massacre at the commerce

I've been in LA for the past week, trying to assess whether or not it is a livable city for a broke, lazy twenty five year old. (Verdict: perhaps...) I'm not allowed to drive, but on Thursday I did manage to make it out to the Commerce to play a little $200 restricted 2/3 NL Hold 'em.

I got to the Commerce at 11:30 AM and my ride wasn't going to be able to pick me up until 7 PM. Which really is a horrible way to enter a casino because even if everything goes well and you go up early, chances are that you're going to give away most of your stack at some point during the 6.5 hours. If you go down early, you don't have that option of just getting up and calling it a bad day. But, I was willing to overlook both of those potentially disastrous conditions because I've been riding a bit of a good streak as of late and didn't expect either of those things to happen. As I saw it, I would tighten up and wait to bust out the bad degenerate gamblers at the table.

I tried the $100 table first because there was an ungodly line for the $200 and on the third hand, I was dealt AK u on the button. The guy two seats to the left of me raised the pre-flop bet to $20 and I re-raised him to $40 total. He was about a 40 year old balding guy in a cheesy granite button up, which would make you think he would be an experienced player, but once the bet got back to him, he started shaking uncontrollably. I remembered my Caro's book of tells-- uncontrollable shaking usually means the guy has the cards-- but I hate that book so much that I decided to go the opposite way and put him on a middle pocket pair. For some reason, I was convinced of this even when he re-raised the bet to $80. I went all-in and asked, "Do you have aces?" He nodded and flipped them over. Ten minutes into my day at the Commerce, I was down $100 and already on tilt.

As I was yelling at myself to calm down, I got dealt a bunch of marginal hands-- K-10 s, KQ, KJ and kept missing the flops. Slowly, I got ground down to about $40 left in my original buy-in and decided to buy back up to $100. ABout two hours later, I was still at $100. A new $200 table opened up, so I went back to the ATM and took out another $100.

The $200 table was a lot better--less old gamblers, more crafty young Korean kids who all played the same style of poker. I steadily built my stack up to $440, meaning that I was about $80 above my initial buy-in. At this point, if I had a car, I would have gotten up and left. What I should have done was go play 3/6 Omaha until my ride arrived... Anyway, I started playing poorly shortly after I built up my stack because this hideous kid to my right kept questioning all my plays. He succeeded in getting me slightly on tilt, at least enough for me to massively misplay a hand for $200 to some equally hideous Samoan guy who had just sat down at the table. Back down to $200, I picked up AQ of spades in the cut-off position and raised to $20. The guy to my left raised to $60, a bet that was called by the crazy Asian man to my right. I thought about it for a while and stupidly called, hoping that I had two overcards to jacks. The flop came 9 spades 5 clubs 7 spades. I stupidly bet $100, not thinking that any hand worth a $60 raise would be overcards to the flop, and winced when the guy to my left raised it to $200. The crazy asian man threw in all his chips and I was pot-committed enough (about $50 in chips left, drawing to either 9 or 12 or, at best, 15 outs with two cards left...) to call. The turn was the 4 of hearts and the river was the two of clubs. The kid to my left, of course, flips over Kings and I took a very long walk, down $360 on the day.

My ride called to say that she was stuck in traffic and wouldn't be able to get to Commerce for another hour, so I called my bank and confirmed that my daily withdrawal limit was $500 and bought back into a $100 table on super-duper-duper-duper tilt. So bad that I announced it to the table, saying, "Hey guys, I'm on tilt, so call any all-in bets I make." My ride called to announce her arrival just as I was throwing my last $12 pre-flop with AQ. I got six callers and missed everything, losing finally to a pair of 8s.

Daily losses: -$460
Total semi-semi pro earnings: $487

Fridays on tilt

I am too tired to detail my hands or the relatively large swings I endured during my 3 hours at the club this past Friday night, but I'll just say that I have never seen so many bad beats at a table. Thankfully, none of them happened at my expense, but there is a strange feeling one gets when he watches good players get busted out of great hands by a gut-shot or a 2 outer on the river played by some moron degenerate gambler. A string of bad beats at a table usually makes me bet bigger, to try to chase away any sort of draw, but there's only so much one can do when those degenerate gamblers have $900 in front of them and don't hesitate to call any sized bet. Suffice it to say, I went up $250 in the first half hour, bled it down to being down $100 and then rallied to take home a whopping $40, which was enough for the night's drinks.

I've also realized that I am beginning to recognize a lot of the players at the 1/2 tables. I recognized, not counting the dealers, at least 10 different people from my previous trips to the club. I imagine they play 5 or 6 nights a week, passing money back and forth between them.

Learning when to leave

After spending the good part of an hour and a half trying to unclog my toilet (I created the problem by trying to flush a pot of moldy rice), I headed down to the UCB Wednesday night tournament. When I got there, I learned that it wasn't going to start until 11:30. I wasn't going to wait around for an hour to play in a $5 re-buy tournament, so I headed back up to the New York Players Club.

