Trip Report - Harrah's AC 5/18

[pa3lsvt]

First try at a trip report. Hope it's worth the read, but good chance it's tl;dr. CLIFF NOTES: Won $500 playing 1/2NL. Bad play all around.

The trip starts with working my normal Friday (up at 5:30, work 7:30 - 4), then driving down the ACX in the afternoon. God I love working in South Jersey - I get to play about once/month. I was entered in the Opie and Anthony tourney that was canceled, and I received a voice mail stating that I would be receiving 2 buffet comps, comp entry to the nightclub and comp entry to the Heritage Room along with my cash refund if I make it down to the Showboat this weekend. So, off to the 'Boat. Turns out that I am only getting the buffet comp - the club and Heritage "comps" turn out to be "open door policy on Saturday 5/19 only". Meh, but I'll take advantage of the free meal at some point.

I run awful at the Showboat and have sworn off ever playing there again. So back in the car and shoot down to the Marina to play at Harrah's. I've never played there before and a co-worker swears by their games. Nice little room - music piped in so it doesn't sound like a library with chip shuffling, comfortable chairs, plenty of TVs (got to watch the Phils beat the Blue Jays in between hands), and easy access to an exterior door so I can smoke.

I get on the list (4th, 3 1/2NL games running) and go to scope out the games in action. One game had what appeared to be 3 or 4 tough players playing 2+ buyins deep, one had two tough players and 4 old rocks, and one was all donkish tourists. I watched a hand at the donk table where two players get it all in for $200 each in an unraised preflop pot: all in raiser flopped a set of 3s and caller had AK on a JT3 board. Turn Q, river 5, gg Mr. Set Miner. This is the game I want to get in. Unfortunately, when I move up to first on the list they decide to open a new 7 handed game so it won't be happening soon.

Normally i buy in for $150 - $200 when I sit at an existing game, play a few rounds short, and then top off (if necessary) once I get a feel for the table dynamic. Five of the other six players buy in full so I change my $300 for chips. I only have one buyin with me (hobbyist with no actual bankroll) so I want to tread lightly at first for fear of busting and going to the rail early. The table has two LAGgy young regulars in seats 1 and 2 (including "Brian", who I've been warned about by my friend at work), two old tourists, and two nondescript players my age. Brian won't let me sit to his left, telling me those seats are reserved (BS, but I don't care) so I move as close to his right as I can, in the 7 seat. It made no difference as he bluffed off most of his $300 in the first orbit to donk calling stations in the 5 and 10 seats and never played a pot with me.

Second orbit, I get AA UTG+1. Haven't played a pot yet besides folding my blinds, so I fire a $7 raise when UTG folds. I don't really want to play this 5 ways but I'm afraid a large raise will win me $3 in blind money. I do get 3 callers, then the BB (Seat 5 donk) raises to $20 straight with $225 behind. I reraise to $47 and only he calls. I figure he's holding QQ-TT, AK, maybe AQ. Flop comes QT4, 2 hearts, BB donks into me for $20. I raise to $80 and he insta-pushes. I think - great, this idiot just flopped a set and I'm going to pay him off like a bigger idiot. I call, turn comes A, river 7 (no hearts) and he shows down AKo. NH, sir. LOL @ the dealer calling my hand ("Set of Aces") before I even table it.

Ten minutes later Seat 5 tells us about his mad roulette skillz. "I was in Vegas play Texas Hold Them" - I swear, that's exactly what he said - hold them - "and I was on a bad run of cards and down to my last $15. I put it on [some number that means something to him] and won $345. I went back to the poker room and took a bad beat and was down to my last $15 again. Back to roulette, won $345. I eventually lost it all at poker though." Wow, I've seen inside the mind of a donk and it's scary. This guy really thought he was good at poker, even though he was terrible. Rationalizes it with the "bad run of cards and bad beat" excuses. Even worse, he thought he was good at roulette (which isn't possible). Then the 8 seat tells him, "You should probably just play roulette then if you keep winning." I probably would have slapped him if he just convinced the donator to leave the table, but fortunately Seat 5 was going to drop another two buyins before he left. I won a handful of small pots (probably another $50 or so) where I isolated against him preflop (he loved to limp-call regardless of the raise size) and took them down with c-bets.

