To the donks who call to the river with middle/bottom pair,
Thanks!
--
So the soul crushing began at the Wynn poker room, a nice little place adorned in leather and wood and lace and sugar and spice. I really could care less as long as the action was good and the players next to me didn't smell. According to the Poker Atlas, the Wynn has a swank 26-table room that treats lower-limit players like crap (in terms of chip runners & cocktail waitresses, etc), which wasn't really a problem. It's not like I wanted some fruity 4-ingredient cocktail. Anyplace can pop the cap off a cold Heineken.
I look at the LCD screen at the entrance displaying the games available and found one to my liking: 1-3 NL, no limit with a $1 small blind and $3 big blind. Kind of strange since usually the big blind is twice the small blind, but Vegas is trying to appeal to lower limit players while still making a profit.
--
Session 1.0: Know When The Relationship Is Over
'Do you have your red card sir?'
I hand the dealer the red Wynn card I got an hour earlier. He scans it right there using a machine that sits on the table itself. Vegas is advanced with their comps.
My chips arrive, 40 reds, $200, the standard amount in a 1-2 NL game if you're looking to limit losses while still getting good implied odds to stack* another player. I figured a 1-3 NL game would be similar.
I toss away the first couple hands without a second thought. In cash games, one has to play super-tight, only staying in with the nuts. For new players, if you don't think you're absolutely good, toss that mess away, even if they're two face cards--you'll save yourself a lot of misery. The third hand of the session I would receive the second best hand in holdem: KK, which I like to refer to as Action Jacksons, since those old fellas look a lot like dead President Andrew Jackson on my favorite US bill. The cutoff had raised to $15, and I re-popped it to $45 to go. I get a caller and the initial raiser calls: 3 to the flop. Good start, playing against 2 players with a monster hand and an already monster sized pot over $130.
Flop comes Ad, 6c, 4d. F-- the Ace.. I remain nonchalant, and check to one of the two aces that were sure to be in the hands of my opponents. The first bets, the second calls, and I get out of the way, folding my monster pocket pair which I was certain was no longer good. Two more diamond rags come on the turn and river which would have made me the nut flush with my Kd, but I couldn't have stayed in. They turn their cards: 66 (flopped a set) and A6 (flopped 2-pair), the 66 won with the diamond flush. It sucks to be right sometimes.
The players to my right and left automatically read my hand from the action. 'You had Kings, right?' I laugh, 'Am I that transparent?' They also read me as a dangerous player since I laid down Kings without hesitation knowing it wasn't good. It's nice to have the good opinions of others, but it's nicer to have their chips.
A few hands later, I called a small raise with K9 on the big blind against 2 players. A king and some rags came on the flop to which I bet out on the flop, turn, and river. The guy to my left called me twice, but folded the river.
'I think you have the king, but I just can't call it.' I looked shocked as it dawned on me that there was a draw on the board, and I had given the guy good odds to draw out on me. It's not whether you're behind or ahead, it's whether you're getting a good price to draw.
After the fact, I put the guy on a medium pocket pair, maybe 9s or Ts with a 4-flush** to the hearts. I got lucky there even with my bad play. I stack the chips and came out about even. About 10 hands later the table broke since only 4 of us were playing and the action was literally raise, fold, fold, fold for a whole orbit around the table.
--
Session 1.5: Hand Caught in the Cookie Jar
Myself and another player were relocated to an uber-aggressive, uber-action table, playing automatic straddle and 7-2. The straddle is when the person to the left of the big blind raises blindly in order to get position preflop; the net result is that it's $6 to call instead of $3. The 7-2 game is if a player wins with 7-2, the worst hand in the game, everyone will award $5. Myself and the player from the last table refrain from their chicanery.
'How much will it take for you to take a 20-minute break?' one of the action-junkies ask. The players there didn't quite like our aversion to risk. I pretty much ignored them, passed the buck to the player from my table ('I'll take whatever she wants'). But eventually I start to straddle as well since the action wasn't too hot to handle, and I wanted to loosen up my image so they wouldn't auto-fold when I'm in a hand.
