Micro Niagara Trip 10/20-10/22 or so

[MrWookie]

Trip report coming later today.

[tehox]

[ QUOTE ]
Trip report coming later today.

[/ QUOTE ]

I want to hear about 5/5NL. I apologize again for gheying out, though rest assured I have had an unpleasent weekend.

[MrWookie]

Niagara Trip Report

Friday:

I woke up cottonmouthed and feeling like hell. As I surveyed the damage from the previous night, I didn't find much except that my keyboard didn't work. I must have spilled some wine on it, and only a little bit. Only the ESC key was sticky, but that was enough to fry the piece of junk into worthlessness. I didn't think I had had consumed all that much, but that beer was really, really strong. Just today, though, I found a half a bottle of wine I didn't remember opening, so that was no doubt part of the problem, too. Oh well. Life goes on. Now I just have to be productive in lab. I got a few things done, got my balla roll together ($2500, rubber band again, 100% brand new hundos), had donuts w/ my lab, and ducked out at about 4. I wanted to get on the road earlier, but not only did I have lab stuff, I also had to get gas and get a new air filter for my car, so I was much later than I wanted to be.

This time, my ride to Niagara was perfectly uneventful. I arrived about 6:45, got in line to get a player's club card, and went to the poker "section" (it's not really a separate room) to see if I saw any familiar faces. Definitely get the players card if you play here. Not only do you get decent if unspectacular comps for your play, but if you show your card, parking is free. When I was w/ Jax the first time, parking was $10. When I returned, they had jacked it up to $20 just in time for the tourney. Clever, eh? Anyway, I had no idea what Smurph looked like, so I figured I would just make myself conspicuous and hope for the best. I was also sporting my Sup Bro? t-shirt in the hopes that it might help me meet up with any other forum members who happened to be there. It didn't, but I do run better when wearing it:

Prior lifetime live poker earnings when wearing my Sup Bro shirt: ~ +$750
Lifetime live poker earnings without it: ~ -$500
And you bet your ass my sample size is converged.

I give up on spotting people, so I head down to the pub for dinner and pint. The food at this place is quite expensive, but the pub is probably the most reasonable. You do alright for a roughly $10-$12 plate and a $6-7 beer. I had the fish and chips, and a pint of Rickard's Red. RR was fairly uninspired red ale: [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] and a half [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. Fish and chips were solid, but the coleslaw wasn't. Oh well. After this, it was back to the poker area.

As Smurph said, they now have an electronic list. This removed what was probably my biggest complaint about the place. Now, all they have to do is add more tables. Their 16 tables were really not able to handle the load tonight. The lists for almost all games extended beyond the limits of their screens. They could have filled 30 tables no problem. They were spreading 1/2 NL, 5/5 NL, 5/10 NL, and 10/25 NL with a full interest list of big names (as Smurph mentioned) for 50/100 NL. I'm not sure if it ever lit off. If it did, it was in another room, because no one ever saw any of the big name pros that night. The only limit game they were running was 20/40. I was tempted to play in it, but it was not meant to be. I met up with Smurph shortly after I came back, and we decided that this was not the place to play. We were told that Casino Niagara was going to be opening up some 5/5 NL tables to handle the demand (they normally spread only like 1/2 and 2/5, along with the small limit games), but we opted to try Seneca Niagara and their newly redone room.

Seneca's poker room is really hidden away from most of the casino. Smurph and I wandered all over the whole casino looking for it before we asked security. We had to go down the elevator and then down the hall. Who knew? It makes the room nice and quiet, and away from all the smoke, but it probably features fewer people wandring in after running hot at blackjack. The room was spreading 2/4, 3/6, and 5/10 limit, 1/2, 2/5, and 5/10 NL, 1-5 stud, some form of Omaha, and 2/4 crazy pineapple of all things. I thought about having some fun at 2/4 CP, but with Smurph's roll as it was, I decided against it. If I can get some other more highly rolling board members out to that area again, sitting a few of us in that game could be a lot of fun.

