Some notable escapades at a local casino

I had a profitable session playing some donktastic 1/2 NL in Richmond on Saturday evening. I was only there for 3 hours or so since I was pretty tired, having been up at 6AM for an aborted ski trip up to Whistler (the roads were extremely bad so my father and I decided to postpone our ski weekend, sadly).

With nothing to do in the early morning and unable to get bacl to sleep, I proceeded to lose about $300 on FTP thanks to their sick RNG and some lucky breaks for some players who overplayed their draws or one pair hands.

Happily, the players tonight at my live session at the RR more than made up for it.

This was an extremely loose table. Often you would get 5 or 6 players to a flop for $10 each preflop.

Things didn't start well for me as about 20 minutes in I get red aces in LP. An Englishman raises UTG to $6 and gets two callers. I jack it up to $25. The UTG calls and we're headsup. Flop is KT8 rainbow. He check-raises me and I jam. He calls with QJs and hits a 9 on the turn. Rebuy!

About ten minutes later the Englishman cracks another AA (held by a friendly guy to my immediate right whom I had pegged as the only other competent player at the table, so I was happy to be on his immediate left) with AQs by turning the nut flush. The Brit is now permanently pegged as a suited connector donk who plays all of his paint cards or suited aces OOP for big pots. Sadly I could never manage to get my revenge against him at any point. He even took down a couple of other modest pots off of me where he would outflop my AJ with KT and other such shenanigans.

I began the trek to recovery by calling a raise to $10 by the good player to my right with T9c. 4 players to a flop and the flop is a lovely T93 with two spades. I get all the money in against a donkey with KT and he doesn't improve. Back up to $350 or so.

Recovery hand #2: new player straddles my BB to $4. I have 99. 7(!) players see a flop for $10 each. Flop is a beautiful K92, two hearts. I bet my set like a man, leading out for $35. Get 3 callers. Turn is a 7. I bet again, get two callers. River is the Jh, completing the flush. I puke, bet again. One player calls all-in short, and the last player to act raises me $100 and he has me covered. I have about $200 behind. I contemplate re-raising all-in, but figure that he will only call with hands that have me beat (set of jacks, or the flush) so I just call. He shows KJ for rivered top two pair; other victim shows bottom set of twos. I rake in a massive pot and am stacked comfortably at $700 or so.

Hand #3: I raise with KK on the button to $11 and get two callers. (Pot is roughly $40) Flop is a lovely AK5. We all check. Turn is the 7s, putting a second spade on board. I bet $25 and get one caller. River is another 7, giving me the stone cold nuts (no way he has AA or 77). I bet $75 and the donkey calls with KJo (!) for second pair, mediocre kicker.

Hand #4: I call a raise to $10 getting 6:1 on my money with T9s. Flop comes A97 all diamonds (I have hearts). It is checked around. Turn is 9s giving me trips. I bet $31 into a $70 pot. I get one caller. River blanks and I bet $41 and take it down without a showdown. I figure victim was drawing with the 4-flush.

Sadly I missed out on one more nice pot when I folded J6o getting 4:1 on my money in the BB when I had $2 invested and was faced with putting in another $10. I would have flopped top pair, turned trips and rivered quads vs. two competing heart flushes ... drat! In the long run this is a good fold, I believe.

All in all, a good day. I had forgotten just how juicy and soft the live games can be locally if you can survive the swings and sick beats when a donkey makes a ridiculously heroic preflop call and hits a miracle flop against you. I laid down some top pair hands to pressure and won the big pots with the goods. Winning big pots, losing medium to small pots = winning poker.

I booked a net profit of $100 or so all in all between my online and live play today. Fun times!