IGGY at PokerWorks

“Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it’s not fish they are after.”
Henry David Thoreau

Allow me to formally welcome one of my heroes, PokerGrub, to the stable of bloggers here at PokerWorks. Go read his epic quest to win airfare to Vegas now!

Good God, I love poker. That’s fairly obvious after all this time, my coming on here to bang out ubers for ya’ll.

And after some fairly harsh poker burnout, I’m experiencing a rebirth of sorts.

I took things to the extreme, quitting my job to play poker full-time. It’s funny, looking back, on what I’ve learned. How I mismanaged my expectations, thrilled in the freedom I had, warped my perspectives on money. I learned a lot about myself. And other people. Hell, the game is the only constant.

There was a point, right after quitting my job that I lived, breathed and ate poker. I was truly out of balance - not even interested in non-poker people, as silly as that sounds. To me, it was like dating someone who’s disgusted by oral sex.

Plus, it was this driving need to make money. To Beat The Game. Soundly and consistently. To justify walking away from a good job.

Things are difficult and ugly in the gambling business. The stakes are higher and the talk tends to be looser. But sometimes, in poker, it’s easy to hear the Call. It’s some kind of high end frequency, like a dog whistle, that normal ears can’t hear.

And in retrospect, I now realize that those two years of poker were for ME. Selfish, yes, but highly gratifying. I always wondered if I could do it - survive on poker.

I suppose I’m rambling here about this right now because someone I truly respect asked my opinions about a job versus playing poker. And it caused me to do some hard thinking.

And in the end, I had to strongly recommend the job choice. Poker is an awful way to make a living, despite the siren song of easy money. It’s too easy to romanticize it and not see it for what it is.

I’ve just now began to enjoy, to actually really enjoy playing poker again. To sit with the bloggers at a table and have fun. Good God, I missed that. But when you’re playing for a living, you can’t even allow yourself to think that way. Cause it ain’t about fun. It’s about earn rate. And getting the hands in. And ignoring variance. And always grinding, grinding, grinding.

And what’s fun about that?

And even worse, what’s fun about reading my silly thoughts?
Nothing. So let’s get this show on the road, shall we?

First of all, please consider signing up with a new poker site from the list on the left. Support a blogger or two by trying a new place to play.

I’m gonna recommend Poker.com tonight because I personally just downloaded it this weekend. I need new places to hunt, damnit.

Funny thing about that - and I’ll report on a new site or two that I’ve personally tried - is that I’m truly digging Full Tilt’s new interface. I always hated it but now I’m loving it. Thank you for turning down the garish cartoons, Full Tilt!

Let’s hit some great threads for you to peruse. I know you need some quality reading here on a Monday.

Wow, just wow. Datamining the big game. Go look at PokerTracker stats for guys like Matusow, Gus Hansen, John Juanda, and hell, all of the Full Tilt pro’s.

Like that? Here’s another.

I spent some quality time digging around Terrence Chan’s blog and found this superb old-school post about how he started working at PokerStars way back in the day, and hell, PokerStars is now the #1 online poker site.
Stars is #1, a look back

Great stuff, if you like this kind of thing. Which I do.

So I agreed to come aboard, just as a part-time consultant as that was really all that was needed. I’ll never forget one excerpt from the e-mail he sent me when I accepted. That excerpt read: “…and there is no reason that with the right software and support we cannot meet and even surpass Paradise.”

This, in late 2000, seemed like silly talk. Paradise at this time wasn’t the biggest player in the market, it pretty much was the market. I mean hell, they had close to 3000 players online some nights! Three freaking thousand players! How was our modest little startup supposed to achieve the kind of critical mass to compete against that?

This is an incredible, albeit off-topic, video from Al-Jazeera of an Arab woman psychologist talking about the issues that divide the Arab world from the West. Watch it.

Phil Helmuth Teaches Online Poker Secrets on YouTube. If you missed my post of Phil imploding on NBC’s Poker After Dark, here it is: Phil Hellmuth is Batshit Crazy.

