Welcome to my journey through the USA. I'm going to be posting about live poker sessions I play in this vast country. Starting in California, I'll describe poker rooms, and take a few pictures as well. I want to use my love of the game of poker to inspire my love of traveling. It's going to be a slow process, as I have a life in the SF Bay Area that I'm not quite ready to uproot yet. But that time may be coming soon.

Right now, I'm in San Jose, CA. In the parking lot at the famous Bay 101 Casino, where he Shooting Star tourney is held every year. I have a lot of memories here, some good and some bad. I chatted with Jonathan Duhamel during the Shooting Star a few years ago, the year Moon Kim won the tournament. He's a nice guy, Duhamel. Just a regular dude who played poker and binked a big tournament.

One time I came here to play Hold Em cash, but saw a 4/8 Fixed limit Omaha Hi/Lo game that looked great. So I jumped in and bought in for $180, only to leave a few hours later with $1,400. I still remember getting my first $1k chip from the runner after the table broke at like 3am. Great feeling.

I also have some nights here I don't remember fondly. Like planning on playing 3/6 limit for low-stress fun, and ending up at 6/12 stuck a grand a few hours later after taking some beats and tilting money away. Meh. Take the good with the bad, but playing tilted is definitely avoidable.

I just played for an hour at 3/6 limit. Won $52, and came out to my car to write this up. The idea to keep a running live poker travels journal just came to me at the table. The table broke and there was no list, so it was a good opportunity to start this up.

I'll post another update after the second part of this session. And maybe a couple of photos. I might keep a $1 chip from each of the casinos I visit during this thread. That might be cool. Or maybe I'll be cheap and just post a picture of what the chips at each casino look like.

Thanks for reading, and best regards.

T

GLGL brother, positive VIBZ from San Jose, Costa Rica im pretty sure that by playing PLO you can get a bigger edge playing live at USA, just guessing...

Best of luck, looking forward to following your US casino trip.

Thanks man. How is it down in San Jose, Costa Rica? That's a country I've always wanted to visit. The beaches look amazing and the wildlife there is such a trip!

You make a good point about PLO being profitable live in the USA. The fish love to play PLO, but they are worse at it than they are at hold em. It's definitely a game that is growing here, and as a PLO lover I hope this continues as the years go by. That said, I have to be in the mood to play PLO, and I prefer to have more money with me than I have now. I'll switch it up between different games though. I really enjoy 7 card stud. Thanks for reading, cheers.

Thanks, and good luck to you as well.

The small chips here at Bay 101



I have a question about a spot I might be misplaying in limit hold em. It's 3/6 limit, and in the hand I'm dealt ACQc on the button, and an action player posts a live 6. Three players call before it gets to me, I call, the blinds fold and the live 6 guy checks.

Flop is 37K rainbow, and not a single club either. Live 6 guy bets out for 3 into a pot of 29 bucks and two of the three preflop callers between us call. Here's my interesting spot. Is it generally right to just call here with one over card and backdoor Broadway equity since I'm getting 13:1 odds? It's an interesting spot to me. I ended up folding.

Finally back home and ready for bed. What a crazy night of poker. I ended up buying back in at the 3/6 game after winning $52 before.

I bought back in for $100, and for a while I was card dead. Had about $85 left when I picked up AA and got into a 3-way capped pot. Lost that one on the river, one guy with 77 rivered a set, while the other made a straight with 99. Didn't even call the river bet. Then the very next hand I flop 2 pair with J10, only to lose. So, I fold for a while. Then get 55 in the bb, and after utg raised and 3 others called, I made the easy call. Flop 910Q with two diamonds. I check, waiting to fold to any bet, but it's checked around. Turns a non diamond 5, I bet, I bet 2 callers and a fold. River is a non diamond 9. I check, one guy bets, other guy calls, I raise, first dude just calls. Other guys folds. I show my boat, and the other guy tables Q9. Ugh.

I'm left with $10 exactly after that. The very next hand I get 77, and get it all in preflop as this was an action 3/6 table and this was another capped preflop pot. I flopped top set in the 5- way pot and was able to get back to almost $50. Then the very NEXT hand I get 77 again, and again flop top set and win a decent pot. Weird night. I saw quads like 4-5 times, including once where I flopped quad 8s and won a small pot.

