FINDING NEW ACTION

Last Night I traveled with Mike (Host of the regular Monday Night game) to downtown Orlando for a tourney of 11 players. Matt, the host, runs his game like a business raking about 20% of the buy-in while providing distilled beverages and dealing services. He has a great knack of shuffling deck 2 as players are folding their pocket cards from deck 1. He’s so fast at this task there is hardly a pause between hands.

Matt did something else all night that was quite impressive. If someone threw a big stack of chips out and the opponent asked how much, Matt would immediately say, “It looks like 12,700,” and he would be dead on every time. He pulled that trick on 4 different occasions with tough stack amounts and never missed. I’ve not seen professional dealers count that many chips merely looking at a stack. From clues during conversation I take him to be around 27, unmarried and building a new two-story house next door to the one we played in that will easily be worth $800,000 to $900,000 on completion. He’s into Real Estate from as much as I can gather and it seems more lucrative than college would have been.

The new house will have an entire area devoted to poker with two plasma screens and X Box games. He’s a businessman explaining that the new area with give players something to do if they’re knocked out early. He figures a lot of these guys are married with kids and this is their one night out of the house. He’s trying to provide an entertaining experience. Needless to say he’ll have 2 or 3 tables in the new place going a few nights a week. It’s not a bad business model if the gendarmes leave it be.

We bought in for $150 – First Place $800 Second Place $400 – Third Place $150, he didn’t take a rake from the third guy in order to pay a refund for 3rd. The first level blinds were 20 minutes and then 17 minutes thereafter. 16,000 in chips – 100/200 blinds that increase to 200/400, 300/600, 500/1000 and then gulp, 1000/2000. That last leap is a killer to the M and the only real downside to the way the game plays.

The game is a lot tighter than Mike’s Monday Night affair with only a few guys that try situational bluffs. Early in the tourney a guy in late position would attack my blinds religiously if it folded around to him. It was always transparent and I couldn’t see the benefit of it. Why risk 700-1000 to pick up 300 chips when you have a stack of over 15,000? There was a lot of straightforward textbook play which made it easy to determine where you stood. Guys also seemed to be in survival mode. More than one player mucked QQ after a re-raise and it gave added value to hands like AK.

When you’re new to a game and have very little information on the players you can make snap judgments. The first two guys were knocked out courtesy of the mid 40s guy who wore an army jacket that didn’t match his demeanor. I thought he played both hands well but when we were down to 6 players he made an inexplicable call for 80% of his chips when Mike pushed all-in. It was a failure on two fronts. He flopped top pair with a weak kicker versus two players. Instead of playing it hard he laid back hoping to scoop the growing pot on the river. By doing so, he let Mike’s set materialize on the turn and when Mike re-raised all-in he got this guy to call.

With four of us left, Mike had more than half the chips at the table. Army Jacket guy was crippled. The fourth guy was an experienced gambler and not bad at poker. He showed us a Pick 5 Horse Racing ticket that he cashed for over $70,000. Now he told the story as if it had just recently happened, although is looked so wallet worn he could have cashed it 6 years ago. I couldn’t figure out if he was re-living the past with people he just met, or sharing the recent experience with guys he already knew. Horse Player, Army Jacket and I were all between 15,000-20,000 chips. The blinds were 2000/4000 so there wasn’t a great deal of time to play poker, although these guys did not mind the Ms one bit. They would still make raised to 8,000 instead of pushing all-in for the additional fold equity.

With about 3 minutes left at this level, I got 66 UTG. This was a automatic push and Army Jacket guy said he had to call with A3s. That left him 2 chips. I wouldn’t have been upset with a coin-flip so a 2-1 advantage was gravy. He flopped 2 spades and hit the flush on the turn to knock me out. It’s these kinds of finishes that hurt the most. I made the right play, got heads up as the big favorite and lost as usual. With four players left, I don’t call with weak aces suited or not. So many times you’re dominated by a bigger ace or an underdog to a pair or at best a 60-40% favorite against 2 live cards. You don’t even get the fold equity that leading with that hand would bring.

That said, I was knocked out in the same situation at the Hard Rock when my dominating AT lost to A2 in multi two weeks ago. Of course, my A8 loss to A4 that cost me a WSOP seat will always be the prime example of weak aces ruining me. I’m glad guys play like that and I strive not to. I’ll play this game again and I’m now on the mailing list. I hope to bring Dude when he makes his next Orlando visit.

After I was knocked out, Horse player starting pushing at pots and building a stack. He was able to cripple Mike when his two pair bested Mike's top pair. Mike would eventually finish third and Horse Player would beat Army Jacket to win. On the drive home I told Mike that we probably would have finished 1-2 had the 66 only held up. He said he would have offered a me a chop in that situation which made the bad beat all the worse.