Mic check...mic check...is this thing on?

Been a while.

So, as you can probably guess, working at the casino has been eating into my time for poker to a point. Couple that with the fact I've been running fairly badly, and it's nice to have a stable job I enjoy to counter-act the fact that I've been losing money online lately.

Thus, when some co-workers asked if I wanted to come along on a Fallsview poker run, I could hardly pass them up, it'd be my first live poker in a fair while.

So, I went on down to Fallsview Saturday night, and sat at a 5/5 game. The game was absolutely extra-ordinary to be sitting in. Here's a quick run down of the table.

Seat 1 : Me.
Seat 2 : Co-worker, also a very strong player.
Seat 3 : French guy who played fairly well also.
Seat 4 : Player who literally kept reloading 100 bucks at a time damn near every 3rd hand and would go bust rail thin.
Seat 5 : Incredibly tight player who was modestly decent if WAY too tight.
Seat 6 : Just a generally weak player, older guy, fairly standard player.
Seat 7 : Talkitive guy, real lippy with Seat 5 most of the night, an average player at best, was willing to go broke real thin also.
Seat 8 : Good young player.
Seat 9 : Another just typical bad player.
Seat 10 : I can't even describe him, he was a fairly agressive player, and it was moderately successful, but he always took the goofiest line, and it never altered. He'd play every pot he could OOP, and then take the same betting line(30 bucks on the flop since he's first to act, 50 bucks on the turn, 100 bucks on the river). The problem was, he never, ever showed down a bad hand...I think he was just a bad player who never, ever missed making top pair.

Anyway, the table's the kind I like, it wasn't wild, flops could be seen for relatively cheap, and I felt I could outplay anyone at the table. I was incredibly comfortable...this helped :

First rotation, which I typically like to take off, UTG open raises to 30 bucks, and promptly gets 4 callers to me, when I look down at AA. I re-bump to 150, maybe I could go more, but I don't want to lose everyone with a chance at a big hand the first hand I'm putting in play. Blinds fold around and UTG re-shoves, he has me covered. Everyone else folds and I call. He rolls over AQ. Okay...ship the early double up.

After this hand I go back into a shell. Typically I like playing more agressively, but I was a little concerned with a couple solid players at the table to get too wild, so I decided to just sit back and pick small spots to bully the tight players at the table, which basically kept me afloat for a really long card dead spell, until I got into a hand with the ultra-tight player. He raised from fairly EP to 30, and got 2 callers to me, and I looked at QQ. I decided to define it right here, and re-raised to 120. I figured if he even called or re-shoved, I was done with the hand flop regardless. He did call. Other folded. Flop was K/7/4, and he lead out. I didn't even put him on AK, he had folded it several times already to re-raises, so I figured he surely had AA or KK(which is what he had). I had a discussion afterwards with my buddy from the casino about if I double him through on a rag board, and I said no, because I felt as soon as he called I was behind, and wasn't putting another chip in the pot barring a Q on the flop. The only flop I go broke with was KQx.

Anyway, that took a little chunk out of me, and some time elapsed, again, and then the one hand I really wanted to share because I was very happy with my play.

The talkitive guy raised to 25 preflop, and got a couple of callers to me in the SB with 6c/4c, so I called also. At this point the pot was 80. The flop was 4/5/6 rainbow. I led out quick, 60 into the 80, my gameplan at this point was that I wanted to see if I could define where I was in this hand for that price, rather than check and face action to me. I got a big problem when the super-tight player called, and it was made worse by the talkitive guy raising to 180 and declaring he had a high pair. I beleived that, absolutely positive he was telling the truth, so I wanted to get chips in against him, but the tight player calling scared the hell out of me. So I had 2 options now. I could easily fold here and just let the tight guy take him on, or I could shove. Calling isn't an option on this board for sure. So I decided that I'd only get a call from the tight guy if he was holding 7/8, and he had shown a penchant for betting his hands so I felt he'd raise if he had the nuts. And so I shoved in for 850. Tight guy proceeded to go into the tank for honestly forever, really making me sweat that he might not want to let what I assumed was a flopped set go. He finally folded, and the talkitive guy called off with a high pair I never saw since we kept our cards face down as they dealt the turn and river and he mucked to my two pair. Turn river went Q/10 so it wasn't either of those pairs, or maybe he didn't have a high pair. The real story was when the tight player said he folded the low straight, 2/3. I, and the other players who knew what they were doing all beleived him because he had shown a willingness to gamble every once in a while preflop, but avoided any action on any flop without a massive hand, so seeing him in the hand with 2/3 isn't immensely out of question, but I'm really not sure I beleive that all the same. The way the hand played out I felt like it looked like I was just gunning for the talkitive guy, which kind of was the case in that I knew I had him beat and wanted to isolate him. Anyway, the hand was fairly interested, I'm moderately proud of the shove regardless of what the other guy folded, and I was up to around 1300.

I didn't do much for the next long period of time, until the big hand that defined my night more or less. I had run card dead for about 2 hours, barely playing a hand except a goofy hand where I decided to raise from EP with 6d/3d and gotten called by the other good player that wasn't my co-worker, and wound up with a 10/3/3 flop and won a small pot off him.

I was telling my buddy I was ready to leave, because I can't stand sitting in a game and being tight for this long(it had been an 8 hour session by this point and I had played a handful of hands at best that were any conceivable action, saw alot of flops, kept missing).

So, I finally got a decent hand after looking at J/3 and K/2 for 2 hours, Kc/Qc. By no means a world beater, but at this point I was willing to play. So I tossed in a raise to 25 from late position after one EP limp(the guy that seemingly ran so good it scared me and always took the same betting line). The BB called. The flop ran out Jh/10d/3h. Complicated. The BB checked, the other player checked, so I decided to make a C-Bet with a fairly weak draw, and bet out 50 bucks. Both players called. Pot was 225. Turn was a brick, a 4s. They both checked again, and I decided to just check and give it up at this point unless I made something, free card. Gin card for free. River was the 9c. Stone nuts. UTG checks now, and the other player checks. I fire out, 125. UTG smoothe calls the 125, and the other player raises to 350 total. The only concern I have now is that I might be chopping with one of them but I can't figure this out yet, I have 1100 infront of me, so I merely shove all in to see if I can get action from a lower end straight. The BB now goes into the tank/goes into a tirade about how I just rivered him, which confuses me a bit, because I have no earthly idea what he has that I just rivered him except a real piss-poorly played big hand on the flop. He finally folds after a while and the other guy snap calls. I sigh because we're chopping, then see him roll over Q/8. Yay! The pot was just a hare under 2500. The other guy says he folded top two pair, which if that's the case, I've never seen anyone play top 2 on a board like that, that poorly in my life.

That's pretty much the end of my day, from there the table started to deteriorate, and people filed out, me and my buddy ended up having 10 minutes of heads up play since we were leaving at the end of the session they let us stay for the end of the session to play heads up(this is at 6am), so we upped the game to 5/10(because 5/5 heads up is goofy) and he took about 100 off me. That ends my night, cashed out and left.

The thing I've realized during that game is, Fallsview's 5/5 game is one of the ultimate cash cows around. Typically I like playing fairly agressive and mixing it up, but because of how card-dead I was, I realized that even if you don't play a hand in 2 hours, you can still get action. No one cares or pays any attention. They'll always pay you off. You could sit back, play a tight ABC poker game, and be a huge winning player in that game long term. It's my intention to go back there often and sit in that game, it's hard to lose.