I decided that I wanted to keep track of my misadventures of playing poker and gambling. If you know me, then you know that I love to play poker. I remember seeing poker on TV around the time Moneymaker won the Main Event, I was 18 at the time. Anyways there was this promo on PartyPoker that gave you $100 to play and you get to keep it and the profit if you played a certain amount of raked hands. I had no idea what that meant, but I signed up anyways. Free money, right? I had to look up what rake meant, lol. I don't remember what limits I was playing, but it was real low. I remember buying in for like $2 at a time. So i played a couple times and I realized I didn't really have to participate in all the hands for it to count, I could sit there and wait for good hands and stuff.
Anyways, you only had like 3 months to do the hands or you lose the money. I remembered about it like the day before the 3 months was up and I opened up PartyPoker and opened a table. There was no way I was going to make it. Then I had a brilliant idea, open up more than one table! I remember I had 4 tables going at one. I finished the raked hands in like an hour and had a $20 profit, wahoo! Then I cashed out my money and spent it on some dumb shit probably. Little did I know how much that would change my life.
Currently I don't play too much online, never really have since back then. I've put money onto Full Tilt a couple times. I doubled the 50 bucks before busting it the first time, the second time I ran it up again to one hundred in like a day then I went on a loosing streak. I really didn't intend on it being my entire online bankroll because it is so easy to add more online and I really don't have to start from scratch. I just ran my FT bankroll from $1 to $50! I played in a $1 token frenzy tourney where the top 16 get a $26 token. I got the token and played in a satellite to a 300 dollar buy-in tourney. There were 16 people in that tourney since it was late at night and the top 3 got paid, with first place getting the seat in the big tourney. I ended up getting 2nd for 40 bucks. I ran $10 up to $65 on a 25c/50c table before I busted the entire stack, lol. Then I played a $3 KO tourney only because JJ Liu was in it, and I wanted to bust her. Almost was able to.. almost, but I did end up 2nd in that tourney. I don't remember where the other cash went, because I played some heads up sit-n-gos. So yeah thats how you go from $1 to $50 in 3 days. I should be at like 100 again but some guy chased a flush draw on me and ended up catching running two pairs after the money was in the pot. :(
In other news, I an fortunate to have 4 casinos withing 30 mins of me, all of which have poker rooms. I have pretty much sworn off all casinos but Sandia. It has the biggest poker room in the state and has a good selection of stakes. I pretty much only sit at the 4/8 games there. I find them to be profitable. The 1/2NL games are also very soft, but as of right now I don't have the bankroll to constantly sit in the 1/2NL games or the 10/20 games. I find that I have a bigger advantage at the casino than I do online. The level of play at the 25c/50c is about 10x the skill level than anything at the casino.
So I went to Sandia Christmas Eve and had a good session. I usually bring $80 with me for one night. I buy in for $40 and when I get below $20 I'll usually bring out the other buy-in. Most nights I don't even reach for my second buy-in. As was the case yesterday. I usually play very tight in the 4/8 game. Most pots have 5-7 people seeing the flop. I am never surprised people with top pair calling all the way to the river thinking they will win the pot, or even big pocket pairs that get no help trying to get lucky (ie. the guy that cant fold QQ when the board is AKKJ6) So anyways when you sit there for 30 mins at a time folding, some people at the table take notice and those are the one I can bluff at later. Some of the old guys/gals that play really don't notice these things and will call you down with 3rd pair because they think it can win, lol.
So I'm waiting a while for a seat and grab a CardPlayer magazine and a coke while I wait. I light up a cigarette to take the edge off. I don't get nervous when I play poker, just get edgy. It also helps me prevent going on life tilt even before I get to the table. They have two tables of 4/8 going, as they usually do. There is one table that feeds players to the main table. The main table usually has huge stacks wheres as the other table will have a couple big stacks and a few smaller stacks. So anyways I sit there as the list for 4/8 grows and grows. They decide to open a 3rd 4/8 table. The game is setting up and we are taking our seats. For some reason only like 5 of us are sitting there, waiting for those other guys who are probably playing blackjack or craps.
The poker rooms is usually pretty crazy at Sandia. The person controlling the lists is usually shouting out to dealers, the dealers shout back, people are calling for concessions, dealers calling for chip runners. "Rack of white on fifteen! Make that one-forty!" I always feel a little cheap only buying in for 40 at a time, but then I see these guys drop hundreds like Puff Daddy, except they aren't all that happy about it. My mind drifts and I'm staring into the TVs on the wall, just daydreaming. "Gonzo, must move table 7!" I look up and give them the thumbs up. I would sign up as Nick G. on the list, but there are like 5 Nick G.'s that play there. So I always sign up as Gonzo. So I make my way to table 7...
Wow this turned out longer than I had realized. I'll write about the misadventures at Sandia on X-mas Eve soon. Happy Holidays everyone!
