11.10.09

Back to work

Posted in Random at 8:08 pm by pygmyhero

I don’t think I’ve posted about it too extensively on this blog, but I have a real life job at a real estate office in downtown DC. So while I was away in Atlantic City (I am very fortunate to have a fair amount of scheduling flexibility), work was piling up back home. I’ve been pretty busy this past week catching up on everything at work, in life, getting my coaching schedule back together, etc.

And while I had a great time in AC, the truth is I’m really glad to be back. I like having a normal sleeping schedule. I like being able to cook and having access to healthy food. I like being able to exercise easily (though I can proudly say I did exercise all but the last few days of the AC trip). I like having my own space. I like that it’s not noisy all the time, everywhere.

I think for future trips to AC I’m going to change some things. First off, they might be shorter. If not I will make efforts to break the trip up somehow. For example, it’d be great to get out of the casino and take a day off from poker. I think I’d also benefit from some opportunities to just get away from everyone for a day or so. After a week of straight poker (playing it, talking about it at all meals, being surrounded by poker players, etc.) I was definitely not enjoying it as much. And the last few days of the trip I was totally worn out and frankly sick of poker and most everyone on the trip (nothing personal against those people – I’m sure they understand what I mean and felt the same way about me).

Anyway, I’m pretty much back to normal in my non-casino life. I’ve been getting up every day at 6-6:30am, hitting the gym regularly, spending some time reading (again, impossible to do in the noise of a casino), going out, spending time with my wife, etc. It is really good to be back – I feel very lucky and appreciative of all the non poker things I have in my life.

11.06.09

AC Fall 2009 Trip, Table of Contents

Posted in Poker, Trip Reports at 8:35 am by pygmyhero

In case you missed anything:

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Pictures!
Other highlights

AC Fall 2009 Trip, Miscellaneous

Posted in Poker, Trip Reports tagged , , , , , , at 8:29 am by pygmyhero

A few highlights I couldn’t find a good spot for in any other day:

The funniest place someone got hit by a bankroll during the trip was the: clavicle.

Prop bets:

allstarrt, BigBadBabar, and I had an ongoing prop bet on who would get carded the most during the trip. As this was a competitive endeavor I contemplated shaving in an effort to get carded more. BBB threatened that if I did that he would respond by getting his hair cut. Anyway, despite the fact that he easily looks (and is) the youngest allstarrt was carded the least. BigBadBabar ended up taking this one down, getting carded over 40 times during the trip.

A few of us were in the food court one day and BBB was finishing up his orbit before joining us. He came down, found where we were sitting, and then walked away to order some food. A few minutes later we realized he hadn’t returned. Knowing elephants can be a bit ponderous I said, ‘I’ll bet BBB hasn’t even ordered food yet. Do I have action?’ allstarrt took the bet, and then we frantically ran around the food court area for two minutes trying to find BBB. When we finally found him he was wandering back from the bathroom. Ship!

And my favorite bet: the stone throw. As allstarrt, BBB, and I were driving in BBB declared we were a stone’s throw from the Borgata.

Me: False. You have action.
BBB: Okay, not literally. But I could make it in two throws.
Me: Someone is hedging! But you still have action. It is not close.

When we got up to our room we surveyed the highway and agreed on the spot where BBB would be throwing from (it was easy to see from our window on the 38th floor). From this new perspective BBB asked for three throws. I told him he still had action. Every single person who later arrived was told about the prop and laughingly picked against BBB.

Unfortunately there are too many highways in the way for us to actually do this prop, so I suggested measuring out a distance by making marks on the window and then walking it out on the ground. We would then use some geometry to calculate the total distance, bring BBB to an empty field, and measure his throws. BBB was a bit skeptical of my methodology, so I elaborated: ‘We’d measure from here to here, do some simple algebra, and correct for the curvature of the earth!’ When met with BBB’s incredulity I continued, ‘Well there might be a slight lensing effect from this window here…’

We also started a new trend. If you try to fist bump or high five someone and they leave you hanging you chastise them by saying, “Don’t E-Dog me bro!” If this does not succeed and you are left un-bumped, you just got Flacked!

11.05.09

AC Fall 2009 Trip, Pictures

Posted in Poker, Trip Reports tagged , , , , , , , at 9:54 pm by pygmyhero

One of my favorite Halloween moments: the Burger King down in the food court ordering from Fatburger.