But I get nothing good, and I pretty much fold every hand dealt except my small and big blinds. On one of the big blinds, I get the Doyle Brunson***, T-2, to which I thankfully checked. Flop comes T-8-3. I check to see where I am. I flopped top pair but someone could have me outkicked. Two players check behind me, and the button makes a weak $20 bet at the $24-30 pot.
A semi-bluff if I ever saw one. Maybe he flopped middle pair or had a small pocket pair. With that much hesitation when betting, my Ts were definitely good.
'Raise..' I take a few seconds to calculate how much it would be to punish this guy for his lame attempt at my pot. '$50 more to go.' I casually lay out the chips in front of me in neat stacks of 4 and 10. He takes a Hollywood half-minute, and lays it down. I think to myself, 'That's right punk! That's my pot!' But outwardly, I breathe a fake/genuine sigh of relief, stack my chips, and tip the dealer. It was the epitome of the hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar situation.
That pot left me about even, +$2 for the session. I stick around for another orbit and get up right before I had the play the big blind.
On a sidenote, I think there was a good loose-aggressive (LAG) player at the table. This player will be an action junkie but has supreme hand-reading skills and post-flop skills to bet with the thinnest of edges. He won quite a few small pots and seemed to know when to get out of the way when his hand definitely wasn't good and he couldn't force the other players out. Needless to say, I got the hell out of his way.
Session 1, Wynn, 12/7, 5-630p, 1.5hrs, 1-3NL, +2
--
Penn & Teller started at 9p, but doors opened an hour early, and there was the Mike Jones Jazz Duo, unfortunately not the Mike Jones from H-town though. Plus I needed time to record my notes from the action at the Wynn and reflect on my play. I think it was solid, leaning towards the conservative side. There's nothing wrong with that style, but you can feel like you're not doing anything for a long time while waiting for those premium hands.
The flaw I could see in my game was that the money definitely mattered to me, and I was under-bankrolled for that limit. When I considered making a move, I couldn't because I was handicapped by the weight of the chips in my hand. The nagging thought in my mind was, 'This is real money you're betting!' And so I might have played sub-optimally. Oh well, I came out $2 ahead, that works out to be $1.33/hr. A few dollars more, and I could be making minimum wage!
The Jazz musicians were good and my seat was even better. It was about 6 rows from the stage on the aisle seat of the left hand section. Penn & Teller were pretty cool, like their specials on TV. There was something very clean and crisp about their illusions, though their libertarian soapbox-ing got a little tedious. They debunked a lot of the cold-readers and other magicians and assured us that there is no such thing as real magic. Their magic reminds me of my teaching style: practical yet elegant.
I definitely would recommend the $100 price of admission. Totally worth it that close to the stage! The recession is good for some things.
The show ended at 1030p. Most Vegas shows are 1.5 hrs long. The trip back to the strip from the Rio was a bit harrowing. It was late at night, and I had to cross a couple of big intersections. I thought more people would be around walking back to the strip, but no dice. The solitary walk with only street lights to guide my path was disconcerting, and I kept my hands in my pockets, touching the several hundred dollar bills in my wallet.
I got to Caesar's Palace, the closest casino to the Rio, stepped to their poker room, and asked if there was a 4-8 Limit game available. 'There isn't, sir, but we can start an interest list for you.' 'Thanks, and could you put me down for 1-3 NL as well?' I hang around the sportsbook area looking at the pretty LCD screens with the multitude of sports. When that got tiring, I ogled the fine women walking in and out of Pure, the casino's nightclub. Somehow that 1.5 hrs at the Wynn made me immune to the bevy of skin that's endemic to the Vegas strip. I'd rather see some other ladies, QQ, that is.
A half hr later, I glanced at the wait list which hadn't moved. And so I moved out of the casino and to the Venetian. The Venetian is the second northernmost casino of interest for my poker playing. 'Do you have 4-8 limit available?' She looks at the computer for a moment and says, 'We do, that table over there.'
The chair had a premolded ass-print and was made of that fine material you'd see on furniture in Buckingham Palace except these were used by degenerates like me. It was remarkably comfortable, and I pulled out my cash to dominate this limit game. I figured since this was limit, I would have less problems playing under-bankrolled, since you can only bet a certain amount each round anyway. But the game is entirely different than no-limit. It is perfectly acceptable, even correct, to chase draws all the way to the river given sufficient odds. I can adjust, even though this is my first time playing limit holdem.
