Here horsie horsie

Saturday, March 18th

The plan for saturday is to find the new South Coast casino and see just how wild and crazy their games are. The casino is marvelous and easy to get into and out of. The parking is sweet, the casino is wide open and very nice. They have an equestrian center there with a lot of free shows, next weekend they have a show there which is free to the public so I plan to stop and see that. I do love the horses.

All they had was a 2/4 and 1/2 NL game so I sat in the 2/4 and was holding my own. Despite massive suckouts. Flopping 2 pair and they hit a flush, AK missing consistently, etc. I still was up 30 before going on a run to top out at 100. I decided to play for awhile longer which was apparently a mistake as the cards went bad, and I went worse and cashed out up 20. I then went and saw Failure to Launch which was hilarious. I would highly recommend it, especially to anyone with older children.

After the movie I headed to the MGM. Good god what a walk it is from the parking garage to the poker room! I am talking 20 minutes! Next time I am parking at NY-NY and walking over from there.

Now I play very well from ahead, I am relaxed and patient and read the game very well. I play very poorly from behind. I try to hard, bluff when I can't win, play to many hands, etc. So you would think putting myself in a hole each and every time I sit down would be a bad idea. Yet I keep doing it. This time I sat down and played K/10 offsuit for a raise from late position, and hit a K on the flop. I then proceeded to reraise a player I had no read on, and bet it the whole way to lose a bundle when he called with KQ the whole way. I then tried to bluff at a pot against what I found later was someone who wouldn't fold. These plays are reasonable when you know the game, the texture of it, and who will fold what. Doing this in the first 10 hands is suicide, so of course I do it often.

I started in a 100 dollar hole and managed to work my way out of it before changing tables. The new table was great and I was fine until a few suckouts put me down 100 again, I started pressing and was down almost 200 before this hand came up. I get Pocket A's and raise under the gun. Only one caller and flop comes down A/10/10. Now one of the things about low limit poker is you don't get many hands that you will win. (Playing 15-20% of hands and winning 30% of those isn't a lot of winners), and even fewer where you can extract value. So when you hit a monster you have to be able to get the maximum value out of it. I read the girl who called me as someone who couldn't get off a hand after she convinced herself she was winning, so I checked to her. She checked behind. Turn was a J and I lead out into her representing I hit the Jack. She called and the river was a blank. I lead the river and she raised me. At this point I have the virtual nuts, losing only to pocket 10's and I was about 60 dollars from the felt. If she has 10's I am going to the felt happily. I raise back and she raises again, it ends up going 6 bets before she just calls with K/10 for trip 10's. So that brought me back to a good level and a few more hands before the table broke put me at down 50 for the night at MGM.

Tomorrow I am going to try the Bellagio and see how the 4/8 is there.