Just got back from my first 2/5 session at the venetian. Please, dear God, somebody tell me that this table was not typical.
It was a very tough table. When I first sat at the table, there were mostly very solid grinders there. I did not see an open limp for the first several orbits at the table. Most everybody was playing tight/aggressive; if I had had heads up display stats on them, it would have been a parade of 15/12/3 s all around the table.
Don't get me wrong, the quality of the play was good, but not great. I would have staked 7 of the 9 other players in the game at NL $100 online, though.
There were a couple of weak links, and, fortunately, I had the God seat on one of them. This, plus the fact that I am here explicitly to gauge the competition, is what kept me at the table.
The middle of the session went well, but the beginning and the end were horrendous.
The beginning of the session went badly because I have a nearly infinite capacity to do incredibly stupid things, apparently. I donked off half my stack in a 3 bet pot against the guy who seemed to have been dominating the table all night. It was so stupid a play that I am not even going to describe it.
I buckled down and played a solid middle of my session, got unstuck, and then ran up about $300 in winnings. With only an hour left before I had to leave to take my buddy to the airport, I got mildly doomswitched. Nothing major, just a succession of AQ and AK type hands that kept missing, and an AIPF against a 30bb stack my AK v. his KK. Gave back most of my winnings, and finished up 15 or 20 big blinds.
This table was a lot like the 1/2 table in terms of the lack of a need to make serious adjustments to my game. There were plenty of multi-way pots. I changed my standard preflop raise size from 3bb online to 4bb--more for value than to thin the field, because the table was playing, on average, maybe 150bb deep, and there were a few of us a bit deeper than that.
I am really torn about my c-betting frequency. I am pretty sure that I didn't stab air once in a multi-way pot when I was the preflop raiser. That would get pretty exploitable, but given that my c-bet success rate when I actually was value betting was close to 0%, it just seemed to be spewing to c-bet into a field of people who were floating like it was their job.
There weren't any really interesting hands to describe. Everything was pretty standard.
Here is the one hand that I played differently today than I would have played it online:
hero is UTG with K
K
and $570
Raise to $20, MP1 calls, button calls, BB calls. All of them have me covered. BB is the table lagtard, playing maybe 30% of his hands.
Pot: ~$80
Flop: Q
9
7
BB Checks.
I bet $60
MP1 folds, button folds.
BB calls $60.
Pot: ~$220.
Turn: 8
BB checks.
I bet $170
BB tanks and folds, flashing a queen.
Having just reviewed the hand history as I typed it out, I think I play it the same online. I guess the difference was in my head; online, I would be bet/folding there most of the time against most villains. In this game, I bet it with a lot more confidence that I would get a call rather than get a raise. Ranges were weaker enough that I figured someone had most likely only caught a piece; online, I would have looked at this board and thought, "zomg, this board crushes all of their ranges."
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OK, funny story:
I started writing this post about three hours ago. I had to stop in the middle of the hand history to take my buddy to the airport (Hawaiian vacations, FTW, imo).
I drive him to the airport, get a little lost coming out of the airport, and basically wind up doing a lap around the airport to find my way back on the right track.
I stop for a take-out burger to munch on while I finish this post, pull up to his house, and realize that my buddy's house key is still firmly attached to his key ring, in his pocket, on board the airplane. I call him numerous times as I drive back to the airport, but get no answer. I get to the TSA people and I explain to them the situation, and they get in touch with the plane's crew (they just shut and locked the doors) and a flight attendant agrees to bring me the key.
Heh, close call; I came this close to being locked out of his house with all of my traveling belongings locked up inside.
We have 14 years of higher education and 30 years practicing law between us--scary, huh?