I decided I wanted to play some 3/6 with Smurph, but we got seated at 2/4 sooner. At different tables. I got stuck in the 2 seat, but at least it wasn't the 1 seat, I suppose. There was an old guy behind me with a massive stack, and it only took a few hands to see it was because he was an equally massive luckbox, not that he was remotely skilled. By the time I left, I had seen him win several good sized pots having made massive mistakes and horrendous suckouts along the way. We were 4-6 to the flop in unraised pots pretty consistently. People would limp with just about anything and then fold the flop. I won some pots where I bet AK hits TPTK all the way to the river and won, but that's about as interesting as my hands got here. I flagged down Smurph when the 10 seat opened up a few orbits after I sat down, and he was fortunate enough to get the table change. We never ended up tangling, though. I played for 3-4 more orbits before I requested a change to 2/5 NL, having won about $40.

My 2/5 table was good, but not as good as my 5/5 NL table would be at the Fallsview on Saturday. People limped, and they called raises often, but it wasn't the same dream. I was in the 9 seat. The cast of characters featured many of the usual suspects. There was an old nit in the 1 seat. Some jovial middle aged men in the 2-4 seats. The token old Asian man who's terrible at poker. A college internet player in the 10 seat with iPod and visor (he wasn't douchey enough to have the sunglasses, but he also wasn't too bad at poker). When one of jovial men started talking too explicitly about [censored] prostitutes in the ass, the old nit threw a fit, called the floor and had the man clean up his language. The jovial man was pissed about this, demanded to see where on the rule board it said he couldn't swear and was told that it's the line where it says "Decisions of the floor are final." He wasn't happy about this, and eventually switched tables, after a little more cursing.

I did have a couple interesting hands here. One I got AJo in the BB after 4 or 5 limpers and elect to check to keep the pot small. For the most part, my play up to this point had been losing small amounts of money to the blinds, and then limping or calling small raises with implied odds hands and then missing. I then made it back when I'd take something down on the flop. Anyway, for this hand, the flop came J52r, and I bet out 20. One of the remaning jovial men in the 4 seat minraised me to 40. Now, once or twice I'd seen him slowplay two pair all the way to the river, and even for as loose as he was, two pair was somewhat difficult to have on this board. I figured he had a worse J here a lot, so I called. The turn was a 5, and he bet 20. I called, figuring that at least I'd pulled ahead of J2. When he bet a blank river for 40, I really should have thought harder about folding. I don't think he will often put in 3 bets with just one pair, but I was getting decent odds, and knowing his propensity to slowplay, I called. He showed J5 for the boat. Every other time that night he hit two pair or better on the flop and we reached a showdown so I could know for sure, he slowplayed to the river.

Shortly after this, I took a break to stretch my legs, use the can, and check on Smurph. When I got back, I started running better. We were also joined by a few new faces. We got two new douchey college kids, one of whom looked like Yul Brenner and the other like Edgar from 24, although merely pudgy insead of obese. We also got another jovial middle aged man who was apparently a regular here. He also recognized me, although we couldn't place each other at first, since I'd never played at Seneca before. It might have been the one time I was at the Turning Stone with Jax, though. I figured it was about 75% that we'd played together there, and 25% that he made me for someone else. I didn't really remember his play, and as I observed his play here, it wasn't too memorable. He was somewhat too loose, somewhat too passive, but far from the most atrocious player at the table.

Anyway, shortly after I come back, I tangle with Yul. He raises to 30 in MP, and I repop in late position to 80 with rockets. Only he calls. Flop comes AKx, and he bets into me, something like 75-90. I raise to 200, taking him all in. I figured he had at least AQ here, and he was going to call me. OTOH, I maybe should have called and let him bet into me on the turn, where I would have certainly gotten the rest of his money (assuming he was nice enough to bet, of course). In the end, he stews and folds, flashing the J of what was almost certainly AJ. Think waiting would have been a slightly better plan against this hand, but against most of his range, all the money was going in no matter how I played it.

