Sin City and.......more poker?

I got to finally watch Sin City this week, and I just gotta say wow. I had heard good things about the movie and just never got around to seein it. I was a little skeptical of the "goodness" of it because I hate getting hyped into things and finally getting around to it and being disappointed because I've expected too much. With this movie that couldn't have been the case. I don't think I could've expected too little from this one, it was just a cool, cool movie. They brought about a pretty big cast for it (rightfully so) and the cinematics in it are just crazy. I loved it, you must see it. If you've already seen it, then watch it again.

I made it down to Chumash four times last week. That felt good considering I only made it down there twice the week before, and I really felt like I didn't play enough. The multiple sessions were bittersweet, though, as I took a pretty decent loss on Wednesday night. But lo and behold I got it back on Friday! I've been tryin to sit the 300-500 buy-in when possible, and so far it's been working out. They only run it from Friday-Sunday, and you're lucky to get a seat as usually the table's full until it breaks.

After sleeping for about 13 hours and having some awesome breakfast from this restaurant close by, I went last night to top off the week, and things weren't lookin too good. I lost $400 in the 100-200 2/5NL game, and was about to go home until I saw that the 300-500 game was still going. I knew that I had to sit in it, and from the players sitting the game I knew I would at least get even, if not ahead on the night. I put my name on the board and waited. And waited. And waited........I decided to get a burger to eat since I hadn't eaten since breakfast and it was now 10PM, but the service was busy and by the time I got my burger it was time to take my seat! After a little under two hours of waiting, I bought in for my usual $300 and was under way.

I only played for a little over an hour, and was able to recoup the loss and come up $300 winner on the night, which was just fine and dandy by me. It was a self-satisfying victory, as I was really feeling down and ready to leave from the first game when I saw the other game going, and I just knew that I could beat it if I played it. I made my losses back and took home a smallish win in less time than it took me to get into the game, and the only reason I left was cuz it was getting late (or early I should say) and I still do have a 9-5, so yes, I do need sleep.

I'll hopefully be making it down to Chumash for another four sessions this week, but if I only get in three I'll make 'em good ones. Hopefully I'll be able to post some hands too, because I haven't done that in a while. We got Paul's game coming up this weekend, too, but Darsky and I both agreed that if there's not enough players we'd rather play Chumash instead.....or did somebody say Morongo?.......

Another Night and a Slow Poker Week

Well I made it down to Chumash with Joe on Monday night and came out winner again. I'm still feelin like I'm playin well, and I finally feel like it's consistant. I'm likin it. On Monday night it was a little different than usual though, cuz Joe and I played at the same table. We usually try not to sit at the same table, because we hate getting in each other's way and we play to take everyone else's money, not each other's. In the past we've had problems playing with each other at the same table, and often times he would get angry with my aggressive style. But this time we sat right next to each other, and for whatever reason, even though we were in some hands together, we didn't get in each other's way even once. That was cool, and we both ended up decent winners on about 4 hours of play.

I'm still playin shorter sessions than I'd like to, but I really don't have time to do that. I'd like to be playing 6-8 sessions, but I'm usually hittin 3-6 hour sessions, 6 almost always being the max. Working 9-5 doesn't leave me a lot of time to play, and when I haven't played 3 times by the time Friday comes, I feel like I haven't been playing at all. Obsessed? I think not, but it definitely might be up there. Then again no millionaire poker player got that way by not playing so whatever....

Darsky brought up the idea of pullin a long session down at Morongo this weekend, but since I have to work until 2 on Saturdays it's tough to put together true weekend sessions. It sucks cuz I've been craving to play Morongo's no-max buy-in 2/5NL since the last time we went there after I took a few dumb beats/plays and ended up a bigger loser than I'd like to admit. I feel like since I'm back in the game at Chumash I can probably clean up the bigger buy-in tables down at Morongo now. Dar said he might also think about pulling a weekender at Chumash though, so I still might get in some good sessions yet, so we'll have to see.

