Mini vacation

The combination of my daughter finally coming for a summer visit and the fact my brother got us a room for a few days at the Shore got my interest level a bit elevated and me back at the poker tables. My father had been telling me that the Taj had been offering him a couple of nights and reminding him he had $78 in comps and since he hadn’t been going to AC told me he would let me use them as we both have the same name but even that hadn’t been able to get my ass in gear to do anything. Getting things with my daughter’s visit straightened out and a few days at the Shore with the family got me moving however. Plans were to head down Sunday night after my brother got off work but I decided to head down in my own car earlier figuring to play a little poker before we met at the hotel. My plans were beach during the day, poker at night though things didn’t quite work out that way. Spent the drive down talking to my daughter. Driving is a great time to talk to her. Gives her a couple hours to yak without interruption. Bluetooth headphones are the greatest thing since sliced bread.

So I get to Ballys and on a $1-3 NL table and get a call, it’s the family, they are on the road 3 hours earlier than scheduled. There goes my afternoon of poker; I now have about 90 min to 2 hours. It was an insignificant table, no really big stacks, no really notable style of play. Given some time I think I could probably have bled a few bucks out of it as it suited my style, mostly post flop play with a lot of loose calls to average sized bets post but folding to any real aggression. It was grinder’s heaven. Unfortunately time is what I didn’t have and when I left about 2 hours later I was about even, maybe down a few dollars. Not a notable afternoon. Only hand that sticks out is one I didn’t play because of a mistake. Last hand I played I was sitting OTB with a medium ace, suited, and decided that if it limped to me I was going to play it for about a 3-4xs raise. Unfortunately as it turned out a guy in mid position threw in 3 reds instead of 3 whites as if by accident and the dealer called it his bet and it had to stand. I was tempted to play because I didn’t think he was doing an acting job but decided not to because that weak ace could get me into trouble if he actually was so I folded and waited to color up as I planned to return later that weekend so easier to get chips rather than cash. As it turned out I would have hit nut flush on the flop and the accidental raiser hit top 2. Probably would have made a few bucks on that hand. As I later told him his accident probably saved him a few bucks he said it was an accident and as he played a J-9 off and given how he was playing I was inclined to believe him. Ah well, such is poker, a vast wasteland of missed opportunities. So I colored up and went to meet the family at the hotel.

Get to the hotel and the family was getting cleaned up and planning their evening. Plan was to go to the Taj and eat there using Dad’s comps up and then spend a few hours at the casino. Everyone expects me to take my own car as I’m usually out to the wee hours at the poker tables but I surprise them as I want to do some drinking plus they are talking about an early beach trip the next day and I figure some sun couldn’t hurt. So we head over to Taj and everyone stops to check their comps but me. Last time I was in Taj poker comps didn’t show up on the kiosks, you had to check in the poker room. Who knows what I have anyway as I hardly ever used them except for an occasional meal in the snack bar. Note, if anyone ever goes to the Taj the poker room snack bar has the best food in the place. It ain’t fancy but what they serve is cooked fresh and served hot, can’t beat it. So while they are checking the comps I hear Dad arguing with Mom and while me, the brother and nephew start looking for a place to eat we see the folks headed down on the escalator. WTF, don’t tell me they can’t refrain from hitting the casino before food. When they come back we find out that Dad had no comps on his card and the card center said, nope, got no record of any and Dad’s getting hot. While we decide on the place to eat, we decide on the place right next to us called Plate, my nephew chimes in that maybe the comps were mine. I never thought about it because, as a poker player, I never get mailings from the casinos. That’s for slots players, or was obviously, because I head down to the poker room and ask if there are any comps on my card. Yes I’m told, $78. Bingo! All month my father has been offering me what was rightfully mine to begin with. May have to get those names changed for the mailing list if poker players are going to get come ons. Cripes, I actually had a room offer and didn’t use it. 2 nites at that. So I head back upstairs and meet everyone at the restaurant and tell them “yup, my comps” so it looks like dinner is on me. As I said we were at a place called Plate and I had a bad feeling looking at the table settings and menus. I got the impression that trying to create an impression through fancy items and presentation was more important than the food itself. As far as I was concerned the impression was right. I ordered something called Not Quite Surf and Turf, supposedly a crab cake and a chopped steak made from Kobe beef. Not really what I was looking for that night but none of their other selections really moved me. Could have really gone for a good salad on the order of a Chef’s or something with chicken in it but the salads listed were all some variation of Caesar, had seafood in them and all were made with the fancy ass greens that remind me of weeds in my front lawn so that idea went down the drain. Ordered my chopped steak medium rare and started in on the bread they brought. That gave me some hope as it was sourdough and tasty. The drink wasn’t bad either. It only raised my hopes just to dash them totally. The meal came and it wound up worse than I feared. The crab cake was reasonably sized but covered in, and surrounded by, corn. No tartar sauce apparent. The “chopped Kobe steak” was no bigger than the crab cake, about the size and shape of one of my mother’s homemade homburgs. Overall mom’s burgers were better First; it was overcooked, well done instead of medium rare. Second I always thought Kobe beef was exceptionally fatty to make it tender. This thing was dry as dust, no juice whatsoever. Chopped Kobe steak didn’t have the flavor of a BK burger. Yes I could probably have complained about the well done but I waited long enough for that meal that I wasn’t going to wait longer while they tried to fix it. My poker night was going to be short enough since I wasn’t driving. I also tried some of the corn surrounding the crab cake and it was cold. Not cold as in it lost temp but cold as in just out of the fridge so obviously not a veggie but some sort of presentation dressing for the crab cake. It sucked and the crab cake not much better. While almost no filler it had a very fishy taste to it. I had some crab imperial the next night and it didn’t have half the strong taste that this thing did. All in all Plate is not a place I’m recommending to anyone even though I was later told, at the poker table, that they serve a pretty good breakfast. I don’t mind buying dinner but I do wish I could enjoy it when I do.

So dinners over and I head to the poker table and they have a seat at a 3-6 open so I head there. Bally’s rarely has 3-6, just 2-4 or 1-3 NL. 3-6 and 4-8 are my comfort zones. I’m a better limit than NL player and the play at those games is a bit better than that at 2-4 tables. Right away I realize what I’ve been missing. The players here are here to play poker, not kill time and hope to hit the bad beat. The words raise and reraise are not strangers to them. Betting rounds are getting capped, something I have seen rarely in limit at Ballys. Don’t get me wrong, there re your share of donkeys at the table but you don’t have 8 to the flop, increasing the chances of suckouts on the good players plus the donkeys are calling the 3 and 4 bets which means that your monsters are getting paid off. You can make up in a good hand all those flops you might miss with A-K or all those turn flushes that crack your straight or pp aces. When people do know more than call your raise when they have a strong hand the pots never get strong enough when you do get that nut flush or full boat to make up for all the bad beats. But when people are willing to reraise you figuring their flush is good even with the paired board then your night can be worthwhile. Sorry to say mine really wasn’t as there was one guy who had my number, and everyone else’s. That deck just up and smacked him in the chops. He’s an ATM when he’s off, he sees 90% of flops and chases down 8 hi flushes but when it’s favorable to him, as that night, there is no stopping him. Once I thought I was going to get paid off when I flopped trip Ks and turned quads and he was calling me down and the river put the potential flush out there but he was straight chasing instead and folded on the river. Ah well. As it was I wound up playing 3-4 hours and won $6. I was down about $100 early thanks to him but after he left I was able to come back and might have actually turned a bit of profit if the ride home wasn’t ready to pull out. But it was and I had to leave just as things were getting good. On a bad note when I got back to the hotel I found all the walking around had torn the skin off my toe on my left foot. It’s happened before and I actually have a kit I’ve prepared to take care of it but of course it’s been awhile since I did it so I didn’t pack the kit this trip. Wound up making my day at the beach screwed up but that’s for later.

Thank you for your time and attention. More later, I hope

Alive, maybe, sort of, hopefully

Haven’t been too many entries lately, in fact none for over a month. It’s kind of hard to write when you feel everything is useless anyway. You lose interest when you can’t even tell what day is which without really thinking about it and no matter what you do things never seem to improve and the ground just keeps crumbling beneath your feet. You start to lose interest in everything and when you don’t even feel like playing poker you know you have hit rock bottom and writing is the last thing on your mind. If this sounds like the makings of a pity party with yours truly as the guest of honor you can fucking forget it. Just an explanation as to why there haven’t been any words of wisdom from this direction lately. No idle ramblings or useless verbiage either so you probably consider yourself blessed. I also apologize because while my writing has been scarce so has my reading and so I have no idea how things are going with the rest of you out there, have som catching up to do. Hope everyone is well and won lots of money during the WSOP.

Part of the reason I have felt in a blue funk is that I have not seen my daughter since Easter and and my anticipation in seeing her for the summer got dashed due to a combination of circumstances and miscommunications. It was just the cherry on top of a pile of circumstances that were acting as the hammer with me as nail. For those interested the stroke recovery seems to still be progressing albeit very slowly. Another obstacle seems to have arisen however. For some reason my right leg has decided it does not wish to work according to the manual. Walking more than 50 feet brings shooting pains down the leg from butt to ankle. Part of it probably due to the excess weight I’m carrying around, more excess than the usual excess I have but only partly. Again the problem is, like the stroke, they can’t figure out the problem. One doctor thinks it might be circulatory while another says that, while possible, she’s getting strong pulses in my ankles and feet which makes that unlikely. Her opinion is that it’s nerve related and could be a spreading of my arthritis to my lower back. Anyway they want me to schedule a whole new series of tests and x-rays to try and get an idea of what is going on. I’m beginning to feel like one of those cheap, off brand devices where you can’t find a manual and no one knows what is wrong when it doesn’t work let alone how to fix it.

