popping the cherry

[stevedonel]

Going up to AC the weekend of Nov 5th. I plan on playing 4/8 limit, 1/2 NL. Anyone know where I can play some $100-$200 tourneys? Anyone else gonna be there that weekend?

[SteveO]

Tropicana and Taj have Friday evening tournaments. Go to their web sites for details. I think buy ins are 50 with R&A. Taj also has Sat morning 100 no R&A.

I have not played in either but I'm making a trip in December.

[stevedonel]

The fun starts tomorow. The best part is that I'm on a huge roll going into the trip. Im up $929, in live play this week. From all my poker friend's descriptions, my normal $1/2 game is 3-5x harder than any game they've played in AC, so that's good practice. I've only made about $100 online this week, since I've been playing live so much.

Where my profits came from:
Saturday night I played in a new $1/2 NL game. It was 3 fishy hicks and their wives when I got there! I was up ~$100 after an hour, then some of the semi-pros from my regular game showed up (sharks). I finished up $220 on the night.

Monday night is my regular $1/2 NL game, with several semi-pro players. This is historically a very tough game for me, I used to always break even for a few hours, then lose it all on a tough beat; I'd bust out about half the time I played this game. I finished up $150 on the night, and this is my second straight week making $150 there.
Weekly Balance: +370

Tuesday there is a card room that plays $2/4 NL, $200 max buy-in. I started at 4:30, but had to leave at 6:00 for a dinner meeting. I cashed out $460; I must admit $173/hr is a rate I can live with. Came back at 9:00 after my meeting; I couldnt get a seat until 11:30 and I had to buy back in with all of my $460. I wasn't happy with either of these two circumstances, but this game is very juicy, so I dealt with it. I cashed out at 1:00 with $735. Overall thats still $178/hr! Steve like!! A side note: I was fairly proud of my stack being 3.5x the buy-in, until I looked over at the other table, and saw this idiot with a $2200 mountain sitting in front of him. Yes, I mean 11x the buy-in; and this isnt the Party 25/NL game loaded with fish. All the semi-pros were at that table, and he isnt one of them.
Weekly Balance: +905

Wednesay night, I got an email, from a college proffessor, about a game in a neighboring city. The email list was all from the college staff and fairly large, so I figured these guys must play regularly, they're loaded, they've gotta be playing some decent limits, I didnt even ask what the game was. Thinking this would be something like "the judges game" in Rounders, I walk in with $600 in my pocket, ready to throw down the gauntlet. I'm such a moron, these were absolute fish; they played $1/2 limit. I should have made more profit, but they kept playing games like crazy pineapple, lots of Omaha 8 (which I suck at), pass the trash, ect. Some Texas, and stud, which are my only good games. So I finished the night up $24, not bad considering, but I didnt want to only play my good games and seem like an ass. I want to play in their tourneys.....mmmm......juicy fish.........mmmmm
Weekly Balance: +929

I'll probably play online tonight, to work on my grind at Party. Tomorow, I fly up to AC with $1500, and swim in the giant pond. Report forthcoming........

[LockLow34]

Did you make it up to AC? I was at the Tropicana this weekend playing 4/8 and wonder if I may have played against ya.

Also, the Trop has a 200+20 tourney on saturdays and a 100+20 tourney on sundays.

[Humphrind]

I was at the Tropicana this weekend playing 4/8 and wonder if I may have played against ya.

You did. He's the one that kept re-buying and re-buying. :P

[stevedonel]

Did you make it up to AC? I was at the Tropicana this weekend playing 4/8 and wonder if I may have played against ya.

Also, the Trop has a 200+20 tourney on saturdays and a 100+20 tourney on sundays.

Yes, I did play at the trop rebuy tourney on Friday. I managed to wade though the maniacs and finished 50th of 122. I only misplayed one hand, pushing AK to far; lost half my stack late in the game. Other than that, I think I played good, but got very few playable hands.

I have to say that I think their tourney structure sucks; the blinds in the early stages move extremely fast, then they slow down when its about 4 tables. I assume this is to clear tables and make room for ring games. So I skipped the $200 on saturday, which has the same structure.


