Friday, March 12, 2004

Friday, March 12, 2004

"Was this a bad beat? NO. It was just the turn of three cards in a lifelong game." --Don Threetens


I was determined not to let myself get blinded away, like I did on Thursday night, starting as the chip lead at the final table. I could have kicked myself for choking and letting almost 7000 in chips be stolen away from me without making a stand.



So I played with quite a bit more spirit, and made more moves. Not that I like Omaha any better than I ever did, but if I was going out, it was with a bang, not a whimper.



I played at a table with this local named Billy. We all call him The Magician because he wears one of those tall wizard hats. I have no idea why. I don't think I really want to know. When we first moved here I was kind of wary of him, but everyone likes him, and he seems like a friendly guy, so I started accepting him, too. He is a very tight player, seems to know how to play poker well, and is friendly when he gets to know the other locals. One of his hands is kind of like Troy's, half gone. I don't know why. He has such a good sense of humor that someday, when we get to the final table together, I'm going to tell him, "Just think, if you win first, you can buy back the other half of your hand!"



Lately, my catch phrase has been "blow me." The dealers all had to go through some kind of stupid customer service training at the Belle. They aren't supposed to sit with their arms crossed, because that might scare potential poker players away. They are supposed to thank players for playing poker at the Belle. On and on, really juvenile stuff that if they don't already know, they will not learn, and if they do know it, they are already doing it. The Belle dealers are very casual with us. We are almost "friends," instead of customer/employee. I think they should have sent Lavenna to this class twice!



Anyway, so every time the dealers say, "Felicia, thank you for playing at the Belle," it is usually said in a sarcastic way, followed by a laugh. So I keep saying, "Blow me." At least someone is having fun. I'm just not sure how many of us!



So getting back to the tourney. Carl, Magician and I all made it to the final table. So we were in the money, in the points. Carl went through his blinds and still had about 3000 in chips. He said to us, "I'm going to try to use this (pointing to chips) to work my way into $88." That was 9th place, I believe. I was incredulous. The Magician and I looked at each other. Everyone knows by now that I have no tact and always speak my mind. So I said, "I'm going to try to use this (pointing to about 2500 in chips) to work my way into $1200."



The Magician smiled and said, "Now that is how you play poker! That's the right attitude. You go do it!"



I ended up making 8th. I went all-in on an excellent hand, which gave me a shot at doubling up and winning the whole thing. I didn't just get blinded off like an idiot. Why throw away any chance to win $1200 to move up a measly $15????



As I walked away, Magician told me what a great game I'd played (we were sitting together during most of the tourney). I thanked him and told him the same. Later I asked him how he'd done. He had parlayed a paltry little stack into about $300 in prize money, winning 3rd or 4th, I can't remember.



Now THAT is the way you play poker.


Thursday, March 11, 2004

Planet Poker Weekly PJK Tourney

Planet Poker Weekly PJK Tourney



I am getting ready to send our list to Roy Cooke. So far I have the 24 names listed on the left side of my site (under Participants).



Prolific PJK's who are missing and might have told me they wanted in, but I either didn't get the e-mail, or forgot to add you are as follows:



1) Grubby

2) Grubette

3) Decker--Responded positively

4) Al (dead money)

5) Love/Casino War--Oops, my bad. He responded during the first interest list.

6) Brian (trilliq)

7) Bullets in the Hole

8) Chicago Phil

9) Fish with a Pole

10) Mean Gene--Responded positively



11) Poker Babe

12) Poker Fish 2.0

13) Thoroughbreds

14) Rhymes with Poker

15) Stick n Move

16) Intrepid

17) Shift Left

18) Cardplayer

19) TP (Travis)

20) Paul Phillips

21) Penguin

22) Poker Watch

23) Middle-Aged

24) Royal

25) Lion Tales

26) Coder

27) Suited Trash

28) Openers

29) Garro

30) As I Please

31) Vagaries



Please write me if you want in and I somehow missed you. I want to send the list to Roy, to begin pre-registration. By not pre-registering, it doesn't mean you can't play now, or sometime in the future, but this just makes it easier for me and the folks at Planet Poker.


Thursday, March 11, 2004

I'm way behind on my journal. I'm actually writing this post on Monday, March 15. I'm pretty much in a rotten mood. I don' t know why. I'd blame it on women's problems, but I don't have those anymore. So basically it is because I'm just ME, which is synonymous with something that usually ends in -itch.



I wasn't in the mood to play Omaha 8. I wasn't in the mood to play in an Omaha 8 tourney. I wasn't in the mood to be in the poker room. This same mood is still being carried over to Monday, five days later. So if you don't like sarcastic, biting posts, feel free to skip this one. After all, Iggy made me take some personality test only so that I could find out what I already knew:



"Do not expect INTJs to actually care about how you view them. They already know that they are arrogant bastards with a morbid sense of humor. Telling them the obvious accomplishes nothing."



