I’ve been playing in a monthly home game this past 2 years or so. It’s a PLHE tournament with bounty. There are a couple of skilled players, including the host who has been to a couple of poker seminars down in Vegas, but the rest are casual players who are there to shoot the shit and have fun. So there isn’t much bluffing and some players will call down with mediocre hands.
So I had an interesting hand last night.
I was 1 off the button and had QQ. I bet the pot and got 3 callers, including the button. Very unconnected flop. Something like 2 5 10, rainbow. Checked to me and I bet about 1/2 the pot and the button called and everyone else dropped out. The button was one of the casual players. Turn was an 8, matched a suit on the board. Still not scary so I made the same bet. The button raised the pot. I went into the tank then eventually called, leaving me with a short stack. The river was a 2. We checked it down (it’s a friendly game, after all) and she turned over, of course, AA.
In retrospect, I feel that was a really bad call. The only thing I could really beat was a pure bluff. Which isn’t common in this game. Or maybe a semi-bluff, but she wasn’t a skilled player. Her most likely hand was a set or over pair, which, indeed it was.
But it all worked out. I ended up tripling my short stack with AQs and finished 2nd with 3 bounties. Fun night.
Had LAX pick-up duty, so hit Hollywood Park for a short session. Ended up -$250, losing most on 55 vs KK preflop. Son called to say he was landing so it was a last-hand hurrah.
This was a three-way all-in. I lost to KK but I over-chipped him, so got $29 back. Third player mucked and he got $21 back (after someone watched the video) and left the table. I thought for a few seconds and said, “Wait, wasn’t there supposed to be a side pot? And since the third player mucked shouldn’t I get some of his money?” Everyone at the table agreed. The dealer did not separate the stacks for a side pot before putting the board down.
30 minutes later, floor guy tracks down third guy, wait for him (forever) to get felted again, then asks him to give me $21. He had just lost another stack
I thought it was the worst possible way for me to get my money. Dealer made the error of not determining the side pot before rolling the board. So, it is the card room’s fault, so give me my $21 and then you can try to get it back from the third player. Or just suck it up. Or, take it from the dealer. Anything but make me wait 30 minutes. They must have figured I’d leave before that.
Local casino, 2/3 table, buy in max $300. Ended up +$440 after being down about $200. And that was after i tripled up on the first of three “Bomb Pots” – everyone puts in $10, no preflop betting. Usually happens when a new dealer arrives.
First one, i had 4h5h, hit the river flush after some big betting.
Second time had KK, won big.
Third time i had KT, two pair on the Flop, and doubled up.
Had a bully to my left with $2500. He left with about $1300.
Biggest pot i won was a nut flush on the river. Already a pretty big pot but I gave a disappointing check to the bully when the flush card came on the river. Bully goes all-in and i snap call. He had second nut.
I was up 1000 after that and should have left then.
Home game. Small stakes. i was the winner here but the other guy (OG) was crying in his beer. Game is Hold Em. $2 bets, 3 raises max, so each betting round is limited to $8 per player, except last bets are up to $3 and 3 raises.
I’m holding 3-3. I call the pre flop raise, set mining.
Flop comes A-K-3, rainbow. “That’s a Bingo!” There’s a bet and me and the OG raise to the $8 max, everyone else drops.
Turn is the case 3. Me and the OG raise to the $8 max.
Turn is a K. If he has kings in the hole, then he beats me, but I’m not backing off baby quads. Me and the OG raise to the $12 max.
I ask if he has 4 kings. No, but he quite proudly shows A-A for aces full of kings. Too bad. Only 2 hands beat that, and I’ve got one of them. He didn’t see it coming.
Bad Beat Jackpot is usually split among the table: 50% to the loser (The Bad Beaten), 25%(?) to the winner, the rest split evenly among the rest of the table.
Played twice this week at Red Rock. Nothing real special. Up $102 first sitting, $204 on the second (funny on the amounts).
1/3 game. My best hand was with Ks. There were 4 limpers in front of me and I pushed to $25. I think 1 guy called and then reckless guy 2 to my right pushed to $260. I pushed all in for $540. He was hemming and hawing. I told him I would show even if he folded. He paused and did. He had AQ. I won about $150 with Js. I hit set against 2 pair. I had it on flop and he hit second part on turn.