It’s funny. One of the reasons I’m coming out of my funk is that I finally get to see my daughter. I say funny because, while giving me a lift and making me start take some interest again, her visit is going to kill any poker playing until after Labor Day. Great, I get an interest in the game again and now can’t indulge. Un-freaking-real. No matter, the Scoot is finally getting down here and I anticipate a lot of pool time. She’s a water rat and social butterfly and loves going to Y to swim and play with the other kids. May even be able to get some gym time in before the pool opens. My leg and general malaise has kept me from the gym over the last month or two. Docs are bitching at me but didn’t really give a damn. You know, I never thought I would want to get back to work but right now it’s killing me that I’m not at a desk somewhere. Hell, I could even get back into loading trucks again though that ain’t going to happen anytime soon. Right now though the forced unemployment works out as it gives me time with my daughter. Only problem is that I have to make a 5-6 hour trip to go pick her up in upstate NY because she really, really, really wants me to see her in her play. Practices of which are one of the reasons she hasn’t made it down until now. The drive isn’t the problem even though the only motel in the area is a fleabag. The problem is the play is Peter Pan and I hate Peter Pan. Ahh, the things I do for my daughter. The only other problem is that it looks like no Shore trip this year. While my daughter is a bigger fan of chlorine rather than salt, another trait she shares with her father, she does enjoy a trip to the beach and a day on the boardwalk. Trying to find a way to get a couple of days down there but it ain’t looking good. My cousin has a house for a week and told us we were welcome but that week happens to be the week of Peter Pan. Damn that green clad rugrat, another reason to dislike that play. Oh well, with the impending visit of my daughter my attitude is brightening and hopefully I can keep it out of the gutter after she leaves. Some work, even something part time for awhile wouldn’t hurt. So would a fix on this damned leg. We’ll see. Anyway my daughter has already paid dividends for both her and me. Me because of my renewed interest in doing things. Her because, in addition to her new game for her Wii that I promised her after my nice day at Ballys a month or so ago, my renewed interest in poker led me down to AC yesterday and I spent the 2 hour drive talking to her. She loves those drives as she can talk my ear off and knows she has all that time and somewhere along the way she got a commitment to a new Webkinz if Dad had a good day. Well it wasn’t a great day, and looked like it was going to be miserable one when I got coolered for most of my buy in within 5 min at the table, nut flush against straight flush but we came back enough to be able to put a Webkinz or two on the shopping list. Who knows, I may even get a poker trip in while my daughter is down. She informed me on that drive that she found a place in an AC casino that sold all kinds of Webkinsz. She wondered why a casino would have Webkinz. Kind of makes the birds and the bees seem easy.

OK, if anyone out there actually found this after so long a break and if they are still awake after all the rambling I appreciate your attention for a few minutes. Thank You and hopefully I can keep my attention span on life focused for awhile and I’ll see you later.

Crubs don't come, beautiful crubs.

Warning, exceptionally long, even for me.

So I head out at 9 yesterday morning to see if Bally’s got things fixed on my hours and I’m in that tourney and to try to get over to the Borgata to check out the Summer Open. A lot of negativity wound up accompanying both those propositions.

I get to Bally’s about 30 min. before the tourney and go to the desk to check. Nope, not on the list and the guy there checks my hours and tells me they have me for 48. WTF??? I ask him what the hell is going on as I calculate 62-63 and last week they told me 57 and now it’s 48? Where did 9 hours go in the space of a week? The floor was great though and he got the room manager and between them the got my name on the list and so I was in the tourney. I do have to say the room manager is a pretty nice guy. I’m really liking this room more and more people wise. Dealers and floor persons are, for the most part, friendly and helpful. I wish they would get a more varied crowd so that their range of games would open up. Right now it’s basically 2-4 limit and 1-3 NL with a table or 2 of 2-5 NL and 1-5 stud. Wouldn’t mind trying to drum up some interest in 3-6 or 4-8 limit game. If I keep my face in the place I’m at least going to try and see if I can get them to put a kill button on a 2-4 table. Problem is, too many of their limit players are just there to put in hours and to try and catch a part of the bad beat jackpot. They come in and play a little then go wandering for awhile, the play, then wander. When they do play they really aren’t interested in the play itself as many don’t even raise or reraise even when holding the nuts. The room is trying to pull more people. They were the first in AC to move their bad beat to quads over quads minimum to build the jackpot and it worked for awhile but a few other rooms followed suit and things leveled out. They are the only room to pay the room, at least the hold’em tables, instead of just the table in case of the bad beat but don’t know how good an idea this was as it has lead to the situation described above. Gonna start doing some missionary work while at the limit tables to see if I can find some like minded souls to see if I can drum up interest in some slightly higher limit games. Have also inquired about mixed games as they seem to be the coming thing in Vegas but was told they tried them and found no interest. Thing is, was there no interest because it wasn’t advertised or because AC players are just provincial and prefer plain vanilla. The room seems willing to experiment, witness the bad beat rules and the fact they are the only room running 1-3 rather than 1-2 NL. Well I got time on my hands for awhile as the job hunt is slow. Have to work on this place’s image and game selection because they’re nice folks. One thing I did notice when I sat down to play cash later was that they didn’t mark the seat on the little sticky the put on your card when they seat you. They used to mark table and seat and this was the cause of a lot of the hours problems I think. If you changed seats at the table and didn’t tell the floor and they sat someone else in your old seat they clocked you out. But who tells a floor when you change seats. Tables yes but seats for Christ’s sake. So I noticed no seat on the sticky, just the table and limit and when I mentioned it the floor said they weren’t tracking the seat anymore. They’re learning. I made 3 table changes and 2 seat changes and when I checked as I left the hours were right. Good job Ari.

On to the tourney. After the fight to get in the rest was anti climactic. Couldn’t avoid the land mines in this on. Cards mainly sucked and mostly folded the first couple of levels. A few preflop raises got me some blinds and an occasional limper but lost most of those on a hand when my pre flop raise and C-bet on the flop were called by a guy playing 7-9 off and caught bottom pair and couldn’t let it go to a ¾ pot bet on the flop. As I said, minefield. Watched guys call pot sized bets chasing down mid range flushes and call preflop raise and reraise with hands like K-J. Bar style poker at its best. At the first break I’m sitting up about 200 in chips. Not good for this style game. You need some early chip ups to be competitive or you at the mercy of lady luck and she wasn’t riding with me just yet. Wound up going out at the 500-1000 level. Sitting with about 12k and OTB with pp6s. Folds to the hijack and he goes 3000. Cutoff folds and I call. So does the SB. Flop comes Q-4-8 and SB and hijack both check. Damn, both missed? 6s good? What the hell, I shove and SB beats me in the pot. Hijack folds and I figure I got suckered, he had to have smacked a set. Turn the cards and he shows A-Q. We had been chatting through most of the tourney so I ask him what he’s doing slow playing top, top. He tells me that since the other guy raised he wanted to see what he was going to do. Huh? I’m biting my tongue but I’m dying to ask him why. Is he going to fold if the guy bets? What does checking tell you if he does bet? I called the raise and he beats me in the pot when I shoved so it looks like he’s going all the way with that hand regardless so I have no idea what he’s looking for there. Oh well, I’m out and it’s time for some cash. One other thing, they announced the next freeroll promotion while I was there. Instead of just being Bally’s it’s going to take place with all Harrah’s properties and it’s a double. Instead of 60 hours for the month it’s 120 hours for two, July and Aug. Get the hours and it’s an entry into a $120 or 150K freeroll, $20K for first. Guess who has got time on his hands?

I have my winnings from the week before, a buy in at the NL tables so I figure I’ll try my luck. No luck, no seats. So I sit down at a 2-4 table to kill time. No great shakes, win a few, lose a few about even. Sitting there I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn to find the clean up guy. He points to the floor and there is $40 tangled up in a bit of trash paper. Problem with having limited use of my left arm is that I can only use my right pockets and so mostly everything goes in there and it can be a bitch getting one thing out without 50 others following it so I dropped the money without even noticing it. Being tangled with the paper the fellow could have swept it up and kept it with no one the wiser but he told me about it. Thanked him and gave him a $5 chip for being honest. To tell you the truth I felt for the guy as he too had a bad arm but his wasn’t going to recover. I could relate on a level. He thanked me profusely and figured it might have been the first tip the guy got in a room full of people all getting tips. As the saying goes, cast your bread upon the waters. It came back, believe me. The guy next to me thought it was a nice gesture and told me so and we started chatting. I asked him if he knew about the triple comps promotion. Harrah’s is running triple comps on weekdays but a guy last week said you had to swipe your card at the Rewards center to get them. He took a bunch of cards down there and swiped them for us as you don’t need to use your pin. I had stopped to look on my way up to the poker room but couldn’t see anything special anywhere so did nothing. So I ask the guy I’m talking to about it and he tells me that the bank of machines on the right are for that purpose so I decide to go swipe my card and take a whiz before I settle in. I grab my cane, still using one when walking any distance, kind of a security blanket rather than real need, and off I go. Gone about 15 min or so, get back to the poker room, stick my cane in the cubby hole I found to keep it out of the way, turn around and can’t find my table. Ever get that feeling of disorientation when something you know should be there isn’t? That was me. Did a slow 360 but nothing feels right but my original direction but the only thing that way is an empty table with a dealer at it. Huh? Look closer and I notice my chip stack and marker at the rail. Seems the table broke up while I was gone. As it was a full table it kind of shocked me but it was a most fortuitous circumstance. I grab my stuff and head to the desk to find a new table and notice open seating at the NL games and ask for a seat there and am directed to a table in back.