--
Session 2: The Donk Tipper
Donk, short for donkey, is a pejorative term for bad poker players who make the wrong plays frequently usually using aggressive bluffs with second or third-best holdings. Which is fine by me because these are the players who make poker profitable.
In limit holdem, the bets are structured. Pre-flop and on the flop, you can only bet/raise the small bet amount. On the turn and river, you can only bet/raise the big bet amount. In 4-8L, it is $4 and $8 respectively.
A guy had a couple of racks**** ready to leave the action, so I just buy my chips off of him. 'This money is good, right?' I respond, 'Of course, you can always trust a poker player.'
First hand, KQs with 4 callers to my raise. Good start. Flop comes Q, rag, rag. Even better, top pair, with second-best kicker. Nothing scary comes on the turn or river, and I get 2 callers all the way. Man, I love these donks! I flip over the goods and rake in the ~$50 pot. The guy whom I bought the chips from leaves, saying, 'Did I mention those chips were lucky?'
The guy to my right is drunk off his ass with a nice Irish red glow. Needless to say, his chips flowed my way more than a few times until he left, down probably a couple of bills but happy nonetheless. I suppose that's what Vegas does to you, even to the locals.
I managed to donate ~$30 twice to this lady 2 seats to my left when she caught trip queens on the turn (AQ starting hand) to my pocket Kings and once again when she hit a draw. It's not like I didn't respect her play, but I was playing loose surrounded by a sea of money ready to come my way. But I quickly fixed that chip leak.
Another player across the table, Middle Eastern or Indian, called me several times with second best holdings just to 'see what I had.' Bless his soul and his chips! For some reason, I thought he knew what he was doing because of his ethnicity, but after he bought in a second time, I figured him for what he was, an ATM. I kept the fish happy, and said stuff like, 'Man, you had to call with that,' and 'that was a really good draw, it was a gutshot but to the nuts!' But he left too around 330AM citing that he had a convention meeting that morning, 'I'm going to be sleeping on the desk..' That may be me as well in less than a year.. We'll see.
And then my luck started to turn south. My loose play caught up with me as I tried to part this other fool from his money, a Hispanic man who looked like a mustachio'd Edward James Olmos. Even after being told 5 times that he couldn't string bet, he still couldn't raise properly, and had to be reminded that the turn and river are $8, not $4.
The good Dutch player to my left and I marveled as he sucked out about 5 rivers against the varying decent-good players at the table. And after losing most of his $100 buy-in, he was now up a chip rack. And then he racked up again after he caught a miracle 4-outer to boat up (full house) against my top 2 pair. It's a good thing the price of tilting in limit holdem is cheap, since I called a preflop raise from the small blind with J2s, just to see if I could bust the guy. But when the flop missed me completely, he continuation betted. I folded and started to fume even more.
After the remaining bad players called it quits, I took up my chips and left too. Down $132 on a table rich with donks. How does that happen? So about $60 was just my bad play calling to that lady with my inferior holdings, but that meant I lost $72 somehow to horrible players. My goodness that river was beastly at the Venetian.
You're taught to grind when you have the best of it, to prop up your eyelids with toothpicks when there is money to be had. My friends, Mr. Olmos who racked up over $300 in profit was dying to give it all back, but the cards just wouldn't do it for me. Poker is a b--!
Session 2, Venetian, 12/8, 12-430a, 4.5hrs, 4-8NL, -132
--
That morning was the mass of the Immaculate Conception, so I had to get some rest to not sleep through service. I trudged the 10min back to the Imperial Palace, dumbfounded at how the cards had turned so bad. I showered only to discover that the drain was stopped up, so I MacGyver'ed by rinsing off my feet as I got out of the tub. It's a damn good thing this trip was solo!
Day 1, 6hrs, -$130
--
*go all-in, win, and get a stack of chips from your opponent
**4 of the same suit, 1 more for the flush
***He won 2 World Series of Poker with that hand, but that was in heads-up tournament conditions. In cash games, you throw that mess away with no doubt in your mind.
****A rack is 5 bays of 20 each, so a rack of $1 chips is $100.
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