What a crazy poker weekend so far. After swapping a few phone calls with HDouble we decided to hit Commerce Friday night.
Seems all the poker pros haven’t left Commerce just yet. While waiting for Henry I spot two of my favorite players (for what should be obvious reasons), Clonie Gowen and Cindy Violette working the tables and I spend some time checking out the action in the high limit area. Henry shows up and we grab dinner in the sports bar where Daniel Negreanu, Erick Lindgren, Josh Arieh and an animated crowd of pros are having a drink.
Hand of the evening: $100 NL. I get AA in LP and raise it up $25 and snag me a caller. Flop comes JTT. The EP caller bets out at me $40. There’s absolutely no way I’m giving him credit for a ten here. I’ve been playing with this guy for a few hours and even though he’s loose and aggressive he would have checked to me and raised me all in if he had a ten. Gotta be a J or a pair of queens. I’m so sure of it that I push all in for about $150. He goes into the tank for a looooooooooooong time. He asks me “Ace – ten?” and I tell him, “Gotta pay to find out.” Now I know I want this call. He indeed does call and shows a J. My aces hold up and I double up. God I love the people televised poker drives into the casinos 🙂
I end the evening up a couple of buy-ins and make it home around 3am.
A little more than twelve hours later I’m back at Commerce with Phillip, Asphnxma, and Ryan pounding away again. Within a few hours I was down 2 buy-ins. I just kept getting spanked with good hands and good flops.
$100 NL: AK on the Button. Folded to me so I raise it $25 and get a caller in the blinds. Flop comes Axx with two suited cards. I make a pot sized bet to ruin the drawing odds and the caller, who seems like a much better than average player, comments “That’s a very odd bet.” She thinks it over and calls. Turn is a Q and we end up all in. She flips up AQ and the river doesn’t offer any help. When she sees my AK she seemed to recoil a bit and later told me that because my raise came from the Button that she would never have put me on AK. Her “odd bet” comment makes sense since she told me she had me on a flush draw and couldn’t figure out why I was betting so much.
The seemed to be pretty much how most of my day went. I would start building a nice little stack of chips playing tight/aggressive poker and then I would get my big hands cracked and cough up a lot of chips.
But revenge is sweet and I got mine. Better yet, I got mine while getting a massage at the table. Now before anyone says “Bill, what kind of pretentious ass gets a massage at the poker table,” I’ve been traveling a lot lately and sitting in coach on 6 or 10 hour flights had taken it’s toll on my old frame. My back and neck had been killing me for about a week and I really needed to get the kinks rubbed out. Stop snickering!
Anyway . . . I pick up KT in MP and limp in. Flop comes QJx. It’s checked to me and I make a token $10 bet to see where things are at. I get one caller. Turn is an ace giving me the nut straight. The ace must have hit my caller because he bets $40 at me. I pretend to be distracted by the massage a bit and then, without even lifting my head, I tell the dealer, “All in.” Without much thought my opponent calls a $180 raise and shows two pair. River is a safe card and now I’ve got me a monster stack of chips to play with.
The day also offered up one of those defining moments you’ll be able to trade with players for years to come:
The guy to my left is a little hammered but he’s a friendly drunk and he doesn’t seem to mind putting a lot of money in the pot with weak hands so I’m more than happy to have him at my table. He leaves to have a smoke and on his return he plops down just as the action gets to me. I call and he reaches into his stack and calls . . . BUT HE DOESN’T HAVE ANY CARDS!!! He was never dealt into the hand! The guy was so used to just calling pre-flop that he didn’t even notice that he had no cards. The dealer stopped the action and pointed out that he had no cards and I said, “That’s ok, he’s playing the board, let him bet.” He sheepishly took back his bet and we all had a good laugh.
Lesson: Don’t assume that your opponent has a hand because he calls you. Literally, he may have no hand at all!
Before leaving I popped by the high limit area with my buddy Michael so we could check out what games they were spreading up there and the board has a $4000/$8000 game being spread. The red rope sectioning off the table with Gus Hansen, Phil Ivey, Chip Reese, and a few others left no doubt which game was the $4000/$8000. I was almost inspired enough to sit down at the $600 buy-in NL game and see if I couldn’t double up a few times so I could sit down and post a small blind in their game 🙂
And, I can’t end this post without a major kudo to Chris (the PokerGeek) for hanging out with his buddy Wil Wheaton during the invitational at Commerce. Not only did he get to rap with just about every poker pro on the planet but he weaseled himself into a private game with Jon Favreau, Ray Romano, Brad Garrett, and Steve Lipscomb.
Check out the tales of a PokerGeek:
The WPT Invitational – Part 1
The WPT Invitational – Part 2
The WPT Invitational – Part 3
The WPT Invitational – Part 4