I never thought I would do well in the O8 tourney. Not for a minute. Basically I've gone back to playing a lot more passively than right after I'd read Ciaffone's book. Ciaffone wasn't doing me any favors with the Belle crowd, I can tell you that. Sure, I was busting out rather quickly, but the opposite never happened. I never got a good lead, I never built up enough chips to win. I just busted out. Waste of $45. Not that I am criticizing Ciaffone. His book is marvelous, but I'm just not up against decent players. I'm up against people who have no understanding of O8. They are not going to lay any four cards down BTF. No way, not even for an all-in raise. Their theory of O8 is that no combination of any four cards is worse than another combination. So with ten people seeing every flop, I was doomed. Yeah, sure, I doubled up lots of times, but with such low starting chips to begin with, and the blinds doubling for four levels in a row, I never really became a force to be reckoned with.



So I went back to the more passive, trapping play that had gotten me into the money before. Granted, I never won a tourney during those times, but I had lots of 4th-10th place finishes, without taking too many risks. So call me Betty, I don't really give a flying frig.



Basically I would passively limp in, passively call a bet on the flop if I caught solidly. Passively bet or call on the turn if I improved or didn't get counterfeited. Then if I was leading one way or another, and knew I'd get at least 1/2 the pot, I'd pop them on the river. Sometimes I would pop on the turn, if there was no way I could be beat.



So I've been doing lots better in Omaha than HE. I hate passive play. Blah!



There was this tourist guy sitting at my first table. He was chewing on a toothpick the whole tourney. Same toothpick? Probably, he looks that sleazy. Anyway, he hated women, he hated women players, he was mean and creepy. He should have known better. He was no spring chicken, but wasn't elderly either. He was condescending and rude. Have fun in Hell with Hitler and Satan, dude.



Our table got broken, and I started getting blinded down. I wasn't really getting anything to shove in with. I think I had about 700 left. I kept staying afloat by winning the blinds here and there, when we were close to 20, and the WPT participants were trying to hang on to get points.



Soon we were down to the final two tables. I was assigned to table one, but all of the maniacs had busted out, so the table was pretty passive. After paying the BB, I was down to my final two chips. I shoved all-in, I probably didn't even look at my hand. I survived somehow, I think I sucked out on a better hand.



I kept shoving all-in until I was the chip lead at my table. My table was extremely passive, and hated all-in's. So I just kept going all-in and making everyone fold. Hand after hand, all-in. Sometimes I didn't even look. I stole from them round after round, until I had about 7000 in chips, lol.



I was sitting next to OA, who is about 75 or so, and the nicest guy. He lives in Montana, but is down in Laughlin quite a bit. He is hilarious, and is always cracking jokes in a good, clean way. He never bothers other players or gets out of line. He is just having a great time in his retirement, and seems to love everyone. We chatted it up quite a bit. He also took advantage of the super-passive play, and went from almost zero to hero, before we got to the final table.



All of these railbirds kept coming up to the rail (table one is on the rail), and saying, "What a comeback, she was down to two chips!" They kept telling all of the new railbirds how great a player I was, etc, etc. I was LOL, because I really suck.



All of the women who had busted out of the tourney came up to me and were doing thumb's up, and high fives. If they only knew. I'm glad I could represent that ladies, but I am certainly no "lady," in the strict sense of the term.



Glenn busted out and was sweating me. At one point, he came up and patted my back, because I had so many chips. Doug asked him not to pat my back, because more allegations of cheating had been made by some of the locals, and they might misconstrue Glenn's patting of my back as some kind of Morse code that he'd peeked at other players' cards and was giving me a signal of how to play.



PUKE!



The problem with some of the elders at the Belle is that they think poker is pure luck. So they get this idea in their heads that if one person has won "more than their fair share" of tourneys or cash in ring play, they must be cheating. Especially if they have a "partner." I hear them talk about it all the time, how poker is all luck, and we all get our fair share of wins/losses. Despite the fact that I have not made even ONE final table appearance in two months, since Glenn made fourth in the last Hold'em tourney, and here I was as the chip lead, people were gossiping again that we MUST be cheating. Two words: Blow me.



We got to the final table. Mr. Know-it-All or "I hate women," drew a seat to my left. Just spectacular! A maniac to my left, just what I wanted. He and I were in the lead. I might have had a few more chips, but it was close.



The dynamics of the final table were atrocious. I was moved from the two seat to the three, a break for me, not having to move lots of heavy clay chips far, lol. Felicia=lazy.



