Riverside Fun

Many things have been said about me. Mostly true ;) One thing that is usually never said is that I'm boring. There is always some controversy stirring up around me, for whatever reason. Some of it is brought on by myself. I seems to tackle issues head on and never veer away from looking at the world critically, rather than through rose colored glasses.

In my personal life, I'd say I'm pretty boring and most of the time uneventful. The gardening, the poker, the husband and 1.5 dogs (we actually have three, but all three together only weigh about 10 lbs.).

Anyway, things at Riverside are never dull. Always some huge happenings there. Someday maybe I'll write a book.

I took 4th in the tourney last night by dumb luck alone. I literally was all-in blind three rounds in a row. I hate to get "blinded out," but it was the oddest thing. Either so many people would go out on one hand before I could stick my chips in that suddenly I was in the blind again, tables would combine, or some other combination of craziness which necessitated I had no choice but wait until the big blind.

In one bizarre hand I had only 6k left. The blinds had just increased to 2/4k. I put in 4k with J9o and flopped absolutely nothing on a queen high, all heart board. So when the table passive, calling station bet out (she always bet the minimum), I knew I was dead and kept the 2k for the all-in SB. This is not something I normally do.

In my all-in SB, I just happened to wake up with AJo and turn an ace while I was up against Ax and K4s (K4s had flopped a king all-in).

Then the next round, I was all-in blind when the blinds suddenly increased to 4/8k and I had A7o. I runnered a straight against the same passive calling station who had only limped on the button with AQs.

Since it's summer, the tourney had a low turnout of only about 40 players. Top 8 got paid, and somehow I made it to the final table with a blind left. I was in good position, and one player was already out before the blind got to me. UTG I pushed with AQo, never one to try to just fold my way into the money (especially since no one had any chips, not even the chipleader). The BB had KT and got his ten, but I also flopped my queen. Ship it.

Soon the bubble busted, and we were in the money, albeit very low money. I once again picked up AQo and pocket tens called. I got an ace.

I then got blinded down like mad, with nothing above a ten for the next few rounds, and had no chips. Finally I busted out in fourth when the SB let me see a free flop with Q3o. The flop came AA3, two spades. I pushed with my trey, he happened to have two spades. I then got a queen, but he got spades and IGHN.

The NLHE game was already rocking next to me. I knew I had a better expectation there, so immediately bought in, without even getting paid for the tourney first. The combination of crazy Californians, crazy locals and too much discretionary income from many sources led to pots raised to $100 blind by a player almost every hand. He must have had unlimited funds, because even rebuying for 1k only lasted him four hands. He was in for probably at least 4k by the time we left.

I was rattled during my first hand because the ace of spades was so badly marked that my opponents could see the marking at the opposite end of the table. I had AKo. I was playing handcuffed and not happy at all about the situation. The guy sitting to my right had pocket tens. I had position on the table, obviously, but flopped nothing and got out. The floorman replaced the whole deck and gave a serious warning about cheating by marking cards and how someone might end up in jail that night if they didn't shape up.

I never really got anything going on in that game, although the money was very deep. I kept looking the the soft 4/8 Kill game next door to me. Eventually I requested a move to greener pastures.

I have learned the hard way that repairing a bad table image, one of being too tight, too passive, paranoid and easy to get off of hands is sometimes next to impossible. While I could have made a nice score simply sitting and waiting for a monster, I decided I'd rather play more hands and run over the 4/8. I made a little over $100 in the next hour or so, and I was happy with that.

Because of getting aces cracked, I am now in the freeroll on Wednesday. While I don't trust Riverside any farther than I can throw them, I'll show up anyway. Glenn won his entry a few days ago, so I was going regardless. This is only a 1k freeroll, but something is better than nothing, and that is what we pay the rake for.

I would like to continue with my psych series, but I just don't have the steam for it. We are playing every night except Monday's, in an effort to see how fast we can make 10k. It's not a race or anything, but this is the first time we've made an attempt to actually do something with our poker earnings rather than just build our bankroll.

Our car is five years old now, and we would like to go to a smaller car, hopefully diesel, which we can convert to bio-diesel. So we'll see how that goes.

Right now we're earning about $100 each per day, so it should only take 50 days to do this if we continue to run well.

Hope you are having a good weekend!

Felicia :)