So here I am, ready to get my feet wet at the NL games again. Outside my little foray with a short buy a couple of weeks ago the only NL I’ve played in the past year have been .25/.50 home games and .05/.10 online. It’s been over a year since I’ve sat at a casino NL table. Hell, until last month it had been 8 months since I had been in a casino period outside a trip in Dec to a PA slots parlor to pick up a Christmas gift for Dad. It don’t help matters that I find myself in the 9 seat, not one of my favorites to start with, with the big stack at the table in the 10 and the second stack in the 8. Great, pass the Pepto. My $300 looks down right puny in the middle of this. On with the show. Table isn’t too bad. Standard preflop raises seem to be anywhere between 5 to 7 times the blind. None of the players really stand out except for the guy in the 4. CK’s term crasian is a pretty good description here. The table is schizoid. Sometimes a raise to 15 brings a fold around. A few hands later a 22 bet might get 5 callers. Me, I’m playing fairly cautious since it’s been awhile and with that stack to my left. I raise to 15 on a pair of 8s but the crasian goes all in for about 60 and I think about it for a bit but fold feeling I’m not quite ready to risk that much just yet. Yes, I know, overly cautious but then I’m the guy who folds A-J during the rebuy periods of tourneys, ask Falstaff. I pull Ks a bit later and my raise to 18 brings about a round of folds. That’s what overly cautious gets you, at least I hope it’s table image and not just a suck ass round of cards. Another orbit or two where I limp or play a couple of hands to small raises and miss the flop and fold when I catch A-A. My raise to 20 gets two callers, the guy in the 2 and the crasian. A couple of others have been into his pockets but I haven’t had the chance and I’m hoping that this might be it. I smack the flop with an A but there are two clubs out there. Ut-oh. Checks to me and I bet 20. Yes, small bet but I’m gambling here, looking for action and hoping the turn doesn’t bring the club or better yet that maybe someone check raises me. After all the crasian is still in. No such luck, all I get are two callers and the turn brings the third club, stupid club, and the 2 bets 25. The crasian folds and I call thinking the 2 has hit his flush but the 25 isn’t enough to keep me out as I figure I have 10 outs River brings one of those outs, pairing the board and giving me the nuts and the 2 smells something as he just checks. I throw out 50 hoping that the pot is big enough that the 2 won’t be able to resist if he has a decent flush but he decides to fold it and I get a decent pot. A few hands later the big stack picks up and leaves and the guy in the 6 gets felted and goes. I move to the 6 even though this puts the big stack in 8 to my left again but I just hate the 9. The game goes on, me playing a few hands and going nowhere mostly, winning a small pot or two. Couple of nice pots get played with the crasian getting felted twice and buying back in and showing a temper, finally being warned by both the dealer and the floor. I’m up between 100-150 in mid position and get 6-6 with a couple of limpers in. I decide to limp and cutoff does also and button raises to 15. Folds around to me and the cutoff is the big stack with about 700 or better in front of him and the button who is a recent arrival in my 9 seat with his full buy in still there so I figure it’s time to do a bit of set mining. 15 isn’t so much that I can’t get away if the flop isn’t there or if the cutoff reraises. He doesn’t and we get the flop. Hot damn, there’s a 6 there along with an A and a 3. Only problem is that there are two clubs there, damn clubs. I’m first to act and while I hate slow playing a set with a flush draw out there I figure the button is going to bet that ace giving me the chance to check raise and chase the middleman if he has the draw. Since the ace is a club I figure the button isn’t drawing. Of course I’m SOL if the button raised with a mid pair or K-Q suited. The 15 feels like A-paint however or that mid pair. A bigger pair is usually bringing a raise to 20 or better. The cutoff also checks and the button comes in, right on schedule with a close to pot sized bet of 50. That puts about 100 in the pot, give a few bucks but a pot sized reraise is only a minraise to 100 so I over bet a bit going to 125. I figure this will chase the middle man leaving the button with a decision as to whether his good A is any good to the check raise. Either way he goes is fine with me. I’ll take the action figuring I’m way ahead or I’ll take the pot. The middle man then proceeds to screw up all my carefully thought out plans by shoving. Huh???? WTF is he shoving with? Only hand that has me beat at the moment is A-A and considering the way the hand was played and that the button most likely has an ace I can’t believe that he’s holding rockets. I can believe he might have limped with A-A but I can’t believe he wouldn’t have reraised with them once the button raised. Besides he was pretty aggressive so even limping with them is a long shot. In the meantime the button decides his A is no good against this action and decides to fold leaving me with the decision. I go over the possibilities once more, figure there is no way I’m not ahead and he’s thinking that either I’m trying to buy the hand or trying to take advantage of my image and figuring I won’t risk the rest of my stack. Takes me just a couple of seconds to run through this before I say call. Yeah, I know, insta call but that’s not me, I gotta run through everything one last time, especially when it comes to putting 400+ on the turn of a card. I turn over the set and he turns over the club draw. Oh damn. Please no, no club or at least make it the 6 if it has to come. Damn 6s cost me the tourney, were they gonna cost me my stack here too? Turn a heart and river a spade and I let out my breath while the dealer starts stacking chips. Schweeeet!!!! After it settles down the game continues, the 8 decides to take a walk and the guy in the 9, the button that hand says he had A-Q and was debating a call until the 8 seat shoved. I stayed hot winning a few more bucks mostly small pots, a few semi bluffs that weren’t called, couple of top pairs that held up. This run at the table is the main reason I never made it to the Borgata to check on the Open. Who wants to leave a hot table?

Only one more hand of note before I called it a night though the crasian got felted again when his flopped 2 pair got rivered by an OESD. Was tempted to lend him my copy of the Poker Mindset. I was OTB with 4-7 suited. Was thinking about playing it to see a flop when UTG min raises and EP then goes 15. That was going to be that until 4 more players jump in. Hell, just too much money in that pot to not at least see a flop. BB and UTG join in and the flop brings x-5-6 rainbow giving me an OESD. Checks to me and I throw in a quarter and get 3 callers. Turn is a blank and it checks to me again and this time I go along. River brings me my 3 and it again checks to me. I toss in 50 and everyone folds. Talk about falling in the cesspool and coming up roses. I play a few more hands and then head for a 2-4 table. It was about 7:30 and I hadn’t eaten since 8 that morning so I decided to order some food but I wasn’t going to eat at the NL table, too distracting. So I decided to play some limit while eating then was going to pack it in after dinner and head home. Nothing much happened at the table card wise but did have a strange conversation with one of the women at the table. We were discussing the tourneys and she mentioned she loved playing the speed tourneys there, basically 12 min levels with blinds doubling each level. I stated I couldn’t stand them, that even the regular tourneys were too fast for me. Said I wish I had the money to play the deep stack, long level tourneys where the blind levels last an hour. She told me that no place has tourneys where the levels last an hour, wasn’t possible. I said huh? What do you think is going on in Vegas right now? What do you think happens during the Borgata Opens? No wonder you’re playing that 7-4 off UTG and calling 3 bets with it. Well I managed to donk off 30 during dinner and packed up a headed home with a bit of a bankroll to keep me coming back. Next trip an overnighter on Mon.. Let’s hope the good karma holds both then and on Sat at Rigg’s tourney for the posters to the RPT website. The top posters during the month of April qualified and anyone who has made it this far should realize that I have no problem being among the top even if Riggs told the official tally person to only count 1 in 10 of my posts. I am wordy if nothing else.

For those who have made it this far I Thank You for your attention and hope to see you (figuratively) again. Good luck to those playing in the WSOP events. Hope to see some of you on TV.

The good and the bad

Quick one has I have to get up early and travel to Bally’s to see if I’m playing in the freeroll with the $5K first prize. That’s right; don’t know if I’m in it. Went down Thursday to check out how tourneys are played down there. Entered the $40-10 they had that afternoon. Man, it was straight out of the RPT bar games playbook. About 60 some players, almost every one of them a player of weak aces, any two suited or almost any face card. IOW, land mines galore. Add in a rapidly escalating blind structure and a prize structure heavily weighted towards the front end and it was being in the local bar. Wound up getting 3rd for about $330 by being a tad lucky. By that I mean that my good flops held up against the chasers, a couple of BB hands where I hit trips on the flop became river boats when someone else was playing the weak ace and had me out kicked until then and my one chase, near the end I had nut flush draw with only 3 BBs left and SB coming up so I shoved the draw, came through. Not bad for my first tourney there. I’ll take it.

To get back to the freeroll, while down there I checked the list for the freeroll and found my name missing. I inquired about that and was told it would be checked into and in the middle of the tourney was informed that I was 3 hours short. Not much I could do at the time but as soon as I cashed out of the tourney I went back and asked exactly where I was short as my calculations gave me 2-3 hours over. I was a bit hot. Again I was told that it would be looked into and taken care of and again no info on whether they fixed it or on my hours for each day. Problem for me was that the floor persons I was used to dealing with weren’t there that day. So tomorrow I’m headed down and checking once again. If it hasn’t been fixed I will be in high dudgeon. When I play I play anywhere from 8 hours on up at a time. I rarely leave the table except to whiz and as I have kidneys like an elephant not often for that. I’m generating rake when there unlike many low limit players who play for 15-20 min then go wandering for a half hour or more, rinse and repeat, basically at the table to be said to be sitting there if the bad beat is hit or to get comps without spending too much. They screw me up on this I’ll go back to the Taj, Harrah’s or Borgata where you can find 3-6 and 4-8 games and the pots are bankroll builders on most tables unlike the family games here. The rake is the same at all the venues so why pay if I’m not going to get something for it? Most of the dealers I’ve come to know have said that they would probably just put me on the list rather than fight about 3 hours, especially since they need players. We shall see.

After the tourney I played a bit of 2-4. Was going to try my hand at NL but no seats available and too many big stacks at the tables anyway. Even a full buy in was going to leave me open to some serious bullying. Since I was only planning on playing ring for a few hours I wasn’t too worried about it. In fact I was just planning on killing time as, if I had left after I got knocked out of the tourney I would have hit the rush hour traffic on either side of Philly and I hate that. So I put the tourney winnings aside to use next trip down for some NL and pulled a couple of $20s out of the pocket to play some limit. No limit tables were available either so I decided to try some stud. First time in a casino for that. Ehhh. Had a frikkin net in the form of the guy to my right. You name it, I needed it, he caught it. Usually I folded after 3rd or 4th street but one hand I hit a straight flush draw on the first 4 cards. Any heart or any 6 was good and the 6 of heart would have been fantastic. The guy then proceeded to catch a pair of 6s up, including the heart and told me he hit a heart on 7th street. They called my 2-4 seat soon after that and I was glad to go. The limit game was fun, family game and chatty. One peckerwood couldn’t seem to read the board as he was raising with 2 pair and trips on 4 card flush or 4 card OES boards but I couldn’t catch him to add some bucks.

We did have a few problems a little later. The table was pretty chatty and even the dealer was getting in to it. While a lot of chatter it wasn’t affecting play, slowing it down any, yet one guy had just sat down started bitching about being there to play poker, not chat. Have no idea what the problem was as the game was moving unless it was the subject matter as there was a lot of joking about college days and our partaking of pharmaceuticals. Maybe that threw him off but he stood up with a tirade about the chatter and stormed off. The worst part about it though was that a woman who had been there the whole time I had been, and chatting away with the best of us, all of a sudden decides that the guy is right, the table was for poker, not chatting, if we wanted to chat we should wander off and chat elsewhere. Even said something about the rules dealing with it. Well one guy said that as long as he was playing they couldn’t kick him off the table for talking and I remarked that if she wanted to talk rules she was folding and betting out of turn for the whole time I was there. Not only that but she had been preoccupied trying to watch the ball games earlier. After being told off she kept trying to move to the other limit table but as they had 9 and we only had 7 the floor kept telling her no way. After her 3rd or 4th time with this action I and the other guy decided we had enough and decided to pick up and leave. It was about time for me to head out anyway so what the hell. Hope I don’t run into the bitch for awhile.

OK, time to head out. Going to see if they got me in the tourney tomorrow and raise holy hell if they don’t. Probably stop over to the Borg to see Riggs and maybe make the acquaintance of anyone else that might be there and check on the Summer Open. Thanks for your attention.

