#PokerTalk
Fair Warning, this is a long poker post.
It stretches from tonight's session to random musings about a having a local poker room plus my origins in poker.
So its a TL;DR post, and i apologize if this shows up on your feed and you really couldn't care less. I felt like unloading random crap on my mind
Alright, still here? Ok cool.
So I don't think many people know how I got into poker (and probably far less care). My origins date back to 10th grade and playing 5 card draw in biology for quarters.
That turned into home games at classmates houses where we played 5 card draw, and "Anaconda" and a 7 card stud variant where cards are passed left and right. I did occasionally ok at these games but the most anybody was winning was like 20-40 bucks max. The last of these games was at my bud's house where we quickly realized the other 2 people playing were colluding. We ended up eventually taking all our money back and all of theirs.
That's probably the last time I played "poker" until I went to Mohegan and Foxwoods sometime late in 2003. Moneymakering of poker was in full effect and the poker rooms were crowded. (Side note: Mohegan Sun closed their poker room between 2004-2009 for some reason or another. If a Foxwoods dealer is to be believed, they closed due to the poker manager being involved in an illicit drug dealing ring and were avoiding a lawsuit. I never verified that, so take that for what you will).
At Mohegan I played 3/6 LHE (limit) since it was the lowest they offered at the time. And Foxwoods I played 2/4 LHE.
I still remember my first actual 2/4 session and how dumb I was. I ended up losing money, and I was cashing out one of the younger, but slightly older than me women I had been playing with said, "hey was this your first time?" I said yeah. She said that I should really read up on playing Texas Hold'em before playing again. So yeah, I was terrible. But I did what she said and bought a bunch of poker books on how to play. Never saw her again, but she really was helpful without being a jerk and I always appreciated that.
Between 2004 - 2010, I played A LOT of poker. Well, as much as I could when I was able to get out to Foxwoods. I wasn't really lucky at 2/4 LHE, but when I was introduced to, and started playing 1/2 NL I started doing much better. 2004 was a pretty big year as I had started playing tournaments as well. The Big Foxwoods November event (which was associated with the World Poker Tour, WPT, and may still be) I managed to turn a $25 buy-in to a $1000ish buy-in to a 3rd level event which paid out 10k seats to the big event. At the start of the event Mike Sexton walked around and I got to meet, talk to, and shake his hand. That was a pretty big deal to me.
Ended up finishing in 20th place out of 160ish, and missed a 10k seats by 4 spots.
And so I played on and off online and live, and being much more successful online. I actually turned a free $25 to The Gaming Club Poker Room, into winning $660 on a freeroll. I turned that into $1400 and cashed some out to pay some debts. I was freaking hooked man.
2009 was really the next big poker event for me. I had become a part of a poker blogging community (and still talk to many of these people today). The community had a member who worked for Full Tilt Poker and was able to snag a sweet deal for what was called the "Tournament of Champions". It was 3 - 4 various tournaments a week that paid out cash as well a TOC seat to the winner of the event. The TOC seat was an entry to the end of season actual TOC event which awarded a 10k Main Event entry to the winner.
This tournament also had player of the month awards for March, April, and May which paid out a $2500 package to the winner of each month who accumulated the most points through the various tournaments of that month.
Long story short, I won a $2500 package and did not do well in the TOC main event. BUT I was able to plan my trip to Vegas and enter Event #51 $1500 NL.
So this is the part of the movie where the twist comes in. I was probably playing my best poker I have ever played. I was feeling it. I was pretty accurately able to assess what my opponents had and play them accordingly. While I never really played anything higher than 1/2 NL because I was a chicken (although I did play 2/5 once during this Vegas trip) in tournaments I was doing awesome. I took 1330 as my biggest tournament cash during this time leading up to Vegas. I took my biggest live cash game pot of $1080 during this same time. I was freaking on fire, man.
So I play my event. This is as I remember it from my poker blog because its been 10 years:
Seat 1: Think I remember his name was Jason, dude had an identical twin who was also a poker player, thought he said "Craig". Felt like I should know this guy but I couldn't place him. Played extremely well and became the table leader early on.