Speaking of pro poker players, someone on RGP asked the question:

Pro Players - How much is really there

ANNIE DUKE OF PORTLAND, OR
Lifetime Winnnings: $1,190,218 *
2006 POY Rank:
Most Recent Cash: $51,129 : No-Limit Hold’em Championship

Here is Annie Duke’s lifetime tournament winnings. It cost about $1 MM/year to make all the big tournaments

My lifetime earnings as an average engineer exceed Annie’s. Get a job with a medium sized company, get some stock options, get your benefits, read Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover and you will be rich. Don’t try to make it by gambling. You will end up in a financial mess and have to work at lesser jobs when you are older and should be retired. Poker is not a real way to make a living.

Obviously, tourney cashes are not her only source of income. And I’m sure she makes oodles more as a poker celebrity than as a player. Didn’t I read somewhere that she moved to LA?

Speaking of Hollywood.

I literally laughed out loud when I read this post pointing out some ridiculous math by uber RGP troll, Mr Popinjay.

Popinjay math just gets better

Buried deep in the How to help PhilIvey77 thread, Paul demonstrates his odds prowess is only exceeded by his grasp of decimals.

On 12:23 PM, Paul Popinjay wrote:

> (calc.) Give me a fucking break. Do you really want to bet some money, big
> mouth? Anything you wanna bet, you’ll just embarrass yourself. I’ll lay
> you 8 to 5, big mouth, which means if you lose then you’ll have to pay me 4,
> and if I lose I’ll have to pay you 3, and where can you get a better deal
> than that.

Geezus, is it any wonder that poker is beatable with knuckleheads like that around?

This is pretty sick - how to get paid off with quads. By Phil Ivey.

Subject: A lesson on how to play fast

An interesting hand of $200/400 NLHE from yesterday on FullTilt.

Phil Ivey has pocket 8s, open-raises from UTG in a 5-way hand, UTG + 1 folds, then the button, Patrik Antonius (Luigi66369), re-raises. The stacks are deep (Ivey has > 260 BB, Antonius > 450 BB), with Ivey at $106K and Antonius at $185K. The blinds fold, and Ivey makes the call.

The flop comes 2d 8h 8d, giving Ivey quad 8s. The *vast* majority of players would slowplay such a monster hand, which is nearly unbeatable with this flop. But, slowplaying isn’t all about the strength of your own hand. It’s about the strength of your opponent’s hand almost as much as yours. If you put your opponent on a strong hand, or think you can induce a very aggressive response from him, there’s absolutely no need to slowplay. Start hammering the pot, the sooner the better, so you can build one of those monster pots that you will recount for years to come. I think most people miss this concept, and would automatically slowplay flopped quads (or any big hand, for that matter), without regard to what their opponent is holding.

In this case, Ivey makes the most aggressive move possible — a check-raise right on the flop. Antonius re-raises, and Ivey raises big again, essentially moving all-in right there. Antonius makes the call (actually, he raises Ivey $1,500 more, at which point all the money is in). Total pot size is $213,000. Antonius turns over Jd9d for a flush draw with overcards and a backdoor straight draw. Needless to say, Ivey’s quads hold up, and he drags in nearly a quarter of a million dollars.

I have to admire playing in such a way that you can flop quads and then get over 700 BB into the pot right there on the flop. That’s how you get value! Not checking and calling and keeping the pot small.

Naturally, there’s variables at play in these situations, but I think a very common mistake in HE is to always slowplay a flopped monster. Instead, your first thought should be: will my opponent be willing to call bets and put money into the pot? If you suspect the answer is yes, get aggressive and start building a pot immediately.