Burger King at Fatbruger 1

We had a problem with our room keys. The result was:

Room keys

AmityDewey and estornudo playing their heads up match. Yes, those are jumbo size cards. Note the special effort we made to create a green baize.

HU Match

Some people may not know that Nina Williams is a bit of a Tazmanian Devil. As near as everyone else could tell he goes through a room and just throws stuff everywhere. An example (he actually did this and didn’t know we caught him):

Nina lines the bathroom

Obligatory bankroll shot:

Bankroll

And perhaps my favorite picture. One day I walked into the bathroom and thought, ‘You’ll have SO MANY metrosexuals!’ It was also wryly amusing since the smell in the room contrasted rather sharply with the orderliness this picture conveys.

So Many Metrosexuals

11.04.09

AC Fall 2009 Trip, Day 11

Posted in Poker, Trip Reports tagged , , , , , , , , , at 11:13 am by pygmyhero

Sunday, November 1, 2009

estornudo (while on the phone ordering room service): Hey Nina, do you want something to drink with that?
Nina Williams: Water.
allstarrt: Fiji water?
Nina Williams: No, water from the Jersey Shore.
[everyone lol's]
Nina Williams: It has smokestacks on the bottle.

Dealers we like at the Borgata:

I think we can all agree that King Man has the best name ever.

One of the dealers figured out we play on the internet and now says, “confirm” to us constantly. Example:
Player: Raise.
Dealer: Confirm raise.
Player (while rolling hand): Two pair.
Dealer: Confirm top two.

BigBadBabar and I were talking to a different dealer while trying to see if the pink chip game would go. He told us he’d been watching us and he knows we’re all good and that people in our group actually win. I know a lot of the dealers play poker also, so I’m not surprised that some of them notice, but it was still a bit funny to hear (reminiscent of when a Foxwoods regular came to the same conclusion in this story).

Despite winning (i.e., not paying) for either credit card roulette, here’s an obligatory Nina Williams run bad story:

A few of us, including Nina, went down to the food court to grab a snack. Ten minute later allstarrt came down:

allstarrt: [Nina,] You might want to not go back up there.
Nina: Why?
allstarrt: Your table just hit the bad beat jackpot.

A few minutes later my wife calls and asks if Nina hit the bad beat jackpot. I explain that his table hit it, but Nina wasn’t there. For the rest of the day every table I was at talked about the kid who wasn’t at the table when the jackpot hit. As Nina later explained to Stan, the Borgata Poker Room Director, “I was too busy enjoying my nine thousand dollar smoothie.”

11.03.09

AC Fall 2009 Trip, Day 10

Posted in Poker, Trip Reports tagged , , , , , , , , , , , at 9:11 pm by pygmyhero

Saturday, October 31, 2009

As our room is a bit overly crowded at times, when you get up it has been common courtesy to wake up someone who has been sleeping on the floor and get them into the bed space you vacated. When I did that this morning, the following conversation actually happened:

Me: BigBadBabar, wake up.
BBB: mmmmmm…
Me: Get up – there’s a spot on the bed.
BBB: Jizz?
Me: No. We all already agreed on the rules about that.
BBB: mmmmmm…
Me: Come on, there’s an open spot for you in the bed.
BBB: Seat open?
Me: Lock it up.

An interesting hand I played.

As it was Halloween there were a lot of pretty wild costumes in the casino. Not so much in the poker room, though one of the floormen did dress up as a Borgata Babe (the cocktail waitresses have relatively skimping ‘uniforms’ of course), which was hilarious. Ms.Bungle also had a really great costume as Lady Luck. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures as cameras are fairly verboten in the casino.

In the evening we went to Izakaya to celebrate. A few of us decided to credit card roulette for the bill (there were a few buyouts), and amazingly Nina Williams was the first card out again. We all dismayed when this occurred. estornudo (the loser from last time) was next, followed by allstarrt, and BigBadBabar. That left me heads up with fivecardarmy, the trip’s token No Limit player. He lucked out and I picked up the check.