In other news we played my boss's .50/1 game last night, and I left exactly even. Since we started playing I haven't left loser yet, surprised?

In DVD news, I finished watching the first season of HUFF after getting hooked on the second season first, and damn I love this show. I like Hank Azaria as an actor, and Oliver Platt plays an awesome character in it as well. The first season was well written and you should definitely check it out if you haven't already, I can't get enough. Also I finally bought Spaceballs, Collector's Edition, which, oddly enough, I've been wanting to do for a while now, and I also bought Sin City, which I haven't even seen yet. I have laundry to do (tons of it) and movies to watch, so I think my quiet night at home is all planned. Although Joe might call me up and drag me to Chumash later, so we'll see what happens.......

Bouncing Back Is Always Fun

On Wednesday night Joe and I were goin back to Chumash, and coming back from a losing session I was more than ready to play. Monday after work I dropped by the tatoo shop by my house to meet up with Joe and his buddy Mike to watch Joe get the first phase of his tatoo done. It took about a little over an hour to get the outline done, and I think he's getting it shaded in this week. After he got that done the three of us went to CPK to get some food, and met up with another buddy there. It was a good group and CPK has good food, so it was...good times. Mike is a riot and Joe and him and I always have a funny time when we hang together, but he lives like 2 hours away so it isn't often that we do. After dinner we went back to Joe's, had a couple Coronas and hung out there for a while. Tuesday I just took it easy around the house, did some laundry, and jumped on the comp for a little bit.

Wednesday we took off to Chumash at around 6 and got there to find an open seat at two different 2/5NL tables, so neither of us had to wait. My first buy-in went to information calls, loose plays, and projecting a loose table image, which I've found myself to be doing frequently lately. I don't really know why I do it, but for some reason I've been doing it and I think I should probably STOP. But I rebought and another half hour later I got that back plus another $100. Sitting on $500, we lost one player and two more left to get food at the same time. We had 3 seats passing blinds for twenty minutes, but with no board there was nothing we could do but play on 6-handed.

The action slowed to a crawl, no one was playing, and when they were they were checking it all the way down. Finally I got a hand, and it was time for some action. I posted the big blind and the UTG raised it to $15. The person to his left, who is an older guy who plays there regularly called, and as I looked down at a Q I squeezed it hoping for exactly what I got: another Q. The SB folded and I had 2 options here: 1)reraise, and give the guys a little info on me having a huge hand, as there had been limps and checks running the table, or 2)flat call and follow the table norm at this point, and hope to trap someone post flop. I decided to flat call, as there had been no action at the table for a little while, and I figured that if I hit a good flop I could get a little more money out of one (or both) of the players than I could if I reraised and bet out the flop.

I threw in the $10 to complete the call and the board came up Jd-5s-6d. The board looked pretty safe for a check-raise in this situation, so I checked as first to act. UTG bet out $25, the regular called, and now came the part where I was supposed to raise. I figured the UTG might have had a J, because from what I'd seen since I'd been playin with him all night. At the same time he might have had 1010 or 99, and he was the type of player who might take one more card off if I raised him on the flop. But then I had to worry about the third player, who had about $400 in front of him. I knew that he would call a lot off a lot of money if he was on a diamond draw, even if I bumped it another $100 he probably wouldn't hesitate, especially since we hadn't been seeing much action. But since we hadn't seen much action I didn't really feel like having to let go of this hand on the turn if a diamond did hit. "All-in" shot out of my mouth before I even had a minute to think about how much I was gonna raise. Oops.