Full Tilt Poker Game #1366814434: Table Bennett (6 max)
$200/$400 - No Limit Hold’em - 1:56:36 ET - 2006/12/07
Seat 1: serb2127 ($28,997)
Seat 2: Urindanger ($8,000), is sitting out
Seat 3: Phil Ivey ($106,515)
Seat 4: sbrugby ($46,044)
Seat 5: Luigi66369 ($185,682)
Seat 6: MyRenovatio ($39,940)
MyRenovatio posts the small blind of $200
serb2127 posts the big blind of $400
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Urindanger has returned
Phil Ivey has 15 seconds left to act
Phil Ivey raises to $1,200
sbrugby folds
Luigi66369 raises to $4,000
MyRenovatio folds
serb2127 folds
Phil Ivey calls $2,800
*** FLOP *** [2d 8h 8d]
Phil Ivey checks
Luigi66369 bets $7,200
Phil Ivey raises to $20,800
Luigi66369 has 15 seconds left to act
Luigi66369 raises to $60,800
Phil Ivey raises to $100,800
Luigi66369 raises to $140,800
Phil Ivey calls $1,715, and is all in
Luigi66369 shows [9d Jd]
Phil Ivey shows [8c 8s]
Uncalled bet of $38,285 returned to Luigi66369
*** TURN *** [2d 8h 8d] [Kd]
*** RIVER *** [2d 8h 8d Kd] [4c]
Luigi66369 shows a flush, King high
Phil Ivey shows four of a kind, Eights
Phil Ivey wins the pot ($213,627) with four of a kind, Eights
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $213,630 | Rake $3
Board: [2d 8h 8d Kd 4c]
Seat 1: serb2127 (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 2: Urindanger is sitting out
Seat 3: Phil Ivey showed [8c 8s] and won ($213,627) with four of a kind, Eights
Seat 4: sbrugby didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 5: Luigi66369 (button) showed [9d Jd] and lost with a flush, King high
Seat 6: MyRenovatio (small blind) folded before the Flop

Otis is blogging his ass off for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. Pauly’s doing his thang in Australia.

I’m sitting here in my bathrobe, drinking booze.

In a surreal experiment, my buddies UFC blog is sponsoring a Main Event fighter for the Spike TV event on January 25th.

I’d rather shove bamboo slivers under my fingernails than play Razz, but I know a lot of my blogging friends love the game, so allow me to share this advice. I can’t verify it’s veracity because what I know about Razz you could fit into a thimble.

Subject: Lessons In Razz

In clearing a bonus on Stars, I discovered that instead of toiling at no limit HE tables and hoping for $20 pots, I could just play limit Razz and an FPP clears when the rake hits 40 cents, or about an $8 pot. I don’t know what the fuck is up with that, but that’s Stars for ya.

Anyway, after having played for hours here is what I have learned about Razz cash games:

1) A2K at a full table is absolute shit. I don’t care what anyone says. It’s shit. It’s even bigger shit if the K is up — mother fuckers won’t believe you have A2 in the hole and they’ll draw out on your sorry ass. Same goes for A2Q, A2J, AA2, A2T, and A29. Fold that shit unless you are in late position and raise the bring-in guy and hope the fucker folds.

2) To make money, just as in limit HE, you have to fold a lot. I suspect this is why EstebanAA is constantly going tits up on Stars and always has to reload. He’s a fucking fish.

3) I placed 2nd in a Razz MTT the other night. I was heads up with an even stack, and it was 4:00 a.m. and I could barely hold my head up. I took my sleeping pills at 12:30 when I thought I was going to bust out on the bubble. Then I started catching cards like there was no tomorrow. If I’d been awake, I would have cleaned that fucker’s clock. Anyway, don’t play Razz impaired.

4) Pre-4th street raising wars are dumb. Never cap betting. Your hand can turn to complete shit by 4th street and you’re fucked. It isn’t like getting all of your money in with AA in NLHE. I am sure there are those who will tell me I’m wrong. If so, fuck you.

5) Razz requires more brains and skill than NLHE. In NLHE it is better to be lucky than good. You will never convince me that JohnnyBax is anything other than very lucky. He plays shit hands just like everyone else, except he gets lucky and hits miracle flops. Fuck him.

In closing, it is an elegant game, and the money to be made on Stars is at the Razz tables. I know some say 2-7 lowball is a cash cow, but I have the worst luck with draw games. Fuckers always hit 75432 on me after discarding 4 cards on the third draw. Fuckers.

Anyway, Happy New Year. I wish you all the very best.

Love,
Elvis F. Henry

What next, what next? So much to blog about, so little sobriety time.

How about a random BattleStar Galactica poker poll?

Why is Gaius Baltar so good at poker?

a) He’s good at calculating odds
b) Six peeks at everyone’s hands for him
c) He’s so twitchy that everything he does looks like a tell
d) God really does love him

I think it’s time for Destroying Workplace Productivity with a few 2+2 threads for your perusal. These are good ones, damnit. Edumacate yourself.