I completely choked and blew it. Waiting for some extremely short stacks to bust out (people with less than one BB), I ended up getting blinded down, while Mr. Maniac got all of my chips by constantly going all-in and stealing everyone's blinds. I'm a stupid monkey, I should have taken him on at least ten times, but I kept waiting for a "good" hand. I kept waiting for the tiny stacks to bust out. I figured it would be stupid to blow $1300 taking on a maniac while someone else snuck in with 400 in chips. So round after round, I let this idiot steal my blinds. And believe me, he raised my blinds EVERY round. If I'd been closer to him, I'd have kicked his shins under the table, lol.



Finally we got down to five, and (big surprise), now I was the short stack. From over 7000 chips to nothing. So I went all-in without looking, when my blinds were raised again. And that's all she wrote. I gave up $1300 to win $168. What a winner (not). I'm as stupid as they come.


Wednesday, March 10, 2004

Wednesday, March 10, 2004

Tournament Report: WBT II



All day long I was hyping the Blogger tourney (WBT II). I was shouting from the rooftops, giving bums on the street $22 to join in, doing PR work all over the Internet.



Okay, so I'm lying. But I was excited about the 2nd WBT, because so many others were excited, and that is catching!



Our tourney was held at True Poker. Not my favorite online cardroom, but not the worst I've ever played in. I was appalled to see the blind structure. I know True has less hands per hour than most online cardrooms due to the "real life" graphics. So with 13 minute levels, and blinds escalating into the stratosphere within four levels, I figured that the tourney would be very short, given that we only start with 1000 in chips.



I whined to Iggy about the problem, and he wrote True Poker. They never wrote back, but when I checked the structure again, I found we were given 1500 in chips to start. Well, something is better than nothing!



I wish I could remember who was at my table, but I don't have the frigging hand history. True makes you request it BEFORE the tourney starts! Hello! I have written them an e-mail request for the complete history, but so far, nada, and it has been three days, so I think my request is going the way of the Choice Poker request. Nowhere.



I do know that Iggy, Grubby, Grubette and Pauly were at my first table. I think.



Anyway, I didn't get much to begin with. I figured that I'd been running so badly in HE, that this might just prolong the agony. I was dealt 97s in the BB. Flopped top pair, bet about 3x the BB, I believe. Callers abound. What were they calling with??? Beats me, but I didn't think any of them had a thing. Turn was a rag, but a second heart and a gutshot to boot, I bet again. I got a billion more callers. I think I yelled out, "You bunch of calling stations!" Gotta love trash talking :)



Grubby was the only one who had something. 98o, I believe. He was just as worried about kicker and/or a slowplayed overpair. My excuse is, I was stuck in the BB. What was his excuse for playing that junk??? LOL!



Already down about 300, I was checked into a straight a little while later, in the BB with 54 or something like that. Passive players!



For the next hour, I received no playable hands. I might have stolen a pot here and there, but mostly, I just think I folded.



Finally, as I was getting desperate (down to about 700 in chips, as the blinds almost always doubled), I went all-in with TT. No call. Just minutes afterwards, I started getting hands like AKo, AQo, AJo, JJ, QQ. I just shoved all-in. I didn't have time to screw around, with no chips and the blinds eating me alive. Somehow I never got called. Not once.



On the button I went for the steal with ATo. I think I raised about 3x the BB, but who knows, since they didn't have a box to type in our bets. I just slid the slider about halfway to the right, and bet, lol.



To my surprise, Daily Grinder raised! I thought maybe he was going for the re-steal, since I'd been going all-in every few hands. So I called him, since I had about double in chips vs. his stack. Oops! He had KK, but I sucked out on him. I think I got both an ace and a ten. The way True does all-in's is lightening fast. Flop, turn, river "you win," and everything shuts down. What was that???? Jeez. Think you guys could make it any faster? The only thing worse I've seen is the way Party used to do all-in's during tourneys. That was maybe a nanosecond faster than True.



Two more times during the tourney I could have put bad beats on players. I didn't call the all-in's though. I played correctly. I could have knocked out Grubby and another player at the same time. I had AJs. A short stack went all-in in his blind, I believe. Grubby went over the top with JJ. I would have gotten the ace.



Grubby and Pauly were leading at our table. Like most maniacs, they both got an early, big score. Both suckouts, I believe, and then they were off and running, able to raise most pots and steal before the flop. They kept accumulating chips, and no one was really in a position to stop them, so they knocked out player after player. I just sat and watched, while going all-in several times, with good hot & cold hands. I still never got called.



We went from two tables to one table like lightening. True wanted this tourney over FAST. As is typical, cardrooms want us to play cash games, not tourneys, so they get the tourneys over with as quickly as possible, hoping we will migrate to cash games. Blah.



I was just treading water. I was never able to build up a good stack, because no one ever called me. I must have gone all-in 25 +/- times, and was never called even once. By the time we got to the final table, I was yelling into the monitor, "Call me! CALL!"



