Today marks my first attempt to get in 8 hours of live cash poker and see what that looks like.
10:30 AM-12:30 PM Thursday: We are at the MGM grand playing 1/2. The rest of the table are day drinkers, something I didn't encounter in Reno. It's a good sign.
An Australian kid on my right bears a passing resemblance to Jungleman, and he pounds on limpers for the first two hands that I see. Given that early information, I slot him into the "possibly good" category. Next hand he jeopardizes that by open limping for $2. I raise it up to $12 with A
K
. Folds around and he calls. Flop is K
Q
9
. He checks, then raises my $17 bet to $85. I hear him make a speech. I don't know what he says but it definitely falls into the speech category. I decide to fold for metagame reasons--he's on my right and I'd like to encourage him to try to push me around later, in a better spot for me. Also, I don't like stacking off 150bb with top pair within the first 3 minutes of sitting down. It's not a good look if I get shown JT, which is a fine limp/calling hand, if you're the limp/calling type.
The next spot with Stralia Dan finds me opening 6
6
UTG. He calls in the big blind. Flop 6
K
K
. I'm not going to slowplay here. This looks like a flop I could easily whiff if I don't have AK. I bet nearly pot on the flop, nearly pot on the brick turn, and call his donk shove on the river, getting all of my chips back from before, along with all of his. He mumbles that he had garbage and doesn't show.
+$305
1:30 PM-2:30 PM: We are at Mandalay Bay playing 1/2. I have an aggro American kid on my right. He looks nothing like Jungleman. I have seen him turn a weak made hand without much equity into a checkraise bluff on the turn (and have it called by a slightly worse made hand ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
On my big hand with him, we get three limps, including the aggro kid on the button, and I raise to $16 in the small blind with A
8
. One fold and two calls (including the kid). Flop A
K
J
I bet $30, MP folds and the kid calls. Turn 8
I bet $50 and the kid raises to $120. I am never folding here. And if I just call, I'm never folding river for the small stack I'd have left. In his range, I count enough worse two pairs, pairs and draws, draws, and even a weak underpair or three if he's fooling around again.
I shove and he snaps with QT: a flopped straight. River is a brick. He covers. I get up and go for a tilt walk.
(-$300)
3:30 PM-6:30 PM: We are at Excalibur. There's a fish on my left, an older gentleman with an Eastern European accent. Every time he catches a piece of a 5-way limped dry flop, he jams in a 3x-5x pot bet and chases everyone out. I don't know if he will shut down on the turn if challenged, because no one has stood up to him yet. He takes a phone call from someone--ostensibly his wife--and promises him or her that he will be done playing in just a few minutes. After that phone call, he gets to be UTG, and he straddles for $4. He gets a couple calls and I raise it to $25 in the big blind with JJ. He shoves over that for $105, it folds to me and I snap call. This is the advantage of live play. I know that he's itching to go, and that this is likely his last hand. Add to that my observation that he's impulsive to begin with, and I've been pounding on limpers a lot. His pocket 5s pick up a 5 on the turn and I'm out $100. Nice hand, sir. I wave to my chips as he picks up and leaves. "Bye, chips." I say.
Over the next couple hours, I do some more limp pounding and pick up a few chips here and there. A typical hand goes like this: Limp, limp, I raise to $14 in MP with 6
5
. One fold, one call. Flop comes nice, dry, and king high, say K
9
4
Check to me, I bet $20 and take it down a lot more than half the time. If it's called, the turn bricks, and it's checked to me, I bet $45-$55 and take it down a lot more than half the time. Occasionally, I get played back at, but at the right table, it doesn't happen nearly enough to keep the play from being profitable.
But this table at Excalibur today has gradually grown tougher. Better players have rotated in. I wanted a 3 hour session here, but with an hour to go, I'm looking at 4 reasonably good players, 3 meh regs and only 1 fish. From my limited experience, this is now a terrible 1/2 table, one far worse than any I've seen so far. There are less limps, and when they happen, someone else pounds on them before I can, or I get played back at when I try to isolate.
I should go, but I don't want to. My tilt walk from Mandalay has put me behind schedule. Fortunately, I'm not punished for my lapse in table selection. I open to $10 from MP with red KK and get 3-bet to $45 by an aggro Asian-American kid on the button. I 4-bet to $110 and he ships it with AK. I call and hold.
+$247
I'm off to either Treasure Island or Mirage for the last 2 hour session.