How to beat bots…

Proud botter: I am a bot

I would say 99.985% of the botters are losers. They buy the product out of the box and let it run. It looses. They try to make it better and it looses more. It’s a vicious cycle and they eventually realize the time commitment is too much and its not a get rich scheme. I’ve seen very intelligent people spend 1+ yrs to try to build a bot and they still can’t break even at 1/2. The real winners are the bot software owners as they continue to rake in new fish. Pun’s intended.

For those that think botting isn’t too big of a problem

Why I believe the PPA is refusing to be accountable

Official and Final ZeeJustin Thread (was) Is ZeeJustin Rehabilitated?

Here’s a thread about online cheaters, ZeeJustin’s blog. Here is the highlight from the post in question:

“I made my statement loud and clear: I am one of the best tournament players on the planet, and I am going to be making some noise.”

Inspiring FossilMan posts from 1999

The Fat guy loves this Tommy Angelo poker article: Folding.

I don’t know why I love all the ‘I’m going pro” posts and threads, but I do. I especially like the retrospectives after taking the leap because we rarely get that perspective. Usually folks get churned up like chum.

Here’s the post with a response from RGP.

Morphy goes pro?

A strange thing happened today. I quit my job. I gave my 2 week’s notice, and my last day is a week from Friday.

Over the last few months I’ve been playing pretty much nothing but NLHE and PLO ring games, at the 50c/1 level, with a little 1/2 thrown in here and there (and of course the 2/4 bingo shot sessions and the 5/10 “I can’t fucking believe he called with that” sessions). A while back TNL told me if I stopped screwing around with SNGs and MTTs here and there and really focused on cash game play that I could really do it. I have to say, I think he’s right.

As a result, I’ve decided to take a different step career wise. With my skills I can get a job in IT pretty much any time I want to. It may not be exactly what I want to do for a living, but it will get the bills paid and buy the kids all the crap they keep asking for. So I’ve decided to make a run at playing poker online for a living.

For starters, I’m immediately going to move up my base level from 50c/1 to 1/2 and plan on putting more 2/4 sessions in. I’ve been playing below my bankroll for quite some time and this is the perfect reason to move up. I’ve seen the play at 1/2 online, and I have to say it’s worse than 50c/1 overall. I’m going to project winnings at twice what I’m at now, but I fully expect them to be much more than just 2x my current rate.

My only concern is health insurance, but I’ll have COBRA for 18 months if I need it, and I can pick up a decent family plan for like $600/month, which is something I had to do a few years ago while on a contract that paid really well, but offered no benefits.

So there it is, Morphy’s big news. Hope everyone had a great Christmas, and has a great new years!

Morphy

————————-

I hope you are kidding. Reread what you have written. You are quitting good work to play .50/$1 PLO. I really hope you are kidding.

Ok, I’m gonna cut this short (so to speak) and head to bed. Now please consider downloading a new poker site from the list on the left. If you do, someday I might get out of this chair and walk!

And thank the poker gods, because I’m leaving you today with an excellent, old-school poker Trip Report. I sure wish we had more of these floating around.

Thanks for reading and enjoy this well-written post:

——

Subject: Trip Report: East Bay Omaha (long, boring)

I was compelled to write this for myself, even though I suppose there’s no reason why anyone else should be interested. But what the hell, why not. It’s better than a politics thread. Don’t feel like you need to reply though, as zero replies to Omaha Chris posts is a hallowed RGP tradition.

—Background—

I live in Santa Cruz. There’s a walking-distance cardroom near me (the Ocean View Card Room) which is my “home”. I play a couple times a month on dealer’s choice nights (mostly O8). I tried the $2-$100, $100 max buyin spread limit holdem game once (which is really small stack no limit, for all intents and purposes), but holdem really isn’t my game, and super-gambly, pre-flop shove-in holdem with a $6 seat fee every half hour DEFINITELY isn’t my game. I’m all about the dealer’s choice. The
players at my card room are insane, but that’s for another post.

The Bay 101 $4/$8 w/half kill O8 is my home-away-from-home, and I try to make it up there at least once a month. I’ve also played the Garden City $4/$8 stud 8, which is tremendous, and my interest bends that way when I want a change of pace.

