Since we wern't able to get enough BYOC bodies together to run our own game, Dodger and I took off to spend the day at Cache Creek. We expected it to be a complete zoo.
We got there at about 10:00 am and were surprised to find that it was actually quite mellow. There were 4 or 5 tables running including one NL game that had been going all night. Ther were 2 or 3 players with monster stacks ($700-$1000) which wasn't real welcoming, but we put our names down on all 3 lists, 3/6, 4/8, NL.
They started a new 3/6 game almost immediately. They soon changed it to a 4/8 game. I started off the new year by landing the first 3 or 4 hands I was dealt. All pretty small, but drags none the less. So I was up $35-$40 right away. But that changed right about the time they made it 4/8 (naturally). I was on the button and limped with TT (we were alone on a table full of fish and I've found that raising before the flop is just pointless in this condition). Dodger (sitting to my left) raised from the SB and we had about 6 to the flop for 2 bets. Flop comes TQ4. Dodger bet, 3 or 4 callers to me and I raise. Normally I'd have slow played this until the turn, but I wanted to "tell" Dodger to get out. He and everyone else called. Turn is a Q, Dodger checked, fish #2 bet, I raised, Dodger got the message and folded, fish #1 cold-called, fish #2-3 bet and I threw the cap on it. The river brought a blank. Fish #2 opened, I raised and #1 and 2 just called. I toss my boat up ready to collect my pot with the #4 nuts. #1 shows QJ. #2 shows Q4 for a bigger boat. #2: "I was afraid you had quads." WTF!! Q4? I was a bit worried about QT, but Q4? That hand just crushed my stack and put me into steam mode for a few minutes. Luckily I didn't get any hands for a bit. Thankfully, we were called for the NL game shortly thereafter.
We sat down at the NL table (Dodger was there a few minutes before me and said I just missed his stright flush. Excellent.) He was already up about $40 when I sat down. I see that all but one of the big stacks had left and we weren't terrribly understacked when we sat down. Dodger was on a bit of a tear for the first hour or so I was there. He got up to $400 or $500 and then cooled down a bit. This table was real fishy (one guy was actually wearing a "wishin I was fishin'" hat) and Dodger was getting the right cards and making the right reads when it counted. This was how things were going for him early on: He had a set of 6s hold up on a 4 flush board. It was just looking like his day.
An hour or so later I started hitting hands and I went on a tear for a while. My peak hit when I nailed the "wishin/fishin' guy for lal of his chips when we both turned straights, mine just happend to be the nuts. I was up to about $300-$350. Me and Dodger were the "active" big stacks (the other guy kept getting up and leaving for an hour at a time) and felt like we had absolute control of the table.
This was at about 3:00. Looking back, we wished we had a crystal ball so we could go back and do something just a little bit different at that time.
At this point, the casino is just absolutely slammed. They had opened a second NL table. You couldn't hardly walk anywhere and the concept of getting any food was not realistic. For some foolish reason, they don't allow you to eat at the poker table. I've never seen a card room that didn't let you eat. So even if we were able to get anywhere near food in one of the restaurants, we couldn't have brought it back to the table with us. In order to eat, we would have to give up our seats, cash out, get back on a list and start over with $100 in chips, about 4 hours from now. This didn't seem like a good option so we played hungry for a while.
Meanwhile the table composition had changed. We finally busted a ciouple of the fish out and some others joined who turned out to be pretty good. I found out the hard way when I got into a pot with one of them. I had K9 from late position and got a flop of K96 rainbow. Couldn't ask for much better than this. New guy bet into me (something like $10) and I raised it up to $20. He sized me up and called. Turn brought a blank. He bet $20 and I pushed that up to $40. River brought another blank and shoved in. It wasn't all that much more, but had I seen him play any hands before, I would have given him credit for the hand he had and not got so invloved with top 2, but so far we'd seen the fish play any pair really fast, so I had to see what this guy was up to. I called and he showed me a set of 6s. OK, this guys is a player. Cost me a rack to find out, but at least I knew. Unfortunately, this was the turning point for me. For some reason, the poker gods turned the switch and my chips just slipped away. I held on for a long time, but eventually busted out when "wishin/fishin" guy took my last $75 when we both flopped 2 pair, his were just better. My second rack went away in about 30 minutes. I played my last hand awful, but for the most part things were just not going my way. The fish were landing pots with crap and the other good players were making us make tough decisions, none of which seemed to be right. No really bad suckouts, just lots of bad situations that bled my chips away $20-$50 at a time.
Some people may wonder why I don't try to buy many pots - this is why. I did try a big buy and got busted. I had A7s and had raised from late postion. One of the fish called a pretty decent raise. The flop came 89T. He bet like $20. I put him on something like top pair and figured he'd go away - despite the general fishiness of the table, bets over $20 were getting respect. I called him in for another $60. He called and flipped over 67o for a flopped straight. My only hope now was to hit my plan B, open ender (this was a classic "Brunson" move - "always have an out when you bluff") and chop it up, but it didn't happen. That was the end of respect for big bets.