I thought I might bubble again, because I was the only one going all-in on the bubble. I think Chris Halverson had to go all-in once on the bubble, out of desperation, because he was very short stacked and the blinds were so high, but besides that, I was the only one constantly taking risks. The rest of the time, Pauly was stealing blinds. He had a tremendous lead.



Grubby had lost his ability to steal, and started getting shorter and shorter, having lost his earlier lead. It was like he forgot that he was a maniac, and went into a shell. He just folded everything. I have no idea what he had, but every once in a while, I just don't even look at my cards and shove in. When I am desperate, when I think I can steal, when I think I have a good image, when my position is right. Lots of reasons. I come from the TJ Cloutier school of playing with a short stack.



No one knows that we DON'T have AA. No one has to know that we have 72o. This is not an open card game like Stud. No one knows. We can raise with 72o just like AA. If it makes it easier, just don't look. Just pretend we have AA, and play it that way (all-in), when we need a pot, no one has voluntarily entered the hand, we are in late position (or a good steal position, depending on the people and their stacks who have to act after you), etc. Just do it. Don't let yourself get ground away to dust.



Look through my old posts about tourneys played at the Tropicana. Likewise all of my old tourneys played in Vegas, before I started keeping a log of stories. I tried that route, letting myself get blinded away. It doesn't work. I'm not just speaking out of my butt, it really doesn't work. Ask anyone. Any WCP will tell you the same. Even tight Dan Harrington has to make some crazy moves at some point in every tourney. Good cards alone won't win a tourney. Tight play alone won't get you into the money. Sometimes, just close your eyes, grit your teeth, and shove all-in with nothing. Don't do it as a lark, do it when you HAVE to.



End of sermon. LOL :)



Trying desperately NOT to be the bubble boy, Grubby, of course, ended up on the bubble. That is a big misconception among short stacks on the bubble. They think that if they just fold everything, they won't get the bubble. Unless they are less bubblicious than several other players, they usually end up on the bubble anyway. And if they finally do get a monster hand before that time, they have no chips left to make a recovery to the big money. So it is a double-negative. It is wrong to play like that for many reasons, not just one.



Once Grubby was out and we were all in the money, Pauly overextended himself. He started calling all-in's. It is one thing to raise and steal every hand, when it is shorthanded and no one has much of anything, but it is another thing to call an over-the-top raise or all-in, by timid players who don't have enough chips to pull any re-steals or bluffs.



Pauly ran up against several superior hands, and lost every one. He went from having us all outchipped several times over, to being one of the shortstacks himself.



I was out at fifth. I tried to hang on, but since no one would call my all-in's, I couldn't build more than about 6000 in chips. Then I went on a huge run of horrible cards, nothing above a seven for about 20-25 hands. Nothing. I couldn't defend my blinds, and they come around very quickly only five-handed. I couldn't do a thing. I kept waiting for a face card, any face card. Something suited, something connected. No, nothing. I had about 1700 left in my BB, which was 1000/500 by now. I had trash in my BB, 74o, I believe, and Pauly raised again. I had to dump it, thinking I would go all-in in my SB no matter what I was dealt.



Well, as fate would have it, between my BB and SB, the blinds were increased to 1000/2000. I knew I had no chance to make a comeback and win this thing. I got J5o in my SB, was all-in, and eliminated by Pauly with AQ.



Pauly still didn't have many chips, because knocking me out got him almost nothing. He was eliminated in 3rd, but a valuable lesson was learned. We have talked about his play since then, and I think he will profit from that mistake many times over, in the future.



Otis from Up for Poker won the tourney. In an amazing turnaround, Chris Halverson won 2nd. Great going, guys. Thanks for letting me steal so many of your blinds, Chris. You got it all back and more :)



Tuesday, March 09, 2004

Tuesday, March 9, 2004

Tales From Poker Journal Keepers Land



There are some fun, exciting events coming up in our world. Some people call us poker bloggers, others call us journal keepers, diary keepers, typepadders or just idiots (LOL). I guess, since there is no short abbreviation, maybe we should just call ourselves PJK's. Well, how about this? That is what I'll say from now on, you decide for yourselves. Sometimes I put myself into the role of leader, yet have no followers, haha!



The WBT II is coming up tomorrow. Is anyone going to make any over/unders? Please don't leave it to me again, you saw how ridiculous mine were last time! If you are a PJK, and you want to play, make sure to get in touch with Iggy and get an account on True Poker, stat.



Please, if you are a husband/wife team and both want to play, don't succumb to temptation. Iggy makes the rules on this one, but I have the right to complain and call a foul if I see it. Just don't do it, it's not right.

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After this next tourney, I am going to finish rounding up the weekly players and get that ball rolling. Right now we have 18 PJK's wishing to play. I would like 25 before I submit a list to Planet Poker, who will host the PJK's in a weekly tourney on Sunday's. Roy Cooke is extremely accommodating and will do his best for us. Please write me if you want in, since we only have 18 so far.

