Hella Hold'em

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...

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...

Resorts update: it's not going too well. I'm hitting sets with my low pairs and picking up JJ+ preflop, but they're all getting crushed. There's money to be had if I could just outrun the scoobs.

I'm not out yet, and I will use the fact that I just heard uncensored Green Day on the lower deck as my inspiration to go kick some ass.

PS - I've managed to be nice, and even have a guy buying me drinks. Diet cokes, but hey... Drinks are drinks!

Waiting at Resorts East Chicago for my poker seat at 5/10 LHE. The ride here was incredibly smooth for a Friday rush hour, thanks to my shiny new iPass. I'm 7th on the list, and they've got 2 tables going. It doesn't sound like another table is opening for an hour or so, and likely I'll be waiting that whole hour. The list already has 20 names after me, so I think my timing was as good as it could have been, short of arriving at noon.

It's been a long time since I've been to a poker room. I'm trying to remember the last time. I definitely haven't been here since July, when I put my old house on the market for sale. That's been 7 months right there. I hope I remember how to do this!

Strategies?

1. Don't pay off people who likely hold the goods.
2. Raise my OESD's and flush draws.
3. Don't chase unless I've got the pot odds to do so.
4. Don't bother playing fancy against the scoobies. They're too ignorant to notice and they don't know how or when to lay down a hand.
5. Position position position.
6. Go after those orphan pots! I'm a good mommy to orphan chips, for sure.
7. Be nice. Stop glaring at people. You attract more scoobies with honey.
8. Smell like a girl. Yup, got that one covered. Mmmmm moonlight path.
9. Hide the Full Tilt Poker jacket. This is my first time here. Really.

The very nice security guard suggested I go sit down at one of the open tables instead of standing in the waiting area. I thanked him and took him up on the offer.now I can enjoy smoke free air while reading the CNN headlines.

I'm glad I remembered my iPod. It seems like it might be an iPod kind of night.

Is there nothing more important going on in this country than pop stars going wacko? And damn, does she look ugly as a bald chick. This might make me a horrible person, but there's something warm and fuzzy about one of the formerly Beautiful People turning ugly. Boohoo. Too much money, too much fame, too many opportunities to make your life and those of your children great. It must be rough.

A chatty and not handsome at all guy just sat down next to me. Oh lord. Here we go. Please call my name soon!