Pissin People Off and Getting Pissed Myself in Baton Rouge

I've been playing a shit ton at the Belle and the Shop. Im way up in the 2/5 game at the Belle but moderately down in the 4/8 limit game. I play limit when I dont feel like thinking too much. Maybe there's a corelation? Im down at the Shop too. Ive lost a couple hundy in the PLO and half n half. Ive busted out of all tournaments and I dropped $200 in the only strictly NLH game i played over there. That was a depressing game. I would flop the nut flush, play it shitty and never get there. My last hand I went All in with QJ against my buddy in the BB who raised it to $25 without looking at his cards. I only had like $40 total. He flips over A9 and then flops an Ace. I decided to leave since I couldn't beat a blind hand.

I had an interesting scenario come up when playing a big pot with a close friend. This is a friend who I had outside of poker but we do play small games all the time. Any Im the one who got him to start coming to the bigger game in Denham. Anyway the situation is that I raised big preflop and we both flopped big hands. I bet, he raised, I reraised, he called, then I shoved the turn. He called eventually and I felted him and he left. He texted me after upset that I didnt check it out after the flop. He claims he would have soft played me. I dont remember us ever soft playing and frankly I never soft play anyone. I see other people do it and I dont mind but then again I think I would rather people not do that. I think some people feel like its unfair to the other players who had put money in and then folded. I had actually played a pot the night before with a mutual friend who we play in the same small game with and I popped him for a big bet on the river after my air bluff turned into the nut straight on the river. He folded after thinking long. He asked me at the crawfish boil the next morning what I had and never seemed to suggest I shoulda soft played him and my buddy who I felted was there and he didnt seem to think I shouldnt have put the screws to him. Maybe he was just mad because the pot was so big and it sent him home when I busted him. I did feel bad it was him but I still dont think I shoulda played different. I didnt have the nuts and I played the hand super standard so he really could have assumed I wouldnt be bluffing him and he coulda laid his hand down. If he woulda hit his kicker on the river (which btw I agreed to run twice) I would have probably bitched at him a little for thinking I was trying bluff him big and for then sucking out on me. Oh well. I guess when we all play above our financial well being we tend to get a bit emotional when we lose.

I had an interesting had I'd like to throw out here too. Im at the 2/5 NL game at the Belle. Its the wee hours and the game is on the verge of dying. We are 5 or 6 handed. I make it $15 to go in the cutoff with AK. The button calls and then the big blind who is a crafty local reg makes it $40 total. I hollywood a little like Im trying decide if I wanna see a flop. Im really just deciding if I wanna raise. I think raising is probably the play if I had a read that this guy 3 bets a wide range in a short game. I didnt. He hadnt really been raising too much. He seem to over raise every now and then to pick up the limps. But I did know him to be a thinking player so I could just assume queens or better. So I decide to call. If I spike then I play it. I only had like 60 big blinds so if he crushes me then oh well. The flop is K,10, both are spades and random 4. He leads out for $60. I raise $100 on top leaving my self $125. He calls. This is the interesting part of the hand. He just calls. Why? The turn is a blank. He checks, I ship the rest, he calls. He has Q,J of spades. Open ended Royal flush draw. The river blanks. He asks me if I woulda called an open all in. I think yes because why would he open shove a better hand than mine? Anyway how didnt we get it in on the flop is the question. I woulda shipped it if I were him. But I think he played it better than I woulda. He knows he has to hit. He assumes I cant fold for $125 more. So why not just call. That way if he misses then maybe his smooth call will spook me and maybe I dont ship the turn and he gets a chance to save it if he can see the river for free. Im sure there are plenty of people who would figure out some hand to be scared of and would check behind on the turn. Never under estimate the bad play capability of thee other palyers. Plus Im not a reg so he could count on me to make mistakes kinda like when I didnt 4 bet him preflop with AK. :)

Ok well Im off to the Monday night tournament tonight. Im $150 down for this trip. Hope I can come up a lot tonight.