Almost the end of a long weekend

Let’s finish the weekend up. After a few hours sleep I went back to get my final hours in. Now I’m just looking for some fun and to kill time and that’s mostly what I did yet I did wind up in two big pots and a controversy.

First big hand was when I pulled pocket aces. Preflop it gets capped. Pair of Ks hit the board on the flop along with 2 spades. Crap, just what I needed. Someone bats and I raise just to see what’s happening because in a 2-4 game hardly anyone will bet their trips, they love to try and trap at the $4 level. Couple of limpers and the better reraises. OK, an unusual player, he bets his trips. Either that or he bets his draws like hell. A caller in front of me and with the other limpers behind me I figure I gotta see the $2 even though the As are more than likely shot at this point. Bingo, the turn is the magic A, the A of spades putting the flush draw out there but giving me second nuts. Only quad Ks have me now although the river can also put a potential royal out there. Original better bets, a caller, I raise, another guy comes along, better raises, the other caller drops out, I cap, and the third player also drops. We go to the river heads up. It’s a blank, he bets I raise, he reraises I reraise again and he goes one better. Damn, does he have the quads? He’s been with me all the way and the table murmurings make it known that most realize I have ppAs. I raise once more figuring if he reraises I’m just calling. Yes, you can’t be afraid of the quads and if the bad beat had been Aces full of paint the way it was in other Harrah’s places I would have pushed it to the moon but the had recently switched Bally’s to Quads being the minimum beat so the bad beat was not in play. Also I was just trying to kill time, not looking to clean house, though it would be nice but that’s a nice pot already so what the hell. He reraises again and I call. Should have pushed. He’s moving with the nut flush having the Q-J of spades in his hand. Almost hit his Royal but not quite. Ah well, so I missed out on maybe another $20-30 he had in front of him. Pot was nice anyway. Too bad it didn’t stick around long. Few hands later I shoved most of it over to the guy to my left when he had As full to my Ks full. Only most of it however as I realized he was sitting with A-A by the river. Easy come, easy go.

A bit later I’m in the middle of a controversy when I catch a third K on the river and call Ks at the showdown. The woman mucks her cards on the table but not in the muck pile and before the dealer can sweep them in her brother tells her she mucked the nut flush. She reaches out, turns the cads and sure enough it’s there. The dealer starts to give her the pot and I say no, she mucked. Dealer says that the cards never touched the muck pile so they are still live. I request the floor and as the dealer explains the situation to him I pull another card from the deck. Rather than go with a decision on whether the cards were mucked or not I call the one player per hand rule. She didn’t see the flush, her brother did and he isn’t even in the game, just standing behind her. If he hadn’t said anything she never would have known. The floor actually ruled in my favor on both counts. The one player per hand was a no brainer but he then said that the hand was mucked once she tossed the cards. She made a bit of a fuss but her brother got in high dudgeon and delivered a rant about what went on for a minute or two and stormed off. WTF is your problem, you aren’t even playing? The rest of the time was spent playing for fun and chatting with the couple next to me whom I had run across a couple of times over the weekend. They are one of those retired couples I mentioned earlier who come down on a regular basis to enjoy themselves. Nice people and made the afternoon enjoyable I played until I figured I had enough hours plus a couple extra. Went to the desk to try and find my hours for the month but no one could give me them. Told me to call on Mon. Told them that did me no good, I didn’t want to leave and find a was short an hour or two so that’s why I played the extra. After 2 marathon sessions, a couple of round trips to AC and only about 4 hours sleep I was ready to pack it in so when I figured I had enough plus I finally went home. Most of the day was spent either up around $30 or down about the same and I left on the down note. How down I didn’t realize but that’s another tale.

For those of you still interested in the stroke front the arm is still coming along but progress is in such small increments that I don’t really notice them until after awhile. I just noticed that I’ve lost the spastic movement in my arm when I’m startled or I sneeze or whatever. It used to just fly out of its own accord at such times but now it stays put, moving no more than usual at such times. My fingers are a tad more flexible also. I can bend my thumb to touch my ring finger without much trouble now, something that was damned near impossible a month ago. The pinkie is still out of reach however. I am also near to flipping the bird left handed now. I get about ¾ curl on the fingers and about ¾ straitening on the middle finger. It’s the ability to operate the fingers separately that brings hope. I did find out though that trying to use a bottle opener to uncap a beer is still a risky proposition. Not enough grip strength to hold the bottle down against the force of the opener. Summer’s going to be a bitch if I can’t open beers. I hate cans. Oh well, one step at a time.

Enough for now. It’s a beautiful day here and I think it’s time to go spread some Milky Spore on the lawn since it’s fresky cut and they are calling for rain again in the next day or two. Adios amigos and thanks for your attention.

Frikkin finally

So I left off looking for a table change after an exceptional run of bad luck and now my bad luck holds. The table is still short, now down to about 6 players but rather than break it they keep it running. It’s been a busy Sat and I guess they feel they can fill it. Thing is, I’m not getting moved from a short table so I head back after wandering for awhile and I at least change my seat. It doesn’t really change my luck except for giving me cards I can keep folding so that helps a bit. I’ve moved to the 9 seat, yes I know, not my favorite, but it puts me to the left of the guy with the racing form and it was a good move. Two guys shortly sit down, in fact for a few minutes the table actually fills, but these two are refugees from a 1-3 NL game. With them in the game, and the 2-5 player, there is a lot of 3 betting pre and post flop. Again the pots are being built but again my cards have gone cold. I guess the way these guys are playing is getting on others nerves since it’s like a revolving door at the table for the next hour or so. The kids have mainly left, out of chips, and the older players taking their place aren’t hanging around long. Just can’t keep a full table and my chance of moving looks slim and my stack is wearing down, slowly but surely. Finally a floor comes over to me and moves me to another table and it seems I’m the subject of some controversy. I don’t know what went on but I hear the one floor mention that I had asked for a table change an hour ago. I gather one floor was going to sit someone there and the other beat him to it with me. There was still a seat or two at my old table so it couldn’t be there was no room, someone else must have wanted that table though I have no idea why. First, it was a stud table and a small one at that so hey could not fit more than 9 at it. I was at the 6 or 7 depending on your count. Most of the seats were occupied by older guys but there was an older woman in the 3 seat and a couple of younger guys with accents sitting in the 1 and 2 seats. The 1 seat was a piece of work. To me there is nothing more pretentious than sitting at a 2-4 table and wearing sunglasses. It’s a joke as far as I’m concerned. It passes beyond pretentiousness to ridiculousness when you have no idea or clue about the game and here we have the guy in the 1. He’s sitting there with his fancy sunglasses and not the foggiest. Dealer, or the table, had to keep explaining to him that it was his turn to act and what that action could be. Kept trying to bet wrong amounts, kept trying to check after there was already a bet and raise, you name it he tried to do it as long as it was wrong. His buddy in the 2 was better; I guess he brought him down for the first time. The worst part of it was though, while everyone starts out new at one time or another, and 2-4 players are usually good and patient about helping beginners most beginners start to catch on to the basics within the first hour or so. This guy however never seemed to learn. Every hand was an adventure and after I was at the table for about 2 hours, he had been there longer, a number of the players started to get pissed because he was holding up the game. We were lucky to be getting 20 hands an hour. The dealers kept a good face on it but they had to be getting pissed as he was costing them tips. My cards were no better here, looked like it was going to be one of those nights, and the game lost the woman and a guy or two and settled down into a short handed table with Frick and Frack in the first two seats, a couple of late middle aged guys next, myself, and then a couple of older guys. I was already down about $120, an amount I rarely go down in 2-4 and pull a few more twenties to stick under the few chips I got left. The guy to my right and the guy in the 10 are fairly aggressive, betting anything. The guy in about the 4 is fairly tight. Frick and Frack are calling stations, especially Frick. Frack can fold a hand once in awhile. Frick however is one of those characters Providence takes care of. He’ll call down with just an A and hit it on the river, or bottom pair and catch the second one. As I was usually the victim of this it was getting frustrating. I did seem to win a couple when he did discover the word fold in the dictionary but I was dropping chips still, though at a lower rate. The guys in the 6 and 10 also bet me off a few pots when their aggressiveness in betting middle pair on a scary board caused me to fold top pair a few times. Definitely not my night. I’m down about $160 when the low point of the night hits and I make a complete jackass move. I get A-J in position and there are 5 players to the flop. Flop comes A-Q-x, two diamonds. Checks to me and I bet with 4 callers. Turn a blank, again all checks and again I bet and I get the tight guy in the 4 and Frick. River is the K of diamonds and again it checks and so do I. The other two flip over their cards and for a moment I thought Frick had turned over a pair of Ks for a set but then I realize the second card was a J. Then I look over and see the 4 seat with Q-7 of diamonds. Just frikkin great I sigh as I toss my cards. Guy to my left, knowing I’m not betting with air, looks at me and says, “Didn’t you have the A?” Yea, I reply, so? He then proceeds to tell me that I have just mucked the winner. I look again and that red 7 was a heart, not a diamond and I had just given Frick the pot with his Ks. Yes, you heard that right, I folded the frikkin winning hand. I am way past donkey; I am now a total jackass. And of all people to give the pot to. I just wanted to shrivel up and blow away. Could it get any worse? I was so used to getting rivered that night that I made the biggest mistake you can; I didn’t double check and make sure. Yes, it wasn’t a huge pot and wasn’t going to make my night but it was the crowning achievement of a screwed up night. Insult to injury. I could only shake my head.