I won another decent pot with a set, although I forgot the details, but not before more controversy. I don't remember the full action, but the old Asian guy bluffs the river, gets called by Yul Brenner. Yul shows a J for a pair, and the old Asian mucks. Yul then mucks without showing his other card. Someone in the 6-8 seat asks to see Yul's other card, and the dealer turns them up (they were set apart from the bulk of the muck), showing what I think was a marginal kicker, nothing too exciting. Then everyone in the early seats gets mad. Yul didn't want his whole hand shown. The old Asian guy thinks that Yul, by prematurely mucking his hand before showing his other card, has lost his claim to the pot and it should be his. Fortunately, no one else realizes this is what he's trying to get to happen (and he shouldn't get the pot. He mucked his cards first), but it does add another voice to the argument confusing things. The old nit doesn't think the 8 seat is allowed to ask to see the hand since he wasn't at the showdown. Edgar is coming to Yul's defense. The floor guy is young and seems inexperienced at dealing with all the commotion. Eventually, he just says that you have to show both cards to win a few times amid the commotion, implying that everything was done correctly, and leaves. Meanwhile, the 10 seat and I, and the rest of my half of the table were just commiserationg about how stupid this all was, how everything was correct, and that we just want to play. Ugh. This wasn't even the last time Yul was involved in calling the floor. He also splashed the pot with his last remaining $20-$40 after he made a large bet, and he thought the old Asian had raised him all in. Nobody knew precisely how much he through in, preventing him from taking it back, and the old Asian, who hadn't acted, wasn't liable for that last bit of money. I don't remember the details of the resolution, but eventually Yul won the pot, and was probably shorted about $30 of what he could have earned from the Asian guy had he not splashed the pot. Everyone was still grumbling about it for quite a while, though.

I had one more mildly interesting hand. I raise some limpers with 77 to 30ish in late position. The flop comes 962 or something, and the old Asian, who's moved to sitting right in front of me, bets out $15. I raise up to 45, and everyone folds, inclinding the old Asian after he asks me if if I have a pocket pair. I figured he could be testing me with crap, there's a remote chance he folds he folds 93 (prolly not 94, though), and that anything other than raising sucks.

I wrapped up the night at about 2:30 am up about $330 on the night, a pretty modest win for that NL game. Smurph and I went back across the border to crash at the Days Inn near the Fallsview. Every car in their lot was double parked, so we went back to the Fallsview to park there and walk up to the Days Inn.

Saturday to be posted later...

[Smurph64]

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Anyway, shortly after I come back, I tangle with Yul. He raises to 30 in MP, and I repop in late position to 80 with rockets. Only he calls. Flop comes AKx, and he bets into me, something like 75-90. I raise to 200, taking him all in. I figured he had at least AQ here, and he was going to call me. OTOH, I maybe should have called and let him bet into me on the turn, where I would have certainly gotten the rest of his money (assuming he was nice enough to bet, of course). In the end, he stews and folds, flashing the J of what was almost certainly AJ. Think waiting would have been a slightly better plan against this hand, but against most of his range, all the money was going in no matter how I played it.

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This was the hand we discussed a bit on Friday night and like my AA hand it's the one I thought the most about over the next two days.

I reread the bet sizing chapter from NLHE Theory and Practice and I think going over it you weren't going to get more money in the pot from him at any rate,I think the King killed you.

I said at the time I thought a call was the right thing to do but now I think you did the right thing with the reraise.

[MrWookie]

BTW, Smurph, I was shaking a lot the first few times I played live. People thought they were getting reads on me, but I was shaking whether or not I was bluffing or I held the nuts. It settles down as you get used to live play. You just have to get your body used to the fact that it's normal.

[Hielko]

Smurp:

[ QUOTE ]
3 hands later I get AQo and get capped by the same munchkin. Flop comes Q high with 2 crap cards. He checks I raise and get checkraised, I 3 bet he calls. Turn comes crap he donks, I fold.

It's pretty easy to read these guys live, it was a good fold as he was kind enough to show me he hit two pair on the flop with Q7o.

[/ QUOTE ]
Your turn fold was NOT a good fold. From your description it's obvious you're playing against a retard and folding TPTK is something that you don't want to do. Also when your hand is good enough for a 3-bet on the flop it should be good enough for a raise and certainly a call on the turn when it's just a blank card.

