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My week in Poker

I knew i was eventually going to make my way to a Casino some time during my week of work-hiatus before welcoming the nuisance of a new job starting the 9th of October. Monday of course was spent recuperating from the drinking binge of a weekend in Mexico followed by another late night poker session with the boys on Sunday... I have never been much of a cash-game player not because i am a bad player but mostly because i am not a gambling man. I like to play tournaments better, where, the buy-in money is the only money at stake not your ATM. That's more my forte... More on tournament poker later

Wednesday evening, after a somewhat hurried dinner with an old friend who had to go home and study for school, coupled with the Yankee-Tiger game being cancelled due to rain, i took the opportunity to play cards at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens. How's it go-- where there's tragedy there's opportunity, right? (lol). My evening started off fairly slow. Although my first $40 buyin lasted quite a while i didn't win a single pot nor i hit anything on the flop to attemp to win a pot. It was like getting taxed slowly for sitting there. As you might expect the $40 no-limit holdem game is very loose. It seems like the game rewards the loose ultra-aggressive player more than the tight and solid ones. So in so many words the $40 no-limit holdem table is definitely not my game. Although they say the higher the risk the higher the rewards, i didn't feel like forking out $200 or $100 per buyin. See when you play these games you can not play knowing you can only afford one buyin. The drive out there alone isn't worth playing passive with a single buyin... That in mind i played the $40 game with at least 3 backup buyins in the arsenal.

When my first $40 buyin was down to a measly $12 in the middle position i saw a $4 raise from the first position followed by three callers. I looked down at a couple of Kings and pushed all my money in hoping for my big hand to hold up against possibly 3 to 4 callers. The small and the big blinds call my somewhat puny ALL IN... The original raiser though, having set the perfect trap, Re-raised the pot another $150. That is an enormous raise, well, at least in the $40 game. Of course every poker players knows-- the only logical reason to the stupendous Re-Raise might be the mother of all hole cards "Pocket Aces". When it was all said and done the aces help up against my underpair Kings... as they should! In the subsequent hand, after rebuying for another $40, i raised the pot to $8 with a pair of Jacks. The player on the big blind moved ALL IN for another $20, and would you believe it, he had a Pair of Aces. That is back to back hands i lost to Pocket Aces and once again the Aces held up over my underpair. Left with only $12 i moved ALL IN on the very next hand with a pair of 8's, but, once again, i ran into a bigger pair, this time a pair of 10's. My evening was quickly turning into a living poker nightmare...

In the next 30 minutes i lost another $40 but in a more conventional way (bad beats, bad calls and the like haha...). So down $120 and having a bad run thus far, i was tempted to ask for a table change. Seat # 8 i noticed was the hottest seat on my table and after witnessing two people sit and double up quickly, i took it as soon as it was available. The only problem was it took about another 3 hours and more than $260 in losses before the seat was available again. When i was finally able to move to the Hot Seat it only took a few hands before i doubled up. In under an hour i regained my loses and was up almost $60... In the first sign of trouble, when i lost an $80 pot, i counted my chips and decided i had been there long enough. So after Six and a half exciting hours of Poker and a six pack of Dos XX i was down $80... Not bad but still a losing session...

Thursday... I think if i didn't have to meet with my Technical Recruiter at 11 am to sign my offer letter i probably would have stayed a few more hours. I wanted to play some more, however i was tired and didn't feel like driving out to Bell Gardens. Jerry coincidentally was not having his regular Thursday night game and so without many options i decided to stay-in for the night and settle for the Nooner $30+10 NL Holdem Tournament the next day at the Bike...

Well my day there couldn't have been shorter as i was knocked out on the very first hand. With 800 in chips and a 5-10 blinds to start i re-raised to $100 from the Big Blind with a pair of Queens after the cutoff player raised to $50. My raise was smooth called as i expected. I re-raised because i wanted to see how BIG his hand actually was. If he had re-raised then i may have folded depending on the amount. The flop came a beautiful "5-Queen-Ace" offsuit. I bet out $300 and he quickly moved ALL IN for the rest of his chips (which is $400-- half the starting chips). The way Wednesday night went and the gentleman's no-posturing ALL IN motion, i was almost certain he had Pocket Aces. But despite that i was incredulous... Ultimately i called not because i couldn't believe i was running into another pair of aces but because i had a set of Queens in a $40 tournament. Maybe i could have folded if i were in the WPT or some big tournament... And oh, yeah, he had aces...

Posted by: Marc Gabay
Thursday, October 05, 2006