How to Grind LSLHE
As I sat down with my rack of chips at the table, I was still in a little bit of awe from the sheer size of the poker room. Hard Rock Tampa was a large room, but this was bigger, and much more accommodating. Where Hard Rock offered great action, comfortable chairs, and the basics a poker player wanted, Foxwoods looked and felt more luxurious. When you played at HR Tampa, you had to walk down a hall to a sequestered room where you have the feeling you are in a dungeon. A good atmosphere makes for good spirits - I haven't been to Tampa to see the new poker room yet but I hoped they took some notes from other newly renovated rooms.
I decided I was going to be a complete donkey for this short session. I even bought in short for $120 and would shove over most opens if I felt the original raiser was not going to call it off with QQ+. I would 3-bet 95% of my stack and told them I might fold if they went all in. Eventually everyone caught on and they started limping, thinking I was going to pop it up each time. I was becoming the fish on the table and I loved it. I had 2 or 3 stacks of blue chips at this point and looking at them made me think of the old fifty cent/one dollar limit game at Mohegan Sun. It was just like the good old days with Gary, those pots with 10 or 12 blue chips were big for a game like that. I came up with an idea and decided to get off the table, and immediately got a seat for 2/4 limit. I left the table and ran to find Nicole, who was deep into a Sex and the City themed slot. I told her to cash out, there was a celebrity she couldn't miss in the poker room. She got excited and printed out a ticket, and walked with me back to the room, where I broke the news to her.
"You're going to play poker, just like I taught you." She immediately was pissed and I told her to stop being a slot whore. That didn't make her any happier, and I said that we needed to spend more time together, and this was going to be one of those times. She actually bought it, so I managed to get her a seat at the 2/4 table and saw that Gary was also there. I said hi and he didn't seem so happy in the game, something about his look said there was a lot of pain beyond that face. He was genuinely a happy guy back in the day and I knew something had changed. I had about 200, 80 of which was red, so I got a color down and tried to give Nicole half of my stack - more than playable for a 2/4 game. The players and floor wouldn't have it, and to show them I wasn't trying to rathole my own chips to her, I bought her in for 500. When they brought her 5 racks of those dotted white chips she was ready to play with her mini fortress of cheeseburgers.
Although I didn't say anything, I wasn't going to go after Nicole or Gary, I was there to get the table rowdy. I raised or capped every preflop hand that I could, and I could tell I was causing problems in 2/4 land. My third hand I picked up A4ss UTG and managed to cap it 4 ways to the flop which was Q84 rainbow.
"I'm going to show you guys a magic trick," I said as I led out for 2 dollars into a $30 pot. There's nothing like getting 15/1 on your money to call with just about anything. Sure enough, betting gets capped 3 ways on the flop and I bink a 4 on the turn. I check and get the raise in and end up getting heads up to the river. I lead out on a 6 river and get called and table my hand, the and pure rage in the man who flipped over KK flowed onto the table. I have noticed that the lower the limit you play, the worse the players take a bad beat. Guys who play $40 tournaments lose their mind over a flip that didn't go their way, but 5/10 regulars are set over setted for a $4k pot and take it with professionalism. I guess it boils down to the fact that most 5/10 players are pros, but still, there's really no reason to not act like a man/woman. This guy was relentless to the point where he was making physical threats, so I called the floor.
"What's the problem here?" The man in the suit seemed jaded from constant floor calls from the low limit tables for adults behaving like children.
"Well, sir, this gentleman here is quite upset. I was playing like a complete donkey and I got lucky and now he is telling me he is going to accost me when I go to my car." The floor smiled, he was smart enough to know I was not being serious, but I still wanted his threats to stop. He was given a warning and told another would mean a boot for at least the night.
Gary in the meantime was not playing many pots. He had $30 in front of him and was barely playing his blinds. This was odd - it had been a while, but Gary was a splashy player. He called one raise from Nicole and she bet out on the flop and he folded, seemly upset about losing $4. Nicole was fondling her stacks more than she was playing cards and I knew she could not lose the money that fast, it's 2/4 limit after all. I went out for a smoke break and 2 minutes later Gary is right there on my heels.
"Hey Liam, listen, I hate to ask this, but could I borrow some money to play some more at the table? I've been running really bad."
"You've been taking a lot of bad beats at 2/4?" I mean, no one is ever up in that game, I was wondering if he was serious about grinding out low limit hold em.
"I'm running bad in life - I still have my ex at my house, my kids are acting up, my job is giving me terrible anxiety. This is my only method of coping."
I genuinely bought this story. He could be doing a lot worse like sitting in the pits, but to him, playing 2/4 with the guys was like his version of Cheers. He wasn't there to make money, he just wanted company. Losing at 2/4 was probably just as expensive as drinking, but you get a better high in my opinion from the game. Gary and the other guys had been fatherly figures to me back in college. My dad lived close by back then but never came to visit, no life advice nothing. These guys would tell me how to deal with women, life situations, things my dad never talked to me about. They had even bought me in when I was broke, it was only 20 bucks back then, but that was a lot of money to a broke college kid in 2002. I told him it wasn't a problem, and that I would send over a chunk of Nicole's stack, as we were leaving soon. He promised to pay it back, and I told him it wasn't a problem. I have been in this situation, the money wasn't coming back anyway, and I didn't care.
I went back in and told Nicole I was tired and we had to get to New London. She had made a beer coaster out of about a part of the chips and built a small princess castle out of the rest. I had her rack up the princess castle, and shipped the beer coaster over to Gary as we were heading out. She was so upset that she took all that time with the chips - I was hoping she was going to take poker much more seriously in the coming days.
I headed down towards the coast, a half hour drive to the house on the hill overlooking where the Thames River met both Long Island Sound and the Atlantic. Daniel's house was just down the street from school, barely outside the gates that keeps the outside elements from coming into Conn College. As much as I loved my time there, I found it ironic that a school that was so open to progressive thought would have a stone wall and a gate around the entire perimeter of its school. There were two main entrances and you had to have a sticker or show ID to get in, day or night. Shutting yourself off like that has its downsides - the locals hated the school, and when you went off-campus you were expected to be a spoiled brat. It was everything I had come to hate, and I had no desire to set foot on campus again. As we rolled up to Daniel's in the shadow of the school, all the lights were still on at 230am. I knocked on the door, and Daniel answered. He looked like your typical middle-aged Jewish guy who was stressed out to the max. He clearly slept even worse than I did, and the house was a mess. When his grandmother was around, we would have holiday dinners there and it was immaculate. It had been 5 years since she died, and it looked like her stuff was still packed in boxes, everywhere. Daniel's stuff was strewn all over the place, dishes everywhere, it was a complete mess. He was very happy to see me, and I felt like he hadn't been in contact with many people lately. I was tired and feel asleep on one of the dueling couches in the living room while he and Nicole were talking. I could hear him in the background - he was talking about anything and everything, human contact was bringing him back to life like water to a plant. I heard Nicole start asking about my college girlfriends, and fortunately feel asleep so I didn't have to hear the jealousy in her voice that comes out whenever another female's name was mentioned. Foxwoods or Mohegan, which one shall I see tomorrow?