We may have played each other in the 4/8 game too. I was wearing a tan no-collar dress shirt, thats the only thing that I can think of that would have stood out.
Friday night, from ~8-10, I played at a table in about the middle of the main room, there was a black guy at the end of the table crushing everyone; I was two seats to his right. Then from ~10-12, I played in the back corner of the main room; there were to 3 domincans at one end of the table playing virtually every hand, I was at the other end of the table.

I'm slightly annoyed with my performance in that game:
session #1: bought $200 - cashed $235 after about 1 hour, only winning 1 good sized pot and two smaller ones (tourney started then)
session #2: bought $140 - cashed $140 after about 3 hours (dinner time)
session #3: bought $200 - cashed $200 after about 4 hours
Up $35 after 8 hours of play, ½BB/hr. Then i switched over to 1/2 NL at about midnight. That game really sucked for me, I lost $208 in about 6 hours. Runner-runner flushes were 2 of my 3 tough beats.


Saturday, I went over to the Borgatta at about 2pm wanting to play in the 1/2 NL game there. I got on the wait list; they dont have 4/8, so I settled in at the 6/12 limit game for my waiting time. After about 2 hours, I was still #42 on the list! Then at around 6pm, I found out they had lost the phucking list! I was doing good in the 6/12, I said screw it and kept playing.


The 6/12 was awsome! As always, I wait for the button to pass and post after. FIRST hand, I get KK. Two hands later AK. UTG its JJ for Steve. I'm up $200 before even going through the blinds SCHWEEEET!!!!

The next few hours are up and down between 350 and 550. Then I hit this huge run of dog shit cards; went from 500 down to right at my buy-in of 300, while winning zero hands in about 2 hours (I know it was at least 2 hours, because I tipped 4 straight dealers one dollar at the end of their time, even though they didnt deal me a single winner. Everyone thought I was nuts) During the middle of this run, a bunch of old regulars show up; all the dealers know them buy name, yadda, yadda, yadda. I hold my own against them, but I was thinking "maybe they are what's beating me", and I was on minor tilt. So, I go eat some dinner and get on the list to play 3/6 limit, because the 1/2 NL list was over 50; this was around 10 pm.

I get back from dinner and by the time I get to the top of the 3/6 list (about 1½ hours), Im back in the game; I'm beating the pants off these old farts! This leads to my decision to stay at the 6/12. One old, arrogant, ass named "tiger" dropped from ~500, to about ~200; another older guy named Barry (a real classy guy, who I had alot of fun talking with during my downswing) went down about $200, and this quite, old, chinese lady, who had been kicking ass since I sat down, went from ~1200 to about ~800 (she played from before I sat down to after I left, 14 hours, and made about 800 profit while I was there) In the end I cashed out $575 at 4:30 am; after going through that long slide, I am rather proud with my $275 profit, even if it is only 1.6 BB/hr.

The funniest part about the 6/12 game was this fish sitting to my left. I saw him buy at least $800 at the table; the others told me that he made 3 visits to the ATM, for $600 total, in the half hour that I was eating dinner. When he finally submitted and left for good, it was very obvious that he was had lost every penny to his name. It didnt matter what the board showed, he'd bet any pocket pair all the way to the river; any hand that he paired up on the board, he would check/call all the way to the river. Even if his 52o, which he would play from UTG, paired a flush and straight board, he'd call it down and whine about losing. So easy to read, so easy to beat, so sad to watch. They should cast him as a tourist in the casino scene, if they ever make a Rounders sequel.


All in all, I lost $70 at the tables, spent ~$200 on travel, food, ect. and had an absolute blast! Next trip, I plan to play in the $200 tourney at the Trop, then head over to the Borgata to play 6/12, and my friend said I should play the 2/5 NL because its a better game than the 1/2 NL. we're planning on going back some time around Christmas.

[LockLow34]

We may have played each other in the 4/8 game too.

Nah, I didn't get there until about 1pm on Saturday. From your report you were playing Borgota by then. Alas. Glad to hear you had a fun time, though. Do you play many live tourneys?

[stevedonel]

We may have played each other in the 4/8 game too.

Nah, I didn't get there until about 1pm on Saturday. From your report you were playing Borgota by then. Alas. Glad to hear you had a fun time, though. Do you play many live tourneys?

My local group of players used to play tourneys every night of the week. Now we play about one a week, and NL cash games every night.