Here you probably made the right fold from a FTOP view, but I think it was an error given his hand range.

[OziBattler]

most of us are aware Smurf loves to get reads and then use those reads to lag it up online.

Wookie, did you and Smurf discuss his lag tendencies?

Smurf, did you play lag live? (Im betting no due to limited bankroll)

[MrWookie]

Saturday:

Getting to sleep at 3 am, I wasn't thrilled when Smurph said we had to be out of there by 11. I was up by 10 anyway, however. After a quick shower, we were out the door, checked out, and back to the Fallsview, where I went straight to the car for me to get a change of shirt, which I had forgotten there last night. Perhaps this wasn't a good plan (see above).

We got a quick breakfast at a smoothie place in the hotel (not as good as Jamba Juice, but not bad), and then I got my name on the list for 5/5 NL. After the disaster the last time I played in this game, I had a vendetta against it. My plan was to make up the $500 I'd lost the last time, plus another $500 to partially make up for the profit I'd lost in the on that one fateful hand. Smurph wasn't thrilled with this plan, since there wasn't much for him to play there. He's too much of a wuss for 1/2 NL, so he decided to head to Casino Niagara when I got a seat. Which was another problem. The list was again very long, in spite of many open tables where games could be created. I guess they were short on dealers at this hour. We hung out and talked while watching one of the $1200 sattellite donk n' goes into the WPT event. I actually spotted Mr. Terrible (from my last time here) playing in one. He was the first to go BUSTO.

We bummed around there for an hour and a half or so before getting lunch (they'll give you a pager so you won't miss your call if you request one). We got burgers, and I still wasn't called, but when I got back, I was 2nd on the list. They opened up a new table shortly thereafter, and I got down into the 6 seat, one of the best at the table. It also looked like my relative position was amazing. The 1-5 seats were all incredibly loose and passive, and the 7 and 8 seats were somewhat tighter, and still passive. I thanked my lucky stars when Mr. Terrible sat down in the 9 seat just after I arrived. He only bought in for a hundo or so, and he was BUSTO before I think I even played a hand.

This whole game was a dream. I saw limped 7-9 handed pots not infrequently, and 5 was about average. In my entire session, it was folded to the blinds exactly once, and I don't need two hands to count the number of times it was folded to a player in the hijack or later who raised. People were a little more judicious about calling raises than the table my first time here, but raises of 5xBB would still typically get 1-4 callers. People were also a lot more hesitant to call an 8x preflop raise than my first table, and if someone raised 4 limpers to $40, they would occasionally all fold. There were a few multiway, reraised pots, but the game wasn't aggressive enough to have that many reraised pots to see exactly how common it was. If it was checked to the player on the button in a limped pot, he could take it down with a bet surprisingly often, even with 4-6 to the flop, but sometimes I'd get 3 callers and just feel stupid for taking a stab at it.

I opted for a fairly nitty preflop strategy. I didn't have to raise implied odds-type hands preflop to start building a pot becaue all the limpers would do that for me. I wasn't anxious to be playing regular old high card strength hands in pots with this many players unless I was limping in late position, keeping the pot small. I folded KQo UTG, for example, but this is pretty standard for NL. However, my starting hand selection really sucked, and my VPIP couldn't have been over 15%. I'll get to that more in a bit, though. I didn't play as well as I would have liked, but I didn't have any huge mistakes. One hand I raied a bunch of limpers on the button with T9s to about $30. I got called in several spots, including the SB, a fairly tight older Asian man who liked to overbet the pot rather than letting people call his good hands. I bet out a flop that was Q high and gave me a flush draw for 60 and only got called by the SB. The turn was a J, giving me 15 outs. I vascillated between the semibluff and the free card. I opted to bet out 100, and got c/r'd all in by the SB for about $120 more, making it an easy call on my part getting something like 5:1. It wasn't a big deal, but I think I should have known that if he called me on that flop, he had something he liked. The river didn't help me, and the SB showed AQ with the A of trump, so I actually only had 14 outs. Oh well. I replenished my stack with the chips in my pocket (always a good idea when playing NL, btw), and I was back in it.

