A Festivus For The Rest Of Us

liquid's YTD: $1903.92

For the third time this year, my YTD has cracked $1800. The first time was on the cusp of my trip to Tunica, during which I dropped down below $1500. A week and half later, I had clawed back to $1800. I promptly dropped over $500 in two days last week (though I managed to salvage a couple hundred by the end of the second day). By Sunday I'd recovered from that downswing as well, but I'm well behind my $10k goal for the year. The YTD graph is ugly.

I nosedived towards $1600 again last night. I was three-tabling $100 PLO, and had not managed to crack $100 on two of the tables, despite discouragingly frequent top-offs. On the third table I'd gotten to around $185. For the night I was down $150 overall and was about to pack it in.

That's when The Hand happened.

I get AAJ3 with three diamonds in middle position. Ok, whatever. By the by, this is on my one winning table, where I'm sitting with $185.

Smart LAG, who has buckets of money, raises to $2.50 UTG, simply because this is what he's decided to do with every hand he plays tonight, regardless of position. Folds to me. I call. Folds to the button, who calls. Then the first blind, who has only $50, raises less than pot, to $10.

(Now, I will go ahead and reveal that B1 had a monster. 7742 single-suited. This is a good table.)

Back to the action. The second blind calls, which is curious. UTG LAG calls, so he must not even have double-suited trash, or else he'd likely raise to isolate. I call. The button, who started the hand with $78, raises pot to $64.

Ah geez.

The first blind calls all in.

The second blind, who started the hand with $115, calls. (!)

UTG LAG folds. Huh.

I push all-in, covering all remaining players now that UTG LAG is gone. Blargh.

Button calls, second blind calls, four players to the flop, everyone all-in, about $400 in the middle.

At this point I don't even want to watch the hand. As fate would have it, I was actually involved in a hand on another table, so I was only half-watching as the board was dealt out for the 4-way freak fest. It didn't look good.

No ace, of course.

No diamonds. At all.

No pair on the board. Ugh.

In fact I get no help whatsoever: Qs, 5s, Jc, 2c, 8h. I start hoping for a piece of a side pot, something, anything.

Instead, I watch in amazement as the WHOLE FREAKING POT ships my way.

Yes, I won a 4-way all-in pre-flop coup with aces unimproved. It's a Festivus miracle!

Won't You Keep On Shining On Me

liquid's YTD: $1609.12

I made it to Tunica with Napalm last week. Results-wise, it was the polar opposite of the Vegas trip -- I lost $315 total.

We began with a 4-1/2 hour $4-$8 session at the Horseshoe. I dropped $228 for an ignominious start. Yes, I was card dead. Yes, I played like a donkey. And yes, it was my worst session ever. Like an idiot I failed to prepare properly for limit hold 'em this time around. Prior to the Vegas trip, I read the Miller book and played a lot of micro-limits online. Following the Vegas trip, I didn't play a single hand of hold 'em until getting to the Horseshoe. Unwise.

The next day we continued with a 3-1/2 hour $4-$8 session, also at the Horseshoe. Lost $4. Things were looking up!

Later that evening I tried Omaha/8 $4-$8 with a half kill, opening a table short-handed with a few other brave souls. I took down the first hand with a flopped straight that held up for a scoop. A tiny woman who bought in for $40 seemed confused at showdown, thinking she had the low even though there was no low possible. She was unphased though, and proceeded to run over the table, playing practically every hand. Forty-five minutes later she racked up and left with an unbelievable $480. She is my new hero. I left four hours later up $94. Yay, a winning session!

The next day we found Nirvana and Hell all in one: Omaha/8 $4-$8 with a half kill at the Gold Strike. This table had it all. $150 pots left and right. Outrageous showdowns. Half the table playing every hand. Kill pots galore. It was a thing of beauty... and I was utterly unable to take advantage of any of it, ending a 9-1/2 hour session down $186. I finally got up to catch some breakfast and a short nap, and then went back hoping beyond hope that the table was still going. But it was empty, a memory in the wind. Maybe it was all just a dream....

Eventually, unable to find another O/8 game, I went back to $4-$8 hold 'em at the Horseshoe. I played the nuts, started with a few brutal beats, but eventually dragged enough decent pots to cash out 5 hours later up a whopping $9. Ugh. Notable hand of the session: I have Q4 in the big blind. Six or seven or twelve or whatever number of folks limp, including a bona fide sociopath in the small blind. Napalm and I had sat with him on day one as well. To date, we'd seen him (a) wear his sunglasses upside-down Luske-style, (b) throw his cards at the dealer, (c) three-bet with apparent randomness, (d) get into shouting matches with the dealer, and (e) generally exhibit manic-depressive behavior indicative of someone who needs to up his meds a smidge. So anyway, this particular flop comes rag-rag-king rainbow and checks around. Turn is an ace and checks around. River is a queen and checks around. I table my weak queen, figuring I might be good here. Psycho tables AK. I feel blessed that I am in the 1 seat and he is in the 10 seat, where his empty soulless eyes could not bore into my skull.

The results may not show it, but I had a great time. Tunica is the BEST. The card rooms at the Horseshoe and Gold Strike are top notch; we got friendly and competent service all-around; and we never had to pay for food. I figure I racked up well over $100 in comps, not counting the poker rate at the Horseshoe, which cut the total bill for the room from over $1600 to $132 (including tax). Outstanding.