Oceans 11 trip report

[AlienBoy]

Had to be in San Marcos for business on Friday, and decided to stay over and play at Oceans 11.

I rented a room at the motel right across the parking lot , which with my AAA discount was $85. At 2 in he afternoon, I hadn't slept yet from the night before having played a 12 hour session at Commerce before driving to San Marcos, so I asked the front desk for a quiet room - she gave me a room on the side facing the freeway which was anything but quiet -I complained and got changed to the side opposite the freeway which was far better.

After taking a nap, I headed over to Ocean's 11 at around 8. I got on the board for the 8/16 kill, but took an available seat in the 4/8 kill while waiting.

The 4/8 was a pretty loose game - but over an hour I was down 2 racks as I'd flop a set, and someone would make their runner-runner straight, or I'd flop a straight and someone would runner runner a flush - you know the drill.

After this nonsense, I got a seat at the 8/16 must move, and my first hand was AK[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], capped preflop 3 handed, I flopped K69, but slowed down against main villain who as it happened had AA. UGH.

Things rapidly deteriorated from there. This table was about the toughest table I've encountered in recent memory. While at this table I think I found *one* exploitable player that kept me alive, but I couldn't get a handle on the rest - they all seemed to know each other and each other's play. At one point 4 players had left the table - and they all came back *at the same time*. Seemed kinda weird.

Finally moved to another table that was also quite tough when I sat down - but around 2 AM the very good players were racking up and I was able to move to a better seat positionally - still 2 of the players that were giving me trouble at the must move were here now. And in addition, I really wasn't getting cards that connected tot he flop. (That is, I'd have a good starting hand like KQs, and it'd end up 3 bet PF, but the flop would be AA2) By 3AM I was down about 5 racks ($2 chips, so $1000).

Finally, at around 3:30AM the table composition changed. Another table broke, and a number of loose players were seated at our table. Finally some players I could exploit, and now finally I got a few playable hands as well.

By 4AM the table composition had changed so that there were typically 5-7 to a flop, and people calling down all the way. I.e. the game was softer than soft. My hands like AQo would hold up with a board of QT9K7 - with 5 players calling down.

WTF??? No one had a King??

At 5:30 AM they gave us free breakfast!

I ended up cashing out over 9 racks ($1800) at 6 AM. I would have stayed, but I was very tired and I wanted to take a nap before heading back to LA.



Overall: Nice casino, good food and service. At the 8/16 it's a tough game at least in the evening, though pretty soft in the early AM.



AB