Frikin Belle of BR is a Circus of Idiots

Holy f!#%ing shit. I sit down at the shit hole Belle of Baton Rouge to the 4/8 limit game. I see one flop and fold on my second hand. On my 3rd hand im utg with 99. I raise. Its the one position I like to raise with any strong hand other than AA or KK. I gets raised and then the little old asian lady in the sb reraises. I call. Flop is 984 rainbow. I bet 4 an it gets raised twice and I cap it. The turn is a 7. Now J,10 is the nuts. Little asian lady bets out. I raise. Other player folds. She calls. The river is a 10 making any J or 6 good. She bets out. I call. She flips A,J. WTF. FML. I ask her what fucking game she is playing and she she just smiles like she isnt sure if I ordered noodles or rice. The waitress asks me if I want a drink as Im getting up and I tell her get these mother fuckers a drink. I take my remaining $36 to the cage. In all honesty she probably saved me $36 by pissing me off enough to leave. Then I get in my car to leave and this car is behind me and wont move and another car is waiting the other way for my spot and I basically have to back out as if Im going to hit her car since laying on my horn didnt do the trick. That is the worst parking garage ever built. Some fucking 4/8 player must have designed it for a meal comp. Probably the same idiot who designed the elevators. Or maybe it was the idiot driving the golf cart full of people who just dumped their social security or welfare checks who almost ran over me because she doesnt think driving to side where people arent walking is a good idea. What a collection of fucking tards. Hurry up Pinnacle and dont hire anyone from the Belle except Dana, Terry, and Jack (the poker dealers).

Be Careful What You Wish For

Im looking through the results for the New Orleans WSOP Circuit event and seeing a lot of Love Shackers. Most impressive is Lindsey's 1st place in the Ladies NLH event. Congrats!!! Looks like the Capt chopped one 2 ways also. I will see you guys in a couple weeks.

I had a couple of good sessions and then wiped out all my profit in one hand after a long 3rd session. I was trying to get in a big pot with this guy all night. He had done some really erratic shit all night. All in river bluff/show. 3 barreling pots but only betting like $10 into the $100 pot each time. He had played so bad I actually semi-scolded a lady who was giving him advice on how to play flush draws in the future. He had doubled me up earlier by calling my all in on the turn with his flush draw. He felted me later with some river suck out. I dont remember it now but it was pretty nasty. I think I had two pair and he rivered 2 pair. He actually was doing that a lot. He dumped at first but was on a rush and was probably up $800. So I rebought for $300 (the max). I made some progress. I was sitting with $450 in play which was even for the session. I had moved right behind him to get position on him. But this hand im in the SB so out of position with pocket 4s. I flop bottom set of 4s on a A,8,4 board. The only players are me and the guy Im gunning for. I bet. He calls. The turn is a 2 and it makes a flush possible. I bet. He calls. The river pairs Aces on the board. I bet $60 into about about an $90 pot. He min raises me. I debate on just calling to play it real safe but I think this guy is gonna dump here with a flush or even just trip Aces. I reraise $100 more. He pushes in. Fuck. I have $200 left. Fuck it. Call. He shows the nuts. A8. FML.

I played the $60 tournament again a couple weeks ago. I went out 24th. They were paying 15 spots. I never had a good stack. Played most of the time with 15 big blinds on average. This old man get chastising me and this other guy for shoving preflop even though we only had 10 to 15 big blinds. I guess we are supposed to raise 3 big blinds and then fold to the reraise. I snapped back at him once and the other guy chimed in. Probably dumb to engage him but whatever. My last hand I was moved to a new table (I had been moved about 5 times and it sucked). I shoved on the button with K4 and was called by the BB who had pocket 3s. I was ok with that until I missed and was sent packing. Oh well.

I played a few hours of 8/16 Limit today. Swung wildly and eventually cashed out for $210 profit. I got river fucked plenty and only river fucked someone maybe twice. It was a really soft game especially since the majority of players were Asians. Asians tend to be a lot wilder in my experience than this crew was. Playing aggressive was actually profitable for me in this game but like most limit games really to make good money you have to make good hands and dont be a pay off wizard.