As mentioned above, my cards were piss poor. I played for about 11 hours, and here are some things I saw. I got 22 seven times, and I never hit a set. I never saw AA or KK. I hit exactly one set, and here's how it went. I limp 44 in late position after a bunch of limpers. Flop comes K43, all diamonds. It's checked to a college internet type guy in the 5 seat who was decent, but not great, and he bets 20. I raise to 60, and one of the tighter guys behind me calls (o rly?). He's the only caller. We get to the turn, which is a brick. He checks, and I check behind, mentally screaming "Pair the board!!!" River bricks, and he tosses out a hundred dollar bill, which play in this game. I call, and he shows the flopped nut flush AJs. Big shocker there, folks. I very effectively lost the minimum.

As for my other PP's, I got TT twice, and it was pretty good to me. I won a couple of mid sized pots. QQ and JJ were not at all good to me, though. I got them right next to each other, too, and lost them both almost the same way with the same cast of characters. First hand, I raised JJ in mid position after a couple limpers to 30, I get called by the 1 seat, who's an ATM I can never get cards against, and I get minraised to 60 by another loose, passive player who loves to slowplay. I'd already seen him limp or cold call AA and KK preflop, and I'd never seen him raise preflop. He loved to wait to the river to spring his trap. I wasn't sure what to make of this minraise, but I had an easy call with pot and implied odds even if he were to show me aces. Flop is all bricks, he pushes for about 150 more, I call, and seat 1 folds. He flips over QQ, and I don't suck out. Just a few hands later, I raise QQ to 20 UTG, and I'm called again by seat 1 and minraised by the same guy. Now I know exactly what's going on, but I still have an easy call preflop. Flop comes A high, I check, and seat one leads. The minraiser folds, and I have a ridiculously easy fold. Mr. Minraise flashes KK after I do, and seat 1 flashes the A. Much, much later in the night, I get JJ one more time in EP, and I reraise to 50 after a boisterous black man (I'll talk more about him later) raises to 15 in front of me. I get called by Mr. Minraise in the SB (o rly?). Flop comes 789r, it's checked to me, and I elect to bet out about 80. I seriously considered just going for the free card, but I was worried about being outplayed on the turn by the black guy. Anyway, Mr. Minraise pushes, and I have an easy fold. I'd have to give some serious thought to even calling with KK there. That's the extent of my play with my PP's. If this is the best you can do with PP's in NL, it's EXTREMELY hard to have a good night. Suited connectors weren't much better for me, not that I got dealt many. 76o was one hand that I seemed to be getting disproportionaly much, though, and started looking like a good idea to call a raise with it in MP my cards were so bad.

Anyway, after having lost with a set, JJ, and then QQ in rapid succession, my stack was decimated. I had slowly worked my way up to a profit of about $700 on top of my $500 buy in at my peak, but even after having used up my rebuy chips after the T9s hand, I was down to a paltry $250 stack and I had to rebuy. I was back to $500 and ready to chase my roughly $500 in losses. And fortunately, things started to look up. I reraise AKs to 75 in the SB after a bunch of limpers and the college guy in seat 5 raised OTB. We had 3 or 4 to the flop of A84r in a huge pot. I bet out a hundred, the stragglers fold, and the button raises me to 200. I'm not really sure what I feel about this. There aren't any reasonable draws, and he almost certainly doesn't have two pair. This is AK, AQ, AJ, or a set, pretty much. After thinking for a bit, I decide that I'm better off if he calls my push now than if he either takes me all in on the turn, or if he calls my push on the turn. I push, and he hems and haws for a bit before folding. I rejoice at my new stack.

Not much later, I get ATs OTB, I raise to 30, and I get called in, like, 5 places, including by the SB, who's another horrible, horrible old Asian man named Mr. Lee. He's known by all the dealers and some of the other players, and he's been playing bad all night, but getting there enough to stay alive. I flop TPTK and then nut flush draw, and I bet out a hundo. Only Mr. Lee calls. I turn the nuts, bet 150, and Mr. Lee pushes. I beat him to the pot, and my nuts hold against his hand which was almost certainly drawing dead.