Seat 2: Danish guy, reminded me of the lead singer for the Presidents of the United States of America (PUSA).
Seat 3: Thought he might have been a Scandi internet pro. Stereotypical large headphones, bed head, weird face etc etc. Played pretty well but someone asked him if he was Scandi and told us he was Danish.
Seat 4: Another guy I felt like I should have recognized. Bald head, grey hoodie and sunglasses. Didnt talk at the table at all.
Seat 5: Young kid. Nothing much on him at all, didnt get involved in too many pots.
Seat 6: Angry Aussie. Cleary he was Australian, you could tell by his accent and the huge bowie knife he used as a card top...I kid. But he seemed pissed off for some reason and it didn't get much better for him playing poker.
Seat 7: Your Hero. Sporting my Ron Burgundy "I'm Kind of a Big Deal" t-shirt and listening to techno, I was ready and in the zone.
Seat 8: Disheveled Southerner. From the way he talked about the tournament circuit, this dude, I guess, must have been a pro. Although he was always slouched in his chair (think like getting a permanent massage) and bore a striking resemblance to Jay Cutler.
Seat 9: Best I can describe this guy was a Native America guy with a white hoodie, shades, and a huge square band-aid on his left cheek.
Seat 10: Typical bald poker player with shades. Is he staring right at me OR is he staring right through me?
Listened to "Sultans of Swing" as I had planned until the fated moment where the legendary words "Shuffle up and deal" were uttered. I was locked and loaded baby!
First hand I am in the SB and it folds around to Angry Aussie on the button. He raises 3x BB and I peek to find A-Ko. Not one to play coy, I reraise him 3x his bet. BB folds and grumbling and mumbling the Angry Aussie folds. I win my very first hand I have ever played in the WSOP, not a bad start!
Table was pretty tight considering it was a donkament, and I had fairly good reads on most of the active people.
I folded until it got around to me in UTG, and I looked down to find 6-6. I limped and it folded around to MP who raised it 3x BB (raises were anywhere from 2.5 to 4x the BB). Folded back round to me and I just called. Flop came 3-4-5 rainbow and I checked. MP bet a little more than half the pot and XR him right here thinking it was just a standard continuation bet. It bothered me a little when he called. Turn was a 9. I figure I am probably good here and even if I'm not I have straight outs, so I put a pot size bet in here on the turn. MP thinks about it for awhile then mucks 10-10 face up. I was feeling good, baby.
I counted my stack and somehow came up with 8900 the first count, but realized I really had 6900 (nice). Which was still good 30 mins in. Pretty much the rest of the level I spewed chips on suited connectors that never came in.
When the 2nd level started I was in the 5500 range and I continued to spew. The only hand I remember from this level is I had 8-9o on the button, identical twin raised from UTG+1 and I called. Flop was not favorable, as it was A-K-Q.
Twin c-bet this flop but I wanted to see if I could incite a fold so I re-raised him the standard 3x his bet. He thought and thought, looked me up and down and eventually re-raised me so I had to let it go, at that point I fell my closest back to the starting stack with 4900.
The break came right after I scooped a big pot with A-K on a K high flop. Got called all the way to the river by Danish headphones and he mucked.
During this time there was a weird hand I was involved in with Angry Aussie and NA guy.
Native American guy was the BB, Angry Aussie limped, I limped from the button, and NA guy checked. Same thing happened on the flop.... or did it?
I must've been distracted for a second because I had no idea what was going on. This is what I know: There was a bet in front of NA guy, he was claiming he was not given the option to check or bet and the dealer had thought it was a check round, Angry Aussie was vehemently sure that the dealer never brought in NA's Big Blind and it was not a bet. Normally not a big deal but the dealer had burned and turned.
The floor was called and the dealer was explaining to the floor the situation but Aussie kept interrupting and saying the dealer was wrong. The Floor says in the dickest tone I've ever heard a floor boss say, "Mike (the dealer) is a world class dealer, he dealt the final table of the Main Event last year and is one of the highest rated dealers on my staff. Now who do you think I'm going to listen to in this case you or Mike?" Naturally that set Aussie off even further. They removed the 10 that had been dealt and restarted action from the flop. This time NA checked, which kinda pissed me off a lil I wont lie for wasting my time, and Aussie bet. I folded, NA called. The new turn was a 9, and Aussie bet again with NA calling. They both checked the river and NA wound up up winning with a pair of 9s. Aussie showed a 10 that would have won him the pot had the original turn played.
