First Trip to Commerce

[Bargon]

Last night I finally made it to Commerce.

I wasn't one of the folks in town for the WPT tourney. I was in the Irvine area on business. I usually play at a variety of B&Ms in Northern California, so I was very interested in the Commerce "experience."

I arrived around 7:30 and after about 15 minutes I was seated in a must-move 20-40 game. I was tingling with anticipation for the "action" games that I've heard so much about on the forums.

Well, as you may expect from my sarcasm, my first game was one of the tightest I've ever played in, either live or online. Very few pots with more than 2 people to the flop and more than likely there was a chop or a blind steal. I was starting to wonder if the games were going to be worth my 90 minute drive in LA traffic.

I played about three hands in 45 minutes- won 1 and lost 2. None were particularly interesting. Both hands that I lost were to the same person. Both times I flopped tp/tk (AKo and AQs) but lost to a set. The guy who won both hands was a rock. In fact, rock doesn't do justice to this guy. He was such a big rock that we should call him a boulder. If you look up rock in the dictionary, there is a picture of this guy mucking a hand. He just happened to play and win the only two hands that I was in. The first time I paid him off to the river. The second time I let it go on the flop when he three-bet me out of position. After I folded he showed me his set of Jacks.

I was down about $250 when I left the must move. No big loss, but I was looking for action and this wasn't it.

The second table was MUCH better. Although the WPT is in town, it seemed like my table was packed with grumpy locals. Except for one guy, I was the youngest person at the table by 25 years (i'm 35). As Tommy Angelo would say, this table was limpy-loose, with 4 or 5 seeing the flop for 1 bet.

I won a few hands without showing down. People were respecting my raises a little too much... UNTIL one particular hand. Four people limped in and I looked down at my big blind to find J10s. I raised because I liked my odds with this kind of drawing hand with 5 way action, and, darn it, I just felt like it. I flopped two of my suit on a 7 high flop and bet out the whole way. I hit a flush on the river and was raised by a guy who rivered a straight (he put me on an over pair). I three bet and he called down. The whole table started immediately started talking sh*t about the fact that I raised from the BB with a less than premium hand. I remained silent.

“I folded a better hand than that pre-flop!”
“He doesn’t know how to play! “
“He doesn’t know anything about the value of position!”
“His J10s can win, but my Aces have been cracked three times tonight!”


The very next time I had the BB the guy who rivered a straight in the last hand raised. Button and SB both called. I called one more bet from the big blind with 65s. To make a long story short, the flop comes Ad 5d 5s, and my trips hold up against his AKs to take down a 16BB pot. After showing down the river, the whole table starts cursing (mostly in a foreign language that I don’t understand), and the other guy shifts into "wild ass monkey tilt (WAMT)." I have never seen so many table coaches in my life!

At that moment and for the next several minutes, I was "ruthlessly" silent.

For the rest of the night, I went back to playing premium hands and got WAY too much action. WAMT guy raised every time I was in the BB and called every one of my raises and three-bets with hands like K7o, J8s, 74s. I was always very polite, I never said a negative thing to anyone criticizing my play, and I even said “nice hand” a few times to other people.

Final Results: won $1600 in 5 hours and enjoyed myself. Will definitely return because the action is great, but I’d also like to have a table that is a little less grumpy next time. However, given a choice between fun table and profitable table, I’ll choose profitable almost every time.

Hope my first trip report wasn’t too boring.

Bargon

[IHateKeithSmart]

[ QUOTE ]
If you look up rock in the dictionary, there is a picture of this guy mucking a hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is probably old, but I laughed.

Nice report Bargon. I'm going to be in Pasadena on business later this month and plan on doing the obligatory LA poker room tour.

[Bargon]

Glad it made you laugh. Not sure where I got that one, but I'm sure you are right and it's an old one that I picked up from somewhere.

I obviously picked up limpy-loose and ruthless silence from Tommy and I picked up wild ass monkey tilt from one of the many variations of monkey tilt from other folks in the forums.

Good luck at the tables!