Thing is, after that things started to change. As if the poker gods decided that nothing they could do to me could top the way I just fucked myself I started to get some cards and they actually started to hold. Nothing major or spectacular just then but instead of bleeding chips I started to accumulate some. I had picked up about 60 or so when they decided to break the table. One of the HE tables was down to 4 so they decided to move our 6 over there. There was still one major piece of nincompoopery to come however at this new table. I wound up in the 4 seat at the new table and the 5 was occupied by my buddy with the racing form. Now that the racing was done he had his name on the 2-5 list but nothing was opening he said. He was sitting on a chip rack full of reds so I ventured a guess his night had improved after I left. He said yes and said I should have stuck around as the guy who took my seat wound up walking away up about $200. Great. Also said his horse won its race so he was having a decent night. Table was pretty good, people not afraid to bet and most new how to play. Frack had moved to the table but Frick was sitting out. My luck wasn’t great but I was winning more than losing and with the 5 occupied by my racing buddy I was playing fairly tight. About a half hour or so in two guys come to the table in the 1 and 3 seats. My buddy tells me the 1 had been at his table earlier and was a better. The 3 was a refugee from a 1-3 NL game sitting in because his girlfriend was there. Could get interesting as there was a guy down in the 9 who liked to raise. My luck is still holding and I win a few decent pots though I’m still down quite a bit. The potential to come back is there however as the guy in the one winds up winning a pot over $200 as there was a lot of raising and reraising from the “players” and a couple of calling stations tagging along. Just waiting my chance. I finally get it as a BB special. I pull A-2 suited in the BB and there is a raise down at the other end of the table but it winds up with 9 players in. Board comes A-2-x with two diamonds. I bet, gets down to the original raiser in the 8 and he raises, everyone is coming along and I reraise to 6 and my buddy in the 5 caps it. Hmmmm. Turn brings another diamond and with the amount of players I figure someone hit the flush but I bet just to see where the power lies. The 5 calls and it gets to the other end and it’s raised. Folds to me and I call and now the 5 raises. The 8 calls and so do I. River brings me the miracle A and I check, the 5 bets, the 8 calls and I raise. The 5 folds but the 8 calls with the flush and I take a sweet pot, one that actually puts me ahead for the night so far. My buddy in the 5 says he was surprised I chased the A knowing that there were 2 flushes out there as he had folded the nut flush. I said I might not have had the raise and reraise come in front of me but I was between them and the pot was too big to not call the single bet and then another single bet. I mean, by that point what was another $4 even though it wound up another $8. Wasn’t like I was exactly playing my best poker by this time. After that however my luck really picked up and the pots were pretty good sized as I approached time to leave. It was closing in on about 14 hours at the table and I wanted to get to my motel room and get a few hours of sleep in before it was time to check out. Hated to leave as I had started grabbing some chips but the time and one more hand convinced me I should, one more piece of total stupidity Again in the BB with Q-2 suited, clubs of course. Now, I still had not hot the club flush draw at Bally’s to this point. No matter how many times I had two clubs in the hole and caught two on the flop it just never came. Yet I had started keeping track and it seemed that when I wasn’t playing it and 2 clubs hit the flop that third got there about 80% of the time so CK’s on to something. There was a raise somewhere at the other end of the table and I mumble that they never come for me so I should just fold but it’s hard to fold for $2 when it looks like about a $28 or so pot preflop. I call and the flop hits and Glorioski Sandy, the clubs finally arrived. A-4-5 of clubs hit. Not only hit but only the K kills me as the A made it. I bet and there is actually a raise and I reraise and there are actually a couple of callers. Schweeet. A red card on the turn and again I bet, again a raise and a call and I reraise and two callers. I’m praying, keep it red but the 4th club hits, the 3, and I just know that the caller just has to have the K. I bet the other guy folds and the woman that had been calling raises. Damn, damn, damn I go, it had to hit. Again too much there to fold so I throw in the $4 as I say you have the K, right? She turns her cards and there’s the K and I flip my cards face up to the middle in frustration saying that I finally hit the clubs and that happened. As I’m doing this I hear the woman saying, “I knew you had that 2, I just knew it.” Huh??? Then I hear the dealer say, “straight flush wins”. Wha?????? Yep, my bone headedness for the night is complete; I almost threw away the straight flush. Luckily my frustration made me toss the cards face up instead of face down as I did earlier. I started to really kick myself as when it’s heads up in limit there is no cap on bets and I started to wonder how high it could have gone with her having the nut flush and no pair on the board, having taken it up over $40 a couple of times at the Taj when it was boat over boat, but later when I was thinking straight I realized it might not have gone far for two reasons. First, I hadn’t seen too many players at Bally’s willing to keep shoving, even when they have the nuts. Second, I’m not sure what the rule is at Bally’s for heads up uncapped. At some places it is literal, heads up and it’s uncapped but at others you have to start that street heads up for uncapped to come in to play and we had a 3rd player go to the river with us. Either way I knew it was beddy bye time when I make that goof. I decided to play to the cutoff and then leave and return the next day. As it was I wound up winning 2 of the next 3 hands, who says there is no rush, before I packed it in for the night, or morning as the case stood. I went from $180 down to cashing a bit over $400 when I left.

So, hope everyone had a good laugh at my sheer idiocy and yes, you can bust my stones for it, I only deserve it. Just know Riggs is never going to let me live this down. There’s a bit more to come as I returned again later that morning and it’s still not a normal weekend but you might have to wait a day or so for it as I am contemplating a trip down tomorrow to play some while I am rested. The freeroll period is over so this will be a regular trip and I might even be able to get some NL in. Thurs is double credit day and I’m looking to move my status up so that I can start qualifying for some freebie rooms. If I can get a few nights I can take my daughter down for a couple nights when she is down for the summer and stay there and drive down to Ocean City in the morning for the beach and boards. Thanks for you attention.

Almost but not quite

Before I start I must mention that I now unofficially hold the record for the largest tips, percentage of winnings wise, in Bally’s, and maybe any poker room’s, history. I probably set it last Fri when an under the gun raise with the hammer brought all folds and I wound up winning the blinds, a whole $3. I graciously gave one to the dealer for a 33% tip. Thought that would never be topped for a total fold preflop at $2-4 limit just ain’t done. However I topped that this past Fri when, in the SB, I completed and had the BB fold his hand for a $2 win. Huh??????? How do you fold that? Hell, if I had been paying attention I would have offered the chop but you rarely see it fold to the SB to begin with but to see the BB just muck, wtf? Well, I took my winnings and again graciously offered the dealer $1 for a tip of 50%. Since I doubt I will ever see $1 winnings as they allow you to chop blinds I think the record will stand for awhile.

Sat. equaled more Bally’s. Needed a monster run of hours to get the qualifying amount for the tourney and didn’t think I was going to be able to do it and still drive home, especially since the late return Fri meant I wasn’t booking out early, so decided to make an overnighter of it. Just one of my many great moves this Sat. Planning to try and get a room down the shore on a Sat morning for Sat night now that Memorial Day has past. Not exactly great planning but that has never exactly been my strong suit. Called Bally’s to see if I could get a room at the poker rate. Do the words fat chance have any meaning? So I searched around on Priceline and Orbitz and such and found a room at the Econo Lodge in Somers Point for a reasonable amount. It wasn’t fancy but all I was looking for was a place to lay the head for a few hours and get a shower in the am. Somers Point, for those not Shore savvy, is right outside Ocean City, about 15 min drive from AC, and noted for 3 things. It has cheap, but decent, motels for those who can’t afford the rates in OC. It has a number of good restaurants right around the causeway over to OC. Third and most notably, it’s where you go to buy your liquor if you are staying in OC and didn’t bring any with you or happen to run out. Ocean City is a “family” resort, i.e. It’s dry. One of the reasons the better eating establishments are in Somers Point. So after the search and breakfast I’m again on the road to the shore. Damn, wish I had bought a place down there years ago when I had money and the prices were reasonable but who knew I’d become a poker nut and the rental prices would skyrocket.

Trip down was uneventful. I was driving down later than I usually liked. I decided to take the back, or old, way down rather than the AC Expressway. As it was late on a Sat morning I wasn’t expecting heavy traffic on the Expressway but I needed gas and a drink so I figured I’d take the scenic route. I shouldn’t be saying this as I’ll probably screw myself up in the future but the old Black Horse Pike is not a terrible drive down to the Jersey Shore and is especially great during the crowded times on the AC Expressway. There can be a lot of traffic and lights at either end as you travel through some strip mall monstrosities but most of the trip is on 4 lane highway with posted speed of 55. There are a few lights along this stretch but it’s mainly farmland, produce stands, custard stands and old auto parts places. The Atlantic Blueberry Co. has its fields along this stretch and you can stop and get flats of berries for about 2/3s the price of berries in the supermarkets during the season. Being the berry lover I am I usually make at least one trip along this route during the summer just to stop there. I “discovered” this route a couple of years ago when I was forced to leave for the Shore on a Friday evening one summer. For the uninitiated, driving to the Shore on a Friday evening between Memorial Day and Labor Day is akin to root canal. Traffic is bumper to bumper the entire length of the expressways, starting on the PA side of the river and continuing until you hit AC. If you are lucky the traffic at least moves around 40. If not, then it would be easier to hike. The same goes for the return trip on Sun night. A usual 90 min to 2 hour ride can take as long as 4-5 hours at the peak of the rush. I have found however that very few people will use the Black Horse. Even in the rush it is usually clear so while I cannot do much about the bridges over the river or the first part of expressway before and after them, I have found that traveling the back roads does make the trip smoother and faster. In fact my return trip this last weekend I saw nary a car on the road while the traffic reports were saying there was an 8 mile delay on the AC Expressway coming out of the city and around the exit for the other Shore points. Now that I’ve revealed this I’ll be all fucked up on future trips. Of course since I probably have very few readers it might not be so bad.

So, on with the tale. A page already and I ain’t even in AC, let alone playing poker. I get to Somers Point and check in to the motel. Get my key and head to AC. Wind up at the poker room in Bally’s around 2 pm and there is a short wait but I’m on a limit table within 15 min. Today I’m looking to make money and not just hours so I have a feeling I’m going to be a pain in the ass to the floor as the table is going to have to be just right. First table isn’t it. Lot of loose passive play, which builds decent pots but no aggressiveness at all, even when some on has the nuts. It’s a family table, a social event. I sit in the 9 seat to start, not my favorite, especially when I’m still a bit tired and my eyes aren’t focusing right. It’s a bitch growing old. I win my second hand at the table when no one bets me off my gutterball on the turn. I may throw $2 in on a gutshot on the flop, depending on the pot, the players and the likelihood of collecting if I hit but will rarely throw the $4 on the turn unless the turn has brought me other outs. I play river rat here though and bet my nut straight after a couple of checks and get about a $30 pot when a couple of people call, including a guy who rivered top two. If he had bet that top pair on the turn it would have been his pot. However he also didn’t raise me with top 2 on the river which saved him a few bucks. As I said, no aggressiveness. There is one older Asian gentleman in the 3 seat who was at least showing a willingness to raise pre and bet out the flop and turn when he was in the hand but not much else. A few hands later the 5 seat opens and I jump in there so I can see things better. It’s a chatty table, lot of fun if I was just killing time but I’m looking to make something today so I know I’m going to be looking for something else soon. The feeling is solidified in a few hands when I grab J-J in the BB and after a bunch of limpers the Asian gentleman raises. I only call for two reasons. I don’t like big pocket pairs in limit as they rarely hold unless you spike the set and also I don’t want to chase the rest of the limpers out if I do hit. Yes it allows more chances to suck out but I’m gambling here for a bit. I get lucky and the flop brings a J on a loose board, no straight or flush draws. I hit perfect so I just check figuring the guy in 3 will bet and I’ll get him. Instead the woman next to me bets and it limps around to me so I raise. I was just going to smooth call figuring that they turn really couldn’t hurt me and I could get the bigger bets but then I figured, what the hell, most of these people aren’t going to understand the implications and are going to throw the extra $2 in anyway, which should make up for those that wouldn’t have tossed in the $4 if the 6 or 3 seats bet. I get tie extra $2 from everyone but one guy who actually starts busting chops, in a friendly fashion, about the check raise. He obviously knew what it meant and just as apparently knew it wasn’t usually done on the type of table we were playing. I bet out the turn and river which ere both bricks, got two callers all the way and the set held against two pair. The table talk turned to joking about me check raising and “how dare I do it” and there was a lot of joking about it but that and the fact that both hands I won someone held two pair and just called, especially on very loose boards, meant that any money to be made here was going to be ground out. So I go looking for the floor and a table change to see what else is out there.