I had the UTG covered by about $300, so I wasn't too worried. "Oh man are you serious?!?" UTG thought about it forever and checked his hole cards about twenty times before finally letting his hand hit the muck. Now the regular went into the tank. After about 40 seconds he started talking. "Man oh man...I really don't wanna have to go home right now...What time is it?....I didn't want to have to leave this early tonight...I might already by dead...I REALLY wanna lay this down..." After about 2 minutes of this and the table getting restless and telling him to make a decision, he shrugs his shoulders and pushes his chips past the betting line. The whole table starts mumbling He's got AJ, he's got a diamond draw, he's got this or that. I flip over my queens, figuring I'm probably ahead in the hand considering his talking and time to make a decision. Then he flips over one card, a J. He stares at me and shows his other one, another J.
















Wow.

Niiiiiiiice fuckin slowroll......As soon as he did that I felt my whole body turn to fire. Now I love talking at the table, that's just part of my personality and part of my game, but whenever I do I am always respectful and sportsmanlike. And regardless of any situation, I believe that everyone should always be respectful and sportsmanlike, that's just morals. What this guy did really sent to me outworldly realms of pissed off-ness. As he showed his second Jack everyone at the table and everyone who had gathered around to see the hand unfold could only say wow and shake their heads in disbelief. The turn and river blanked and I was cut down to $100. But at that point I didn't really care about the money.

I started expressing my feelings to this particular player, and the rest of the table was agreeing that his actions were totally out of line. He had flopped the nuts, been put all-in by me, took forever to call, and then slowrolled me on top of that. I went off on him and he looked sheepish as he collected his chips. I hope he dies.

I blew off the rest of my $100 in steam the next hand and tore out of the poker room with a trail of smoke coming from my ears. I blew off $400 at the blackjack tables on the way out, which, oddly enough, made me feel better. Joe and I went to get food and then I headed home, still just so pissed at that guy.

The next day I took care of some errands before going to play some cards. Now when I got there I felt great again, and was able to take a seat at a game which was just about to open. For some reason, I did the dumb blow-the-first-buy-in thing. Now I'm really not sure why I do this. I mean I do it for reasons, but I know I can accomplish the same things without losing $200 first. I make loose calls for information against certain players, and I make certain plays in certain situations where I know I'm going to lose, so I can project a table image that I want. I don't know if you've ever been through this "phase" Tre, but if you have some advice for me make sure to hit up my comment box. I know Darsky's never done this, but if you have some words of wisdom make sure to drop a comment also. All I know is that I do it all the time without really thinking about it, but I know that I shouldn't be doing it.

I ended up rebuying again, and, of course, got my orinigal buy-in back shortly thereafter. Then about an hour or so later, still sitting at around $400 and getting cold cards, I was able to double up with my 33 on a board of 2-3-4 with two clubs against a flush draw.

I heart full houses. End of hand.

By then end of my 6-hour session I racked up and was a winner of a little under $900. I'm still feelin great at the table, and if it wasn't for a bad decision on Thursday I would feel even better. I might be going tonight, but I might be working late tonight, as I had a busy week at work and fell behind with some paperwork, so we'll see what happens.

Until next time.

PS - Thanks for continuing to read, my view count is constantly growing, which means the word is spreading! Tell your friends, tell your wives, tell your kids I don't care! I appreciate the views, as I enjoy writing and being read, so keep on comin back. I'll try to keep you hooked :)

First losing session in 2 weeks

After being back in the game for two weeks now, I had my first losing session on Sunday night! Boy that's a good feeling!! Two weeks and no session for loser until the last day of the second week. I didn't know if I was just rushing or if I was actually winning, and it looks like I'm playing some solid poker, so I'm pretty excited. I really am feeling comfortable at the table and feel like I'm seeing things clearly, which the results are showing, and that's awesome.

