Back to AC...

AC is to me what graceland is to Elvis fans...I can't keep away. Going back tomorrow night to scout out a location for my brother's bachelor party...I'm a man on a mission :)

Side note - had a great session tonight. I think the only mistake I made was leaving the table. The final stats were kind of funny:



Hope I can find a table like that at the Borg tomorrow!!

2/4 six max update

Just some stats for me to look back on years from now when I'm a regular at the 100/200 game...lol.

Here are my stats since moving to stars 2/4 six max...I haven't been playing a ton, but I think my baseline #'s are ok. I need to double my bb/100...just cutting out key mistakes should get me closer to it. I'd also like to get my ASB# over 35%. Overall nothing spectacular, but not terrible:

Too salty for me

Did you ever have a session that you wound up checkraising so much that HU oponents would pause for 12 seconds after every time you check... like a deer in the headlights kinda pause?

My god that feels good.

In totally unrelated news I bought some "herr's old bay potato chips" tonight. I figured I couldn't miss since I love both potato chips and old bay. Man I was wrong, these things are way too damn salty.

Yes, I am losing my mind on multiple fronts.

I think I broke PT

2 out of the last 5 sessions I've played have formed 'perfect storm' conditions that resulted in me not calling once on the flop...all bets, raises or folds. Apparently PT doesn't like when people do this and has punished me by auto rating me as a calling station. Dividing by zero has some strange results...I'm pretty sure that's what lead to the invention of silly-putty.

Anyway, I'm finally back in the grove playing online, even if I am a fish. BR is still not where I want it to be...but I guess it never will be. Damn cashouts.

Variance

It sucks.

"Atlantic City - Always turned on"

That's the new sign that greets you as you pass the black horse pike driving down the AC expressway. It used to be "America's favorite playground", but apparently that must not be true anymore. I wonder where America's new favorite playground is? Probably some redneck dog track in Alabama.

Well the city of (always turned on) blinding lights kicked my tail this week. I arrived at the borg Monday around 6PM and hit the tables right away. I played my usual 6/12 game and got instantly beat down like a 110 lb geek fighting butterbean.

The table was incredibly loose passive - ideal SSH conditions. Also ideal conditions for having 3 sets busted to runners in the space of about 1 hour. My personal favorite was having a set of 10's busted by a rivered shotgun str8 by not one, but TWO players. Yes, two fish had the pleasure of chopping that hand against me. I actually stood up and leaned over the table when they flipped their cards up just to make sure my eyes weren't deceiving me. A few hands later I turned a set of jacks to lose to a r-r flush. I think the one eyed jack on the board winked at me before the dealer turned over the river card. After a few hours and few hundred dollars burned by I decided to call it quits and try to preserve my sanity.

The dealer (named Neil) who was there while most of my damage was inflicted said he was off to the Trop later to play in a dealers tourney...and was kind enough to recommend playing in it later for some "fun" poker. I took him up on it and cab'ed it over to the Trop in time for the tourney.

There were about 35 in the tourney, which was a $65+10 NL event. It used to be for local dealers only, but they recently opened it up to the public. I'd guess that better than half of the players were dealers, which was cool...they were a friendly bunch of people with some good stories to tell. Even better, they were all pretty poor players and I snuck into 5th place for a small payout. For as small as the field was it took a very long time, so I didn't make it back to my hotel until early in the morning.

Day 2 started off just like Monday night...suckout after suckout at borg 6/12. A few hours passed and I was just not having any fun, so I decided to try and salvage my trip and head over to the Taj and play some low limit holdem with the drunks. I got my drink on and then sat at a 2/4 table and told myself I was going to try and run the table over. I took quite a few debatable raising liberties and even managed to lay on a few nice bad beats of my own. I learned pretty quickly that it isn't very easy to 'run over' a 2/4 table full of drunks late night at the Taj..but I sure as hell tried.