Not much after that, I get another AKs in LP in which I get to reraise and get 3 or 4 to the flop. I flop TPTK K's, and I take down a good pot with either a flop or a turn bet. I don't remember the details of this hand. AKs was the only hand that was really good to me all night.

Right about this point, it's about 7 pm, and there's a huge mob of people watching outside the small wall that partitions the poker area from the slots and the bar. They've been lighting off $1200 sattellites in rapid succession all night, and they're about the only thing that you can see from the wall (can't railbird inside the poker area), so everyone who was waiting for their turn at either the 1/2 or 5/5 NL game (a 4-5 hour wait at this point, or their donkament (another goodly wait). They seriously need a bigger room here. I elect to get dinner at this point, and fortunately, I can keep my seat, but just for an hour, and I have to pay time while I'm gone. See, the NL games don't take a rake. They just charge you ever half hour when a new dealer comes. For 5/5, it's $6/half hour. It works out to be pretty comparable to most rake rates, I estimate, but it is kind of scary to know exactly that the house is making $100-$120 per hour per table of this. I opt to eat at the pub again, this time getting the bbq chicken. It's nothing special, but I inhale it and get back to the tables.

And at this point, if I thought I was card dead before, that can't even compare to now. 92, 82, K8o, 73, T4. The rags just kept coming. I really, really had to force myself to fold KQo UTG that one time. I'd get free looks in the blinds most times, hit nothing, and fold. I took down a few small pots either after raising somthing no better that KJs preflop, cbetting, and taking it down, or I'd sometimes limp something marginal OTB and stab at the pot when it was checked to me. It was all I could do to break even. Maybe I should have switched into a hyperaggressive mode OTB for a few hands and just raised whatever crap I had to see if anyone actually was paying attention to me fold for orbit after orbit (not really), but it would still be me OTB with rags versus 5 very loose limpers and me hoping to get them to fold. There was seldom a "good spot" to play my position and the players instead of my cards because the table was just too loose. I'm also just not that good at NL yet, and completely unfamiliar with that style of play. I need more practice, and I wasn't anxious to try it out for the first time for fairly decent sums of money.

Around 10 or 11, things got interesting, not because I started catching cards, but because we got some new faces at the table. One, but least interestingly, was the woman who sat next to me here the first time I'd played at Fallsview. She was a regular, and she was much better than the standard player at this table, but I was certainly not afraid of her, either. We also got the boisterous black man I mentioned above. He sat down in the 10 seat with a stack of just over 1k, all in red. There were some initial objections due to the $500 max, but apparently he'd come from another table, so he could do it. This rule was different from the Turning Stone, where if you switch tables, you're considered a new player at the new table and have to buy in for no more than the max. If you get booted from a must move game to the main game, though, you have to keep your stack. Here, though, you have to keep your stack when you move. I'm not sure which rule I prefer. Anyway, this guy is quite talkative and looking for action. He talks about how aggressive he is, how he likes to overbet pots just to see what people will do, and how he likes to steal blinds. This is not the kind of player I really want to be dealing with at this point in my NL development, but he alone is certainly not reason enough to move. He might not even be good, and he could easily be a gold mine, even if he's harder to play against than Mr. Lee. The table is less than thrilled with this guy, since they just want to limp. He folds or steals the blinds for a few hands with PFR's of 40ish, and fortunately enough, he decides to start limping along with everyone else for the most part. He is happier playing poker with lots of limpers than just stealing blinds. Really, he wants to play many large pots all the time. (You see, I had lots of time to take notes on all this because I just kept folding hands, getting rags rags rags). This was exemplified in one hand he wasn't involved in, actually. I don't remember who raised preflop, if it was the tighter guy behind me in seat 8 or the ATM in seat 1 who was still around running very, very well. I think it was seat 1. Anyway, we get to a flop of AhKxQx, and seat 1 bets, and seat 8 calls. Turn is a Jh, and it's checked through. River is a brick, and it's checked through again. Seat 1 shows AJ, seat 8 shows KhQh. The black guy can't believe it, saying he would have put 200-300 into the pot on that turn with two pair and the royal draw, straight possibility be damned. He would be talking about this hand until he got obliterated and left (below).