The Floor tells me I’m in luck; they are opening up a new table a bit short so I can move. The new table is the table of my wildest dreams and also my worst nightmares. We start with 7 players. I hate playing limit short handed as the pots usually aren’t there unless it’s a bunch of aggressive players. This table looks like it might have potential though. There are 4 “kids”, an older guy on my right who says he doesn’t know much about the game and a middle aged guy to my left working a racing form. I ask him a question or two about the ponies and find out that he owns a few, trotters, and has one racing that night. He says he usually plays $2-5 NL but he can’t concentrate on that and the races so he’s playing $2-4 limit until the races are over to kill time. If he’s telling the truth between him and the “kids” it could get interesting. It does. I’m sitting in the 7, the guy with the racing form the 8, the kids are in the 1, 3, 4 and 10 and the older guy in the 6. Game starts and I start to believe the guy in the 8. He rarely limps, not afraid to raise and reraise and especially not afraid to fold to raises even if he has $2 in the pot already something you rarely see at this level so he’s probably truthful about the $2-5. The pots are decent as the younger players aren’t afraid to play with this guy and my game tightens up as he’s on my left so I gotta figure that any hand could be a raised one so no dicking around. I’m doing a lot of folding as my cards suck, big time. I wouldn’t even be playing these in a family style game. No K or A suited, no suited connector or gaps, hell no connectors at all unless it’s 2-3 or such. Any paint is coming with a low card for a nice Acey-deucey hand. Finally, a table where there is money to be made and I’m stone cold. This goes on for a bit longer. Some players come, some go but the game remains the same as the movers are a all youngsters, early 20’s who play like they think they are Gus Hanson in the WPT. Guy in the 6 seems to be proving his words also, about not knowing the game as he is playing some real garbage. However it is lucky garbage as he’s sucking out enough to build his stack. Finally I get a hand, pair of ladies and raise pre. The 8 drops but the rest of the table calls. Flop comes 3 small rags, rainbow, and guy in th6 bets and I raise with a couple callers including the 6. Turn another rag and again the 6 bets and I raise and get one caller and the 6. River is a 6 which pairs the board and again the 6 bets and again I raise. Other player drops, 6 seat calls and turns over 8-6 off for trip 6s. I bite my tongue and try to go Zen so I don’t stroke out again. Nice hand some how makes it through my clenched teeth. After all, I want this guy playing those kinds of hands, that’s where money is made. He got lucky, that’s all. Game continues. Little while later I pull A-A UTG and raise. Guy in the 8 calls and guy in the 10 reraises one player at the other end calls as does the small and big blinds and I cap. The 8 seat folds and everyone else calls. Again a beautiful flop for a large pair in limit. It’s a loose, low rainbow, an 8-6-3. The SB checks and the BB bets and I raise, the 10 reraises, everyone folds to the BB, who calls, and I again cap with both guys calling. Turn a brick, BB bets, I raise, 10 just calls and so does the BB. River again pairs the board with a 6 and again the 6 bets and, remembering last time I just call as does the 10 seat. 6 seat turns over 6-4 sooooted this time and rakes a damned good pot, again. Now I’m tiliting, especially as the guy stacks his chips and leaves. If this was online at least 5 guys would be swearing the place is rigged. Maybe CK is right. Two hands later I’m in the SB and I do what I haven’t done in weeks, I complete the blind and check dark starting my move to donkery which will later move to jackassery. I’ll do this in a game where I’m playing for fun and really don’t care about winning or losing but here I’m on tilt and say wtf. The guy in the 8 seat also checks dark and we see the flop. Guy in the 10 bets and the other side of the table call so now I gotta look. Frikkin A, I got bullets again so I raise and the 8 folds and the 10 seat calls and so do a couple of others. Flop isn’t flushy though there is a straight draw. Turn bricks and it checks to me and I bet and 10 calls as does the 3, everyone else folds. River is an 8 filling in a possible straight and I bet and 10 raises and 3 folds. I figure I’m beat and it’s my fault for tilting but I just gotta know what this guy was playing so I call. He turns over 8-6 off, what again? for 2 pair. Now this is running long so I’m going to take a break here, just I was looking to do at the table. Suffice to say I played my button before walking off and wound up having K-K cracked. Yes, I know it’s limit and I expect it to happen but come on, As twice and Ks all in the space of 4 hands. Throw in the Qs the last orbit and you would think at least one hand would have held. Especially since at least two of those hands were played very aggressively by not one but two players. You would think even the biggest of guppies would realize that when two players are capping the pot at least one of them has a big hand and if the flop ain’t got no outs and it’s still being capped your chances of winning are two, slim and none. However I must have pissed someone off as slim never left town and came home to roost to mix a few metaphors. Enough is enough. I get up, go take a whiz and go looking for another table change. I like the aggressiveness here but my luck obviously sucks and I gotta do something to both change it and my mood.

So while I’m taking a break at the table I’ll also .break here to keep this at a reasonable length. More boredom and jackassery in the next installment. Thanks for your attention.

The start of a strange weekend

Spent the weekend in a marathon poker session at Bally’s. While I’m always trying to make money at poker the trip, or trips as it were, was more of an attempt to pull hours to qualify for their 15K freeroll next week, first place $5K. I made about half the rated hours I needed early in the month and had plan to make weekly trips early in the month with an over nighter with my nephew getting the freebie room somewhere in the mix. Complications over the last couple weeks killed those plans so I went down the last weekend with plans to try for 31 hours of play to qualify. What followed was an experience and a half with lots of fodder for the blog.

The experience started Thurs night with an early sack time as I planned to hit the road early Fri to beat the work rush. Beat the 5 am alarm by a half hour and was on the road by 5. Quick stop at WAWA for cash, coffee and a breakfast sandwich and away I went. Traffic was light and I made it to the poker room by a few minutes before 7. Unlike most times when I was there and there was a 2-4 game running this time the only table going was 1-3 NL. As I am still on a limited bankroll NL is still a reach since I couldn’t afford the double buy in I usually prefer to have to play. Put my name on the limit list and wandered over to watch the NL. After about 30-45 min. there was still no sign of a limit game opening soon and I had gotten a good look at the NL table. Since I was looking to make hours and sitting there idle wasn’t doing it I decided to violate my rule and buy in short so I sat down.

It was a short table 6-7 players and reasonable by which I mean no heavy preflop over aggression. I prefer a post flop game so it’s the type of table I like and why I was willing to buy light. It was a good idea, hours wise, as a limit table did not open up until about 10:30. I wound up playing for a couple of hours and basically held my own. Won a couple small pots and lost a few bets. The lack of pre flop aggression probably bit me in the ass as I hit A-A twice and got no action. Once I got the blinds and once I pulled about $12 with a couple of limpers. As I only raised to $15 both times guess the cards weren’t that great. Only two really memorable hands, one I was in the other I wasn’t but the same poor son of a bitch got bit twice. Guy was to my right and was up a bit looking at his stack. First hand he raised to $15 and the SB raised all in for a buck and a quarter. Guy calls and turns over A-J vs. the SB’s A-Q. Flop hits with J-J-T and table lets out a collective exhalation. Turn however brings the K and there’s and under breath ouch from the table. River a blank and SB doubles. Few hands later same guy raises to $12 and I call with AK. Flop brings an A with two babies and he bets $20 and I just smooth call. Turn is a K and he checks and I shoved my last $45 or so. Yes, I know, I should have been all in on the flop but it ain’t the only, or the worst, mistake I made all weekend though it could have been the costliest. Guy tanks and finally calls and flips A-J and shrugs when he sees the A-K and I double up and am up a few bucks. I drop a few bucks calling preflop raises with A-paint or small pairs and folding to bad flops and they call the limit game. I wind up down about $50. Going to have to try the NL tables when I have the buy ins and am not worried about making hours.

Hit the limit table hoping to make about another 10 hours or so to give me a shot at freeroll. Also needed to stay that long to avoid the rush hour on the Sure-kill expressway between Philly and King of Prussia. Limit poker at Bally’s is an experience. You have an eclectic mix of people. There are the old guys playing hold’em until a stud seat opens up. There are the retired couples playing poker together who would probably have been playing shuffleboard in another day and age, there are the young kids who think they are playing on TV and various and sundry other types. My table was very passive but as I was going for time it really didn’t bother me. You need an aggressive table, or at least a player or two, to make money at 2-4 but at the same time it becomes riskier as the loose play leads to major suckouts. As it was it there was nothing really exceptional about the time at the table, just a lot of standard 2-4 play and fun chatter that killed the time. Only two notable incidents. One “hotshot” kid doing a stutter step check on a draw type turn card and then insisting he never checked after those following him checked and dealer turned the river, an A. While three of us insisted the kid had checked, I said he did but wasn’t in the hand, he had the dealer convinced that the dealer screwed up and the floor agreed with the dealer and the A was reshuffled in and the kid bet and the river bricked and he bet again and won with a pair of Qs. Woman in the 10 seat had the A and would have won with it if not for the controversy.

