 2007 and women can be equal to men and all that jazz, but 99% of the time it is STILL appropriate for YOU to do the asking for phone numbers! I may be a model of the modern independent woman, but damn it... I don't want to do all the work. Grow a set and ask for my number, if that's what you want.

And that concludes my day at Resorts. I'm itching to go back and see if I can't rectify that -30BB thing this afternoon, but there's a winter storm warning for the Chicago area, and they expect an ice storm this evening into tomorrow. That's probably not the wisest time to head out on the roads, but the worst of this is supposed to hit north of here, with only rain south of here. The dividing line of this storm is I-80, and I-80 is exactly the road I need to travel to get to the boats. I live barely on the south side of I-80. Should I stay or should I go...