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Monday, February 7, 2005

Return to Chumash

I haven’t been playing much live poker lately, for a variety of reasons. For one, I went on a really bad losing streak (bad beats, mostly; four or five two outers hit against me after the money was in over a couple of week span). Another factor was the massive rain we had here last month closed the road to get to Chumash. There’s another way, but it takes 15 minutes longer or so to get there, and I really am that lazy. Plus, I’ve had a lot of comps to finish at ECD and PSO. Those are done, now.

Saturday, I went to the singles bowling tournament in Lompoc, with the intention of going to Chumash afterwards. I didn’t do too well at the bowling, but the poker more than made up for that. The real reason I wanted to go to the casino was to sign up for the Central Coast Poker Championship. I figured I’d sit down and play a little poker, too, but not stay all night like I had in the past. I got seated at 10:30 and set myself a 3 hour time limit: I was going to leave at 1:30am.

The NL game there has changed quite a bit since the last time I was there, about two months ago. First off, they changed the blinds from 2/3 to 2/5, but the $100 max buyin stayed the same. The game went much smoother with these blinds, simpler raises, and less making change, but $100 doesn’t give you much to work with at a $5 big blind. They did change the rebuy rules, too, so if you get below $50 you can rebuy $100 more instead of just up to $100. That helps with that problem a bit, I guess. I never had to deal with it. After folding for a while, and not getting much of anything, I get AJo in MP. It folds to me, and I raise to $15. The small blind reraises to $30, and I call. The flop is AQT, and he checks. I bet $25, and he calls, leaving himself with only around $20. At that point, it didn’t matter to me what the next card was, I had $20 more that was going into the pot. The turn’s a nice looking K, so I have the nuts, and the small blind goes all in for the rest of his money. Obviously, I call. He flips over KK, the river’s a harmless 2, and I take down the pot.

It was pretty much a steady climb from there. I pretty much have only three other hands worth talking about. A new player had just sat down, and I hadn’t really had a chance to see him play much. In EP, he raises the minimum to $10. I call with KQo on the button. The flop is Kxx. It checks to me, and I bet $20. He raises another $20. I really didn’t know anything about him, and almost gave it up right there, because I didn’t want to have to call down the rest of his stack if he had AK. Finally, I called. The turn was a blank, and we both checked. The river was another blank, and he bet $15. If I had thought about it a little longer, I would have raised on the end because of his check on the turn, but I just called, and he turned over KJ. Another hand I get A♠J♠ in the big blind. A decent player (but one who plays a lot of hands) raises to $15 from MP. The small blind calls, and I call. The flop is A♦T♠3♣. SB checks, and I bet $20. The raiser folds, and the small blind raises another $40. I think for a long time, and push in the rest of my chips. He calls. The turn is the Q♠, giving me nut flush draw, and the river is the Q♦. I never saw his cards, but my two pair, J kicker was good. I think he had AT and I outdrew him. One more hand, against the same player. I limp in EP with Q♦8♦. A bunch of other limpers, and he raises to $15. I call, as do a few others. The flop is 5♥6♥8♥. He checks, and I bet $20. It folds to him, and again he raises me another $40. I think for a long time, and finally call with the intention of going all in on the turn if it’s not an ace, king, or heart. It’s a wonderful Q♣, he checks, and I push in. He folds what I assume was a high flush draw, and I take down the pot.

Those were pretty much the only sizeable pots I had, but I took down a few small ones as well. I finished +$343, and did actually leave at 1:30 (well, as soon as the blind got back to me after 1:30). Alas, I never got to play a hand with the maniac we had sit down at the table who lost $500 in about an hour. He made some pretty crazy plays, and just in general didn’t know what was going on. He called all-in on an 6 high flop with KJo. I really thought he was good and was dropping $200 quickly to start and then would start playing well afterwards, but he just kept playing badly, and left about a half hour before I did. The highest pocket pair I got all night was 88, and I had to fold it preflop (didn’t put any money in with it). I got AKo once, in the big blind, and raised enough to buy the limps. I didn’t really get good starting hands, and didn’t even hit any good draws. With QT, there was a flop of 99J, but I had to fold my open ended straight draw to a big bet on that one. I don’t think I ever flopped a flush draw. Somehow, I managed to post a nice win anyway. More importantly, live poker was fun again. 🙂

As far as online play goes, I’ve mostly been playing NL at PokerNow (Party skin, where I get rakeback through ECD). It’s pretty soft, and I’m doing well there after losing a ton at the 1/2 limit game there. I played a bunch of .50/1 stud at Fast Poker, mainly because it clears the hand requirement for the ECD comp quickly since you ante every hand. I ended up making like $20 doing that, and learning a bit more about how to play stud. I also finished off the Poker Metro (Prima skin) comp at ECD and Golden Palace comp at PSO. I have pending bonus money at a bunch of places, but don’t really want to play anywhere other than PokerNow at the moment. The games are just that good.