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Old 05-01-2007, 09:15 AM
Larry David Larry David is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Hugging it out
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Default California and Commerce Trip Report

The State of Poker:

A California Trip Report

Background:
I went to Vegas for two years after sophomore year to do some traveling and play poker. Last fall, I decided to head back to Boulder, CO to go back to school and maybe ski for a season in the mountains. I lived in Breckenridge all winter and never saw a poker card, but the hunger did return so I decided it would be fun to go on a trip. Breckenridge closed last Sunday and while A-Basin is still open, I decided to give my knees a break and go to California to visit some friends and play some cards.

San Diego:
My buddy Reece and I bought tickets Monday night for a Tuesday morning flight to LAX. We were actually going to stay in San Diego for a couple of days to visit some friends and see Shamu, but the tickets were twice as expensive so our friend who just moved to San Diego said he would pick us up at LAX and drove us back to his house in San Diego. The trip started off with a bad beat. I was searched pretty hardcore at the airport like I never have been before. They went through every pocket and sock in my bag. This was not good for me as I brought my “H2O” pipe with me. The cops had to come and I asked why there was a problem and that I thought it was legal as long as there was no weed on me. He said that they would have to bring the dogs to sniff for resin if I didn’t want a ticket so I just took my ticket and they took my pipe. CV picked us up at LAX and we decided to stop by Ocean’s 11 on the way back for some dinner and cards. The three of us all won a little money which was a nice way to start off our poker trip. CV had a very nice little house that overlooked a lot of the surrounding areas.

I called up an old poker buddy that lives in San Diego to hook Reece and I up with some bud because I did not want to go to Sea World for the first time sober. Sea world was awesome except that I couldn’t get my friends to give me $5K to jump in the shark tank. They offered it to jump in with Shamu or the dolphins, but I figured the fines and jail time for that would be too much so I would only do it for $100K (any ballers that want to take me up on this, PM me).

Los Angeles:
Thursday morning we headed to Los Angeles to visit a buddy of ours that got in a serious ski accident a couple of months ago and was going through rehab. His dad and dad’s girlfriend treated us to a fantastic meal before we went to Hollywood Park for the horse races and some drinking. I kept trying to get reads on the horses as they came out so I would know who to bet on. The horses that foamed at the mouth started off fast, but couldn’t finish. If they walked out sideways, they would either win the race or suck ass. The composed ones were usually bad ass unless they raised their tails or took a dump. So yeah… I lost the most, my maximum of $100. Reece bet $2 on long shots to win strait up and came out ahead like $50 so he is going to retire a champion of horse betting.

Commerce:
It was time to put our game faces on and rip apart the Commerce. Things have changed a lot since I had been there last about 1 ½ years ago. There is now a $1 administrative fee to see the turn in all the low limit games so there is a $6 max rake which is a complete joke. The 10/20 NL went from $9 collection to $10 which isn’t too bad especially because all you have to do is play time pots and have the same idiot pay every time. I just find it hilarious that the casinos cannot be strait forward in anything they do. The rake card says $4 max rake, $1 jackpot drop, and $1 administrative fee which I later found is to deal the turn. I guess you need an administrator watching the dealer to make sure 4th street comes in an orderly fashion.

Being as rusty as I was, I wanted to start short stacked in the 10/20 game so I just bought in for $1000 my first night. The game was decent with a few really soft spots, but still no where near what they used to be. After being down to $600, I doubled through the last fish on our table twice in a row and he decided to leave. The game was crap after that and I decided to play some 5/10 NL with a $400 max buy-in (WTF?) Anyway, this game was sick good. I had never seen anything like this in a long time.

The first thing I needed was a pipe because I roll like [censored] and I didn’t want to depend on Reece if I wanted a smoke. I asked a floor man if he knew where I could buy a tobacco pipe and he did me one better. He make this aluminum foil bowl for me which worked incredibly well. It even held up all weekend. After that, I was ready for more action.

At one of my tables, people got to see this gem:
Crazy black guy stuck ~$5K with $600 makes it his standard $50 like every other hand
Hero ($3K) calls with KQ behind him in the cutoff.
Crazy asian with ~$2K who isn’t too bad, but really aggressive and is going after the black guy on every hand calls.
Stupid kid goes all-in for $180
Black guy calls.
Hero re-raises to $500
Black guy goes all-in

KQ vs KT vs 67 pwnage

Once we combined into one table later in the night, things started getting a little stagnant as every player was pretty deep until one hand came up which made this the most insane next 5 hours I have ever had on a poker table. I was playing really aggressively and was making trying not to showdown any hands at this new table. After a few hours, someone called my first continuation bet and I check-folded the turn. The 2 seat who was a grumpy old man started talking a ton of [censored]. “I figured you out, you don’t have anything 90% of the time you raise. You just bet so much that we all keep folding, well no more.”

The very next hand the 7 seat who was the worst player at the table and played every hand opened for $40 after one limper.
Hero in seat 8 on the button raises to $120 with AK.
Seat 1 in the BB who is kind of solid, but not very good if that makes any sense calls as does the 7 seat.

Effective stacks were ~$2K

Flop ($365) 872 rainbow
Check
Check
Hero bets $200
Seat 1 check-raises to $500
Seat 7 thinks for a while and mucks
Before his cards even hit the muck I had said all-in.
Seat 1 thinks for 5 minutes and calls with AK

5 hours later I had $6K in yellow chips in front of me and there was probably $20K total on the table.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. I played 10/20 NL for the rest of the trip and with a few exceptions, the games weren’t really all that good which was kind of disappointing. At the same time, there weren’t too many really tough opponents either. The only guy that I was pretty nervous about playing was this guy Scotty who played really well while he was drinking. Anyone know anything about him?

Comments:

- Does anyone know whose sick M6 was in the Valet? They said it belonged to a basketball player and it was mostly black with some red.
- I checked out the windshield on a 600 SEL that was also there and there was a napkin on it with a note:

I really like your car. Will buy, strait cash.

Jon,
(Jon’s phone number)

I really wish I had my camera.

- Reece got really drunk and roamed the streets of Commerce for 10+ blocks in each direction while singing and came back to tell the tale… twice.
- WTF is up with that $1 administrative fee? Seriously. Do they realize they are sucking the poker economy dry?
- Why is every game in the small room independent of one another? You can’t table change without starting back at the max buy-in for the table?
- Why does the high stakes room have completely different rules for their games? (i.e. straddles, must-moves, etc.)
- How do players expect to keep playing in casinos with a $6 rake?
Where the hell do these crazy Asians at Commerce get their money from?
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