The woman in the 10 was the other thing of note. She was a poker dealer at Borgata and had been working at the time of the record craps run that just happened. We spent a while discussing that. According to the woman they were lined up 5 deep to get on that table once word of the run had started. The woman setting the record run did not come out majorly ahead and the biggest winner only hit about 25 grand. For a run that long she said the casino got off cheap considering what could have happened with a run that long and a few high rollers. As it was only a low limit table and only 16 players could fit round it at a time the low rollers had the places and probably weren’t going to give them up by the time the word of the run got out so the Borg got lucky. Made for interesting table talk. As it was I got my hours and headed home after playing all the time and breaking even. Wound up down the NL amount and planning to head back down the next day.

More on the weekend for any who can stand the boredom. I will guarantee you will get to bust my chops as I made a total ass of myself Sat night and I will, to my everlasting shame, put it up here. Thank You for your attention for now.

More Bally's

FYI CK,

Bally's isn't rigged, it just hates me. 4 straight times A or K suited in crubs and flopped 2 more, nada. Next 8 times when I didn't have them but 2 crubs on flop, they got there.

Of poker and planting

Been a bit of a busy Memorial Day weekend.

Made another trip to Bally’s on Friday. Yes CK, I know it’s rigged. Headed out about 5 in the a.m. to beat the work traffic and came back after 8 at night to miss the work rush the other way. Glad I wasn’t heading down Friday afternoon. With the official opening of the shore for starters and the weatherman calling for sun and temps in the 80s the rush was on. As I headed home the traffic heading down was heavy and this was late. Would have hated to be on those roads around 5-6 that day. Had actually planned a trip down Mon night for an overnighter but was reminded I had a doctor appt. on Tue so got shot down.


Still stuck on the limit tables for the time being but it looked like it was going to be a good day. Was up about $100 in the first half hour. Second hand I was there I raise with suited connectors. I flop open ended with an 8 man pot and bet and get 8 callers. I turn the flush draw and call when someone else bets out. Still 5 players. River brings me the nut straight and there’s a better and I raise. Get two callers and take it down over top pair and 2 pair. Guy with 2 pair starts mumbling about going broke chasing gut shots. I just keep my mouth shut. If he wants to think I was chasing a gutterball then who am I to abuse him of that notion. Anyone who ain’t gonna throw $4 into a $32 pot with another possible $20 behind with open ended and flush draws is more than welcome to sit down and play at my table. Took another 2-3 similar pots early on and started to think it was going to be a profitable day. Silly me. Both the pots and the cards started to dry up.

One of my buddies from my previous trip, the guy who limped and checked called with aces sat down. I eventually got a better read on him if I run across him again. Seems he never actually bets unless he has 2 pair or better. Top pair only brings check calls. Saved me a couple of bucks then and maybe more in the future. Had a couple of others like him at the table though and they cost me a few. One guy though cost me more than a few. He started off by playing passive as hell, check calling with big pairs. 3 or 4 hands I had a big pocket pair and kept betting into crappy boards only to have him turn over a bigger pocket pair. Then all of a sudden he did a complete 180. He started raising blind and throwing in raises on the flop. To make it even better one of the idiots from my last post showed up and he kept reraising and egging this guy on. Pots got big and I got a lot tighter knowing that I was going to have to play hands to 2-3 or even capped bets if I wanted to play. Unfortunately my cards sucked and I went on a folding spree. Now that wouldn’t have been so bad but the consequences of the actions of these two cost me later. While these two were one their wildman spree there was a young kid at the opposite end of the table. He’s in almost every pot with them and these guys are egging him on, trash talking and telling him he should call, or bet or raise or fold. Every time the kid would bet the one, or both, of them would raise him and then start the trash talk. Poor kid didn’t know which way was up. As it was he was making piss poor decisions. He would call a 3 bet on the turn then wind up folding to a single bet on the river and the way he was tanking on these decisions made me think he had at least some sort of hand and wasn’t just folding busted draws. Then these guys, the one in particular, would show the bluff and the kid would get razzed by the rest of the table. Got to the point were this kid became a bulldog and wouldn’t let go of his cards for anything. Actually a way to make money in the long run but became a short run killer for me as he started getting lucky as hell on the river. He’d hold on to bottom pair against my top and catch two pair or trips. He’d hit top pair against my flopped two and match his second card on the river. No matter what I did I couldn’t get him to lay it down if he hit a pair on the flop. It seems he decided he wasn’t going to be embarrassed by being bluffed again. Of course by this time Frick and Frack had left and I was paying for the shenanigans. Couple of others too although a couple of players were making out thanks to his doggedness. Guy knew he was playing bad cards too because when he was forced to show he would show his paired A or K or Q but was reluctant to show his kicker and the dealer kept telling him he had to show both. Other than the fact I couldn’t get this kid off his hands and that my cards sucked big time during the period that there was money to be made I had only one more problem at the table, the cell phone or in particular, one woman’s cell. Nice woman and decent player but she would play a hand or two and then would get up to answer her phone. She spent more time away from the table than at it. If you play low limit at a casino regularly knows that you rarely play a full table. There are always a couple of old guys who play for a while then go wandering. It’s even worse midweek as most of the players are these old guys so you are usually playing 8 handed or so. That just made this woman’s jumping up and down even more annoying. Not that I approve of what the old guys do, that also annoys the hell out of me but for some reason, disappearing every 5-10 min to answer a cell call just got to me. Turn the damned thing off will ya.

The rest of the weekend was taken up with planting. No, no more trees or fruit bushes, just plain old veggies. Seems I’m getting later each year when it comes to getting in the tomatoes. Garden also getting smaller every year. Was a time I had an asparagus patch and I put in about 36 tomatoes, an equal number of peppers of various types, couple of rows of cukes and beans and played around with pumpkins, corn, eggplants, squash, both summer and winter, radishes, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce and cabbage. One year I even tried potatoes and other peanuts. Had a fair sized garden and varied success. This year however I’m down to 7 tomatoes, 4 green peppers, 4 red peppers, 4 hot longs, a cherry pepper and a fryer. One reason is that years ago we had no idea what to do with most of the stuff I was growing. Some stuff you had limited production by the nature of the veggie, like broccoli or head lettuce. Others just didn’t produce as well or were small items like radishes or beets. The mainstays however, the tomatoes, peppers, cukes and beans, you could wind up picking 2-3 grocery bags full every couple of days. Had to resort to putting a picnic table out front and a coffee can and put people on the honor system and if they weren’t honorable, who cared, the stuff was going to rot anyway so any donation was ahead of the game. Guess I did tend to overdo things. Alas those days are gone. Just hasn’t had the time, or these days the stamina, to do things like that. Have been cutting back the garden the last few years. The asparagus patch stopped producing a few years ago so we let the lawn overrun it and last year let the lawn encroach over more garden space. Last fall I took up about half the remaining space for the berry canes. Just enough room left for the planting mentioned above and a couple of rows of beans and cukes and even the cukes are getting trellised so they go up rather than out. Even this small amount of plants are a drain when you only have 1 ½ arms and you can’t get up and down on your knees to dig. Had to resort to post hole digger, my grabbing tool and a hoe. Hell of a balancing act, juggling between the three. Got everything in eventually and actually got some rain the day after I finished. Now we’ll have to see how the veggies grow. Hopefully we get some good tomatoes; I’m tired of eating flavorless, pink tennis balls from the supermarket. There was a time you could get nice Jersey tomatoes here during the summer but it seems they have even found a way to screw them up as I haven’t tasted anything good from the store in a long while. As for last fall’s work, blueberries are going great and blackberries are looking like I might get some production next year. Raspberries suck however. May have to do a replanting this fall. Or next spring. On the hole I prefer time spent at a poker table, it’s easier.

Well, time to go. Thanks for your attention.

Atlantic City, Part II

Played poker on the first day of the trip until about 3 am as had to get up for the beach the next morning as that was the major reason for the trip. Fooled the hell out of my brother as he figured I was going to beg off and play poker all day as we decided to spend a second night there. We drove down to Ocean City and went to the beach at 12th Ave as there is a Mac and Manco’s right there on the boardwalk. Silly us, forgot it was Mon and that the location was only open on weekends. Had to walk down a block or so to get near the open branch. Weather was beautiful, warmer than predicted, up in the 90s but there was a nice breeze coming in off the ocean so it was comfortable. Bad leg made the walk a bit tough but I survived. Bad arm was a different story. I have a collapsible camp chair with footrest I use on the beach. Normally not a problem even though the sand isn’t exactly stable for getting in and out. With my bad arm and not being able to lever myself up and out getting out of it was a real circus. Somehow I managed with a little aid from my nephew. The bigger problem was applying sunscreen. Between the breeze and the bad arm getting sunscreen on my right side was a bitch and it showed later on. I got roasted and had a nice burn for a couple of days, not to mention the itch that accompanied the peeling skin. Scratching with a gimp arm wasn’t exactly satisfying. Overall though the enjoyment of 5-6 hours on the beach in the sun, chomping on some Mac & Manco’s, outweighed the annoyances especially since I found out we won’t be able to get the house we usually rent in Ocean City for vacation this year. Might be my only beach trip this year.

Headed back to AC for some rest and some more poker. Got back to the room and took a nap. The beach is relaxing but the sun is tiring. As a kid I never understood why my parents needed a nap when we got back from the beach when all they did was lie there the whole time. Finally caught on a couple of years ago after I started taking my own daughter there. The sun is a killer for us old farts. Got to the poker room about 6 hoping that the action was a bit more regular than the previous night. If nothing else the table was a bit more chatty and a bit more fun. Play was a bit more like I was used to but the cards sucked early on and I found myself in a hole again. Again I tried pot building when I had potential big draws but again they wouldn’t come. Did hit quads 3 more times, once during the promo time that was supposed to get me the $20 comp, but couldn’t get paid off more than minimum on them. Was down about $150 before the cards started to turn. Wound up getting most of it back eventually by the time the tables were breaking down to one at about 2:30. The final table of the night was the kind of table money could be made. You had a couple of guys playing like it was NL, trying to push people off their hands. You also had 2 idiots going to war with one another, building up the pots with nothing when both were in the same hand. Actually it wasn’t your typical $2-4 table as most of the people there knew what they were doing and with all the raising play was tighter than usual. Unfortunately my cards went further south than Tierra del Fuego. As it was I spent a few hours folding, hit a couple of medium pots and looked like I had hit a few humongous ones only to have one of the idiots catch up on the river to chop. Wound up winning a few bucks on the night and reducing my two day losses to about $40-50. Should have been better. Finally hit the sack around 5:30. Plans were to head back to Ocean City for a few hours and lunch and then head home from there.