11.01.09

AC Fall 2009 Trip, Day 9

Posted in Poker, Trip Reports tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 2:21 pm by pygmyhero

Friday, October 30, 2009

As I blogged previously, estornudo and AmityDewey played a heads up match in the hotel room. They needed some chips so we stopped by the cage and bought a few racks of white chips.

On our way upstairs we got into an elevator with four guys who were clearly inebriated. At first they didn’t really notice us, and then they were really curious about why we had chips. But since they were intoxicated it was all a bit non-sensical / comical:

‘What’s that? How much do you have there?’
‘Are those chips worth a lot? Are those $1,000 dollar chips? Let’s get them!’ (they were clearly $1 white chips)
‘How many do you have? It looks like a lot. Is that a couple thousand dollars?’ (each rack was clearly only 100 chips and we had two)

Luckily we ended up NOT getting mugged in the elevator.

bigbluffben1 arrived yesterday, and it was actually his 21st birthday. Happy birthday! He got carded a few times, but was able to drink and gamble no problem.

Ms.Bungle also arrived today, so our group is still pretty large (a few of the earlier arrivals have already left).

A big mixed game has been running in the back corner of the high limit session every now and then. We have seen a few pros in it, including John D’Agostino, John Hennigan, and Greg Raymer. I’ve also heard that Nick Frangos is around but haven’t seen him.

Collectively I think we are all getting a bit worn down. It seems that each day we play fewer and fewer hours of poker – it’s just hard to keep grinding. I remember this happening on the previous trip after about a week as well. Consistent readers may have noticed my poker content (especially the posting of hands) has dropped off a fair bit.

Anyway, I have been taking some shots at $20/$40, which unfortunately have not gone particularly well. I played an hour a few days ago, during which time I did not win (literally) a single pot. I think I made a good quitting decision considering my poor table image at that point and the fact that the game turned out to be not as good as it initially looked.

The other day I took another shot and needed to wait another half hour before I dragged my first ever pot in the game. This despite the fact that we played 4-5 handed that whole time. I didn’t really play any interesting hands – it was mostly missing a few decent draws and getting top pair beaten repeatedly.

So…it didn’t go as well as I had hoped, but I feel it was a valuable learning experience. I also really feel I played well and made good quits.

10.30.09

AC Fall 2009 Trip, Day 8

Posted in Poker, Trip Reports tagged , , , , , , , at 1:06 pm by pygmyhero

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Today was a bit of a slow day as far as poker is concerned, so here are a few stories from earlier in the trip:

Every morning I get breakfast to go from Bread and Butter and then bring it back to the hotel lobby. One morning I was setting up my laptop and spread out my bagel, orange juice, and banana.

An old man sitting across from me looked up and said, ‘Who has it better than you?’

I looked back, smiled, and shrugged. You are right sir – I win at life.

We are on the 38th floor of the casino hotel. There are three sets of elevators (so the first covers proably 1-15, the second 16-31, etc.). This means that our elevator can (and does) shoot guests up 32 floors without ever needing to stop.

We’ve been timing it and it seems to take ~10 seconds to fire people up the 32 floors, and about 13 to drop them the same distance (presumably because it needs to apply the brakes sooner on the way down).

The whole experience is a bit odd. My ears pop pretty often during the rides, and once or twice I’ve even been a little bit unbalanced walking around after stepping out of the elevator (I assume this has to do with my inner ear being out of equilibrium).

BigBadBabar and I recorded episode 5 of Elephant Tamer, and AmityDewey and estornudo played a heads up match in the room at the same time. I think the video came out really well (it will be up on DeucesCracked on November 2nd), and the match between Amity and estornudo was pretty epic.

I think it lasted about 2 hours, and came close to ending on the following hand:

Amity limps QQ on the button, esotrnudo raises AA in the big blind, Amity limp re-raises, estornudo calls all in. They flip up their hands and everyone explodes in laughter.

I call out, ‘I will take 63o.’

The door card of the flop is a 3…followed by a T…and another 3! I take a commanding lead. The turn is a 7 and just for good measure my theoretical hand boats up on the river 6.

Despite the double up estronudo busted a few hands later.

10.29.09

AC Fall 2009 Trip, Day 7

Posted in Poker, Trip Reports tagged , , , , , , , at 6:35 pm by pygmyhero

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Fresh fruit is pretty hard to come by in the casino. BigBadBabar and I both eat a lot of fruit, so we tend to buy up quite a bit from our favorite breakfast spot, Bread & Butter. The other day I picked up a banana for BBB and brought it and a sandwich back up to the room for him.

