Felt like a little change of scenery so I did a little run to CC for the day.
I put myself on all lists (3/6, 4/8, 6/12 and NL). Got in a 3/6 game after a 1/2 hour wait and moved up to 4/8 after about 1/2 hour on the 3/6 table. The 6/12 and NL never spread as of about 6:00 when I left.
The session it self was mostly unremarkable - I ended up ahead $85 (thanks to getting an Aces cracked $100 bonus) and watched the same crap. Luckily someone else seemd to have "my role" (nothing but bad luck) and it's just as painful to watch someone else go through it as it is to experience it first hand.
As has been real typical my last few sessions, there was someone at each table that was just flat out running over the table. "Any 2 cards" were truly winning a lot of time and sometimes they would get good cards and really stick it to the table.
At my 4/8 game there was one guy who saw every flop and just kept dragging pot after pot. When I sat down (12:30ish) he had about $150 in front of him. By about 1:30 he had about $600 in front of him. He bled about $200 away in the next 1/2 hour when he finally picked up and left. (He came back to the table at about 5:15 with a fresh stack and promptly started collecting pots again. Just once I want to have a day like that...)
I was running real average. I caught a few hands and avoided most trouble when I didn't. My only complaint was that many of the hands that I made were far from the nuts so I just couldn't hammer the pot with them. I made several straights where my straight card also paired the board AND put a 3 flush. All I could do was call it down.
The big hand of the session for me was a kill pot. I'm in the SB with QT suited. A solid player raised from early position. There were 3 or 4 callers ahead of me so I felt compelled to call despite my own advice to just get away from it. The flop brought 2 hearts (of my suit) and I had 2 over cards. Check, bet (raiser), call, call... I don't like chashing flushes, especially when it's not the nut flush, but checking put me in the position of closing the action and the pot was gonna be huge, so I called. Turn brings a T. So now I have top pair and a flush draw - just what I needed another reason to keep chasing. I didn't think that TT was good, but 3 Ts? Could work. Check, bet (raiser), call, call. River brings my flush card. But.....it also paired the board. 90% of the time I'd bet this or check/raise it, but luckily my pokervision saw something really ugly hanging in the haze. Honestly I was worried about a bigger flush, but I check/called to find that the PF raiser had TT. He turned a set and rivered a boat. The other guy in the hand had KK so my flush would have been good for all of the other 8 hearts. The combination of his 1 outer on the river and the 1 in 9 hearts to make a boat won the raiser the pot. The guy with KK played his hand terribly, but probably lost the minimum with the unlucky board. This was easily the biggest pot of the session. I was in it and lost. No surprise.
Anyway, the point of this post is not so much a game report as it is couple of heads up items regarding the current rule structures. First, they have this new betting rule that I still can't figure out why. If you take your hand into the pot with more chips than the call and it's at least half a bet more, you just raised (unless you declared call before you moved in). It is the most fucked up thing I've ever heard of. Most experienced players load up with chips before moving ionto the pot so they can raise if they choose with out having to worry about a string raise. I could never get a straight answer out of anyone why this is in place, but I guess it has something to do with angle shooting. If anything, this adds a different way to shoot angles ("Oh dam. I didn't mean to raise, but I guess I have to now.") The only time it was enforced was when it was heads up which makes even less sense. The only thing it does is slow the game down becuase we all started counting our chips out on the felt behind the pot line before betting so we wouldn't accidently raise. Just be aware.
The second thing that is new is the time you can be away from the table. Once you miss 2 blinds they pick you up. I wanted to grab some lunch so at 3:00 I ran over to the deli (I was able to run the whole way, so you know it's really close) oredered a cold sandwhich, sat and wtached 7 cooks stand around and gab for 10 minutes rather than make my lunch. (Didn't make me very happy, but I know beeter than to harrass bartenders, dealers and shortorder cooks - they have a lot of power.) You can't eat at the poker tables, so I inhaled my lunch and ran back to the table. I see that I've missed one blind and the blind is on the guy to my right. I didn't know about the new rule, so I decided to go use the restroom while I was up - I'd post my blinds when I got back. I get back just as they are dealing the next hand and the floor is lurking over my chips with a rack and is going to pick me up. "Whoa, hey, wait. I'm right here. What's up?" "You can only miss 2 blinds." I was away exactly one orbit and they were gonna pick me up. This place sure goes out of it's way to annoy poker players.
OK. I do have a topic for discussion. Mon-Wed 9-5, they have a promo that pays $100 to anyone who gets AA cracked. The universal plan of attack is to just limp and call them all the way down, hoping somoene can suck out on you. It's a very strange deal, but it's the way it is. I got them cracked once and then I caught them an hour later. I limped and got a few callers. I had the misfortune of flopping a set so I knew it was very unlikely that I was gonna get beat. I checked the flop and nobody bet. The turn brought another blank. So I start to think, if I'm not gonna get sucked out, I might as well build a pot. (AA is a very strange hand in this environment.) There was a bunch of rags and 2 clubs so I guess it's possible that someone had some chance of sucking out, but I decided to get a little money. If someone had a draw, they would have called. I took the $12 pot and flipped up my AA and said something like "what a shame..".
Some old crochety rock critisized me for not checking it down hoping to get sucked out for the $100. I figured that I might as well get something for my hand if I could so I was fine with my decision. I figured I was being deceptive ("Who would ever bet with AA in that spot") - I was hoping to get called by someone with a pair of 6s. It was the kind of table that if someone had anything, they would have called. Why not get an extra $8 or $16 (or more) out of my hand?