I bet you would not be surprised to know who got busted from our table first, cursing and mumbling the whole way.
The second person out was baldy shades who I bluffed with my sixes, he couldn't get anything going and finally just shoved with nothing and got bounced.
The break came and I checked in with home base on the stats, PokerNews was reporting that Identical twin at my table had 12k. I had around 5500.
Got to see Men the Master rush past me when the break came and Liss filled me in on the rest of the pros that were spotted playing in that event.
Before play resumed they did the bracelet ceremony redux playing the correct version of "God Save the Queen" instead of the Sex Pistols version. At the time I had no idea why they were apologizing and re-playing the national anthem. Then they presented the bracelet to the Iranian guy who won in a touching tribute to his homeland.
Back to play, 2 new guys joined the table to replace those who got bounced. I won another hand early in the round, although I cant recall specifics to get my chip count back up over the 7500 threshold.
To wrap this up, about halfway through level 3 the following hand occurred:
UTG+1 & 2 limp, folds around to me in the SB and I see A-Qo. I raise 3x BB to 450. UTG1 folds UTG2 calls.
My read on UTG2 is weak player, he made a horrible laydown 2 hands earlier against young Danish dude when for the umpteenth time he pushed all-in as a short stack.
Flop is Ax-5x-8x
Flop is a good flop for me with no possible draws of any kind. Since im OOP I throw a half-pot bet of 600 out there. UTG2 quickly raises to 2500.
The raise confuses me because I don't think hes that strong to limp UTG2 twice. If he had a set here would he raise me that much? Would he limp A-K twice? I decide he has to have A-10/A-J. And after a pause, I push all-in.
Dude starts tanking hard, mumbling "what did I get myself into? You don't have two pair. You raised pre-flop and bet 600 on the flop...."
At this point I know my read was absolutely right, A-10 or A-J. I almost started to say "your a-j is no good here" but i stopped myself.
After 5 mins of agonizing deliberation he calls and flips up A-J.
Anyway, so the river was a Jack and my heart dropped out of my chest. I sat motionless realizing that my WSOP had ended on a 3 outer. Well not ended, I still had 500 in chips but I was done, mentally was fried.
Finally busted 2 hands later when I ran my 10-9ss into 10-10.
I got to take the walk of shame for my first and possibly last time. On my way towards the cab area at the font of the casino I passed by Chris Ferguson again and waved.
This screwed me up real good mentally. I still played various tournaments through 2009 and 2010, but I was not anywhere near the level I had been at. Eventually I quit playing altogether except for a monthly home game I was hosting. It was dark times.
Then I met most of the people I call friends now playing Magic between 2013 - 2018 and occasionally going with a few people to play cash games at Foxwoods/Mohegan. Then I moved out here and had a poker room 12 mins from my doorstep. Granted, its a small poker room, but all the dealers know me and the waitresses know me. There is something to be said about being a regular in a poker room. Its nice. Like Foxwoods was my home poker room, but outside of a few individuals and maybe a few dealers, nobody knew who I was.
So back to tonight.
After 5 hours of poker play, I broker even. But there is a great lesson in this. I was down a lot fairly early. When you aren't hitting your cards and all your draws end up dead ends its frustrating. I finally looked down to see two black Aces. They get cracked which gets me $100 and im basically back up to starting amount. Then I whittled that away, and bought in for another $100. That started to whittle away too. Seat changes, table changes, nothing was working. And then, just like that, I flop the nut straight and get to re-raise with 4 callers on the flop. I bet the rest of the way when no 3rd heart or card paired and I walked away with a big pot. 2 more big pots with made flushes and I was slightly over what I bought in for. I ended up up $1 when the table finally broke and gave that to the dealer.
So yeah, breaking even was pretty nice tonight.