Even Steven

I played Thursday and Friday. Thursday morning I played 2/3 spread. I doubled up some old guy after I flopped top pair of Jacks with a big 9 kicker. I bet the flop and he called. When the turn gave me a flush draw I bet it again and he moved in. It wasnt much more. I missed and he had AJ. A lot of these old dudes dont raise preflop with their big aces. Shortly after I called a $10 raise on accident on the button. I thought the guy in the cut off raised as he had done often so I called. Then I see the raise came from an earlier position. I may have called anyway with my Q10 but still I have to admit I called because I had position on who I thought was the raiser and assumed I had a good hand vs his cut off raising range. Anywhoo I flopped top 2 pair and every one checked to me. I checked. Dangerous I realize but I didnt think I could get any action if I made a reasonable bet. The turn was a blank and the first guy bets out $15 into the $45 pot. The original raiser calls, the guy in the cut off folds and I raise it $40 more. The guy who was in the blinds calls and the original raiser folds. A king hits the river and he leads out all in. I call assuming I could be crushed but I played a half buyin so I could avoid big river mistakes so my stack to pot ratio was way low. Probably was a $50 call. The guy had a whopping Q8. What a dipshit. As it turns out the original raiser had K10 and would have rivered me. That hand put me up $60 and I decided to buy into the $65 11am tournament. I didnt last long. I raised with AK of hearts and got 4 calls and the flop was 2,3,5 with two hearts. I cbet and a guy I had covered went all-in. It was 2000ish more. I had 1000 already in the pot. The total pot was about 2700 so I was getting the right odds with just the flush draw plus I had a guy shot and two overs. Unfortunately he had a set so the King on the river didnt help me. I played my short stack for a while making about 3 successful all-in moves until the last one which was the only one I got any action on. Oh well. I didnt hate the way I played. I left. Later that day I went to the Wild Horse Pass casino and played the 1/2 $100 spread limit. Nothing interesting happened and I broke even again.

Friday I played 2/3 $300 spread limit for only a few hours. I bought in half stack for $150. Most of the other players were under $200. It was a passive table full of limpers. Mostly old dudes. I never caught any hands. I double up though when I flopped top pair with one of my blind hands and the turned two pair. I assume he had two pair also the way he reacted to my hand. Then I proceeded to bleed of chips through the blinds and occasionally a late position limp with a mediocre hand. When people did raise they were getting two callers so I didnt want to try to pop it with nothing to steal. I eventually put a short stack allin preflop with my AK vs his AQ. I lost on the river. I raised AK two more times and didnt even see a flop because these geniuses limp shove with their AA and then always show it. I had gone from $285 to about $60. I had somewhere to go so I was looking get it in. I wouldve rebought if I didnt have somewhere to be. I straddled on what I thought was my last hand and picked up the pot by shoving with my A4. I showed the 4. So I played another round. I played all the way back around to UTG and pulled AK of hearts. I decided to pull a limp shove. I limped and someone made a small raise to $8 and about 3 callers behind him so I shove and act like Im saying fuck it. Everyone folds to the big blind who calls. I think he called because I had showed that 4 the round before. He had KQ and I held up. It broke me dead even and i cashed out. So two days, two casinos, two cash games and a tournament and Im dead even. Considering the cards I had Im ok with that.

Read More Poker

I havent played in a while. Im taking time to do some poker studying while my life is in major transition. I dont think its good to play when your life is upside down. I sold my house and finally got to Phoenix with my stuff. My place looked like a storage unit last week and still does to some degree. I also asked my sons mom to switch times with me so I could have him on school days and she could get him on weekends. Thats a big change from 2 nights to 5 nights. Puts a little cramp in my playing time but its going to be a better situation for him I think since she has a new baby and he is still hyper pissed at her for moving him out here in general. Im thinking when I go back I will play during the school hours. Most people think thats not the optimum time but I think its pretty good. No rounders get up at 7am to play but plenty of passive old men get up to play then. Rich old dudes from Scottsdale. They are horrible. Im guessing my most profitable hours so far have been after the morning crew starts filtering in. Maybe my only profitable hours so far. They do still piss me off though. I have left CAZ wanting to choke some white haired bastards out for making some terrible calls and hitting.