I’d played live a few times over the last couple years, but it was in August ‘06 that I decided to make it official and establish an initial bankroll of $300 (in honor of the great Steve Badger’s initial bankroll of $300). I’ve now been going about five months as a regular live player, averaging one or two sessions a week. The roll is now approaching $1K and I plan to keep playing until it’s all gone or I die,
whichever comes first.

My sister and her husband have a place in San Francisco. They go on trips often and I have become the designated cat-sitter. This works out well for me, since the city is right in the middle of the Bay Area poker scene. No (legal and public) games in the city itself of course, but there’s Lucky Chances and Artichoke Joes to the immediate south, and the Oaks, the Palace, and the California Grand (among others) to the east. I don’t drive, but Bay Area Rapid Transit gets me to or near any of these rooms in less than an hour.

Last time I was in the city I sampled the O8 tables at Lucky Chances and Artichoke Joe’s (also $4/$8 w/half kill, which seems to be the standard Bay Area game). I did good at Lucky’s and got reamed at Joe’s, but both games were superb examples of California Omaha at its best.

My ultimate goal is to play every single Omaha game in Northern California. Recent research has informed me that I’ve got more ground to cover than I thought, but I’m making fast progress. In any case, my SF folks were leaving for a week after Christmas, which made me the cat-sitter again, which put the East Bay games at the top of my to-do list.

—First Stop: The Palace Card Club (Hayward)—

My first stop was decided by necessity. The Palace only spreads Omaha on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, and since I couldn’t get out Tuesday, I had only one shot at it.

I got off BART at 7pm and found the Palace easily just a few blocks from the station. Walking in, I was intrigued by the scale. I’ve played the sprawling 40-table rooms and the Ocean View is a tiny 3-table hole in the wall, but this was my first “medium” sized club. A dozen tables or so, packed tight into a diner-sized building (I suspect that it is, in fact, a converted diner, judging by the architecture).

The boardman informed me that the Omaha game hadn’t started yet, but there was a list of 4 or so who had shown interest. I expressed mine and became number 5. I sat down with a cup of coffee and a su doku puzzle and gave it about 45 minutes before going back to check if the Omaha game was still in the oven. A brush told me that it hadn’t come together, and since there were no open tables, all indications were that it wouldn’t. Would I like to take the open $3/$6 holdem seat instead?

$3/$6 holdem. Zzzzz. But I hadn’t come all this way to do a su doku and drink coffee, so I said “I’ll give it a shot”, bought a rack, and took seat 1. After some tepid cards in the early rounds, I proceeded to go on a beautiful rush in what turned out to one of the softest poker games I had ever sat in. 6-7 players to most flops with mild raising if any. Nothing was out of bounds. Suited connectors and low pairs from up front, no problem. Raise from the back with monsters and get everyone for two bets, it’s all good.

At one point it was folded around to me in the small blind (a freak occurrence at this table) and the lady to my left said “chop?” I had jacks. I looked at her and contemplated. She was a sweet 40ish girl from Thailand with a warm disposition and generous with her smile. We had been getting along well and I saw no reason to muddy the waters. I knew I was crushing whatever she had, but I liked her and agreed. Obviously this was no time to show my cards so I didn’t. We took back our blinds and I said, “I had garbage anyway.” Later I had pocket aces (I was happy to cap it before the flop), flopped a set, and she was with me until the river on a busted straight draw, folding to the last bet. She showed me hers, I showed her mine.

The rest of the night was big pairs that held up, straights that came in, and my Big Slick vs. their Ace-something. I did not show down a single loser. Soon the last BART train to the city was on its way, so I stood up, pocketed a few souvenir chips, and cashed out $234. Now I had some padding for the slings and arrows that might come my way for the rest of the trip. Tomorrow: the Oaks!

—Second Stop: The Oaks Card Club (Emeryville)—

Exposing myself to the streets of the official Second Most Dangerous City in California (eighth most dangerous in the nation) was probably not the best idea, but I had a circuit to complete. Skipping the Oaks out of fear would be a sissy move. Besides, the buzz had it that this was the juiciest O8 table in Northern California.