Until next time!
Fair Warning, this is a long poker post.
It stretches from tonight's session to random musings about a having a local poker room plus my origins in poker.
So its a TL;DR post, and i apologize if this shows up on your feed and you really couldn't care less. I felt like unloading random crap on my mind
Alright, still here? Ok cool.
So I don't think many people know how I got into poker (and probably far less care). My origins date back to 10th grade and playing 5 card draw in biology for quarters.
That turned into home games at classmates houses where we played 5 card draw, and "Anaconda" and a 7 card stud variant where cards are passed left and right. I did occasionally ok at these games but the most anybody was winning was like 20-40 bucks max. The last of these games was at my bud's house where we quickly realized the other 2 people playing were colluding. We ended up eventually taking all our money back and all of theirs.
That's probably the last time I played "poker" until I went to Mohegan and Foxwoods sometime late in 2003. Moneymakering of poker was in full effect and the poker rooms were crowded. (Side note: Mohegan Sun closed their poker room between 2004-2009 for some reason or another. If a Foxwoods dealer is to be believed, they closed due to the poker manager being involved in an illicit drug dealing ring and were avoiding a lawsuit. I never verified that, so take that for what you will).
At Mohegan I played 3/6 LHE (limit) since it was the lowest they offered at the time. And Foxwoods I played 2/4 LHE.
I still remember my first actual 2/4 session and how dumb I was. I ended up losing money, and I was cashing out one of the younger, but slightly older than me women I had been playing with said, "hey was this your first time?" I said yeah. She said that I should really read up on playing Texas Hold'em before playing again. So yeah, I was terrible. But I did what she said and bought a bunch of poker books on how to play. Never saw her again, but she really was helpful without being a jerk and I always appreciated that.
Between 2004 - 2010, I played A LOT of poker. Well, as much as I could when I was able to get out to Foxwoods. I wasn't really lucky at 2/4 LHE, but when I was introduced to, and started playing 1/2 NL I started doing much better. 2004 was a pretty big year as I had started playing tournaments as well. The Big Foxwoods November event (which was associated with the World Poker Tour, WPT, and may still be) I managed to turn a $25 buy-in to a $1000ish buy-in to a 3rd level event which paid out 10k seats to the big event. At the start of the event Mike Sexton walked around and I got to meet, talk to, and shake his hand. That was a pretty big deal to me.
Ended up finishing in 20th place out of 160ish, and missed a 10k seats by 4 spots.
And so I played on and off online and live, and being much more successful online. I actually turned a free $25 to The Gaming Club Poker Room, into winning $660 on a freeroll. I turned that into $1400 and cashed some out to pay some debts. I was freaking hooked man.
2009 was really the next big poker event for me. I had become a part of a poker blogging community (and still talk to many of these people today). The community had a member who worked for Full Tilt Poker and was able to snag a sweet deal for what was called the "Tournament of Champions". It was 3 - 4 various tournaments a week that paid out cash as well a TOC seat to the winner of the event. The TOC seat was an entry to the end of season actual TOC event which awarded a 10k Main Event entry to the winner.
This tournament also had player of the month awards for March, April, and May which paid out a $2500 package to the winner of each month who accumulated the most points through the various tournaments of that month.
Long story short, I won a $2500 package and did not do well in the TOC main event. BUT I was able to plan my trip to Vegas and enter Event #51 $1500 NL.
So this is the part of the movie where the twist comes in. I was probably playing my best poker I have ever played. I was feeling it. I was pretty accurately able to assess what my opponents had and play them accordingly. While I never really played anything higher than 1/2 NL because I was a chicken (although I did play 2/5 once during this Vegas trip) in tournaments I was doing awesome. I took 1330 as my biggest tournament cash during this time leading up to Vegas. I took my biggest live cash game pot of $1080 during this same time. I was freaking on fire, man.
So I play my event. This is as I remember it from my poker blog because its been 10 years:
Seat 1: Think I remember his name was Jason, dude had an identical twin who was also a poker player, thought he said "Craig". Felt like I should know this guy but I couldn't place him. Played extremely well and became the table leader early on.