Shortly after the AA double up, I'm in the SB and complete with Qd2d. We see the flop 7 ways and it comes out KdTd4D. I open for $7, BB raises to $15 (has another $70 behind). Folds around to me - I hate the minraise here. It either means he flopped a small flush or the nut flush and it is going to cost me $85 to find out. I decide it's worth $85 in Seat 5's chips to find out, but I don't want to scare away the small flush so I call the minraise and plan on CRAI on a non-[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] turn. Turn card is a black 2, I check, BB bets $25, I raise to $100 and he calls all in. I show my Q-high flush and he shows 7d8d and is drawing dead.

Now I'm sitting on $700+ after less than one hour (it's not even 7 PM yet) and think to myself that I could leave now and consider it a good night, but I have a few more hours of poker in me.

I make a good laydown in a pot where I raised to $17 over 6 limpers from the BB with AKo, and see a flop 4 ways. K74r so I fire $40 out and the button raises to $110 with another $200 behind. He's the only other real solid player at this table so I have no problem laying my hand down, even though I had been cbetting every hand I raised PF with much success and he could be making a move. He tells the player between us that he flopped a set of 7s (and thinks I can't hear him due to my iPod).

For the next 4 hours, my stack varies between $550 and $650. We have 4 players sit down that all know each other and obviously play a home game together. Some soft-play shenanigans but only one of them is actually any good so I pay it no mind and wait for my chance to take some chips from the weaker ones. About midnight I decide that I'm nearly spent (remember, I was up at 5:30 AM and worked my regular job plus had a 90 minute drive home ahead of me) so I'll play until I drop below $600 or above $700; I was at ~$650 at the time.

Good thing I stayed as the final hand was worth the wait. I'm OTB and hold ATo, raise 5 limpers to $12 (the worst Ace I raised all night) and get 4 callers. Flop: ATKr. I'm feeling pretty safe here as the only hand that worries me is QJ (AK would have raised somewhere in there) and if someone flopped a straight they would tell me with a big bet. I bet $20 when checked to and get called by two of the home game gang. Turn comes the ugly Q so now my Aces up is turned into a bluff catcher. Home game gang checks to me and I check behind. River is the beautiful T[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] giving me tens full and I know one of these guys is going to be unable to lay down a Jack. First to act bets $25, second calls. I announce "Raise" and toss in a black (first time I've ever put a $100 chip in play). First player folds and second player tanks and tries to get a read off me. I try to look as worried as I can, darting my eyes around and putting my hand over my mouth. He calls and mucks when I show my boat. Good thing you guys play each other soft and gave me a free river when you turn a one card Broadway. Sucker.

I play until my blind comes around, then have the dealer color up my reds and greens to blacks and wish the table luck. I cash out for $820 for a tidy $520 profit.

[Yaboosh]

Raise more preflop.

[NickMPK]

Very nice report.

Do they actually use blacks in the 1/2 game at Harrah's? I'm not sure I've ever seen blacks in a 1/2 game in AC, except rarely when someone brings one from a table game and doesn't bother to break it down. But I've never played at Harrah's.

[pa3lsvt]

[ QUOTE ]
Do they actually use blacks in the 1/2 game at Harrah's? I'm not sure I've ever seen blacks in a 1/2 game in AC, except rarely when someone brings one from a table game and doesn't bother to break it down. But I've never played at Harrah's.

[/ QUOTE ]

I colored up when the fill took a while to come and we rotated the home game crew into the game - the tray couldn't support $1000 in reds/greens when they all bought in unless the deeper players at the table colored up, which two of us did. I traded a buy in (40 reds and 4 greens) for 3 blacks.

The till had 10 or so in there - probably from being broken down by tables players as they sat down. I didn't expect to have any need to use them unless I was calling a shove as I had over $300 in smaller usable chips at my disposal. Nor did I see anyone else put any in action. The reds and greens had a metal insert (not sure if their tables games use the same $5 and $25 chips as the poker room), but the blacks were composite all the way though.

It was nice at the end not having to lug a bunch of racks to the cage (I just jammed the 12 chips in my pocket), which requires wading through the slots zoo.

[Nez477]

I [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] trip reports. Sounds like it was a fun trip!