Two weeks ago when I made a thread about getting there by foot from the BART station the consensus was not positive. Porche Dan said I’d be “the only white tool for miles.” Gary Carson told me I was stupid, since that’s what Gary Carson does, and Patti Beadles told me I had nothing to worry about (during the day at least) but still might want to take a cab nonetheless.

When I got off the train, dusk was gathering. “Take a cab” resonated in my mind but I’m too cheap for that when the walk is less than a mile. I walk everywhere. And there was no thrill in taking a cab. How bad could this be?

So I tried to look my thuggiest, pulled down my black knit cap so that not a strand of blond would show, zipped up my jacket and stepped onto MacArthur Boulevard. It WAS MacArthur Boulevard, right? Wait a minute, wasn’t I supposed to be on 40th street? Hmm, what’s this? Emery-Go-Round? And it’s free! Where does that go? Nah, I stand a better chance of getting lost on some random bus than on foot. I basically know
where I am; I’ll walk.

The night before, I’d read about the woman who had been burned alive a few months before on 44th street, and the guy who was shot to death waiting for a bus (to the Oaks!), so these visions danced in my head as I headed toward what the final rays of sunlight told me was west.

The gambling had begun already, and the casino was a mile (?) away.

In a place like Oakland, one block can make all the difference between harmlessness and doom. Which block was I on? I wasn’t sure. But I WAS sure that, of the dozens of faces I saw while walking along the decaying, trash-strewn sidewalks, mine was indeed the only white one.

A few more blocks into my increasingly trembling, sweat-soaked journey, I came to accept that I was going to have to approach someone and ask them for directions. My choices seemed to be limited to either that small group of 3-4 young hoods standing on the corner, or the other small group of 3-4 young hoods across the street yelling to the first group.

I wondered, if a jumping was in my future, would they check my sock for the $200+ I had tucked into it? As careless as my planning had turned out to be, I had at least that to cling to: I was smart enough to keep my poker money out of my wallet.

The only thing that felt right at this moment was to keep moving, as quickly as possible with my eyes on the ground, and not on the two 250-pound behemoths over there screaming into the engine of their burnt-out husk of a car.

I soon had the good fortune of encountering an older man unlocking his front gate. He was able to set me straight, and it turned out I was almost where I needed to be.

Ten minutes later I had reached the casino and was asking the boardman to put me on the list for the $4/$8 Omaha table, which he promptly told me didn’t exist. “Not tonight. Tonight it’s $6/$12 with $8/$16 kill.”

$8 fucking $16? That’s twice what I’m used to, and more than twice what I’m comfortable with. There was also a $4/$8 stud game with a 50 cent ante. Stud with a proper ante is a rare bird in California, so maybe I should do that instead?

No. I’d played no Omaha last night and I wasn’t going to strike out twice in a row. My penis was already feeling an inch or so longer from successfully escaping the Oakland streets. I was still high from that and I wanted more. So it was just going to be $6/$12-$8/$16, even if I did only have a $200 buyin.

Within a half hour I was playing and mostly being blinded off due to junk hands. This game was the tightest live O8 table I had played, but of course that’s relative. In California “tight” means five people seeing the flop rather than 8 or 9. Still softer than even the 50 cent games in the bizarro world of online poker.

The kill pots were a rush, as I suppose higher stakes always are to those new to them. I couldn’t win anything though. I had been whittled down by a blind here, a flop there, to $90 of my original $200 when the dealer tossed me AA45. Had to do it. We went two bets before the flop, which came 236 with two diamonds. I had no diamonds, but I sure liked my hand. I had a lock on at least some of it since my low could not be counterfeited and my straight was the best hand for high at the moment.

The flop went 4 bets three ways, and the raises were coming from the other two players. Clearly there was at least one other A4 out, and I feared the diamond, which of course came on the turn. A bet and a raise on that round put one of my two opponents all in, and at this point I was obviously in calling mode. The river was a blank.

Confident that I would be quartered or sixthed, I showed down my hand and was overjoyed when the other two players turned up the A4s I expected - but there was not a diamond in sight! I won the high half with my straight and one-sixth of the low pot. After tipping the dealer, I found that I had recovered all of my losses and now stood at around $220. I took the blinds once more and decided that was enough. I had
played a new limit and could now leave a winner. And these stakes were working my nerves. So I saved my souvenir chips and cashed out for $212.

