New Orleans Poker on July 4th and Essence Fest = Maniacville

Ok so normally I'm at the Monday night poker game right now. I got 2nd place in the little 27 player tournament last week I made the worst deal ever when it got heads up. I basically just upped second place by forty bucks and kept playin even though I had a 2 to 1 chip lead. Good thing I guess since I ended up getting second. My buddy was just pushing me around and when I picked up KJ suited I pushed back. Ended up all in vs Ace rag. Flops Ace high and that was that. Didn't play cash since I was supposed to be leaving 30 minutes later. I'm sure someone had something to say about that. Oh look he won so he's leavin. He don't wanna gamble his winnings. Whatever.

Went to Harrahs Sunday night. First time since the horrible circuit event weekend. How is it that I rarely go to Harrahs but I seem to make it there during Essence Fest every year. At least it wasn't Saturday night like last time when I had to park on fuckin Rampart and walk. I love the poker during Essence. The Essence festers tend to either be total maniacs or total chaser/calling stations. I sat there for the longest time catching nothing. I do remember a hand with this girl who had sat down with $100 and basically made the nuts like 6 hands in a row. She raised first and checked the all heart flop. I made 2 pair on the turn and it all checked around again. The Board is K,J, 10. She bets out $40 on the river and I laugh. She had been talking about buying a pair of $800 shoes with her winnings so I told her I was going to donate to the shoes fund because I put her on a set. Well she only had a straight. I think she would go on to cash out for like $800 within an hour of playing starting at $100. She only played the nuts and played them well. She was kind pretty too so maybe she gets a lot of why not calls. I didnt catch really anything else for a while. I finally got a chance to pretip the dealer before she sat down and she made up for it all in her 30 minutes. I had originally bought in short for a hundred to see what was going on. I kept buying up and up as the table got crazier. Buy the time that dealer sat I was $400 in the game and sitting on about $275. I was looking to play a big pot with the maniacs. Well I picked up a pair and raised to try an see the flop on my budget not theirs. They obliged and I flopped no help and folded. My set woulda come on the river. I mentioned quietly to the dealer she needs to tell me that's how she is gonna do it so I can stay in. See I feel like the Law of Attraction has given her a reason to deal me well because I gave her a reason to like me. I've done experiments before with tipping dealers as soon as they sit down. I think I have found a karmatic certainty. It also works is you know the dealer and they already like you. Anyway I received pocket 5s the next hand and raised to set the price again. The flop is like KK6. I check and the first maniac bets just $20 and the other one calls. I decide to chase a 2 outter for reasons of superstition, attraction and karma. I also may have had the best hand but I was never going to be able to stick around and I wasn't going to take a big stand against these guys in that spot with no outs if I was wrong. Well bingo my 5 on the turn. I check. The original lead better checks. Maniac number 2 bets $50. I decide that I really don't see them with much here and I would like to get the extra $50 from the guy behind me and raising here would likely end the hand. So I call and maniac behind me calls. The river is nice. It makes straight and flush. I decide to bet out hoping they had something. Nope. Two folds. I guess I shoulda checked to two maniacs. I'm guessing one of them is gonna bet something more often than not especially if like I was hoping they actually had something. Oh well. That pot brought me back to even. One pot made up for 3 hours of grinding and time rake. Very shortly after I pick up 99. The very passive calling station in the UTG raises to $12. I like the price and call. I don't see getting heads up here with a raise and I don't really wanna be heads up with this guy. Well maniac number 1 reraises. I think he was steamin a bit. 3 people call so I call. Flop is Ace, 9, 4 with two spades. UTG checks, I check, and maniac bets out $75. All fold to me. I decide to shove in for probably $275 more. The pot is pretty big and if he has a decent Ace he may pay me off because he just aint that bright. Well he looks at me and asks if I would do that with a flush draw. I kinda looked at him weird so he called. He wanted to make sure he had the only flush draw. He had 10,6 of spades. Your typical 3 bet hand. I fade the turn. Im leaning back kinda half looking when I see the river spade. Heart sinks. I belly up to the table and take a good look at it. Its the 4 of spades. I look all the way down at the first card on the board. A 4 of diamonds. Boat. I say "Ship it!" and then I hum the song from the Hangover about "wait till I get my money right" while Im stacking. I think my maniac friend left at that point. The other maniac who was still there was doing well and had me covered. It was weird how many times this guy bluffed, got called, and still somehow had the best hand. He was over betting the river with a lot of marginal hands too where if he was getting trapped he was fucked. It never hurt him though. He started hitting nut hands too. I decided I didnt wanna mess with him. My dealer had left and I had actually helped the new dealer out by giving her someones rake so the floor didnt have to come over. At some point I decided to rack up and o blow off some steam in penny slot hell. Thats a dangerous choice cause I can blow $400 in no time if the slots piss me off. Well the slots were kind and I broke even. I thought about going to the fireworks show on the levee. I didnt. I just rebought into a poker game and played a few more hours and ended up not losing or winning. I was tired at that point and cant even remember a hand worth mentioning. So another cash session win. Thats 10 in a row now.

I played the Wednesday night tournament at the H club. I didnt mind donating to a recently deceased poker players family fund. I knew the guy and he was super cool and a stand up guy. I decided not to rebuy or add on at the break cause I had 10k from a starting stack of 8k and another $40 would only buy me 8k more. I didnt see much value in 8k when blinds were at 400/800. It was about to be a shove fest any way. I just wanted to check out the club. It was real nice. Turns out the extra 8k would have probably kept me in the tournament since I probably wouldnt have shoved all in with 77 in late position with a coupla limpers in front of me and run into JJ in the small blind. Oh well. Had fun. It was good to have a long sad walk to the car having lost instead of won. I havent had one of those since the New Orleans disaster. Oh and the time me and my girl went to "have a little fun" in slot hell. Opps. I almost made it to the cage with a voucher that woulda put me at even. Almost. Fucking degenerate.