Some Tuesday night 'Mashin

For some reason on Tuesday work just seemed really stressful. I dunno what my deal was, but I was just feeling the pressure all day on Tuesday and was, frankly, a little angry with the world. As the clock hit 5:00PM I knew there was only one cure for this little temper of mine, and that cure was Chumash. I hadn't been there since the $200+20 tournament in March and I was definitely feelin the withdrawal symptoms.

I came home from work, made the necessary adjustments to my back account, headed to the ATM, and was off to the casino. They have a Tuesday night tournament at Chumash which is a $30 buy-in with 1 rebuy for $20 and 1 addon for $20. The only problem with this tournament, and pretty much every tournament at Chumash, is the Chumash blind structure. The blinds start at 25-50, and you start with 500 in chips. You get 1 rebuy for 500 at anytime, and if you make it to the end of the second level you can addon for another 1500. From there the blinds go from 100-200, to 300-500, to 500-1000. Not exactly a forgiving blind structure. I don't really like playing these tournaments, but I enjoy live play so much, and it's so convenient of a drive that I will play the Tuesday night tournament every now and then. I think I've played this one a total of 6 times, and the third time I played I won it for $1300. Other than that I haven't made it past the first hour. It's just an all-in tournament so whatever. I had already planned on losing the $70 for the tournament and bringing a buy-in for the 2/5 NL game ($200), and if I lost that I was goin home. My goal was to hit $600 ($400 profit) at the cash game, and if I hit that I was goin home.

So after the half hour drive I walked through the sliding glass doors and rode the escalator up to the main gaming floor as I made my way to the back to the poker room. Upon my entering the poker room all of the dealers were ecstatic to see me after my long disappearance. The floor man came up and gave me a handshake and asked how I had been and where I had been and so on. I registered for the tournament, chatted with some of the dealers, and took my seat. Early on in the tournament I had tripled my stack, but by the end of the second level I was back down to even. I added on, and with 30 seconds left in the 100-200 round I married myself to a hand, flopped top pair and pushed, and lost. No big deal, I was planning on that. So with only half of the tables open thanks to the tournament taking up the other half, it was gonna take a while to get into a NL game. I put my name on the bottom of a long list, took a buzzer, and was off to play some blackjack :).

I know I know, don't play blackjack on a poker trip, but being in that casino after so long was so refreshing and I was in a good mood, so I figured I'd take $100 to the $10 blackjack tables and give it a shot. I found a pretty dealer with only 2 guys who seemed like they knew what they were doin, so I sat and waited for a new shoe. In one shoe I was up $50, which was better than losing. I didn't want to play for long, I just wanted to get my fix. But I was either going for over $100 or getting back to even, so leaving with $50 wasn't an option. We played through half the shoe and then one of the guys decided to get up and leave. I played his seat as well as my current one for about 9 hands. We played through most of the shoe before picking up 2 new players. We entered the new shoe and about a quarter of the way through the pretty dealer was leaving. I was at $220 total, and decided $120 profit was fine by me for 20 minutes with a pretty girl and a couple of good shoes, so I colored up and headed back to the poker room.

I got there before my name was even close, but noticed that they would be starting a new table. I didn't make that one, but shortly afterwards a seat opened on an ongoing table. That was good for me; since the max buy-in is only $200 the new tables were usually short on cash. I came to the new table seeing a couple of big stacks and took my seat for $200. Since I hadn't played live for so long, it took me a couple minutes to get comfortable, but I was doing alright. The table was a very loose passive table. Almost every hand there was at least 3 limpers, while only 2 people usually made it past the flop. I like this kind of game since I love postflop play. It allows me to see lots of flops and catch lots of draws. I enjoy outsmarting my opponents postflop, so this table was ripe for my taking. I was up to $300, then back down to $200, then back up to $300, then back down to $200 all within the first hour. I made a few bad calls to confirm my suspicions, but here's a couple interesting hands that occured throughout my time at the table.