I have been reading Ed Millers Small Stakes Holdem. Its a very solid book. It really helps you understand the many things one needs to take into consideration when making poker decisions. For us recreational nits, its a tall order ask us to push the thinner advantages. But if Im gonna make the jump to playing fulltime I realize Im going to have to push a lot harder and smarter. Plus probably see a lot of online pros trying to play live and they are gonna be bringin aggression. I assumed at some point online play would get some kind of action taken against it. Why else would Party Poker have pulled out way back when. Those guys specialize in not going to jail while riding the edge of legal. I hope everyone gets there bankrolls back but I imagine the solution is going to have to be pretty creative on the poker sites part since the money transfer is the illegal part.

I got me a 42" LCD and some cable but damn if I dont get GSN. Im gonna have to special order it just to get HSP. What a bitch. I have been making up for my not watching NBA this season by watching all the playoff games on my new sweet widescreen.

Well thats it for now. I plan on playing Thursday during the day. I will let ya know how it goes. Also Friday night and Sat. Probably play a tournament too. Weeee.

Poker Soul Crushed

My poker soul is dead. I cant take the suck outs anymore. Not for my whole stack. I honestly dont think Im cut out for NL. Actually I think God has put the hoodoo on my game. One can not run as bad as me without divine intervention. Constant 2 and 3 outters after Im committed to the pot lets me know that Im being told something. But in all sincerity I admit I am not a great NL player. My game is waiting for people to make big mistakes. I grind and until I cam to AZ made a decent but small profit. But the next level of play Im not at. My use of fold equity is so bad. Thats another way of saying that I play scared. Im going to play the 8/16 Limit game with a kill button and Im going to play some tournaments. I have always done well in tournaments so maybe this will be the way and also anyone with a half a brain has an edge in limit. There's so many people willing to put in bad money with little hope to improve their hands. Also I dont tilt in limit and I dont go home agonizing about this play or that play or this card or that card. Its gradual and way less stressful. I can loose a few hundred in a limit game and I dont beat myself up on the way home and replay the hands as I try to fall asleep but I cant because the hands have me restless. Im coming back to BR in a couple days so when I come back here in a couple weeks I will have to make some decisions on what I want to do with my time. I have some ideas other than poker but I will still play. I know there's a winning formula for meeven if I drift back into a hobby player.

Trying a New Casino

Well apparently the Love Shack is moving its game to the Shop. Sucks I didnt get to play a last session there. At least now we can cuss more. I said I was going to try a different casino but I had to give the lovely CAZ one more shot. I played about 5 premium hands for raises and reraises (all made by me) and cbet 4 out of those five. I lost every pot and basically doubled up 3 short stacks with nothing but the cbet. In two dealers I was down $430. Then my baby's momma called me and I had to go give my boy a stern talkin to and do homework with him. Then I went to find the other casino. Theytold me Gila Lakes and I punched the address into the GPS but ended up in the middle of an industrial zone in the desert. Apparently Gila Lakes is 3 casinos and none of them are at the address listed. I got some vague directions from the casino operator and then I asked a nice old couple at the light how to get to I-10 to Tuscon. They werent too sure either but told me which direction they thought it was. I would run into them again in 10 minutes at the casino parking garage. We had a good laugh. Buncha lost tourists we are, looking for the money hole in the desert.

So I made to Wild Horse Pass Casino. I signed up for a players card and they gave me $10 in free slot money. I quit slots but if it aint my money it dont count. I ran their $10 up to a $50 profitand cashed out. I took that as a sign of changing luck. After getting on a list for a 1/2 game with a $2 min bet and $100 max bet I called my girlfriend. As I was talking to her I realized I wasnt on a list but rather an Interest list. I went up to the counter and they actually had immediate seating for the game I came there to play. Its confusing how they present these spread limit games to you but it was still a 1/2 game but the min bet was $5 and the max was $250. So there was no limping in. It plays really nice. I really like that structure. Keeps some of the trash out and also seemed to get people open raising for higher. So $15 seemed to be a standard raise which got action. So my plan would be to play premium hands for big pots given the opening mistake of a 7.5 big blind raise with a wide range of hands. Honestly I dont remember much about the play. I came out $470 up which covered my earlier loss at CAZ. The game was pretty loose passive. So tight agressive should clean up in that game over time assuming that was a typical table.