While he was eating his sandwich allstarrt began making a series of ninja-like poses that I only wish I could describe verbally. He then ran over to the bed where BBB was sitting and delivered a karate chop to the banana.

Although the banana was still edible (but clearly dented) BBB decided to NOT eat it. He decided a better option was to also karate chop the banana. This degenerated quickly and BBB at one point ended up having allstarrt hold the banana and then karate chopping it into the wall.

Here’s a 3-bet that I think would be pretty easy to miss live:

I open Ah Js in MP and get called in a few spots.
Flop is Jh 8h 5h, BB checks his hand (but ONLY one card), I bet, and BB calls.
Turn is a brick, I bet, he check/raises, and I 3-bet.

To me the key to the hand is that when people are suited they almost always know which suit they have. In my experience when people check they are looking to see if they have a single high suited card. This means that his best possible hand here is Kh Jo, which I have nutted in all sorts of ways.

Here’s a hand I think I might have botched:

Hand 1

One last funny hand:

A tight player raises UTG, someone cold calls, a poster cold calls, two more players in position cold calls, the SB cold calls, and I quietly laugh to myself that I probably can’t fold many hands here.

I look down at 53o and toss in the call.

Flop (14 SB): 7d 6d 4s (7 players)
UTG bets, 1 fold, the poster raises, 1 fold, 1 cold call, 1 fold, Hero check/raises, UTG folds, the others all call.

Turn (12 BB): 4d (3 players)
I bet, both villains call

River (15 BB): 3h (3 players)
I bet, the poster raises, 1 fold, Hero calls

Villain exclaims ‘STRAIGHT!’
I say, ‘Me too,’ and roll my hand.
He slams down pocket fives and yells, ‘How can you have a straight? I have two in my hand!’

He goes on for a minute or so and finally I quietly say, ‘How can you river a three? I have one in my hand.’

One other highlight for the day was that ottsville, AmityDewey, and me all went back to the room after dinner and had a ‘calling the wife’ party.

10.28.09

AC Fall 2009 Trip, Day 6

Posted in Poker, Trip Reports tagged , , , , , , , , , , , at 12:24 pm by pygmyhero

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Today was the best day of the trip by far. My wife made a day trip to join us for a little bit, despite her busy med school schedule. She ended up spending more time driving than she did visiting us, which is impressive dedication (also she got back well after midnight and I know she had class early the next day (today as I post this)).

Here’s her account of the day.

Given the effort involved I thought it’d be nice to treat her to a special dinner, so everyone in our group (9 of us as Nina Williams arrived today) went to Bobby Flay Steakhouse. There wasn’t much interest in doing credit card roulette for the whole bill this time, so we all just picked up our own drinks, entrees, desserts, etc. But we did share the sides, so we decided to draw for that part of the bill.

Shockingly (and dishearteningly) Nina Williams was the first safe card out of the hat. Lysistrata (my wife) was next, followed by Busting you, Amity Dewey, ottsville, allstarrt, and BigBadBabar. That left estornudo and me on the hook, and amazingly I won the flip.

However, we did take a picture of the bill, which AmityDewey is going to send to his wife, saying he lost at credit card roulette (a la aumorgan last trip).

Anyway, it was a great dinner and a wonderful day. I didn’t play much poker,but it was a great break about halfway through the trip to see my wife again.

Sweating is +EV Example 1

BBB comes over to sweat me and I pick up Ad Jd in EP. I raise and 5 of us see a flop of 6d 4c 3d. I bet and 4 of us go to the turn, which is the 9d. I bet and get two calls. The river is an offsuit 7, a player donks, I raise and get paid off by his obvious straight. I tip BBB a $1 chip for the sweat.

Sweating is +EV Example 2

Two hands later allstarrt walks over and I pick up Ac Qc UTG. I raise and get a cold call by a player in position. I bet the Qh Qd 4s flop, get raised, and call. The turn is a brick and I check/raise. The river is also a blank and I get paid off by trips with a worse kicker. I tip allstarrt a $1 chip (which I assume was later lost to the roulette wheel).

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