Back to the Bar

Since Black Friday has closed out the serious online poker, I've started going out the play the free games at Gator's Dockside here in Apopka, even if just for entertainment's sake. Marc goes every week so its nice to be social and all that stuff. I've always enjoyed playing these things even if the competition is technically bad.

One thing that I do actually "practice" is playing live poker in general. Even though I'm having fun while playing I still actually try to see if I can pick up tells from these people. I also try to see how well I can keep track of people's chip stacks and such. I've played in these things off and on for years now but I figure I might as well not get too lazy in the even I get to play something more serious, like that Daytona tournament. Without all this time spent at these games the transition from computer to live would have been much tougher.

I've been fairly successful so far, I've picked up three or four wins at Gator's, one of which was just in time to qualify for All In Poker Series' June monthly. I'll tag along with Marc tomorrow and see what happens, even if I'm be a small stack. They give out extra chips for multiple wins so others there will have a slight edge on me there. So far for July I think I have three wins so I'll even out the odds a little in August.

Last night I decided to play with another group, Final Table Poker Tour, at El Potro in Apopka. A friend of mine that I work with, John (Johnny Callbox, as we call him) plays with this group each week. They seem to have their shit together a bit more as they can pump out 10-12 single table games in a 4 hour period. They have quarterly gigs and have some agreement with Deep Stacks University also, they always seem to have something set up with those guys. I think for their quarterly in August they have The Grinder set up to have some sort of class you can buy into.

Anyway, I went last night and ended up winning a game so I'm qualified for their gig now. The players here are different, generally they are older, don't raise quite as much, and will rarely reraise or check raise without the goods. I was reminded of that in the first game when I guy had limped in with a pocket pair, and then reraised my flop lead after hitting his set. Even though I had top pair I knew I was beat but I thought (wrongly) that he could have the draw often enough. Also, top 2 get the win (no heads-up) and we still had 8 players left at the table at 500-1000 blinds... it was time to get some chips. I got smoked instead, oh well.

I did have a slight confrontation with some blonde chick in the 4th game, the game I won. I think I got under her skin slightly at the 3rd game as I would make my move (meaning go all-in) just ahead of her several times. As I said, most of these people don't get the math involved, they don't really know when they are short in chips. She kept folding though and I kept showing strong hands (99, AK, AQ, etc) just to make sure they knew I wasn't just going on a lark. Of course I didn't show the T8h one.

Back to the 4th game. A younger guy (relatively speaking) raised to 600 at 100/200, the opening level of these games. I've seen him raise a wide group of hands, from 97s to 88 to AK. After a few calls, including the blonde chick, I elected to call from the SB as well. Flop comes 632 with 2 hearts for a pretty flush draw. Ah, what to do against these players?

I've been reading the Gus Hansen book "Every Hand Revealed" lately and thought I'd see how his philosphy might work against multiple opponents. These guys won't generally show aggro tendencies, the only guy I worried about was the guy that raised and I already knew he was quite wide... he'll fold to pressure from me. So I lead out 1500 into a 2600 pot, leaving 1700 behind me (yeah, they don't start deep). All folds excpet the blonde chick, who calls seemingly reluctantly.

The turn is a Kc... nice scare card I would think! If she did have A6 or something she could fold, or who knows she might even go with a worse flush draw. In any case, she has shown shge can fold at the other table, so I shove immediately with my flush draw as backup. She calls and turns over K4, ugh! She called the flop bet with a gutshot and hit her king instead, ouch! Guess she had enough of my shit and spite-called me on the flop and hit the turn. Thanks alot, Gus.

Anyway, the trouble starts as the river falls... the Kh! She hits trips and gets excited but fails to notice I get bailed out and hit my flush. My turn bet had put her all-in so she is gone... wait, the dealer gives her the pot! Umm, excuse me? I say to the dealer I have a flush, moving my cards on the table where they were displayed when we got all-in. Should be no problem, but the blonde chick seems to disagree, saying that I had already "folded". What? I inform her that I can't fold since we were all-in and the dealer does try to clean the matter up by apologizing for his mistake, but she cops an attitute and dumps the chips on the table in front of her, saying "It doesn't matter, I really don't care." and storms off. Nothing really serious, she didn't make a scene but I saw the shadow of the bitch in her as she left, likely the frustration of finding out you lost when you had the chips in your hand.

I went on to win that game without too much trouble, picking my spots as needed and staying out of big hands when three-handed. I saw the chick was sitting in a booth behind me while playing and decided that I would at least smooth things over as I might have been a little defensive about protecting my own hand. She was very cool about it by then and actually thanked me for taking the time to say something to her even though she knew I had done nothing wrong. That made me feel better also, generally I prefer people to think I'm nice even when I'm trying to destroy them at free poker.

Anyway, I always forget just how much fun it is to play these free live games. I don't get to banter quite as much (or with as much vulgarity) with the Final Table people as I do with the Gator crowd but I do enjoy the table talk. I'm sure they have no idea just how much of a clue I have as far as to how to play these games but I like it that way. I try not to "teach" anything, in fact I try to agree with most of what these guys say. If anything I get a better idea of how they play so I can adjust and in turn have more fun playing with everyone. I love playing the game still, even if I can't do it "for real" at the moment. Perhaps I'll make this my weekly fix for now. Who knows, I might win the monthly or the quarterly!