Tuesday, February 22, 2005

New Record of Futility

It was boys night out last Saturday at the Gila River. Because it was primetime, the casino was packed. I put in for 4-8 or 3-6 and the list was looong. After waiting for 20 minutes, they asked if anyone wanted to play 6-12. What the hell? Let's give it a shot.

I folded for most of the first 15-20 minutes as I tried to figure out my table. It took a while but I began to realize that most of them were pretty loose. There were not a lot of showdowns at the river, but there were usually 5-6 to the flop and one raise preflop.

As time went by I continued to get shitty starting cards. With the threat of a raise on every hand I really tried to concentrate on my position. For the first 2 1/2 hours I did not win a single hand. I think it was a record. I came close to winning twice. I had a flush get beat by a higher flush. And the second hand was Ace 5 suited preflop. I limped in with everyone and the flop came JJJ. I was in the small blind so I checked and it was checked around. The turn was a 5 so now I have a full house. I bet, and I get two callers. I'm really not liking my hand now. I decide if the next card is higher than a 5, I'm checking. The river was a 2 so I bet. Then I get raised and reraised. The original raiser had the 4th Jack for 4 of a Kind.

I tried to be critical of my play to look where I could have played things better, but I really think it was just one of those nights where I wasn't going to win. I even managed to limit my losses in hands that I could have easily blown off more chips. Example: There was an oriental woman who apparently is a dealer at Casino Arizona two seats to my left. She lost her temper a couple of times at what she thought was bad play by other players. I had Ace Queen in middle to late position so I raised preflop. She called on the button along with 3 or 4 others. The flop came out all low cards but 2 diamonds. Someone early bet and I decided to call with my overcards and she raised the flop on the button. My alarm went off and it really seemed like a semibluff flush draw raise. The third suited card came on the turn and it happened to be my Queen. Instead of betting into her, I checked to her and called her down. Not the most aggressive play but it saved me a bet.

The final loss was $222 over 5 hours of play. That was a long frustrating session.

As for online poker, I am becoming more convinced that I should just stick to the $20 sit-n-gos. I now have 29 tournaments under my belt and my roi is still 44%. The crazy thing is that I feel like I could play much better. I try to keep aggressive and not settle for just making it in the money, but it's hard when I see such stupid plays from other players. It's easy to sit back and wait for them to knock each other out.

Out of 29 I have finished in the money 15 times. 4 firsts, 4 seconds, and 7 thirds. It seems like it might make more sense with 4-5 players left to play more aggressive. 2 1st place finishes = 5 3rd place finishes. If you can build up your chips on the bubble while everyone else is trying to ease into the money, maybe I can give myself more ammunition to shoot for 1st.

My problem is the online bank roll does not seem to be going anywhere lately and I have a weekend trip to Reno coming up on Friday. I don't want to go broke.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Poker Bully,

I am a regular at Gila River in AZ. Been reading your blog and would be interested in talking with you. Drop me an email at trickypoker at cox dot net if you would like to talk poker.

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