I’ll be arriving in Las Vegas on Friday January 13th at 11:34 pm and leaving on Saturday the 14th at 6:35 am. I’ve had a one hour layover in Vegas before, but I’m looking forward to this one. It’ll be my first real time in the Sin City even if it’s only for 7 hours. Dave and I will be coming back from MacWorld in San Francisco and he rigged our flights for a long layover (which was actually cheaper). We’ll be running off the plane for the nearest taxi. Which casino should we hit up for some low limit hold’em? We’ll most likely have 4-5 hours to work with.
Tag: Casino Poker
Soaring
I also took a trip this weekend to the Soaring Eagle Casino so I could play some poker with my dear ol’ brother. I decided to take a different route, as I tried out the 6/12 game for the first time in my life. It is quite a bit different, as the players up there have more common sense, and your good plays actually stand up.
I bought in at around 11:30 a.m. or so and saw my Nick over at the 3/6 table and gave him a wave. I purchased 200 in chips because I figured I should get twice as many as I get at 3/6, and I was right. After about an hour or so, I was down to about 60, still getting used to the more experienced players. As the time passed, I had gotten my stack back up to about even, when my mom and my sister gave us their best, as they had to catch the bus back up North. This must have been around 3:00 p.m.
Live Again
I didn’t play much poker in the last week. Only one session on Party Poker for a few hours and a $1.50 loss.
Yesterday I headed over to the Soaring Eagle Casino in Mt. Pleasant for some live action. I walked into the poker room at about 11:15 and was seated at a $3/6 table in less than 15. I sat in the same seat for ten and a half hours and saw the table makeup change quite a bit. At first the table was extremely loose passive. When someone raised preflop everyone else kind of game them the look. After a few hours the table tightened up quite a bit as players came and went. As the night went on the table got a little looser, but overall it wasn’t a good table to be play at.
I ended up losing $124 on the night. There were some bets I should have saved, but I’ll account that to not playing in a live game in months. I’ll definitely never be a live tournament player. I must have tells up the ass that any real players would catch onto in a heartbeat. I just don’t understand how I can be down to the final table in an online tournament with thousands on the line and my heart doesn’t skip a beat. In a live cash game when I check-raise with the nuts get the shakes. What is wrong with me?
Poker Podcasts
On my rides to and from work each day I’ve been listening to poker podcasts. Listening to poker discussions keep my mind off the traffic. In the mornings the poker talk gets my mind thinking and after work it helps to relax me after a long day.
My favorite poker podcast without a doubt is Card Club on Lord Admiral Radio. Cincinnati Sean, Brent Stacks, and everyone else who contribute to the show to an excellent job. Congrats on your 1 year anniversary guys!
Another poker podcast I started listening to is Rounders. It’s actually a poker radio show that they turn into a podcast. The radio station is Team 1040 AM out of Vancouver, Canada. My favorite part of the show has been the interviews with some of the top names from the poker world.
What do you know…my two favorite poker podcasts are both from Canada…eh! As a lifetime Michiganer I’m glad to finally find something good to come from our friends across the lake. 😉
Another popular poker podcast is Poker Diagram by Henry and Zog. It comes all the way from London. Each week they play some kind of online poker and discuss their play and other things poker. I listened to a couple of episodes and it was put together well.
I’m sure there are many other podcasts out there related to poker. Do you have some I didn’t mention? Leave a comment because I’d love to check them out.
Taking a Break
Lately I have been taking a break from all types of poker, online, casino, everything. The only poker in my life as of now is the WSOP on ESPN. Even though I already know what happens and who makes it how far, I still need to watch and enjoy the plays being made. I’m sure poker will be coming back into my life very soon, but for now, there isn’t much going on.