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I am not the sharpest tool in the shed, okay? If you want something from me, like for me to link you on my site, or for some advice, please just ask. I am not prone to taking hints well. I get confused, just like when someone tries to tell me a joke. I just DON'T get it. Don't play around with me, because it makes it more frustrating for myself and for you. Just come out with it. I'm like a man, not some coy woman. Blunt and candid seem to work, playing games and little hint dropping drive me out of my mind, what little of it there is left.

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There are a few of you who used to correspond with me. You either wrote me asking for help on a particular poker subject, or I wrote you with an offer of help.



A couple of you stopped writing back in mid-conversation. I'm not sure if there is a problem with you receiving my e-mails, me receiving yours, or you just finally realized I didn't know what I was talking about, so you thought if you stopped writing back, I would let it die out.



At any rate, if you are still looking for help, don't think I stopped the correspondence. Please try to send me your e-mail again. I will definitely not stop trying to help, if you still want it.

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I have decided to elaborate a little bit more on my bad run. I think this might help people who underestimate just how badly one can be beat, for a long, long time. I have tended to, in the past, avoid talking about bad beats and bad runs, deciding to, instead, make light of them, laugh and quip sarcastic little comments. I do this because I hate hearing other bad beat stories, so I don't say much about my own. I also do this because, to me, poker is not an emotional game. I do the best I can with the cards I'm dealt and the opponents at my table, but I cannot control the randomness of the flop, turn and river. If I'm beat, I'm beat, no matter what miracle card comes out of that deck. I tend to downplay just how bad a run can be, and that causes others to form a chain-reaction opinion that bad runs can't last forever (most of the time, for them, "forever" is a few sessions, a week, maybe two weeks). I'm talking about months, even years.



So in the future I will elaborate a bit more on how badly I've been running. I'm not going to cry and lament over bad beats like Hellmuth, I'm just going to try to illustrate to you that it is possible to lose several NLHE tourneys in a row without ever winning a hand. Several is not 3, 4, 5. Several can be a dozen or more.

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There are lots of PJK's who have lapsed in their writing. Some of them don't even update once per month, much less once per week. Here is a shoutout to those I read everyday, who have stopped updating. If you wish to still be included in my links, please write me a line, because if not, I am going to relegate you to some back page. It is more fair to those who are struggling to honor us with their writing more consistently.



1) Garro

2) Opener's

3) Royal

4) Suited Trash

5) Poker Code

6) Vagaries

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In the Yahoo Journal, anyone is allowed to set up a link for themselves. That is super cool for me. If you spam, however, your link will be deleted. Someone by the nick of wsop.dk came in and spammed everything there, then took off. Nice try, lol.

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I have stopped updating my database due to it's clumsiness. It has nothing to do with my bad run in tourneys, I just hate the format. Believe me, I am still keeping stats, and will provide them. I have no shame. Shame doesn't run very highly in someone like me, who is totally candid. I'm an open book, all you have to do is ask. Just because I'm running horribly right now doesn't mean I'm a bad poker player. I've never been that great, but I know where my strengths lie, and I'm not in the least ashamed by it. Trust me, I have no pride, I just hate the setup of Yahoo's database.

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I think all of this ranting is enough for now. Screw you guys, I'm going home.



Tuesday, March 9, 2004.. Live Tourney

Tonight was the $100 HE tourney. We get 1000 chips, limit for the first hour, then NLHE. I did manage to win a couple of hands, post flop, so I'm not losing every, single hand anymore. My losing streak, however, is continuing severely.



I was seated at table one, the crazy table. Fortunately, there weren't as many loose calls. The locals at the crazy table don't call as much during a freeze-out as a rebuy tourney.



I was dealt AA rather quickly. I raised and got one caller. The flop was perfect: ATx, I believe. I bet, he called. Can you guess what happened? Yes, it truly did happen, he drew for runner, runner perfect. He had to get a QJ to make a straight. He had K8o and drew to two perfect, running cards. And he got them. What is new?



Not long afterwards, I got AJs. Only the blinds stayed in. The flop was good, J high. I bet, bet, bet, Betty called, called called, making her gutshot on the river with Q9o. What is new?



My KK actually stood up. The flop was full of rags, and no one called my flop bet.



I was disappointed hearing a report about Carl. I have been really admiring his play during this WPT challenge. He has not only made a lot of money, but he is first in points. Then Glenn told me a horror story. Carl folded QQ btf in order to get into the top 20. Eeeeeek! Carl is so far ahead of the rest of us, there is no way he is not going to get a WPT seat. Even if he sat out of every tourney from now on. He folded QQ???? Please say it ain't so!



