Life and Times of a Poker Addict

Remember that post I made a few days ago about being burned out on hold'em? It appears I found part of the cure. It's called an 80 hour winning session, which I stretched out from about 1am on Sunday morning to 8am on Wednesday morning. It all started out on Saturday night when I had been debating whether or not I would go with my friends up to AC the next day. I just haven't been running well in cash games lately, confidence was a little down, as was the bankroll. I decided to go out to the local Vollmer game where I have had a lot of success and see what I could make of things. I'm not entirely sure why I haven't played there regularly as I have posted two huge wins and one mini-loss the three times I've gone out and played there, but I think going forward I'll pretty much be a regular there.

I took $140 out there and arrived around 10:30pm, two people were on the list in front of me so I thought about bagging it and then I saw the money on the table. The game was ten handed and there was about $5000 on the table in a max $300 buy-in game. Someone was hemmoraging money and I needed to stick around. I had to wait two and a half hours and salivate over the thousand dollar pots that seemed to be happening every other hand before I finally got a seat. Of course the seat that opened was between Willy and Todd, the two most aggressive and loose players in the game, so I was going to have to drastically alter the way I played. Nothing really happened for me for the first hour or so and I was down to $100 when I got A4 spades in the small blind. Four people had already come in the pot for $10 so I pitched in my chips and Todd called as well. The flop came down 2s 5c 8s and Todd fired out $25. Everyone folded around to Willy and he reraised to $75. I thought for a minute and figuring I was probably not going to get a better chance to make a move and pushed my $90 into the pot. I was surprised when Todd pitched his cards but even more surprised when Willy, who was now stuck in the pot with only $15 more to call, turned over K6 offsuit and I was actually ahead. Todd had pitched pocket Jacks and I spiked a spade on the turn to lock it up.

I managed to take down a few more big pots after basically just staying out of the way of trouble all night. I left Vollmer at 5:30 am and I had a thousand dollars, so Atlantic City was definitely on my horizon. The three of us got up to AC at about 1am on Monday morning, and I sat at my first $1-2 NL table in the Borgata about 24 hours after I had sat in at Vollmer. Omen? First hand I see is queens in the big blind and the guy in front of me raises to $20, I reraise to $70 and he calls. The flop comes down rags and he checks to me, I fire out $50 and he folds. The very next orbit in the same position I pick up Kings. Same guy raises to $20, I reraise to $70 and he calls. Flop comes rags and he checks, I fire out $50 and he folds. The table by far was like the 'Golden Goose' and unfortunately for Don and I, we had sat in on the tail end of most of these players' sessions. About three hours later Don and I were both up $500 when the table broke.

The next table I sat at was a little tighter and I got in good situations but unfortunately on one hand, someone had Kings to my Jacks on a rag flop and he took about half of my profit from the other table. By the time the three of us got up from the tables at around 10am, I had built my stack back up and session number one was a $500 winner. We got some breakfast and managed to get into our room early, we were all pretty exhausted so we crashed and got up around 5pm and went back downstairs. I played pretty well and scratched out $80 over about ninety minutes before the evening tournament started. It was a $60 rebuy tourney, with unlimited rebuys for the first three levels and an add-on. You started with 1500 in chips. I had really wanted to play a tournament up there, but I'm not usually a fan of rebuy tournaments. I took the plunge anyways and over the next five hours I may have played the best poker I've ever played.

I was in the big blind for the first hand and three people limped in the pot, small blind completes and I look down at pocket kings. Omen? I raise and take down the pot. I then proceed to get a combination of great cards and tight players who let me take down a lot of pots as I'm playing pretty aggressively. I made one mistake when I called a guy's all-in preflop about 5 minutes before the end of the rebuy levels and he had Kings to my Jacks, but he had been playing real loose so I felt pretty good about my hand. That took me down just below 1500, so I rebought and on the last hand of the level I picked up AK on the button and a guy makes a move on the pot from the small blind, I call and he has KJ. So I almost double up there and after the add-on I have about 9000 in chips which is right around third highest on my table.

I steadily picked up chips for the next two levels until they broke my table, and on the second hand at my next table I picked up Aces and knocked out a player when I reraised him all-in and he called with eights. I chipped up here and there and then two interesting hands came up which I'm going to post about separately as part of a hand discussion. But I managed my way to the final table and had about T35,000 with 380,000 chips in play, just about dead on the 'average' chip stack. I stayed out of the way for a while as short stacks got busted and big stacks took away pots, and managed to pick up the blinds and antes here and there to keep myself above water. Before I sat at the final table one of my boys had given me a tip about an old guy he had been sitting with before he got knocked out, letting me know he was raising pots with weak and medium Aces and small pairs. I had watched him for a while at the final table and when he came in raising he either took the pot on the flop or he was giving up the pot to pressure from the other player(s). He made a raise from middle position while I was in the big blind and I called with K9 of spades. The blinds were at 2000/4000 with 1000 antes and I had about 28,000 left after calling his raise to 10,000. The flop came out rags and I fired 14,000 into the pot, which was around half of the pot. He thought for a minute and called. The turn card was another rag and moved my last 14,000 in the pot and he mucked right away. I think that was a pretty critical hand for the amount of chips it bought me just as blinds were really starting to pressure me. Then there were a couple of ridiculous hands where the player to my right sucked out to knock three players out and suddenly we got down to three handed play.

