Commerce last Saturday

Posted by bellatrix

March 31, 2008

So, I finally went to Commerce again. It’s sad, that I only get to go once a month. Before my daughter was born, you could find my in a card club about 3 times a week. Well, I didn’t work much then either… Anyway, I had decided, I was going to go and there was going to be no stopping me. I thought, I could meet up with PokerKat also, but unfortunately, she had to cancel last minute.

So I got there pretty late around 9:45pm. Parking lot was a bit emptier than usually. Now I don’t know if that was, because it was the last weekend of the month (less money to spend on gambling) or if last time the LA Poker Classic had just finished or because it was kinda late, but I was a bit underwhelmed, seing a few empty tables on the main floor. The banked games were still going like crazy. I still need to catch myself not to stare at the gamblers in disbelief on how the can just sit there with that crazy empty stare and bet 100$ after 100$ on no-bust blackjack, which requires a different fricking basic strategy, yet they play it like it’s normal blackjack and don’t think twice on paying a 1$ fee to play a losing game. It just reminds me how big the hopes are of some people to overcome the odds in this way, but it always makes me sad that the banked games are so full…

Anyway, I get to the main floor, wait 5 minutes and get a seat in a 9/18 game. Eeeew, the game was really nitty, lots of chop-chops, raise-and-take-its… WTF? This is Commerce, right? Great, adjust my strategy… I didn’t have that great cards anyway in the beginning, so I raise once in the hijack with QTo and take down the blinds, whoa! Anyway, play progresses and I slowly gauge my opponents.

There’s this one guy talking about poker being all luck and maybe if you’re good you can break even, but he gets eaten up at the 20 game by the sharks, so he just enjoys this game more, because he can chat with us. Then, I almost have to turn off, because he goes off in poker philosophy and everybody kind of strangely agrees with him. Ok, whatever dude! I still can’t read the table to see if they were mocking him or really agreeing with him. So, how does he play? He loves pocket pairs. Pocket 6s UTG, no problem, raise’em up. He can’t fold premium holdings when he’s beat. 7s8s9sTcXx board, he still can’t fold his pocket queens. I put a bad beat on him, when I defended my BB with Q7s (4 players in) and flopped a queen and rivered another queen to his KK. He left in disgust… meh!
There’s two vietnamese players. One isn’t half bad, but he’s too weak tight. He plays too fit or fold, so I was able to bluff him out of a few pots, but not many. He did enjoy quite a few bad beats by the rest of the table, so he left around midnight after haven gone through about 1k. His partner left with his girlfriend a bit earlier. I think his partner might have been a bit better, at least he could card read a bit better, so I was glad when he left.

Then there was this older lady. I never quite figured her out. She was EXTREMELY tight, but she could make some good reads and calldowns. However the rack of chips I had seen in front of her had disappeared into a stack by the time I left around 1, so… there you go, I’m results oriented.

Then there was my favorite player at the table. Mr “I’m feeling lucky”. He put a pretty bad beat on me, when he went runner runner diamond flush to my flopped set of queens. What is funny is the table defending me and then when he got bad beat by a 92o rivering trips to his overpair, he just lost it dropping f-bombs and the whole table again goes against him. I got my little revenge against him. He rivered a flush again, only this time I had a full house. He was quiet and nice to me, though, so I stayed nice and quiet to him, too.

Well, as I said the table was pretty nitty, so some of the players asked for a table change. We got in two gamblers at one point. One guy was pretty much a maniac, playing every hand and betting at the slightest sign of weakness. Pretty easy to play against, but very high variance. It drove the table crazy, however and so it was entertaining. But the other player was interesting. It was an asian, who could barely speak english and immediately when he sat down asked, what is the bet? Constantly: “What can I bet?” Finally it dawned on me that he wanted to play NL, but he also had very little ideas how to play the game. Unfortunately he was sitting to my left, so it’s kinda hard to make money of him, but I tried to value bet, value bet, value bet. One thing I had some connundrum with, is that he kept asking me for advice and it was obvious he was not putting on an act. On the one hand, this is like the ideal opponent on the other hand, I wanted to say to him: “Stop being so stupid, so that I don’t have this connundrum, when I take money off of you!”. I don’t know if you can understand me. We are all adults and it’s their decision to sit down at a table. But why would you sit down at a mid-level game, when you don’t even know how to play correctly? Well, it’s not my decision and I will play to get the last penny off of him, but afterwards I’ll still feel bad…

Anyway, of course he left with a nice win of a rack. One interesting hand I’m still patting my back on was the following:

UTG limps, 2 callers (gambler and Mr. Lucky), Old Lady raises, Good Vietnamese calls, me in SB calls with AJo, BB (noob) raises, everybody calls. I could’ve raised here, but old lady was very tight, so she most likely has me beat. While there is equity against the field, I don’t want to raise out the limpers to preserve my equity and not end up in a 3-bet 3way pot out of position against 2 most likely better holdings. Of course this was negated when the limpers still coldcalled the 3-bet by the BB, so there you have it. Right thinking, wrong assumption.

Flop (7 players, 21SB): 4sQsTh

I check, BB bets, 3 folds, Old lady calls, Vietnamese calls, I call. (Oh no, I have 3 outs to the nuts, need to call).

Turn (4 players, 12.5BB): Kh

BEAUTIFUL! I have the nuts, let’s jam it and ram it. Wait, BB definetly has an overpair if not a set, he really is that unsophisticated that he would never raise AK from the BB, only QQ, KK, AA. So basically he has AA or a set. Let’s checkraise.

I check, BB bets, lady folds, Vietnamese raises, I re-raise, BB fiddles with chips is almost all in, but doesn’t really know what to do, if he can re-raise, anyway huge tell factory, but unfortunately somebody called string on him, so he can’t raise, just call. Vietnamese calls. I’m left wondering, what vietnamese has (are we chopping, does he have a set too? maybe TT, 44?)….

River (3 players 21.5BB): Kd

Oh well, can’t win them all. I know I’m beat. I mean, I’m still going to call a bet if bet to me, but all I beat now is AA and that’s not likely. However the pot size is right to pick up a stupid bluff.

I check, BB checks, Viet checks.

I show the AJ (oh yeah, forgot to mention the table was filled with stupid slowrollers), BB grins and gives a strange speech (I did not understand a word) and shows QQ. Way to miss a bet, buddy. I am so glad over the BB saved that I don’t think it’s a bad beat. Vietnamese guy mucks. Anyway, the table is on my side again (thanks table!) and halfway insults the guy. And probably thinks I’m crazy, because I’m grinning, too and not complaining about my bad beat. I want this guy to have the chips, he’ll stay and give them back, he’s happy, he’ll remember this for a long time and… I saved a bet! Sadly, noob leaves about half an hour after that, so I never got the chance to get many chips back.

Around 1am, I get really tired. I’m not happy, grinning at the people, I’m just going through the motions. I see my UTG hand and quit. Anyway, what’s the final tally after 3 hours? Now don’t laugh… 15$! That’s right kids, not even a BB. OTOH, I got to enjoy a nice meal and drinks and cigarettes (yeah, shoot me!) that I paid with my chips, but I always just count the chips I cash out and those where 105 chips -> 315$. So basically the stuff was free. After playing the 9/18 now for 3 times I still think you can win at this game, but unfortunately the 6$ rake (I have given up on ever seeing a jackpot) makes it very difficult. I guess around 15$ an hour is doable. But I really gotta get my bankroll together and go to the 20 game. sigh… If you read this far, thanks.

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