One of the things that separates the Belle from other cardrooms is that the dealers argue with the players more than normal. In Vegas and California, they usually just keep out of arguments. Well, at the Belle they are spoiled. They have never had to deal with many abusive, nasty players. So instead, they become the abusive, nasty ones. You read my report on Ed yesterday, so you know what I am talking about. Those of you who have read my reports since moving to AZ have obviously seen lots of this nastiness by dealers.



Most of the dealers at the Belle are absolutely fabulous. Please don't misunderstand me. Some of them, however, know of no other place besides Laughlin. They have never been peed on by WCP who are stuck. No one has ever shoved a lit cigarette into their arm, burning them, scarring them for life because they dealt the player a bad session. They are not usually hit upside the head, kicked under the table, shoved into the table from behind by losing players.



So some of them actually get so spoiled that they take out their moods on their regular customers, customers who pay their salary (tips). Customers who are pleasant and kind.



I'm not trying to say that I'm one of these customers. Believe me, I'm always busting their chops about raking too high, not following the $1.00 max rake promotion, etc. I'm always yelling about them not catching someone shorting the pot, palming their blind back into their stacks, etc.



Anyway, there is an older, snappy dealer named Lavenna who has decided that dealing at the Belle is like dealing in hell. She is 65, and has terrible mood swings. She can be nice, but most of the time she is whining and complaining during her downs about what a miserable job she has, and how she wants to retire, etc, etc. So she should retire. Why should we be subjected to her mood swings? She thinks she has it so bad in Laughlin, at the Belle? She knows jack. If it is so bad, why are you dealing, you twit?



So she brought her rain cloud over to table one, during the tourney. As I looked down to jot some notes from a hand I'd just played, she moved the button twice. Instead of me having the button, I was the cutoff, and Ionizer Bob, who was severely shortstacked, had to take the BB one hand early. The guy to my left, who plays at Commerce everyday, got out of the SB, and was made the button. Lavenna started dealing, and when I looked up, I told her to stop, that I was the button, not the cutoff.



She snapped at me, "No you weren't, Felicia! You were just the button!" She also calls me "Fel E 'SHUH," which I cannot stand. She will not say my name correctly. I don't mind that so much in people I actually like, but in people I do not like, I constantly correct them when they say my name the wrong way. No matter how many times I say, "Fel E see ah," she says "Fel E 'SHUH."



I kept trying to get her to stop dealing, she kept snapping at me. Finally I threw up my hands. No one would say anything, no one would support my claim.



I sarcastically said, "Yeah, that is why I paid my SB, then couldn't even complete, because I had 74o! But you're probably right and I'm wrong, I ALWAYS put up a green chip before you deal, then fold to 1/2 bet on the BUTTON with 74o!" She continued to argue with me, refused to bring back the cards, refused to listen.



Poor Bob was in the one seat, and not paying enough attention to realize he'd been cheated.



As soon as the hand was over, the guy to my left, the bright player from Commerce said, "You were right, I was supposed to be the SB." He knew it as well as he knows the palm of his hand. But angleshooting at Commerce is considered "good poker," so no way he was going to do the honorable thing and back me up. After all, he got to miss his SB.



That made the player in the ten seat think about it. He was an obvious newbie, as you will see when I describe the hand below, and suddenly said, "Oh, my gawd! You were right! I never paid my BB!"



What do you think Lavenna did? Apologize? Call the floor? Yeah, right. She thinks she is God's gift to the Belle. And believe me, Lavenna is never, ever wrong (LOL).



Just a few hands later, a freak occurrence happened. I was the button, the guy on my left, the Commerce player, was the SB, and the ten seat was the BB. The ten seat was extremely new, not understanding much about a tournament, or casino poker in general. He had made "motions" with his hands, motions that would indicate a check, when he had no intention of checking. He had made string bets and raises. The typical stuff; there are usually several of them in every tourney.



Anyway, this was the hand that was very odd. Both the nine and ten were involved. The nine being a very experienced player, used to using all of the edges he could get. The ten being a newbie. On the flop, the nine made a medium sized bet, maybe 300 in chips, when the BB was 100. The ten called rather quickly. The nine had flopped two pair, A2. The other flop card was a king. The turn counterfeited the nine, bringing another king. The nine checked. The ten was mumbling under his breath, checking his hole cards for perhaps the fifth time. He distinctly said something along the lines of, "Blah, blah, I'm going to have to go all-in on this hand, aren't I, blah blah?"



Immediately, the nine seat put out all of his chips and said, "I call that all-in bet!"



The ten was doomed. The dealer was very experienced, having been a pro player before dealing. She knew that the ten had just committed suicide. I knew it, too. I had to acknowledge that I'd heard the ten seat say what he'd said. She had to acknowledge that to the floor, as well. We both looked at each other, figuring that the nine had used the angle, now knowing that the ten was extremely weak, probably on a draw, and had screwed himself by mumbling about going all-in under his breath. We knew that the nine played at Commerce every day, and would exploit the ten, the ignorance of his statement. But we were powerless to do anything but force him to make that all-in.