Seat 2: Danish guy, reminded me of the lead singer for the Presidents of the United States of America (PUSA).
Seat 3: Thought he might have been a Scandi internet pro. Stereotypical large headphones, bed head, weird face etc etc. Played pretty well but someone asked him if he was Scandi and told us he was Danish.
Seat 4: Another guy I felt like I should have recognized. Bald head, grey hoodie and sunglasses. Didnt talk at the table at all.
Seat 5: Young kid. Nothing much on him at all, didnt get involved in too many pots.
Seat 6: Angry Aussie. Cleary he was Australian, you could tell by his accent and the huge bowie knife he used as a card top...I kid. But he seemed pissed off for some reason and it didn't get much better for him playing poker.
Seat 7: Your Hero. Sporting my Ron Burgundy "I'm Kind of a Big Deal" t-shirt and listening to techno, I was ready and in the zone.
Seat 8: Disheveled Southerner. From the way he talked about the tournament circuit, this dude, I guess, must have been a pro. Although he was always slouched in his chair (think like getting a permanent massage) and bore a striking resemblance to Jay Cutler.
Seat 9: Best I can describe this guy was a Native America guy with a white hoodie, shades, and a huge square band-aid on his left cheek.
Seat 10: Typical bald poker player with shades. Is he staring right at me OR is he staring right through me?
Listened to "Sultans of Swing" as I had planned until the fated moment where the legendary words "Shuffle up and deal" were uttered. I was locked and loaded baby!
First hand I am in the SB and it folds around to Angry Aussie on the button. He raises 3x BB and I peek to find A-Ko. Not one to play coy, I reraise him 3x his bet. BB folds and grumbling and mumbling the Angry Aussie folds. I win my very first hand I have ever played in the WSOP, not a bad start!
Table was pretty tight considering it was a donkament, and I had fairly good reads on most of the active people.
I folded until it got around to me in UTG, and I looked down to find 6-6. I limped and it folded around to MP who raised it 3x BB (raises were anywhere from 2.5 to 4x the BB). Folded back round to me and I just called. Flop came 3-4-5 rainbow and I checked. MP bet a little more than half the pot and XR him right here thinking it was just a standard continuation bet. It bothered me a little when he called. Turn was a 9. I figure I am probably good here and even if I'm not I have straight outs, so I put a pot size bet in here on the turn. MP thinks about it for awhile then mucks 10-10 face up. I was feeling good, baby.
I counted my stack and somehow came up with 8900 the first count, but realized I really had 6900 (nice). Which was still good 30 mins in. Pretty much the rest of the level I spewed chips on suited connectors that never came in.
When the 2nd level started I was in the 5500 range and I continued to spew. The only hand I remember from this level is I had 8-9o on the button, identical twin raised from UTG+1 and I called. Flop was not favorable, as it was A-K-Q.
Twin c-bet this flop but I wanted to see if I could incite a fold so I re-raised him the standard 3x his bet. He thought and thought, looked me up and down and eventually re-raised me so I had to let it go, at that point I fell my closest back to the starting stack with 4900.
The break came right after I scooped a big pot with A-K on a K high flop. Got called all the way to the river by Danish headphones and he mucked.
During this time there was a weird hand I was involved in with Angry Aussie and NA guy.
Native American guy was the BB, Angry Aussie limped, I limped from the button, and NA guy checked. Same thing happened on the flop.... or did it?
I must've been distracted for a second because I had no idea what was going on. This is what I know: There was a bet in front of NA guy, he was claiming he was not given the option to check or bet and the dealer had thought it was a check round, Angry Aussie was vehemently sure that the dealer never brought in NA's Big Blind and it was not a bet. Normally not a big deal but the dealer had burned and turned.
The floor was called and the dealer was explaining to the floor the situation but Aussie kept interrupting and saying the dealer was wrong. The Floor says in the dickest tone I've ever heard a floor boss say, "Mike (the dealer) is a world class dealer, he dealt the final table of the Main Event last year and is one of the highest rated dealers on my staff. Now who do you think I'm going to listen to in this case you or Mike?" Naturally that set Aussie off even further. They removed the 10 that had been dealt and restarted action from the flop. This time NA checked, which kinda pissed me off a lil I wont lie for wasting my time, and Aussie bet. I folded, NA called. The new turn was a 9, and Aussie bet again with NA calling. They both checked the river and NA wound up up winning with a pair of 9s. Aussie showed a 10 that would have won him the pot had the original turn played.