At that point I had about 65K in chips, the guy on my right had about 140K and the other player had 180K. I offered a chop right there which would have given each of us $2700 a piece but the player on my right said he wanted to play and after a little discussion the other player decided he wanted to play as well. Immediately the two of them tangled and And the palyer to my right took some chips from him, then I doubled up through him when I had Jacks to his Ace-King. Suddenly I'm the chip leader with about 260,000 to 100,000 and 20,000 for the other players. The very next hand the guy on my right moves all-in and I have Ace-King, I call and I'm up against Queen-Jack. He spiked a queen on the river to double up and then on the next hand he took out the other player. At that point he has 230,000 to my 150,000 in chips and I offer him a chop again. We work out the deal and I walked away a $3000 winner and a little peeved about that queen on the river. I did take some solace in the fact that the third guy got a little greedy and cost himself $1500 though.

Then it was right back to the tables and I had worked up another $200 in profit when the speed bump in my trip came up. I was playing at a pretty solid table and I pick up 10 8 suited in the small blind, a bunch of players limp in, I complete and the big blind pops the action up another $15. He hasn't played a hand in like forty minutes or so and I'm feeling like it's a monster, AA or KK. It folds around to me and I decide to take a shot at busting him, because if I hit the flop I know I can get all his money in the middle. I call and the flop comes down 10 8 7 with two hearts, about the second best flop I can hope for there. I lead out for $30 and he reraises me to $80, I pause for a second and then I move all-in for another $340. He doesn't even hesitate and moves it all in the middle and turns over Kings. When I turn up my hand I let out a sigh of relief and he tells me good hand, he thought I was trying to just bully him out of the pot. I know we have about the same amount of chips so I start counting mine down to get the final number and then the dealer pushes the chips at him. I had never seen the 7 hit the river and give him a better two pair. So after 20 hours in a row of poker, I think that beat knocked the wind out of my sails. I rebought and though I got good cards, I kept getting into bad situations and an hour or so later I had lost that buy-in as well. That took me up to the morning tournament and again I played pretty damn well. I just never caught the hand I needed in the middle levels to get comfortable and I got knocked out in 12th place, just missing another final table.

I decided to call it a day at that point and went upstairs and crashed for several hours. I knew I was in no shape to sit down in a cash game and play right, but it still had ended up being 26 hours in a row of very good poker. The guys came upstairs around 2 or 3 am, Don polishing off about a 30 hour session and an overall very good trip. I was rested enough to go back downstairs and try and cap off a good trip during my last five hours at the Borgata. The room was fairly dead as it usually is at 3am on a weekday night, but a few tables were going and I got seated at a 1/2 table that was actually fairly good. One guy in particular was who I wanted to get into a pot with as he clearly thought himself the table captain and was not nearly that good. I spent the better part of an hour setting up a play on him, showing him down some mediocre hands and bluffs. Then another guy at the table busted him and all my work was for naught as he decided to call it a night. That basically broke our game and we combined two tables and I got seated at the end of the table with the four token bad drunks from Paramus or wherever they usually come from. The lone bright spot was the stacks they had in front of them. Two of them got picked off before long and then I got a bit of good fortune. A fairly tight player raises from early position to $10, and four other people call including one of the drunks who definitely thought of himself as a badass. I called from the big blind with K 10 of diamonds trying to hit a good flop. Board came out Qd Jh 8d, and I fired out $30 into the $61 pot and as the raiser was getting ready to call, the drunk announces with a flip of his hand, "I'm all-in." The raiser decides to muck, everyone else folds and I call with the straight draw, flush draw and an overcard. He had about $200 sitting in front of him and I'm hoping he isn't holding anything too good, and then like a dream he turns over 56 of diamonds. The board bricks out and I take down the pot with King-high. I made a bunch of top flushes during the next couple hours and then after announcing my last hand I look down at pocket kings, raise from UTG and got no action, and I ended the session by booking another winner of $400.

It's by far the best run I've had in as short a period of time since the third week of March when I went on a tear in tournaments on Full Tilt. I was really happy with how I played, and but for a couple of river cards I might have left New Jersey with about $2000 more in my pocket, but such is poker. I never got all my money in the middle as an underdog, and in the tournament I chopped, I may have played the best poker that I ever have. Aside from the usual breaks you have to catch in tournament poker, I just played really well. So hopefully that was an omen of things to come with my poker game.

I'll have another post soon on some of the more interesting hands I saw in tournament and ring game play for some discussion.