Our wild fellow eventually moved to seat 5, right in front of me, a position I was pretty happy to have him in. I wanted to keep track of what he did, and in the event I actually encountered remotely playable cards, I planned to punish him. However, we got more new players to the table as tight guys behind me left. And these were not at all the kinds of guys I wanted to encounter. I got a young, nerdy looking guy sitting just behind me with whom it didn't take long to figure out that he knew what he was doing and played extensively online. We also got another shark in the 10 seat who had traveled up from FL for this tournament. And then we got another wild Canuck in the 9 seat. This guy was the most obnoxious player I'd ever played with. Every decision he made, including many preflop ones, was accompanied by needling any players involved in the hand with questions about their holdings looking for reads (I think I heard him say "Eh?" more in two hours that night than I had from the sum total of all the Canadians I'd hung out with this summer, and I was in Canada a lot this summer). He'd do the showboating where he'd partition off from his stack the chips necessary to call, and then shove in $200. I saw him minbet the flop and then come over the top huge. Every ridiculous "play" you'd ever seen made by obnoxious poker players, he made it, all accompanied by the requisite amount of hemming, hawing, showboating, chip-trick-fidgeting, and needling. The amount of penis waving this guy was doing was staggering. On the upside, he did buy the whole table a round of drinks, so I got a Hoegaarden off him for having to deal with his crap slowing down the game (no free drinks at Canadian casinos). He was only partially forgiven.

Anyway, once we had this new cast, things really started getting interesting. I wasn't liking this table much, but seats 1-4 were still veritable gold mines if I actually found a good spot to play a hand. Now, the hand. Seat 1, Mr. Minraise, and our boisterous friend in seat 5, limp to me in with 66, and I call in the CO. Nerdy button limps, too, SB checks, and our Crazy Canuck raises to 25 out of the SB, after talking about it for a while with seat 5. Seat 1 folds, Mr. Minraise calls, and seat 5 LRR's to 75 (o rly?). He was full of [censored] quite likely, but 66 still doesn't look good for that much preflop not closing the action against a guy who's already raised. I fold, as does the button. The CC blabbers and eventually folds, and Mr. Minraise calls (o rly?). Mr. Minraise open pushes for a hundred and change on the flop of 953, and seat 5 instantly calls, cracking Mr. Minraise's KK or QQ with 53s. Mr. Minraise leaves disgusted.

In one of the very next hand next hands, we get just about a limped family pot, and I limp K3s out of boredom and implied odds OTB. Flop comes 9[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]8[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]4[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], and the Florida Shark (10/20 NL player on Bodog, according to him. If that's true, I presume he's slumming at 5/5 until he can get a seat at a higher limit) bets out 20. Seat 5 raises to 100 or so, I obviously fold, and the guy behind me raises to 300. Shark folds, and seat 5 calls, and it's pretty easy to start putting people on hands. The turn is either the T or the J of clubs, and Seat 5 takes the scrawny guy behind me all in. He instantly calls, and if you haven't figured out their hands by now, it's time to quit poker. River is a 9, and seat 5's crub frush gets pwnt by 88.

Next hand, the Crazy Canuk raises preflop, gets reraised by the Florida shark, and after the mandatory two minutes of yabbering about it, the CC makes the call. As he's needling the shark before the flop is dealt, the shark says something about "you're just going to check to me on the flop," presumably because the CC was already needling him about his flop play. Ugh. As he's saying this, the flop comes AKJ, and CC glances to see it and instantly says he's all in, waving his gigantic penis in the face of the shark who was so ridiculous to suggest he'd do such a girly thing as check. Shark instacalls and shows AK, which pwns CC's TT. WTF? CC rebuys for another 300.