First day, there was 1 guy that would really push occasionally. Second day, a guy that was at table was getting hurt with reckless play, they won an all in for $400 and a second for $300 in about 4 hands. They he started to push. I waited and caught him once. We had 2 chops as well as he was predictable.
Good time, hadn’t played in a while. No mistakes. Won a couple bluffs in good spots, didn’t make any misreads and tended to get most out of hands.
I played last week and forgot to update. Tried my hand at a $400 tourney. It went poorly; I started out up about 20% of my chips but then lost more than half of them on a hand where I made a big mistake folding of the flop. I went card-dead after that, and finally ran into aces when I pushed with AQ.
It wasn’t a total loss though as I played some 1/3 waiting for the tournament to start. I sat with $250 and the had the following notable hands…
Straddle for $6 was on, three callers and I’m on the button with AJ. I made it $35 and two of the three called. Flop was Q high and I bet $50 to fold everyone out.
Then I have AK suited and a guy raises to 25 after a few limps. He has about 90 total, so I make it 50 so if anyone else gets involved and he pushes, it allows me to reshove (I think calculations like this are key to preflop strategy). He does push but no one else calls. He shows AQ off and flops a flush draw on a monotone board. Turn is blank so I’m a 75% favorite, but he spikes the flush. I’m down at this point now.
A few hands later I have KK and a guy is all in for about 55 with one caller. I reshove for about $190 and the other guy thinks for a while before calling my push. They have TT and JJ. The board runs out clean and I scoop. Ended up leaving to play the tourney up 200.
May play again next weekend, I have a few hours to kill when travelling out of town for a friend’s milestone birthday party. Time to check out a new casino! It sounds like 5 card PLO is the hot game there, so I’ll probably give that a shot. Always an action game and I think people play a very suboptimal game in general.
So I watch both Brad Owen and Crush Live Poker videos on YouTube. Both have been offering a “free entry to a Club WPT Live free-roll” sweepstakes entry, Dec 13 - 15 in Las Vegas. I signed up through Brad, and today got an email that I’ve won an entry to the tournament!
It’s apparently a $2,500 entry fee, so let’s assume that 20% of that is overhead, so $2,000 would go to the prize pool. Of $5 M, that means they need 2,500 players. Top 500 places at least get >$1000 cash. So if they limit it to 2,500, then I’ve got to be in the top 20%.
I like the “free” part.
I’m finding it harder to play in Tournaments. Long slog. More like playing blackjack for a long-run positive return, have to be always alert, mentally focused. Your short-term goal is always to be the one of biggest stacks at your table. Long-term goal is to have everyone’s chips. Every all-in is for your entry fee. I think I’m getting too old for that shit. Also, I tend to get short due to bad luck, and I can’t pull out more benji’s.
Playing cash allows me to leave when I want, preferably ahead.
Wait, really? I kind of figured this was one of those things where they just let in as many people who are willing to come play, assuming they’ll make their fees back through room rentals and bar tabs. Did you get an email saying something like “better luck next time”? Or just no e-mail at all and making an assumption?
Nah, IMO at least this is a really good opportunity to play in a big freeroll with a lot of money up top (and some decent payouts with the mystery bounties).
I never got a “you didn’t win” email, just radio silence, but I’m guessing 6 figures+ people entered the contest. Maybe I’m way off but I don’t think it’s easy at all to get in.
You may still have a shot. There’s only like 580 names released yet, and I did see one notice that people would still be notified as late as December 11. (I don’t think that’s wise, as you’re not going to get people to drop everything else at that point and fly to Vegas, even for a freeroll. I expect that of the 2,000 notified, only about 1,750 will show up to play because they get late notice, plans changed, etc.
Never been there. Well, not for poker. Went to a show at the Wynn about 15 years ago - it was something like “Le Reve”, a stage show sort of like Cirque du Soleil, but with a water tank in the middle of the stage and people diving in and out. It was cool.
I got an AirBnB tiny house about 15 minute walk, staying in the resorts is just ridiculously wasteful to me, so if anyone wants to come hang, my DMs are open.