Coming back from a small winner on Thursday night, I was eager to get back to play on Friday night, and I managed to get Joe to go up to Chumash with me. Neither of us wanted to go with the intentin of leaving early, and we had agreed to play a long night through. We left at about 8PM thanks to him lagging hard after we agreed to leave at 6PM. I was a little peeved for certain reasons but I quickly got over it as we hit the road and made it there a little over 25 minutes later. As we showed up to a full poker room, we put both of our names on the board for one of the four $100/$200 buy-in 2/5NL games going, which is the biggest game offered at the small indian casino....usually, usually except for Friday nights. As we put our names on the board we made our rounds checking out the games in progress, and as we made our way to the back of the poker room I saw the biggest game in Chumash's poker room, which was the $300-$500 buy-in NL game. Now this is no big game by any means, but it is the biggest game offered here, and it's only offered on Fridays and will usually be open on Saturday and Sunday too, but it usually won't last long besides on Friday night.

As we hovered over the game, there was one "power" stack with about $2,800 in front of him. There were other sized stacks mixed in, ranging from about $500-$1,500. The one thing that's always bugged me about this particular game, though, is that the blinds are still at 2/5. With the buy-in set at $100/$200 for the 2/5NL game, it would only make sense to me to have the $300-$500 buy-in game to have 5/10 blinds, but the blinds are the same. I don't know if that should or shouldn't be to anyone else, but it just doesn't make sense to me, as it usually plays as the same game as the $100/$200 game.

So as Joe and I were sitting there looking over the game, he mumbled to me that most of the players at the table were only mediocre 2/5NL players, and that even though the blinds were the same they shouldn't be in the higher buy-in game anyways. That told me that I should sit and play the $300-$500 game, and wouldn't you know it a seat was open. I bought in for the minimum of $300, as it was sure to be the same game as the $100/$200 that I've been profitting in. As soon as I sat down it was apparent that I would be able to make money at this table just as easily. There was 2 kids there that actually seemed like they were playing at a higher level, but I was able to battle them both on a higher pyschological level than the rest of the field, and ended up winning a couple pots against them as well.

A little while after I sat down the big stack left racking up 7 racks of reds, totalling $3,500. The table said he was in for about $1,800, so he took about $1,700 off of the rest of the table before going home. The money was plenty though, and I was sure to take some of it. Playing 8-handed and nearing the 2-hour mark I was sitting on about $1,000 when the concurrent big stack decided to start racking up. Upon seeing that the second biggest stack racked up, and leaving the game 6-handed usually meant that someone else was bound to get up and the game would break shortly thereafter. I decided to join the bailing crew, as I had hit my $600 goal for the night and was more than willing to quit since I was beyond my target profit anyways.

Sure enough the table broke and I was $700 ($705) winner on 2 hours. I had the mindset to play all night, but then again I wasn't gonna argue with winning $700 in 2 hours at a 2/5NL game. I ran into a couple buddies from high school as I was racking up, and ended up having a semi-lengthy conversation with the both of them while I was sweating Joe. It felt nice to catch up with them both a little, and it was kinda cool to remember good old high school times. Joe ended up finishing play without me getting back into a game, and the night ended up with another short session, and another decent win.

Saturday was a do nothing day, I just kinda layed around. I bought season one of The Deadliest Catch on DVD last week, and got around to watching to whole thing on Saturday. That's a frickin great show, and if you haven't seen it yet I strongly urge you to do so, it's just an awesome documentary show. I started watching the second season a little while ago on the Discovery Channel, and while it's one of the only few shows I do watch, I love it. After I finished watching that I just slept, and it was sooooo good.

Sunday I woke up late, and that was great fun. I ate lunch on this beach-front restaurant with my parents at about 2:30, and after that it was time to hit up Chumash again; I was still looking for an extended session. After playing a 6-hour session and coming up only $230 on Thursday and only getting in 2 hours on Friday, I was hungry for more action. I went in with the full intention of playing all day, and possibly through the night if the action was good. Unfortunately, it wasn't.........