Got up the next morning and decided I wasn’t hitting the beach. What felt like n annoying sunburn the previous night was on fire in the morning. My brother said something about leaving then but I said no, they could hit the beach; I would find something to occupy my time so we checked out and headed out to Ocean City. Somehow I got caught for a couple of room service meals that I had no part in. So much for being along for the ride. We got to Ocean City and the beach was put aside. Too much wind even though the sun was bright and the temps were high. Actually the temps went over the 80s that were predicted, up in to the 90s on both days but Tues the wind was really heavy unlike Mon when it was comfortable. So since the beach was out we decided on more pizza for lunch and picking up a few goodies on the boardwalk before we headed home. I behaved myself and refrained from loading up on taffy but was seriously jonesing for some fresh roasted peanuts. My nephew wanted some fried Oreos and caramel corn so while he headed to the junk food stand for the Oreos my brother and I headed down the boardwalk a block or two, him headed for the caramel corn place, me for what I thought was a Planter’s store. Bad move. For some reason the peanut store was no longer there and the caramel corn place, unlike the pizza place, had their year round branch open at the other end of the boardwalk. We headed back to the car. Lots of exercise for my bad leg. When we met up with my nephew he said he saw a nut store a block in the other direction so I told my brother to take the car and meet us there as we decided to walk up there. I really needed more exercise but I wanted peanuts. and my nephew said he wanted some other nuts. Well the peanut shop was right off the corner but that wasn’t were my nephew wanted to go, he wanted cashews or something and said that place was up in the next block so headed up there. I got the large economy size bag of peanuts and went to meet my brother at the car figuring my nephew would meet us there. Got there and brother asked where his son was and I explained. We waited 25 minutes for him wondering what the hell happened. When he finally shows he’s carrying a bucket of caramel corn. Peckerwood decided to walk 8 blocks up the boardwalk to the caramel corn shop without letting anyone know. What the hell did he waste $300 on an I-phone for? Would have been a lot faster if we drove up there plus I wanted to get some myself. Sometimes you just want to strangle them. Well, didn’t want to bother with the drive up the boardwalk so we hit the nearest Wawa, grabbed some beverages and headed for home so that we could beat the rush hour traffic on the Sure-Kill.

Heading home we stopped at the rest area on the AC expressway to pay the toll we missed on the way down. This is where I fucked up. Never send a boy, or a brother to do a man’s job. When we got there my brother and nephew headed off to the admin building to pay the toll while I stayed in the car. All the walking had taken its toll on my legs. They came back saying the woman there had no idea what they were talking about and that we had to call the NJ EZPass violation center and gave them a number. I had an uneasy feeling but we headed off and I dialed the number. Well, the feeling turned out to be right. After playing voicemail run around I finally got warm body and she tells me that they don’t do anything unless we have already gotten a violation notice. And that I should call PA EZPass as they issued our transponders. So I called them. They didn’t have a freaking clue as to what I was talking about and told me I should call South Jersey Transportation Authority which gets me right back to the woman they dealt with at the rest area but by this time we are almost to the bridges into Philly. I explain the whole situation, including the message you get when calling the number on billboard, etc and she’s telling me that the message, and the woman at NJ EZPass, are wrong and she’ll see what she can do about it. In the meantime this farce has taken up almost the entire 90 min trip home and nothing ever got done. Got the violation notice last week. Not only that it screwed up a relaxing couple of days just because someone has no frikkin idea about how to run their agency. All in all I will have to say that the good outweighed the bad and it was needed time away from the BS.

Enough for now. More boredom later. Thanks for the attention.

Atlantic City Trip, Part I

Went to AC (Atlantic City) on an overnighter a couple of weeks ago. The main purpose of the trip was not poker but beach and sun. They were calling for temps in the 80s at the end of April so my brother and his son decided to get a room down in AC, something they seem to offer slots players that poker players don’t see much of, and then head down to Ocean City, about 15 minutes away, to spend a day sitting on the beach soaking up some sun. Ocean City is also the home of some awesome pizza by the name of Mac & Manco’s and while most of the boardwalk shops don’t open until after Memorial Day M&M keeps one place open all year not to mention opening others on weekends after Easter. My brother and nephew usually get days off weekdays, not weekends and so when things like this are planned I usually don’t get invited as I am working. Being as I am currently without employment at the time I was asked to join them and did so. As we were heading to AC poker was also on my agenda in addition to sun and sand. Water was still too cold to include surf.

We headed down on Sun evening after they both got done work. The weekend had been in the high 70s with even better weather promised so the signs were auspicious. Since the whole plan was my nephew’s I just went along for the ride. He even did the driving and we took his car, which later created a whole ‘nother clusterfuck as his is the only car without an EZPass. My brother took the pass out of his car and gave it to his son. Instead of attaching it to the windshield he tossed it in the console under the dash and of course it doesn’t register the first toll booth we go thru. There is a sign with a number to call if you think a toll wasn’t paid and I dial it up and learn that you can stop at the Transit Authority at the rest area within 48 hours, pay the toll and enclose the receipt in the envelope when the violation notice come in. As the rest area is behind us we decide we’ll stop on the way home and continue on our merry way. Made the trip home interesting.

We get to AC about 5:30-6:00 and head to Bally’s, where my nephew got the room. Get lucky at the parking garage and get a spot near the elevator. If you have never been to AC you won’t realize how rare this can be. Also important as the walk from the garage to the hotel proper is long enough, especially when you are traveling with a gimp, namely me. We get checked in although somehow my credit card winds up being used for security even though I’m only along for the ride. We get to the room and my brother, slot maniac that he is, heads right for the casino. I lay down on the bed figuring to rest a bit and watch some tube before heading to the poker room but the TV choices are very limited so I decide to grab a shower before playing some cards and my nephew heads out to find food saying he’ll meet me at the poker room later. Have never been to Bally’s before and have no idea where the poker room is other than the 6th floor. I take the elevator down, get out and see the sign for poker and ponies. I head in that direction and walk right past it. The entrance is offset at an angle in he same direction I’m walking and the ponies section is in front so I missed it completely until I felt I walked too far and turned around, then it was staring me in the face. Wandered in and wandered to the back to see what action was going.

There wasn’t a lot of action but there were a few tables running. Unlike most AC rooms which spread a $1-2 NL game Bally’s has a $1-3 and there were a few tables going. There were also a couple of $2-4 limit tables, a $1-5 stud game and an interest list for $3-6 limit. Being recently unemployed I could only afford about 2/3s a NL buy in and as I hate playing that without at least 2 buy ins let alone short I knew I was destined for the limit tables. As there weren’t enough players for $3-6 it was no fold ‘em hold ‘em for me.

I usually like limit as I usually come home winners in the 3 figure range and on bad nights my losses are usually under $50. This however was not to be a usual night. While I am used to loose, passive play at these tables I have never seen play like I did at these tables. Passive was hardly the word. I have no idea what the hell these people were even doing at the tables unless it was as my nephew said, that they were sitting there hoping to hit part of the bad beat jackpot. Bally’s bad beat doesn’t only pay the players at the table it takes place at but everyone in the room at a hold ‘em table and my nephew could have been right. These folks seemed to have no interest in winning pots. Check call was the order of the day even when someone was holding the nuts or near nuts. In one hand I flopped trip tens OTB and bet every street as it was checked to me. Had 4 callers on every bet and at showdown some woman had wound up flopping Qs full. Second nuts and this woman check called every street. Not check raise but check called. WTF? Another guy had PPAs at least 5 times and check called with them no matter what the board. No preflop raises, no bets, just checks and calls. I started to wonder what rabbit hole I had fallen down. OTOH, who says you can’t bluff at a $2-4 table. Twice I got away with bluffing with the hammer. Figured, what the hell, as strange as the night was going it couldn’t hurt to try. Won 3 times with it, 2 bluffs and a flopped 2 pair the third time. That and hitting quads were the highlight of the night however. Due to this strange play I really couldn’t make any money on my big hands and I was bleeding chips on my decent ones. Since no one would bet their hands I had to bet out my big hands and thus couldn’t get any raises or reraises in to build up pots so what normally would be big stack builders were decent pots at best. On other hands where I would flop TPTK or TP2K and it would get checked to me I would bet out every street only to have some one call me down with an over pair in the hole. Drove me frikkin nuts. Bet your damned hand will ya. Between that and my pot building bets and raises on draws that never hit I was bleeding profusely and the big hands that hit never got me the kind of pot that repairs the damage. BTW CK, the crubs never came, at least when I played them. I dropped close to $200 early on though I recovered about half of that later on. My nephew wound up doing a lot better winning close to what I lost. Never did really get a handle on the style of play though.

Another thing that puzzled the hell out of me was the play when someone would actually play a hand. I switched tables a bit in. Asked for a switch earlier but the floor seemed to forget me and it took awhile before I made the move. At the new table the play was a bit more what I was used to, though still really passive but some hands actually did get played. Now I am used to check calling at this limit as people chase but again I saw something I wasn’t really used to. You would have two or three checks to start a round then someone would bet and you would get the occasional raise and even reraise. As the action got back to the early players these people would call the 2 and 3 bets. WTF again? I understand check calling a bet but if you are going to check call 2 and 3 bets why the hell aren’t you just betting out in the first place? It’s a good thing we had a room because I don’t think I could have made it through the night without being able to drink these folks had my poor head spinning so much. At least the cocktail hostesses were prompt and friendly.

As far as the poker room at Bally’s itself goes I say it is menza menz. The room itself isn’t real large and there is nothing particularly fancy about it. It’s tucked in behind the racing book so it’s not obvious for bringing in the walk up trade. It is away from the casino floor so it’s relatively quiet though some of the NL players can get real noisy. It has a separate tourney section and runs some fairly low limit tourneys. Most of these however seem to be speed tourneys which I have no interest in playing. They are offering a $15K freeroll for those who put in at least 60 hours at the tables this month. Most of the floor persons were very friendly but I can’t judge their competence until I do some research. I’m not sure whether comps are $.50 or $1 an hour but either way I put in at least 30 hours my last two trips there. At minimum that’s $15 in comps. They also have a promotion where anyone who gets quads gets $20 in comps. I qualified for it once. However I looked at my comp account online and it seems it has only gone up $11 which means something isn’t getting reported right. I’m not that worried about the comps but I do want to make sure my hours are being reported properly in case I decide to go for the freeroll qualification. My nephew put in 10 ors at the tables our last trip down and when he asked the floor about his hours she told him 5.5. Definitely have to check up on them to see what’s going on.

Well this is getting a bit long so we’ll cut the boredom here and follow up on the beach and another night of poker n our next post. Keep those cards and letters coming and thanks for your attention.