In a way, it's better that he was taught a lesson now, in a puny $100 tournament, instead of being allowed to let it go, and making the same mistakes over and over again. I felt bad for him, but on the other hand, people cannot just keep saying things that include "all-in" under their breath, nor can they just be allowed to keep making string bets and raises, hand motions that would indicate a check, etc. If they don't get busted in the lower buy-in tourneys, someone is going to bust them later, for a whole lot more money.



So maybe the nine took a bit of advantage of a newbie. I might have, too. I don't know. The nine was a nice guy, he had been playing all week at the Belle, and was never out of line or rude (odd for a Commerce player). He just wanted to get away from LA for a week. I have never seen him act out of order. I probably would have let the guy go, but I would have been extremely candid about the novice moves he was making, and how he was going to get busted on it by players who weren't so understanding.



I did manage to make it into the top 20, for WPT points, but as I have pointed out, I am so far behind Doc Campbell that I don't have a chance. I am solely playing for money. It wasn't tough to make it into the top 20, only 29 players entered the tourney, lol!



The guy in nine knocked me out, when I was forced to defend my BB. He was UTG and raised BTF, but I had to try to double up at that time, or I had no chance of even making the money, much less winning. Like I said, he is a nice guy. He even apologized for knocking me out.

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The Belle is starting construction next week on the expansion to the poker room. Now it looks like we are going to get 2-3 tables versus the 3-4 we were hoping for. I guess the management isn't willing to take out any more slots than necessary, lol.



At any rate, this is a welcome change. Even two tables will make a huge improvement. We only have 10 now, so that will be at least 12, and James says he might put back in one of the ten handed HE tables that he had replaced with a nine handed table a couple of months ago. If so, that means that maybe we can squeeze one more table into the new section, giving us 13 tables. I hope so!



The next section will be non-smoking, since the ceiling is lower in that area, and it will be more confined. This is a welcome change, too, as things have been nuts with the smoking/non-smoking issue at the Belle in recent weeks.


Monday, March 08, 2004

Monday, March 8, 2004

Warning, bad beats ahead. Proceed with caution. LOL :)



Hold'em tourneys at the Belle are turning into my worst nightmare. I simply cannot win if we see a flop. It is a phenomenon, and a very strange one, but true nevertheless.



Tonight saw me get killed at two tables. At my first tourney table, I was dealt these hands during the limit portion of the tournament (the first hour): ATs (sb), TT, K2o (bb), A4s (sb).



Not that great, you notice most of them were in one of the two blinds. None of them won.



In the NLHE portion I went all-in immediately with AKo followed by KQo, both on the button and cut-off when no one had entered the pot. I won without a flop.



I was transferred to table one. Betty was to my right. Even poor Betty, who is absolutely clueless, can tell when a player is running bad. She can sniff it in the air, and goes for the kill. Yes, even the weak will prey on the lame and crippled, if they see everyone else running her down.



I got KK in the BB. It was passed to Betty in the SB. She only had 3 chips. One was for her SB, so she had two in her stack. She completed the BB with QTs, something she would normally muck, but she knew I was losing every hand. So she completed. I naturally put her all-in. She gladly called, knowing that no matter what I had, she would outdraw it.



Sure enough, runner-runner straight, 6-T with her ten. A few people at the table groaned. Someone asked, "Don't you feel bad?" She giggled like a schoolgirl and said, "No way! I'll take it!"



That is the difference between someone like Betty and me. Even though I don't care for Betty, I would have said something to make her feel a bit better about her constant beats. I wouldn't have smeared it in her face by raising my arms and pumping in the air, a la Rocky, while giggling like I was nine years old.



Right after this, I got AQs. I raised all-in for my last four chips. I was called in three places (yeah, these guys can sniff a bad beat coming on). JTo, K7o, 97o.



The 97o guy got a nine, the highest thing on the board. No hearts, no ace, no queen, even though my hand was completely live.



Usually I'd be happy to be getting all-in calls from hands so dominated like this, but the problem is, they know they are dominated, but they are all-too-glad to call, having seen me bust out of the last seven tourneys so horribly. What is 400 to them? "It is only twice the big blind, any two will do, and Felicia is running so badly, we can surely outdraw her."



I didn't even get in the top 20. Now Doc Campbell is so far ahead of me in points that I have no chance to catch up. Glenn will be playing in the WPT instead.



After I busted out, I watched Glenn. He was playing well. He made the final table with a few bold moves. He was the shortest stack of the ten there. He let players bust out, as the final table was very aggressive this evening. He went from tenth to fourth. He saw players with 7x his chip count bust out, while he moved steadily up in the money. I was very proud of Glenn, as he seemed to be in the "zone" during this tourney.