I bought in for $200 and built it up to $350 shortly after sitting down. Things were looking alright right away, but as time wore on that's not how it was. The first major hand I was involved in after getting over $300, I ended up with Qd6d on a board of 5-4-K-3 with two diamonds. With a pot of around $250 thanks to a loose table, I was heads up with a guy on the turn, who I put all-in for about $115. I was open ended and flushing to the river, and as the 4d hit the river I thought I was good as I flipped over my cards. The opponent had KK though, and my flush made his boat. I had kind of let that blind side me cuz I thought I had won right as the dealer turned the 4d, but quickly realized the situation. Either way I had lots of outs going to the river, and even if I knew he had KK I still would have put the money in the pot, getting 3-1 for my money. I didn't mind losing that one, but what I did mind was the way my night was going to go.

For the rest of the day/night I was just getting killed by the board. My hands made other hands, my plays were getting shut down, and my big hands weren't hitting. All the while I was getting suited connectors for limps facing around four limpers every pot, but I just wasn't connecting with those either. I ended up stuck in the game for three buy-ins, or $600. After losing the third buy-in by 11:30PM, I decided to hit the pit for a short visit before I went home. I bought in for $200 at the 3-Card Poker table, and dwindling down to my last chips I squeezed out an Ad2d, and played it. The dealer hand qualified with K-high, and the dealer spread out my cards to reveal the Ad2d3d for a straight flush! That paid out $600+, and I felt a little better about the night. I laughed at myself for being a casino rat, but I do love the feeling. Not a lot of things stimulate my brain and my emotions like gambling does, and when it does it really excites me, whether I win or lose. I know I'm not alone on that one :)

After losing a little bit back to the casino I tipped the dealer and....headed back to the poker room. By this time it was around midnight and I was still looking for some sweet poker action. I rebought back into the NL game and played for two more hours before I made back $100 at the poker table. Overall it was a bad card night in the poker room, and I left kind of exhausted. I sat at the blackjack tables for another hour and a half before I left though, haha oh well.

By the end of the night I was down $500 at the poker table, and I dropped another $200 at the blackjack table before I left. Overall with my winnings at the 3-Card Poker table and my losses both to the casino and to poker, I left down $200 total on the night. If I would have left down $600 in the poker room, I would have really felt down on my luck. But forunately for me and my gambling tendencies, I was able to get some of it back on the floor and I felt better.

Tomorrow Joe and I are going back up, and I plan on going at least 2 more times before the week's end. I'll be shooting for $600 winning sessions, which I feel should be easily obtainable, so hopefully I'll do alright. We'll see how it goes, so stay tuned for

It's no fluke, I'm good again

In the last 2 weeks I've played at Chumash for only 16 hours, and have profited $2,800+. I've had 5 sessions, and all of them for winner. I've gone for winner of $460, $930, $400, $875, and last night for $230. I think I've hit a point in my play where I am just very happy with it.

The Chumash 2/5NL game has a $200 max buy-in, which makes for some limited play at times. Two of the nights I had to rebuy, but still made a comeback to profit for $400 and $230. Actually, the first time I had to rebuy, on Monday night, I did it on purpose to loosen the table, as it was way too tight for my likings. I started raising everything, betting and insta-folding to raises, and raising blind. It worked and a few rounds later I got my initial buy-in back, and by the end of a 3-hour session had profitted another $400 and change.

After a $875 winner on Wednesday night, I decided to go back on Thursday night for at least 6 hours. It's a good thing I decided to do that, cuz that's what it took to make any money at all. I lost my first buy-in in the first 2 hours just to dead cards and calling lots of preflop raises, as I was getting odds to call with at least 3 callers to every raise preflop. Unfortunately for me my cards were either dead or just not hitting postflop. I rebought after losing my first $200, and a few hands later I was instantly put to a difficult decision. I had raised preflop with QQ and got called by a crazy player who had been playing pretty wild all night. The board came up K high and he pushed in, leaving me with a decision to call off the rest of my stack. He could have easily had a K, whether it was K-low or not. I took my time, stared him down a little, and ultimately trusted my physical read and called him off, saying "Thinkin you got jacks..." I flipped my queens, the board blanked, blanked, and he showed me Jacks. I got some applause and a few "Wow man great call!"s from the table, and pretty much got back to even on that one.