I ended up losing $15 total from that 100. Cashed out the $85 and called it a night. Definitely one I'll remember. After some sick hands that didn't go my way, I'll gladly take the $37 profit I was able to squeeze out of this eventful session at Bay 101.

Yesterday I didn't play any poker, just worked my regular job. I was feeling pretty tired all day, after staying up pretty late after the Bay 101 session. Today, I'm feeling a lot better. As my shift at work draw to a close, I'm preparing to head to a different local casino tonight.

I'll be going with one of my best friends, both in poker and in general. He just returned from Vegas, and we are planning another trip out there soon. We have two casinos to choose from: Artichoke Joe's in San Bruno, or Lucky Chances in Colma. I've always preferred AJ's, but most of my friends like LC's better. Either way, I'm looking forward to another fun live poker session. I'll take some better pictures this time, and update later.

I ended up not going to play last night. My buddy wasn't feeling well so it's probably for the best I stay away from him for a while anyways.

I'm on my lunch at work, eating a killer salad loaded with veggies and quinoa. Lots of shaved parmasean cheese, ranch, and jalapeño infuse olive oil on top too. They take good care of us here at Facebook. Every day we eat great for free. I'm not an actual Facebook employee, but I work for a subcontracted company they use to valet cars. It's pretty great though. It's cut my food bill by probably 90%. They serve breakfast, lunch and dinner here, and it's all delicious. Add in all the drinks they have here and it's awesome value. Job only pays $16 per hour, but I can deal with it for now considering the perks.

I might go play live tonight. I'm gonna try to get off work early.

Good luck

Thanks

Well, getting off work a couple of hours early proved to be easy. Went to the bank, and deposited my paycheck from a few days ago, which wouldn't have been possible had I left at 6pm. I really need to stop procrastinating on getting direct deposit. Cashing checks at the bank feels really antiquated.

My plan is to take my dog out for a while, then relax and let let the traffic on the 101 freeway die down. Some time after 7pm seems like a good time to head to the casino. I'm thinking Atichoke Joe's tonight. It's an old casino about 10 miles south of San Francisco. It first opened in 1916, and has been open ever since. While a couple of people I know don't like it, I've usually had a good time there. It definitely has a scummy vibe to some extent, which is probably partially due to the neighborhood. It's right across the freeway from San Francisco International Airport, in a slightly lower class area of town right by the train tracks. The area has improved slightly in the past few years. I used to go to AJ's all the time about 8-9 years ago. Used to take the train there from Redwood City all the time. Play all night until the last train at 12:10am. One time I missed the last train and just went back and played until 5:30am or whenever the first one was. Ah, the days of being 22 and dumb as hell.

I'll take a few pictures at AJ's tonight. It's definitely a place with character. I've always liked it. I did hit my only live Royal Flush there, and got $800 as a bonus. Definitely have several good memories there, and some bad ones mixed in as well. I'll have to share a story or two soon.

sounds fun, gl

Thanks!

Well it's 12:30am and I'm in the parking lot at Attochoke Joe's. I got here late, because a friend invited me out for a couple of drinks. Got here at about 9:30 and got on a 3/6 table about 10 minutes later. The first table had some crazy players and the action was always capped preflop. I asked for a table change and got one, this time at a more passive table. After a couple of hours I'm taking a break to write this. I'm winning $27 so far.

Here are a few photos of AJ's.

Hey GL dude,

BTW, I enjoyed reading what you wrote, you have a nice writing style that's easy and enjoyable to read

Thanks man! Writing is one of those things I've always enjoyed doing. Best of luck to you.

I ended up playing another few hours the other night at AJ's, and it didn't go well. I ended up losing the $27 profit I was up at the last update, and lost a total of $115 on the night. Basically, all the hands where I lost decent chunk of my stack, I should have folded preflop. It was getting late, and played were winning in the sickest ways, so I started playing some marginal hands. And of course marginal hands out you in marginal spot where you have to call down sometimes in limit poker. I should have been more disciplined. Being card dead in that game mean you just have to keep folding. When I was entering pots with these hands, I knew in he back of my mind that it -EV, but I was trying to gamble since it was so late and other people were getting lucky like that. Unfortunately I wasn't, lol.