A rebuilding night
Once again this weekend, I went to the casino for a few hours to play some poker and hang out with friends. Thursday night I drove over for about three hours and lost $160 very quickly, but won it all back and walked away $50 ahead, but not from poker. I played roulette for the very first time and walked away from the table with $250. Friday night I went back up and won $100 at poker and $20 at roulette. Saturday night I went with a couple of friends who only wanted to stay for about an hour, so I decided not to play poker because I knew the list would be too long and I’d never even get to play, so I played roulette. I couldn’t hit a damn thing, I was down $220. I knew I had to play poker for a little while on Sunday and try to win some of that $220 back, so I went and tried my luck, but blew around $150 before I even made it to the poker table.
Soaring Profits
Once again this Thursday took me to CMU and to the Soaring Eagle Casino. I showed up at the casino around 7 p.m., figuring I’d play for a few hours until my friends were done at the Lil’ Scrappy concert. I put my name on the list for 3-6 hold ’em and had to wait about 15 minutes. While I was waiting I figured I’d try my luck at blackjack, I burnt $20 in about three minutes there. Still wasn’t up, so I put $5 in a quarter machine, which lasted me about five minutes, so I was down $25 in about 10 minutes. I finally got to a table and bought in for $100. I played for awhile, was up about $80 at one point, but I caught a crappy run of cards, and at about 10:30 p.m. I looked down at Q3 off UTG and counted my chips, $131. I layed it down and figured a $6 profit was good enough for such a short days work. The cards sucked and I didn’t make much, but a profit is always better than a loss.
Soaring Eagle
This weekend I headed over to CMU to party with some of my friends for one of their birthdays. I got pretty wasted on Friday, and on Saturday I decided to pay a visit to the Indians at the Soaring Eagle Casino. I arrived at the casino about 3:00 p.m. and headed straight to the poker room. I put my name on the list for 3-6 hold ’em and took out $60 in chips. After about a 10 minute wait they called my name and I took a seat. Things were pretty slow for the first couple of hours as my chip stack stayed around $100, but at least I wasn’t down. Things started to pick up pretty heavily around 8-9 p.m. when I took down a nice series of pots, boosting my stack to around $250 or so. I had a nice run going and I thought it was about to get even better.
I limped from the button with A4 suited with 4-5 players to the flop. The flop came down a rainbow 3 5 9. The big blind raised and a player in middle position (player 2) and I both called. The turn brought a 2 making my 5-high straight. The big blind again raised, called by player 2 and reraised by me. The big blind now reraised me back and I capped the betting. Player 2 called every bet making this 3 players to the river. The river brought a 6, now the big blind checked and player 2 raised. ??? Odd play, so I just called and so did the big blind. The big blind showed 9 5 for a flopped two pair, I showed a 6-high straight and player 2 showed 4 7 offsuit for a 7-high straight. Talk about a bad beat, player 2 called preflop, a flop, and a capped turn with 4 7 offsuit and nothing more than a gutshot straight draw.
2005 World Series of Poker (WSOP) ESPN TV Schedule
The full ESPN broadcast schedule for the 2005 World Series of Poker (WSOP) has been announced.
Pros at the WSOP
Is it just me or are the professional poker players doing very well this year at the World Series of Poker? Johnny Chan won his 10th bracelet early this morning and I’ve recognized quite a few other top players making final tables. Mark Seif (twice), Todd Brunson, Barry Greenstein, T.J. Cloutier, Josh Arieh, Erik Seidel, and Allen Cunningham have all won bracelets so far. 25 events have been completed and by my count 9 have been won by top players. I’m sure there are other big winners that I don’t recognize.
What really sparked my interest in looking this up was the latest post on Daniel Negreanu’s blog. He says that he’s not enjoying the WSOP this year. My guess is that he’s not playing particularly well, which of course will make it not fun. While other top pros seem to be doing very well this year, he’s not having anything relatively close to his performance in the 2004 WSOP.
Negreanu complains about having too many $1,500 buy in events this year because they attract the lower end players. Shouldn’t he be drooling? The other pros seem to be taking full advantage of all the amateurs playing. It makes perfect sense to me. The pros are great at reading people. If there are more amateur players to read a pro should be able to build a stack a lot easier. Instead of blaming the lack of talent at the 2005 WSOP, maybe Daniel should take a look at his own game.
Nick Momrik 