A little while later I got great news, as Danni (one of the dealers) called me over and gave me a big envelope. She said "Here, it's a wedding invitation. It's on June 10th. And you better make sure Joe's there!" It was really cool to get that invite, and it should be a great time. Now to some of you that might be kind of a wierd, having a dealer invite you to their wedding. But like I've stated in the past, Joe and I have spent a lot of time up there, and have hung out with some of the poker staff outside of the casino, and have more or less become friends with them instead of players to them. I'm sure there are plenty of cases of this with the younger players out there who are professional, or just play a hell of a lot. And it's not just cuz we're regulars cuz there are plenty of regulars up there at Chumash all day every day, but Joe and I and another chick are the only ones who got the invitation. So, despite the "wierdness", it really was cool.

So anyways, the rest of the night I had to work hard to gain ANY ground at all, as the deck was just ice. Eventually I had played a little over 6 hours, and seeing no change in the cards since I had sat down, I decided to take my profit and call it a night. I felt down, cuz I was definitely looking to get more than $230 profit. But as I was leaving the casino I laughed to myself, realizing that even if I made that much on a regular basis, I could still support life and live it lavishly enough. Darsky said the same thing to me, too, and I laughed to myself again.

All in all, I gotta say I'm feelin better about life in general than I have in a very, very long time. Things on a personal level are going well, and I'm excited about an upcoming personal event that might change my life in a big, big way, and is definitely an opportunity that I will not let slip through my fingers. In the poker world, things are going great, and I am in a zone right now that I will be in for a long time, and I'm confident that in the immediate future I will be making some decent money playing cards. Things are on the up and up, and I'm lovin it.

Stay tuned for next time...

A Gift From the Poker Gods

So after my small victory at Chumash on Tuesday night, I decided that my Thursday night would be more fun if I played more cards, again. I didn't stay long the previous time, and I figured that I might not stay too long this time either, if I won enough to keep me content for the weekend.

This time I got there at about 7:30, since there is a tournament every night at 7, and usually around an hour after the tournament starts there's about a half hour wait for the list. I showed up and found an open seat at the 2/5 NL, and boy what a meaty table it was. I sat in seat 6, bought in for the $200 max, and watched a few hands before I went to work and started chopping away at the table. There was not much money at this particular table, but I wasn't too worried about it since I figured I was there to take it all anyways :). Plus there was more rebuys flying around at this table then I'd seen in a while. The rebuys were usually for $100, but there were plenty of them, so that was fine by me.

There was no strong players, and there was only one regular at my table. He was one of those loose, asian players (not to disrespect anyone, as I'm 1/8th Japanese myself) and I knew his style, so I wasn't too worried about him anyways. Other than him there was a full table of donkey-ish or weak players. I started out right away by taking about $150 off of a rebuying machine that was in seat 9. After about half an hour he left, and the loose asian guy was the big stack at the table, sitting with about $800. I had about $350, and I don't think I was covered by anyone at that point, that's how weak and small this table was. Just as I was thinking about how I was going to get everyone's money, the poker gods sent me a gift in the form of two young kids who had a lot of talk and no game.

As soon as the two kids sat down they started talking about how they usually played in this game and that, and how they'd been playing for a long time, although they both appeared to be about 16. They started critiquing others play, and making bad critiques at that. These kids were clearly TV players and had absolutely no idea what they were doing. Not only were they loud, but they were hassling the drink girls too, so they were jerks on top of everything else. They sat to my left, and all I could do was look to the sky and thank the poker gods for what they had given me.