I recognized two people at my table: an aging math nerd named Dan and a young Brazilian kid who, despite probably playing 5 nights a week, still does not understand the concept of pot odds. The big stack at the table was a woman who, were she not at a seedy poker table in Manhattan, I would have mistaken 9 times out of 10 for my old ES professor Jill Pearlman. Bizarro Jill Pearlman seemed like a decent player--she understood when she had the nuts and was scared when she had reason to be scared.

Some fat guy to my right kept asking everyone if they were Italian, and sure enough, within the first half hour, a pimply ugly guy in a Mets hat and a joke of a chachi (in the real sense of the word, where it connotes greased hair and chains...) sat down on either side of the dealer. Of course, both hailed from Sicily by way of BensonHURST! and not surprisingly, both were absolutely terrible card players. I kept trying to catch the eye of the Asian Columbia student at the end of the table, to try to tell him to stay at the table at all costs, and at one point, I even considered following him to the bathroom to say, "Stay at this fucking table. These guys have $400 behind them each and are just waiting to get busted out of a huge hand."

I put in my headphones, something I usually don't like to do at the table--but, there's nothing I hate more than hearing a bunch of uneducated white people talk about their half-country of half-origin with such ignorant reverence. As I've said in the past, it's like watching a goddamn Olive Garden commercial.

It took about an hour for me to receive any sort of playable hand--AJ clubs suited on the button. I raised to $12. The inquisitor of Italian descent frowned and called, as did the Asian kid. The flop came 8spades-4spades-8clubs. IID raised to twenty five, the Asian kid folded and I, sensing weakness, raised to 100. IID went all in for $77 on top. So, I owed $77 into about $330 pot (there was a $5 pre-flop bet by the cut-off that was called pretty much all around...) . The IID had limped into pretty much every single pot so far, and was raising to $10 with hands like KJ. I didn't think he'd hit any of the flop, and I read his hesitance to get his chips in the pot as an attempt to steal. Certainly, if he had hit a set on the flop or was holding a massive pocket pair, he would have tried to trap me. So, I called--the turn was a Q and the river was a 3. I flipped over AJ and he muttered, "can't believe you called," and mucked his hand. (at this place, you don't have to show your all-in hands.) It probably was a bad call--at least math-wise, but at that point, I wanted to trust my read of the situation.

I played a couple of hands absolutely horribly as well. I had the button again with 44 and a guy in middle position raised to $10. Three people in front of me called, so I called as well, hoping that some of the limpers might complete my odds. They did. With 6 players, the flop came out QQ9. The entire table checked around. The turn was a 4, making my set. The table checked again to the kid to my right, who raised to $10. I put $50 on top and he folded.
This was a terrible play for a couple of reasons.
a) if he had a weak Queen, I was pushing him off of it, instead of hoping that he'd throw in the rest of his chips on the river (he had about $100 left, betting into my $550 stack)
b) if he had a 9, I should have represented that I had the nine as well. Perhaps one of my terrible acting jobs would have been helpful here--a disdainful call of his $10.
c) if he had Q-9, making his boat on the flop, (and given his betting, he might have been doing exactly that--checking on the flop, but getting impatient and trying to put out an enticing bet on the turn) I was going to get slaughtered by an all-in bet that I would probably have to call.
I was lucky enough that he was just trying to steal, but I was pissed off enough by my bad play at that point (I know, it's better to have a bad play when you win...) that I considered leaving. It was 1:30 and I had already passed my 1 o clock target leaving time. But I stayed because I wanted to bust the chachis out of their chips--and it was too late for me to remember that whenever I try to bust out anyone out of spite (ahem, Meyer...) I end up losing my whole stack.

At 2, after bleeding away about $30, I was about to leave, but our 6 handed table got broken up to fill out two other tables. With the promise of big action, I decided to stay one last half hour. I sat down next to another Korean kid with terrible facial hair--this one was wearing a blacked out Indians hat. When I sat down, we were the two biggest stacks at the table. I made some absolutely awful plays, including paying a pot-sized bet heads-up for a 9 outer on the river (I missed), which all led up to my last hand of the night, when I let the Answer (see previous entries) muscle me out when I knew I had the best fucking hand. Anyway, I left still up $172, but felt like I had lost. Which, in a way, is a blessing. If I had hit a big hand at the 10 person table (the bad facial haired Korean got dealt kings--interestingly enough, right after he threw the dealer a dollar chip and said, "simon, deal me kings"--and hit a K99 flop, picking up a $400 pot....) and left with $500-$600, I probably would have gone back there tonight. But, since I left feeling like a loser, I think it might be two, three days till I return....

winnings: $172
Semi-Semi Pro Career to date: $907