Poker Grinders

Well Okay I am really going to try and post more often. The intent of this bring you up to par on what’s has been going on with me so far.

December Vegas Trip:

Vegas was damm fun. Andrew and I got caught in a winter storm. The Cajon pass was closed until further notice, the morning we left. We both decided to ignore the warning and attempted to go anyways. This trip was solely a Poker Run, and I love Poker run. When we arrived at the Cajon Pass, sure enough just as the newscaster said, it was closed. All the truckers were parked on the side of the road waiting for the storm to clear and the pass to re-open. Dru and I did the samething. We parked for several hours. After 7hrs went by, we decided to head over to Morongo Casino for some poker there. Going back to rest up and attempt Vegas again the next day, was NEVER an option. We both had too much Gamble in us and were very determined.

Dru and I arrived at Morongo around 6 o’clock. The casino has a 7pm $5 dollar buy-in multiple re-buy game. We both signed up for the game. Dru left me to go play some BlackJack. I thought Morongo has a deep stack game, but it turned out their NL game were all shortstack games. They spreaded a $1/$3  40Min/$100Max game. This is just a little bit better than the HG $2/$5  $100buy-in game. After being dissapointed that I wasn’t going to get to play deep, I decided to just sit and wait for the tournament to start.

I didn’t like the tournament structure. For $5 I got 500 tournament chips. The blind started at 25/50. Then you had the option of buying 1500 extra chips for $20. The re-buys were $20 for 3000 chips the first hour. After all was said and done the tournament costed me $85 dollars. I can’t remember a good hand I got early in the tournament. When it came down to 2 Tables, I noticed how passive everybody else was playing. I started to steal from the cutoff. Nobody called. Made an attempt to steal again from the BTN, again nobody called. Stole a few more pots and manage to stay afloat to the final table. Dru also made it to the final table. The final table was once again full of pretty passive players. I had K3os in the BB and a guy in MP pushed all-in, it came around to the SB, who I told “you call and I am coming over the top”, that got him to fold. It was great for me I had to call a few more chips (less than a SB) to go to the river. The shortstacked MP raiser had AQos, fortunately for me I got a 3.

later int he tournament Dru became a shortstack. He was on the BB when this lucky old man limped in. Dru immediately pushed and the old man practically insta call him with 33. I thought Dru was making a steal attempt or pushing with crap since after posting the BB he was commited anyways. Turned out Dru actually had a hand. I dont remember what it was but it had 33 beat. It was something along the line of 77 or 88? He had an overpair.  I remember mumbling “80% to win, big favorite”. The guy next to me tells me he folded a 3. You guessed it, the river, the case 3. Lucky old man, was once again, lucky ass hell. I kept stealing relentlessly until it got down to 3 players. One guy suggested we chopped. I looked at the price structure and the pay difference and decided there wasn’t much value in continuing play. I definitely had a big edge over my other two opponents. I stole 2 -3 pots in a row before one of them asked to chop. By that time we all had equal amounts in chips. Well 3rd place paid $290 or so. Minus the $85 it cost me I was happy with the results. More importantly I was happy with the way I played throughout the tournament. I don’t remember getting any kind of premium hands preflop or on the flop. I just aggressively stole when I thought the situation was favorable and my fold equity were good.

After the tournament I jumped in to a limit game while Dru went to play some BlackJack. After awhile I got worried about him, as BlackJack one of those fast pace games where you can easily go +/- 1k easy. I circled the casino a few time and found him. Dragged him over to the limit table. We sat at the limit table until the wee hours of the morning. There were a group of 18yr olds that didnt know how to play poker very well. Unfortunately they were getting pretty damm lucky. I was aggressively trying to steal and re-steal the pots, except it seemed they were always catchign cards on me. One of the kid even would reraise me everytime i raise, it didnt matter what he had, he just kept doing it. We would cap a few times, I even had to slow down with a flopped str8 on one hand (lower end). He rivered an inside card to make a higher str8. Errrrrrr. I think all and all I walked away +20. I don’t remember how Dru did. With the BlackJack winnings he walked away + also.

At 7am, tired ass hell, we jumped back in the car and continued our donkey quest to vegas. Dru and I stopped at a Denny’s where we fell asleep in the car for awhile. After we woke up, we got breakfast. We were talking about poker, when a waiter walking by heard us and apparently he was an aspiring poker player also. From the things he said and how excited about poker he was, I knew he was a newbie barely learning the game. I remember maybe a year ago I thought I knew a lot about poker and how to play the game, I now realize what little I really know.

After breakfast we got back on the road and headed again for Cajon Pass. Neither one of us knew if the pass was opened, but we decided to gamble and check it out anyways. Got to Cajon Pass, and sure enough we had won that coinflip.  Traffic thru the pass was pretty heavy. The pass had probably just opened.

The traffic to vegas was long and conjested. Normally I don’t have the patient for such things, but this trip I had all the patients in the world. It was my determination to get there. It took us a long while but we eventually made it to vegas, tired and sleepy but we made it. We checked in, took turn taking a shower, changed clothes, and headed for the poker tables. I sat down at a $1/$3   $100min/$300max game. At first I was a little intimidated, I didn’t know what to expect from a live deepstack game. I’m use to fast aggressive 6max online deep stack games. Turned out the game was very fishy. Everyone was passive. I think my game is very bluffy in nature. I started to make a lot of steals at various pots. Took down almost all the pots I tried to steal. It was awesome, the whole table was letting me run all over them.

We left vegas having logged 18+hrs at the table. I walked away a little over $500. Awesome trip. Dru got comped the room. He had buffet voucher for the Flamingo lunch buffet, so we ate there. Dru also had a BOGO coupon for the Rio’s Seafood Buffet, we ate there. That buffet had degraded a lot from the time I first remember going there. I definitely don’t recommended that place.

I wish I could remember more of the detail of our Vegas trip, but this is a post a month after the trip.

Work:

Work has been getting busy. The optempo has been steadily increasing. This year signify the countdown to our unit’s deployment in 2010. One year from now, I will probably be blogging from a location other than home.

I was scheduled to ETS (end term of service) in Feb 2009. After delaying it for a long time, I finally decided to reenlist for one more year.  With the economy being as bad as it is and all I hear about from everyone is how they lost their jobs or got cut in hours. I eventually decided to stick around the security of my job. Sometime my job suck.  It sucks not because I have to sometime work long hours or overwhelm with work. It sucks because sometime the people in charge are complete IDIOTS.

Life:

I recently got a dog. His name is Mr. Lion Snuggles. Sharmaine wanted to call him snuggles since he likes to snuggle with us. I gave him the first name of Lion for an ancestor are the inspiration for the Lions statue that you see at entrance of Imperial palaces.

I’m going to try and post more often, so it won’t be long post with me trying to remember things that happened months ago.

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