With my stack at about $280 an interesting hand came up. I posted the big blind and watched 4 players limp, the SB completed, and I looked down at the Kh10h and checked. The flop was a beautiful Kd-Ks-8s. Knowing that the table was so loose preflop and so tight postflop, I decided to bet out to give me a better idea of where I was. I fired $20 into a $30 pot. I got one caller while the rest of the table folded. I had played with this player numerous times before, and knew he could have easily had KQ, KJ, as he could have had a flush draw. I wasn't worried about 88 because he was the kind of player to raise his mid pocket pairs to thin the field preflop. All my thinking processes were sent home for the day when the 10d hit the turn. I decided to check, maybe representing a flush draw or even an 8. To my dismay he checked behind. Now the 9h hit the river, and with no flush out there, and still thinking he may have had KQ or KJ, I bet $35 into the $70 pot. Low and behold he announced raise! :) :) :) He pulled the $35 plus another $75 out of his $205 stack, leaving him with $95 behind. Now as I was sitting there with the nuts I had to figure out a way to get the rest of his money in the pot. With $125 already invested in the pot you would think it would be easy to get him to put his remaining $95 in, but that's not always the case. After a minute of thinking though, I figured he would only raise me there with KQ, 99, or 88. So in any case his money was goin in and I pushed it. He insta-called as I announced that I had the nuts. He paused, looked at his cards, and as I was pulling in my last bet, he tabled his cards. K-10.

Oh come on that's not necessary. We chopped the pot and took a $10 profit each after the rake. Everyone got a good laugh out of that and we played on.

About half an hour after I sat down a real donkey had come into the game and was sitting 2 seats to my left. He obviously was very amateur-ish, but thought he was the shit, both on and off the table. I knew I was going to have fun with this guy when I saw him calling a raise with Q-6 offsuit just to watch him catch 2 pair, then acting like he was the best player in the world. Every time he was loaded he would flat call a bet on the flop, then raise the turn. His patterns were apparent, to me at least. I knew he was mine. And it happened on this hand.

With my stack at $240 after missing a few raises, I limped in MP with the QJd after another limper before me. The kid directly to my left raised to 20 and the donk called on the button, as did I and we saw the flop 3-handed. The flop came up A-A-Q. Instantly I thought I was done with the hand, but right away I reversed my decision and put on my thinking cap on; I was here to play poker. I checked to the raiser on my left, who bet $25 and was insta-called by the donk on his immediate left. I looked at the kid to my left, who was in a dead stare at me, trying to figure me out from an earlier hand where I had him confused. I decided to raise to 60, leaving $35 more to call. The kid squirmed for a minute before throwing his hand away, while I got an immediate call from the donk. I still wasn't worried about that, cuz if he had it I'd find out on the turn. The turn was a blank, and I bet $65. He gathered some chips and.........called? No raise, no Ace. The river was another blank and I pushed in $95 more and all-in, to which I got an insta-call once again. After he insta-called my river bet, I second-guessed myself for a split second as I said "Ace is good...." He tabled his hand: Q-10 offsuit. I flipped over my QJ and scooped in the pot as everyone at the table was in awe.

The kid to my left, the original raiser, was jumping out of his shorts. He couldn't believe I did that, and blah blah blah. Whatever, kid. It was the right move in my mind and I had marked my target and got him, this donkey who called me all the way down. I had a read on him and I wasn't about to let go of that hand against that player, simple as that. I trusted my read (FOR ONCE) and was right, and it paid off.

I only played for 2 and a half hours total, and I left with $600 and change. I had made back my tourney buy-in plus an extra $50 at the blackjack tables. I left the table with $620 and two red chips on the side. It felt leaving good leaving that card room. I set a goal, I reached it. I had discipline enough to walk away, even though I could have easily made another $400 at that table. But I told myself before I even got there that I would leave at $600, and I did it. I finally started trusting my reads, and it payed off big time. Not to mention a little "free money" from the blackjack tables made this a very enjoyable trip.

I went back last night, and I'll tell you all about that trip soon. You'll enjoy that one too, I promise :)