Next hand, there may have not been some limps from the usual suspects, but the black guy raises, I fold something crappy, and it's folded to the CC who does his expected song and dance before coming over the top. Seat five reraises, and CC pushes. CC's AK pwns the black guy's KK with an A on the flop. Oops. For those of you keeping score at home, seat 5 has now just lost 800 in 3 hands, and the CC has been down 500 and up 300 in the spand of 2. Black guy is obviously shaken, but he doesn't go on tilt like I'd like him to. He starts playing regular old conservative poker. It's easier for me to play against him this way, but it's not like he starts spewing the last 700 in his stack for anyone to catch. Not like I had anything remotely good enough to catch it anyway. About a half hour later he finally leaves. He's replaced by a skaaaaanky older woman who's wearing a black mesh top with visible strapless bra, and hotpants. She also has disgusting teeth. Yes, she's right next to me.

Over the next half hour, the CC leaves for the 5/10 NL game, but he gets replaced by another guy who looks like he traveled in to kick ass in this tourney. Then ATM in seat 1 leaves, and Mr. Lee finally leaves. At that point, I know I'm just going to finish out my time and head out. It's 1 am when I finally do. I cash out and discover that I'm actually up about $130 for 11 hours of playing. It's better than minimum wage, I guess, and that set of winnings alone almost exactly paid for my expenses this trip, including the room, gas, tolls, and food. Most people don't get to have a fun weekend like that for free, and as bad as my luck was with respect to finding big hands, I'm pretty happy.

I thought that'd be enough time to get home w/o risking falling asleep at the wheel, but I was sorely mistaken. There was a big backup on the Rainbow Bridge getting back to the US. BTW, if you're ever going that way, always be in the left lane on the bridge. The way things work out, the left lane of the bridge tends to feed into 2-4 inspection booths, but the right one feeds into just one, maybe two. I chose wisely here (I knew about this having done it once before w/ Brad), but when it came time to choose which final line I pick to actually enter the US, I didn't do so well. Things were even at first, but then the guy in the booth started giving every car the third degree. He checked the trunks of 3 cars while I was there compared to 0 in the other lane I could have picked. Even when he wasn't inspecting trunks, he was asking a ton of questions. Seriously, I could have gotten through 6 cars earlier had I picked the other lane. Ugh. When he finally got to me, he wanted to know not only where I'm from, what I did and if I had anything to declare, he wanted to know exactly what I did, what I wanted to be when I grew up, how much I'd won at poker, everything. It sounded more like he was meeting me in a bar rather than finding out if I was a terrorist. It took me over an hour to get through it all. I get home at about 3:45 am, and I really should not have been on the road for the last 20 mins of that. I didn't run over any nuns or sideswipe any cops, though, so all is well.

I'm still down for my career at Fallsview, though, so I'll definitely have to go back and destroy that game next time [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

[KRANTZ]

you the man, wookster

[Smurph64]

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Smurp:

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3 hands later I get AQo and get capped by the same munchkin. Flop comes Q high with 2 crap cards. He checks I raise and get checkraised, I 3 bet he calls. Turn comes crap he donks, I fold.

It's pretty easy to read these guys live, it was a good fold as he was kind enough to show me he hit two pair on the flop with Q7o.

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Your turn fold was NOT a good fold. From your description it's obvious you're playing against a retard and folding TPTK is something that you don't want to do. Also when your hand is good enough for a 3-bet on the flop it should be good enough for a raise and certainly a call on the turn when it's just a blank card.

Here you probably made the right fold from a FTOP view, but I think it was an error given his hand range.

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It was a close mistake which I never would have made online but live this guy was leaning forward, and looked like the cat that just swallowed the canary.

It was way too much of a natural reaction not to know he had me beat, with 2-5 outs likely I just didn't think it was reasonable to call down.

I made one other instinct fold based on a read and I guessed right there as well.

Next time I hope to be more comfortable and play less emotionally, but at the same time I am not sure that ignoring my subconscious telling me strongly to do something that goes against the grain is the proper thing to do.

My thought was he just hit a set of 7's at least, but more likely had KK, AA or QQ.

The only one worth continuing on would have been KK. It just didn't feel like a wa/wb situation to me.