Amazingly every time I play a semi-maniacal wreckless game I always seem come out ahead. Tuesday night was no exception and over 4-5 hours I more than doubled up...too bad it was only 2/4! I also accomplished my mission of having some fun playing cards, and headed back to my hotel room feeling slightly redemed.

Unfortunaly the next morning greeted me with an unexplanable headache that didn't respond to aspirin. Rather than try and play in that condition I hit a breakfast buffet and lounged on the beach for an hour before driving home.

All told my 2 night trip cost me over $250 in losses. I suppose I shouldn't complain given how hot I was running over the last few trips...but man did those 6/12 sessions suck!!!

Sir, please do not bet the gatorade cap

I owe an update, so here goes.

Almost all of my poker highlights over the past month include live play.

1) First there was Vegas for the ITH convention. At the risk of sounding repetitive, it was a BLAST. It was also one of the most profitable poker trips I've ever had. I took 5th in the ITH main event for a few hundred, played a ton of cash games where I ran super hot against calling fish, and even hit a str8 flush on a $5 bet in a video poker machine! All told I came home with well over 1K in profit. There are way too many stories to tell, but here's a taste of one:

On day 2 of the trip I met up with a friend from home at the card room at Bally's. He dabbles a bit online, but mostly in 7 stud, and had never played live before. After a few beers and shots I convinced him to sit at a 2/4 table and promised I wouldn't bother him. I took a seat at an open 4/8 table across the room. A few hours and several strong cocktails later I saw there was an open seat at his 2/4 table, so I asked for a transfer so I could go over and break my promise not to hassle him :).

I was up alot from my 4/8 table, was half drunk and in a great mood...so I wound up playing it like a micro limit tilt session at stars. I raised every hand and straddled every UTG. And I COULDN'T MISS!! Eventually I started placing a pile of chips under a big orange gatorade cap and pushing it out on the table as a straddle. I always put more chips than the correct raise amount and called it 'dead gatorade money'. The dealer just laughed and let me get away with it, but I could see it was really starting to tilt the whole table. My buddy finally busted out and said to the guy next to him something like 'bust this asshole out'...which I overheard and responded "you wana take this outside buddy?" This was all a joke and pretty amusing since no one at the table knew we were friends including the dealer. It was even funnier since my buddy is 6'4 and 260lbs and would squash me like a bug. The dealer seemed pretty concered for my safety and leaned over to me in seat 1 and whispered "careful, I think he can take you". Too funny. I tipped him well and thanked him for keeping me out of trouble :).

The whole trip was a string of great times at the tables and meeting some fantastic people from the ITH community.

Total Vegas profit: $1,300! W00T

2) Just a few days after I got home from Vegas I decided to hit up AC for some more live action. I made the drive down on a Sat night and the place was a total zoo - never seen it that crowded. I gave up on trying to get a table at the borg and settled in at a super loose 5/10 table at the Taj. My stack size fluctuated like a rollercoaster that night, but in the end I managed a nice session of +200. The next day I returned to the borg and had fantastic session at 6/12...another $200 in just 3 hours.

Total AC profit: $400

3) 4 days later I played in my regular homegame...but we had a TON of new players this week. All told I think there were 20 players in our $50 NL tourney. I made the money (top 4) easily enough, but was pretty shortstacked. Somehow after that I doubled up a few times and found myself HU at the end against a guy who outchipped me 10-1. He played WAY to tight HU and let me triple up by just betting him off his blinds for about 30 minutes. By the time he started to make a stand against me we were about even...but it was too late for him - the deck was hitting me in the face. I won the final hand with J10s against Axo when I flopped the nut str8...another nice payday of over $400!
Total tourney profit: $400

So - with a total net winnings of over 2K in the past few weeks of playing live I've really been putting off my online play. Infact I think this is the least I've played online in over a year. I'm not sure how long this trend will last...have another trip to AC planned for next week!!

I promise a trip report when I get back...just hope the good trend continues!