Anyone have any thoughts on the play of this hand?
I put myself on all lists (3/6, 4/8, 6/12 and NL). Got in a 3/6 game after a 1/2 hour wait and moved up to 4/8 after about 1/2 hour on the 3/6 table. The 6/12 and NL never spread as of about 6:00 when I left.
The session it self was mostly unremarkable - I ended up ahead $85 (thanks to getting an Aces cracked $100 bonus) and watched the same crap. Luckily someone else seemd to have "my role" (nothing but bad luck) and it's just as painful to watch someone else go through it as it is to experience it first hand.
As has been real typical my last few sessions, there was someone at each table that was just flat out running over the table. "Any 2 cards" were truly winning a lot of time and sometimes they would get good cards and really stick it to the table.
At my 4/8 game there was one guy who saw every flop and just kept dragging pot after pot. When I sat down (12:30ish) he had about $150 in front of him. By about 1:30 he had about $600 in front of him. He bled about $200 away in the next 1/2 hour when he finally picked up and left. (He came back to the table at about 5:15 with a fresh stack and promptly started collecting pots again. Just once I want to have a day like that...)
I was running real average. I caught a few hands and avoided most trouble when I didn't. My only complaint was that many of the hands that I made were far from the nuts so I just couldn't hammer the pot with them. I made several straights where my straight card also paired the board AND put a 3 flush. All I could do was call it down.
The big hand of the session for me was a kill pot. I'm in the SB with QT suited. A solid player raised from early position. There were 3 or 4 callers ahead of me so I felt compelled to call despite my own advice to just get away from it. The flop brought 2 hearts (of my suit) and I had 2 over cards. Check, bet (raiser), call, call... I don't like chashing flushes, especially when it's not the nut flush, but checking put me in the position of closing the action and the pot was gonna be huge, so I called. Turn brings a T. So now I have top pair and a flush draw - just what I needed another reason to keep chasing. I didn't think that TT was good, but 3 Ts? Could work. Check, bet (raiser), call, call. River brings my flush card. But.....it also paired the board. 90% of the time I'd bet this or check/raise it, but luckily my pokervision saw something really ugly hanging in the haze. Honestly I was worried about a bigger flush, but I check/called to find that the PF raiser had TT. He turned a set and rivered a boat. The other guy in the hand had KK so my flush would have been good for all of the other 8 hearts. The combination of his 1 outer on the river and the 1 in 9 hearts to make a boat won the raiser the pot. The guy with KK played his hand terribly, but probably lost the minimum with the unlucky board. This was easily the biggest pot of the session. I was in it and lost. No surprise.
Anyway, the point of this post is not so much a game report as it is couple of heads up items regarding the current rule structures. First, they have this new betting rule that I still can't figure out why. If you take your hand into the pot with more chips than the call and it's at least half a bet more, you just raised (unless you declared call before you moved in). It is the most fucked up thing I've ever heard of. Most experienced players load up with chips before moving ionto the pot so they can raise if they choose with out having to worry about a string raise. I could never get a straight answer out of anyone why this is in place, but I guess it has something to do with angle shooting. If anything, this adds a different way to shoot angles ("Oh dam. I didn't mean to raise, but I guess I have to now.") The only time it was enforced was when it was heads up which makes even less sense. The only thing it does is slow the game down becuase we all started counting our chips out on the felt behind the pot line before betting so we wouldn't accidently raise. Just be aware.
The second thing that is new is the time you can be away from the table. Once you miss 2 blinds they pick you up. I wanted to grab some lunch so at 3:00 I ran over to the deli (I was able to run the whole way, so you know it's really close) oredered a cold sandwhich, sat and wtached 7 cooks stand around and gab for 10 minutes rather than make my lunch. (Didn't make me very happy, but I know beeter than to harrass bartenders, dealers and shortorder cooks - they have a lot of power.) You can't eat at the poker tables, so I inhaled my lunch and ran back to the table. I see that I've missed one blind and the blind is on the guy to my right. I didn't know about the new rule, so I decided to go use the restroom while I was up - I'd post my blinds when I got back. I get back just as they are dealing the next hand and the floor is lurking over my chips with a rack and is going to pick me up. "Whoa, hey, wait. I'm right here. What's up?" "You can only miss 2 blinds." I was away exactly one orbit and they were gonna pick me up. This place sure goes out of it's way to annoy poker players.
OK. I do have a topic for discussion. Mon-Wed 9-5, they have a promo that pays $100 to anyone who gets AA cracked. The universal plan of attack is to just limp and call them all the way down, hoping somoene can suck out on you. It's a very strange deal, but it's the way it is. I got them cracked once and then I caught them an hour later. I limped and got a few callers. I had the misfortune of flopping a set so I knew it was very unlikely that I was gonna get beat. I checked the flop and nobody bet. The turn brought another blank. So I start to think, if I'm not gonna get sucked out, I might as well build a pot. (AA is a very strange hand in this environment.) There was a bunch of rags and 2 clubs so I guess it's possible that someone had some chance of sucking out, but I decided to get a little money. If someone had a draw, they would have called. I took the $12 pot and flipped up my AA and said something like "what a shame..".
Some old crochety rock critisized me for not checking it down hoping to get sucked out for the $100. I figured that I might as well get something for my hand if I could so I was fine with my decision. I figured I was being deceptive ("Who would ever bet with AA in that spot") - I was hoping to get called by someone with a pair of 6s. It was the kind of table that if someone had anything, they would have called. Why not get an extra $8 or $16 (or more) out of my hand?
Anyone have any thoughts on the play of this hand?