Dodger also went on a slide and ended up down to the felt about 15 minutes after me. He had a couple of brutal hands. One was a hand that I rasied PF with 99 in late position. Dodger called (we managed to stay out of each other's way most of the day) and one of the fishiest offenders called as well. The flop came something like 753 with 2 diamonds. Fish opened for $20, I raised to $40, Doger raised that and super fish shoved the rest of his ~$90 into the pot. I had to think about this. I knew Dodger was strong, he wouldn't have raised me if he wasn't (besides he was whispering for me to get out!), but I did have and over pair and I wasn't sure that Dodger was going to call. I finally folded and Dodger did call. He flipped up QQ and fish flipped up something like 79. Top pair, no kicker, backdoor straight and flush draws. Dodger was way ahead. But the goldfish hit runner-runner diamonds for the flush. Suckout city.
The worst was when Dodger shoved his $300 when he flopped 2 pair on a 3 flush flop, calling wishin/fishin guy all in for about $140 (he was into the game for at least 3 racks). Wishin/fishin guy called with KK (none of the suit) and well behind Dodger. He caught a set of Ks on the river (6 outer as a T woiuld have given him a straight) and Dodger had officially started his downward spiral.
At 5:00, I finally walked over to a gas station/mimi-mart that they have on the property to get us a couple of sandos and brought them back. It took all of 15 minutes, so we at least solved the "need to eat" problem.
At 8:00 I felted again and was ready to not be on a table anu more. Dodger was fesh into his rebuy and I told him to "play as long as you feel like it. I'm gonna get a beer." Went over to the Mexican restaurant nad grabbed a beer (only took 20 minutes) wandered (well tried to wander) over to "my" slot machine to burn off a few $20s, but as expected there were people lined up 3 deep for just about evey machine in the place. I fought my way back over to the poker room and sat down to finish my beer while Dodger was finishing up his night.
Right when I sat down, there was this huge encounter between 3 players. All 3 were there while I was still at the table. One (seat 5) was relatively new aand we pretty much never saw his hands. He shoved a lot, got respect and won without showdowns. So we couldn't figure out what his game was exactly. He got into it with seat 7 (goldfish) and seat 9 good player who kicked my ass with the set of 6s.
Just as I was sitting down to watch, the dealer was trying to straighten out the sidepots of 2 massive all-ins. I'm not sure what happened, but I think seat 9 had shoved (~$400) on the flop, seat 5 called (~$200) and seat 7 called (~$250). The flop was something like JTx with 2 diamonds. The turn brought a J and the river brought something like an 8d. Seat 5 won with a flush (JQd), fish won a side pot with a rivered straight (T9o) and seat 9 had Aces cracked by the turn and the river for a huge hit. I think the very next hand he had another big pocket pair that got cracked for the rest of his chips when seat 5 won the next hand with a 23 suited that flopped a straight. The guy who wrecked my night just got down to the felt and gave all my chips away. The fish were inheriting the world.
Meanwhile seat 5 was looking over to the rail where his wife was standing. She had this "I see a new dress in my future" and he had a "I can't believe how lucky I am - I think I'm gonna get laid tonight" look on his face. 5 minutes later he was racking up $700 and leaving. At the same time wishin/fishin guy racked up his $500 and left. Just like that $1200 got up and left.
A few minutes later, the super fish who nailed Dodger on the runner-runner flush suckout got called for his 4/8 table. "This table is too crazy, I'm going somewhere else!" :shock: We all started cracking up "good luck little fishy."
Dodger got some of his money back and finally decided to call it quits. He cashed out ~$60 down and we left. I left $280 behind. Not a good start for the year, but what are you going to do? I'm not sure what we could have done, but something went wrong and we couldn't put a finger on it. I think part of it is that we both failed to adjust to the new bodies at the table - we pretty much treated new bodies like fish until proven otherwise which is actually against my normal tenency. We were just so much in control of the table, that we figured it wouldn't take much to get back anything that we pissed away.
On the way home we wished that we had just cashed out at 3:00, went and had lunch and either sit back down with $100 or just have gone home. But like I said, we had no feeling that we were about to get crushed over the next few hours. So we headed home, laughed about what we could and tried to shrug off the reality of being stuck to start the year. We were so punchy that we almost stopped at the Limelight for a couple orbits, but we both thought better of that. We weren't exaclty running hot right then, and a fishy 3/6 game is no place to be when you're not running good. So home it was. Better luck next time.
We both agreed, that it's so much less of a sick feeling dropping a couple racks in a NL game than it is in a 3/6 game. I'll be back down there at the end of the month (if not before), and plan to take on the game again.
