Saturday, May 13, 2006

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 :)

5 comments:

TreMomey said...

That was pretty crappy what happened with the slowroll incident.

As far as going through a "phase" like that, I remember when I began moving up to higher limits I thought I had to play a lot looser and make a lot more calls in marginal situations. This in turned screwed up my decision making process that had gotten me to where I was.

As far as table image goes, at least in the games I play in even at the 5/10 NL level only two or three of the players will even notice my table image. Personally, I like to start out the exact opposite as you. I like to play tight early on until I get a feel for how the table is playing. Obviously, if the cards dictate that I play a lot of hands then I'll do that but in general I play straightforward poker for the first half hour or so.

The main reason I like to portray a tight table image to those that are paying attention is becuase it allows me to pick up pots against them that I shouldn't be winning. I can pick off their continuation bets or raise them whenever I feel weakness because unless they have really great instincts they won't be able to put me on a bluff. With most of the other players at the table I'm not worried about what they think about me because they aren't thinking about me, they are thinking about their cards; and most of the time they don't play good poker and they will pay me off even if I haven't played a hand for hours.

A lot of this has to do with the way the players in your game are playing. In Atlantic City, most of the players are loose/passive. There are usually 4-5 players to the flop in raised pots and raises/bets usually mean what they represent.

Remember, if you do want to have a loose table image you want the image of a dangerous loose player. The loose image should be used to put fear in your weak opponents. Also, it can't possibly be +EV to make calls or decisions where you know you are losing, no matter how much information you get from them.

Ha, this was like an entire blog entry in your comments.

-Tre

Chawwles said...

Yeah I see what you mean about the players not really paying attention, and looking at it I can definitely see that these players don't even care. I know that when I talk at the table it creates more of an image than my play does, so it looks like I'll just stop dumping my first buy like an idiot!

Darsky said...

You have the necessary ability to change up your play at will. So you can work any image you choose to portend.
However, a loose image can be dangerous. While it allows you to get action on your big hands, it also invites players in with weaker hands that can draw out on you. So the key is to recognize which players are "recognizing" you.
There is no need to try to out-loose a loose player. They will call you anyway. And most tight players play strictly according to their hand without consideration of yours. So its the players with moderate tendancies that you should be working on. And you can work on them without costing yourself a buy-in.

Darsky said...

BTW...good job not stewing over the slow-roll. The money would have gone in on that hand one way or the other. But he was completely out of line. That would have set me on a rare tilt.
The other players should have torn him a new one for wasting their time, too.

Chawwles said...

"And you can work on them without costing yourself a buy-in."

Yeah I notice that, and it is definitely something I'm gonna stop doing, cuz I know that I can just stop and be done with it, since there's no real reason to do it. As far as the slow roll, the rest of the table was moreso agreeing with me when I was going at him then saying anything themselves, but I think I got my point across to him :)