It was now getting near 10pm and this time I knew exactly where I had to walk. I couldn’t give in to taking a cab; I wanted the rush of hoofing it through those streets again. I looked out across 40th and somehow felt that things would be okay. I put my hand in my jacket pocket, produced a bulge with my two forefingers, and made my way to the BART station in one piece.

I knew then and now that I was vastly overdramatizing the danger, but it made things more interesting.

—Final Stop: The California Grand (Pacheco)—

As a grizzled online poker bonus whore of several years, I was excited to see that the California Grand offered something similar - $30 free in chips to first-time players. I clipped the coupon and headed to Concord.

Walking in, I loved the building. Apparently the place has been spreading poker nonstop since 1851 and they claim to be the home of the “longest continuous poker action in history”. The lighting definitely could use a change (pukey flourescent), but I liked the setup overall, not to mention the vibrant chips.

The boardman put me on the Omaha list at 2pm, about nine names down, with only one table running. Oh boy. My experience is that nine names takes about 2 hours, and most of the seated players looked like lifers. Loose as any other California players, but dug in to their seats like ticks.

$4/$8 with half-kill again, but this was one of the always-annoying 4-chip/8-chip tables like at Lucky Chances. Why they spread a game at the $4/$8 level with $1 chips is beyond me (especially since the dealers stand to be tipped more with $2 chips in play), but so be it. I saw one guy go back for five racks, color up, then rack up/color up again an hour later, which I suppose comes with the territory in a dollar-chip $4/$8 game when you’re running good and your stack quickly grows unmanageable. I hoped that I would be blessed with a similar problem.

I was unhappy to see that this was a $2 button-drop game. Thankfully these seem to have recently disappeared for the most part from the Bay Area (right around the time I was getting into live poker), since button-dropping hurts any player who prefers to play snug. At least it played as a live bet, but PLEASE, rake from the pot, not my stack.

45 minutes passed before the first new player was called. This actually may have been a good thing because a slow-moving list clears out the impatient. I myself can wait for days to get into a game, but most won’t. Sure enough, the next few names were no-shows and they were getting to me at an acceptable pace.

I poured myself some coffee in the service area and, the carafe still in my hand, a waitress walked up and asked if I would pour her one too for her customer. “Maybe I have to tip you now,” she said as I handed her the cup. The staff were all friendly like that.

At 5:30, three and a half hours after I stepped into the casino, my name was finally called. The floorman looked surprised that I was still there and said, “this guy’s been waiting all week!” I walked up to the cage, bought in short for one rack, got my 30 free chips, and took seat 1.

Utter garbage oozed off the deck toward me for the next hour. Every single hand was 3489, Q964, 9993 (yes, 9993), 3489, QJ52, forever and ever. I have never caught so many eights and nines. I did not see an ace for two rounds, let alone ace-deuce or ace-trey. Finally I started catching those hands, only to get bulldozed by the flop. On days like this, I find that the deck suddenly has twenty nine deuces in it when I
hold A2, and they all jump right to the top.

The hand that crippled me was A2(clubs)8K. A kill pot. The flop came with two clubs and two low cards. The betting was heavy. The turn and the river were running fucking jacks, and neither was a club. Great. I showed the guy on my right my hand and he was sad for me. Now down to about $30 I crapped the rest away playing AAAQ with spades (sometimes you just have to play AAAQ), saw a few more blinds, and that was it for
me. $100 down the tubes, plus the 30 free dollars. Oh well.

All told, the play netted me $46. Kind of a wash though, after eating and commuting, but I was happy to have made it quite a ways further down my Omaha circuit.

My next stop is probably Livermore. There’s a train there from San Jose, and there are two clubs right on the tracks just a few blocks from one other. One spreads Omaha, the other I’m not sure. I may have to spend the night, since it’s a commuter train that runs at odd times, but my all-nighters in San Jose have always been fun, so I’m looking forward to it.

————

Link of the Day:
Prussian Blue’s Biggest Fan?

Neo-Nazis and Child Porn - a match made in Aryan heaven.

Also, check out the picture. That is one sexy, sexy man.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 8th, 2007 at 9:56 am and is filed under Uncategorized.