I have railed against Glenn before for not sticking up for himself or someone at the table when there is a problem. Well, I couldn't have been more surprised when Glenn suddenly started going ballistic when they were down to the final 14 or so. Glenn was at table two, along with Larry and this very, very old man. The old man is the sweetest thing in the world, he comes to Laughlin a few times per year, and wouldn't hurt a fly, but moves extremely slowly.



The problem started when a dealer named Ed pushed into the box. Ed is a very experienced dealer, and usually a nice guy. I have never had a problem with him. Well, Ed must have been in the mood from hell.



According to Glenn, both the elderly man and Larry were involved in a hand. The flop came down. Larry checked. The elderly man didn't respond. Instead of Ed asking him to make his move, or if he was checking, Ed just burned and turned. The elderly man protested. Ed pulled back the turn card. Larry protested then, knowing that card would be shuffled and another, which might not help him, would be dealt in it's place. The elderly man continued with, "I never got a chance to act."



Ed said, "Well hurry up! We haven't got all day!" Larry tried to call the floor, but instead, Ed just swept up the cards after the elderly man had bet and Larry said, "Fine, whatever!" and awarded the elderly man the pot.



On the very next hand, the same thing happened. This time, Larry held his ground. Glenn jumped up from the table yelling, "Doug, Doug!" Glenn tried to get Ed to stop. Ed was rude and condescending, once again, saying, "He didn't call the bet (Larry), it doesn't matter, we don't need the floor!"



Doug is the sweetest thing in the world, but he just stood there, and didn't really make any decision since Ed completed the hand before Doug could be brought over. We were all gaping at Ed and his atrocious behavior. Glenn really tried to stand up for the cause, but he didn't get anywhere. Larry just "gave up" finally and threw his cards at Ed's hand (something he doesn't normally do, and is not acceptable).



Oddly enough, Glenn, Larry, and the elderly man all got to the final table, and were three of the final five. The other was a young kid, late 20's maybe, who was very cocky and bordering on being a maniac. He raised about every three hands at our first table (when I was still in), and then raised about every other hand when it got own to the final five or six at the final table.



When Glenn got knocked out at fourth, the other three had about the same in chips. Larry, the elderly man, and the kid. Larry suggested an even chop. The kid looked incredulous, like he thought they were crazy that he would take a deal with "two old men whom I can obviously outplay." These kids never take into consideration that the blind structure is so high, by that time, that it is anyone's game. Not to mention the fact that Larry and the elderly man weren't senile. They can hold their own at the Belle.



Well, we left, but Larry told me that after he got knocked out in third, the kid thought better of his refusal and proposed a deal. I guess he wised up, but just a tad late for Larry. Go get 'em next time, Larry!

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Before the tourney, there was a guy from California playing at my table. He would not shut up. He could not stop talking for an instant. Dude, sometimes I talk a lot, but I am never rude while someone is in a hand or the action is on them. I try to be respectful. Mostly he was talking about how great he was and how everyone else sucks. Not necessarily at the Belle, but at poker, in general. He was trying to be the table pro. He was so happy to find out that he drew a seat next to me for the tourney. Luckily, Glenn wears headphones and listens to music, so he didn't mind switching seats with me. When the guy asked why I wasn't sitting next to him, and he had to sit next to Glenn instead, Glenn told him I liked the other table better, lol. Poor, old PC Glenn. I would have said, "Because you absolutely never shut up, and I can't even hear myself think! Not only that, but you aren't interesting in the slightest, and you think you are God's gift to poker." Glenn said he talked that way through the entire tourney, bragging about tourney wins in California, fish he kills at the cash tables, etc. Someone said he was a lawyer. I'll bet he wins all of his cases. The opposition probably just says, "Okay, okay, I give up, you win. Now will you please shut up???"

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During the tourney, at my first table, there was a couple from California. The man was Anglo, the woman was Asian and really as cute as a button. They were very friendly. I was sitting in the two seat, smack in between them. The woman had a hilarious sense of humor. After losing several buy-in's with bad beat after bad beat, she kept up her good cheer. Her husband asked her how many times she'd had to buy-in, and she told him. She asked, "Are we broke yet? Do I need to sell myself on the street? Oh, I know, I could sell those dirty pictures. You know, the ones I took of you naked?" I was cracking up at them all night.



They both got pretty far. The wife was out about 15th, the husband made the final table and got out at 5th, right before Glenn. He had such a huge stack I thought he would make it to the end, but it only takes a couple of bad beats, and at his demise, when he was crippled, he choked. He went ahead and called an all-in with 42o in the BB when it was raised. I guess he just had enough, and wanted to go home. Go figure.