Now if any of you know me, you know that I will speak at the poker table, and I will not be afraid to say whatever I want. Therefore, I was instantly tempted to jaw back at these idiots. But I let them go for a little bit at first, but I knew that I would take money from them, and mostly likely all of whatever they had in front of them. First I started by taking one of the kids first buy-ins. I raised AK from the cutoff and he called from the SB. I flopped an ace and checked behind him. He bet the turn and I put him all in. He called with AQ and that was that. He rebought and now it was time to pummel the other one, who I'll call Kid2.

By this point they had been in the game for about 45 minutes and I already had a dead read on both of them, especially Kid2. He wasn't playing well at all, and I had been keeping an extra close eye on him. He had called off his first buy-in earlier to the loose asian guy with a 3-heart flop, with the asian guy flopping the flush and Kid2 not even having any outs after the flop. He had gotten his first buy back by sucking out on the same asian guy. A little after he doubled back up I was in a hand with him and had an easy chance to buy it, but I figured I'd let it go and I told myself I'd catch him later.

About 4 hands after I was thinking this, the greatest thing in the world happened. I had about $500 in front of me and posted my BB. Kid2 raised to $25 from UTG+1, and the loose asian guy called. It folded back to me and I looked down at none other than pocket AA. I figured that I could reraise the loose asian guy out of the pot and go heads up with Kid2, since I knew that he would at least see a flop with me since he didn't particularly know how to let go of hands preflop. The only problem I saw with that was that if I reraised and he didn't hit the flop, then he would probably let go on the flop when I led out. So I decided to flat call, and either outplay Kid2 or let it go if I felt like the flop hit either of them hard.

I flat called the $25 and the three of us saw a flop of Q-Q-7 rainbow. I wasn't too worried about this flop, as I knew how both of the players played. I decided to check and let Kid2 come after me, as I was more than prepared to trap him, unless the asian guy called in which I would have to reevaluate. Almost immediately after I checked Kid2 bet out $35, at which point the other guy folded. I "knew" that he didn't have a Q or 77, because he would have definitely checked that flop if had either of those, so I flat called. The turn was a 2 and I checked again. Without fail Kid2 bet out $75. I figured that if I check-raised him here he would put me on a pretty big hand, but if I called instead and bet the river, it might confuse him into calling a decent sized bet. I called once again, without either haste nor hesitation. The river blanked a big 5, and I thought for a second. I thought back and tried to think about the bets that he was calling. At this point he had $270 in front of him, and I figured I could get at least $150 out of him without having him push the rest of his stack. If he had pushed I would have most likely called, as I was pretty sure of my read, but at the same time I didn't want to have to make that decision.

I counted down my stack and bet out $150. Kid2 squirmed and huffed for a little bit before finally calling. I flipped over my AA and he smacked the table as he slammed down his KK. The dealer pushed the $600 pot my way and I'm pretty sure I had a big smile on my face as I looked over at the steaming 16-year old. His friend just shook his head and mumbled under his breath. I stacked up the chips and just laughed to myself. I knew that these kids were money and boy was I right. That got my stack to a little over $800 and I played for a little more.

I hit the $1100 mark ($900 profit) and decided that that was enough for 2 and a half hours of work. Kid2 tried doing the whole "Awww where are you going?" thing to me as I was racking up. At this point I laughed at him, stared him in the eyes and said "Dude, you will never get your money back from me no matter how hard and how many times you try." The whole table busted up as Kid2's face lit up bright red, and the dealer shot me a big smile as he announced "Seat open table 7!" I headed over to the cage and cashed out, happy with my play once again.

I hadn't been there long this time, just like I hadn't on Tuesday night, but both times I was very happy with my play. The players at the 2/5NL at Chumash aren't the greatest, but it still feels good to know that you owned them.

One thing that I've noticed myself doing recently is trusting my reads and not backing down. That was a big problem with my game before, but I'm finally trusting them and it's paying off now. I think I'm finally in my zone, although I've only played for 5 hours total split over 2 sessions, so it might be a bit premature to say. Only time will tell, and until then.......