I bet you would not be surprised to know who got busted from our table first, cursing and mumbling the whole way.
The second person out was baldy shades who I bluffed with my sixes, he couldn't get anything going and finally just shoved with nothing and got bounced.
The break came and I checked in with home base on the stats, PokerNews was reporting that Identical twin at my table had 12k. I had around 5500.
Got to see Men the Master rush past me when the break came and Liss filled me in on the rest of the pros that were spotted playing in that event.
Before play resumed they did the bracelet ceremony redux playing the correct version of "God Save the Queen" instead of the Sex Pistols version. At the time I had no idea why they were apologizing and re-playing the national anthem. Then they presented the bracelet to the Iranian guy who won in a touching tribute to his homeland.
Back to play, 2 new guys joined the table to replace those who got bounced. I won another hand early in the round, although I cant recall specifics to get my chip count back up over the 7500 threshold.
To wrap this up, about halfway through level 3 the following hand occurred:
UTG+1 & 2 limp, folds around to me in the SB and I see A-Qo. I raise 3x BB to 450. UTG1 folds UTG2 calls.
My read on UTG2 is weak player, he made a horrible laydown 2 hands earlier against young Danish dude when for the umpteenth time he pushed all-in as a short stack.
Flop is Ax-5x-8x
Flop is a good flop for me with no possible draws of any kind. Since im OOP I throw a half-pot bet of 600 out there. UTG2 quickly raises to 2500.
The raise confuses me because I don't think hes that strong to limp UTG2 twice. If he had a set here would he raise me that much? Would he limp A-K twice? I decide he has to have A-10/A-J. And after a pause, I push all-in.
Dude starts tanking hard, mumbling "what did I get myself into? You don't have two pair. You raised pre-flop and bet 600 on the flop...."
At this point I know my read was absolutely right, A-10 or A-J. I almost started to say "your a-j is no good here" but i stopped myself.
After 5 mins of agonizing deliberation he calls and flips up A-J.
Anyway, so the river was a Jack and my heart dropped out of my chest. I sat motionless realizing that my WSOP had ended on a 3 outer. Well not ended, I still had 500 in chips but I was done, mentally was fried.
Finally busted 2 hands later when I ran my 10-9ss into 10-10.
I got to take the walk of shame for my first and possibly last time. On my way towards the cab area at the font of the casino I passed by Chris Ferguson again and waved.
This screwed me up real good mentally. I still played various tournaments through 2009 and 2010, but I was not anywhere near the level I had been at. Eventually I quit playing altogether except for a monthly home game I was hosting. It was dark times.
Then I met most of the people I call friends now playing Magic between 2013 - 2018 and occasionally going with a few people to play cash games at Foxwoods/Mohegan. Then I moved out here and had a poker room 12 mins from my doorstep. Granted, its a small poker room, but all the dealers know me and the waitresses know me. There is something to be said about being a regular in a poker room. Its nice. Like Foxwoods was my home poker room, but outside of a few individuals and maybe a few dealers, nobody knew who I was.
So back to tonight.
After 5 hours of poker play, I broker even. But there is a great lesson in this. I was down a lot fairly early. When you aren't hitting your cards and all your draws end up dead ends its frustrating. I finally looked down to see two black Aces. They get cracked which gets me $100 and im basically back up to starting amount. Then I whittled that away, and bought in for another $100. That started to whittle away too. Seat changes, table changes, nothing was working. And then, just like that, I flop the nut straight and get to re-raise with 4 callers on the flop. I bet the rest of the way when no 3rd heart or card paired and I walked away with a big pot. 2 more big pots with made flushes and I was slightly over what I bought in for. I ended up up $1 when the table finally broke and gave that to the dealer.
So yeah, breaking even was pretty nice tonight.
Until next time!
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