Moving forward, I'll try to just leave the casino when its late and I'm card dead. Come back another time and try again. Chasing losses late at night is never a plan for success.

Today, I relaxed at my buddy's house, where we listened to musty for probably 6-7 hours straight. I smoked a few bowls of bud, and he drank some beers. It was a good time. We listen to a lot of metal and go to shows quite often together. He's a good dude.

I'm going to play another live session tonight, maybe at Bay 101 again. My roommate loves poker also, and said he wants to go. We're going to leave in a few minutes. Hopefully the games (and my luck) are good tonight.

Thanks for reading, and best regards.

T

Save ur money don't do this u will go broke and be stressed out trust me (unless ur doing this for pure fun then GL ), god damn making like $50-$100 a sesh that's horrible and is barely anything can't imagine grinding out limit man that is worse then 1/2...

I just had to post coz ur happy winning like $27 or $37 bucks, i mean holy **** lol that's like all ur gas + food money and what about rent/shelter...

Did I give off the impression that I need to live off of my poker winnings? This is just something I'm doing for fun, to get back to live poker. I have a full time job, with money saved up, low rent, and basically a food bill of less than $100 a month.

I'm just playing the stakes I can afford at this time. Feel free to comment on a high roller's thread if this isn't thrilling enough for you.

Well, it's about 5am and we're at Denny's getting breakfast. I won $91 and my roommate won like $600. He gave me $20 for gas and bought breakfast. Can't complain.

Woke up today at 1pm after getting to bed right before the sun came up. Last night was fun. I got buzzed off a giant Sculpin at the Bay 101 bar, won a little bit of money, and got a free breakfast. Plus, I invited my roommate Hector to play and he won like $600. This is after he spent over $100 at the bar getting hammered, and getting alcohol after last call at the grocery store! At like 1:30am they stopped saving alcohol, so Hector asks for my keys. Not to drive my car, but to have a place to put the alcohol after an Uber drove him to the store to get it. I gave him my keys, and kept playing. Told him not to drive my car under any circumstance. He left, and told the Uber driver to take him to 7/11, but when they got there, a sign on the door said they stopped serving alcohol at midnight. So he and the Uber driver went on a mission to find an open Safeway to get booze. They got there and he bought a bottle of Jameson right before 2am. By the time he came back to Bay 101 with my keys, it had been an hour. He drank half the bottle of Jameson, put the rest in the trunk of my car, and proceeded to come back and destroy the 1/2 NL game for $600 profit. Made my $91 win look like table scraps. Sick night. Fun too.

Today, we are thinking of going back.

Thanks for reading.

Happy Memorial Day, 2+2ers.

I didn't end up playing live yesterday. I slept in until 1pm and spent most of the day at home. Did some household chores, and took my dog for an extra long walk. I almost went to play live poker, but didn't want to go by myself, and none of the 4-5 friends I called wanted to go. So around 9pm I deposited $50 online and played 2 late night MTTs, like 4-5 HU SNGs, and some PLO cash. I ran pretty good and ended up going to sleep at 2am with $109 in the account.

Today, there is a chance I may go to a casino, but it's probably a 70/30 in favor of staying home. One of my friends is about to come over in about an hour, and we're gonna play some online MTTs I think. We've played and talked about the game for years together, but only online and in home games. He never really likes to play poker at any local casinos. He's going to Europe in a week, and is in money saving mode, so there's basically a 0% chance of convincing home to go. We are just gonna smoke, listen to music, and try to take down some cheeseburger stakes MTTs.

Speaking of cheeseburger stakes MTTs, I'm playing a $4 one now. In for only one bullet too! I'm playing on Carbon, for the first time in a while. I know, you're probably lol'ing at me playing at Carbon, and I don't blame you. The traffic is super low, and there is no rakeback or bonus system really at all. That said, I've always loved the software, and they have always paid me in the past. Sometimes it took a while, but I got paid.

Anyways, the games I played last night were soft. My hud works fine, and I'm running pretty good. At least the Merge software is great. I was playing on Ignition only for the past year or so, and while I made money, the software is terrible. The games were amazing, but there are no synchronized breaks, and the tables just never seemed to fit right on neither my laptop screen nor my tv.

Hoping to run this little online deposit up and cash it all out for more live bullets!