Friday night 1/2 NLHE at Poker Nation

So I get off from my day job a little after 7pm and about to make my twice weekly visit to Poker Nation (PN) and get stuck in a really nasty traffic jam on the 202 West bound. It took almost an hour to get past the wreck, lots of pissed off aggressive drivers. A great opportunity to go on tilt. Instead I took the opportunity to relax after a long and stressful day at work. To try to recoup some spent energy and prepare to play some NLHE.

I get to PN about 8:30 or so and find a list for the 1/2 NLHE game, put my name and go next door to Subway and get some dinner. By the time I get my order and sit down at a empty table to eat the game gets called around me. Cool, I like the seat I am in and go ahead and buy in for my normal, the maximum allowed. I never want to find myself in a situation where I have the the best hand and not have the opportunity to win the most chips I possibly can.

First interesting hand takes place on the first orbit. I am in the SB with AQo and decide to complete instead of raising after several limper's. I do not like playing out of position (OOP) in a raised pot against players I do not have a good feel for yet. I would rather leverage my post flop skills, unfortunately I failed this test and ended up dropping $80 to a turned flush after flopping TPTK. Oh well, too bad I remembered the villain in the hand loves to chase flashes at any cost AFTER the hand. LOL.

The table breaks shortly after starting to make room for the 9pm deepstack tournament and I have to go back on the list for the main game. It's OK I am first on the list and could use a few minutes to recollect my thoughts before diving back in again.

I am seated at the main game in a few minutes, which has a good makeup of players.

In the 9 seat is an attractive blond that is the wife of the player in seat 6. I am in seat 8 directly to her left, nice place to be, but OOP against her husband, I would prefer to be in position, but oh well. She is inexperienced at playing poker but she has a clue or good luck and about $250 to go with it. Her husband is hyper LAG making massive overbets when drawing or bluffing. VERY easy to read. He is not a bad player at all, he used his aggression well in well timed spots. Showed his bluffs when it would be to his advantage. But I was licking my lips hopeful I would get the opportunity to play a big hand with him, easy pickens.

In seat 7 on my left is an older lady I have played with several times at PN. She has a real bad habit of playing to the river once she puts chips in the pot. Over plays her hands and is a tell box that is super easy to read. Too bad for many others she is "hard" to read and tends to accumulate decent stacks despite always buying in short. Which is great for me, she takes it off the donks, and I take it off her.

There are two reasonably solid regulars on the table, but also very exploitable. Between tilt and straight forward playing style with little or no variation they are not too hard to beat. I would not say I avoid hands with them, but I tend to concentrate on the fish and take my opportunities against the regulars when they present themselves.

The table is playing fairly passive, lots of limping, which I don't mind at all, gives me the chance to play speculative hands in position cheaply and use post flop skills to extract value from big hands. When seat 6 is in a hand, it gets explosive to say the least, too bad I never got a hand to mix it up with him.

First interesting hand...

Two or three limps to seat 6 OTB and he opens to $12, SB calls and they go HU to the flop. Flop comes A87 rainbow. SB bet $15 and BTN RR to $60 which would be enough to put the SB AI if he were to call. We finally have to call the clock on the SB, and he folds and BTN shows 66, seat 5 the SB is now on monkey tilt. Good hand husband the wife says, which I echo. I was happy to see seat 5 rebuy to the max and be on monkey spew tilt.

I dodge a bullet!

Regular #1 limps UTG+2 folds around to the blond and she checks, told she has to call $2 or fold, trys to check again and finally gets it and puts out $2 and I call $2 OTB with A5o, SB completes and the BB checks.

At this point I put the regular on a SPP, suited aces or broadway cards. He tends to not raise from early position as he too doesn't like to play big hands OOP. The other, who knows, don't care and will figure it after the flop.

Flop ($10): 3h5sJh, SB checks, BB checks, regular bets $8, blond hesitates and calls $8 just like she has every hand I have seen her play, I decide to call after looking left and seeing that the SB was folding and the BB was calling. I figure I have a good chance to float this flop and take it away on the turn or river or improve with two pair or trips.

Turn ($34) 3h5sJh, Ac (bingo!); BB checks in disgust, but the regular really likes the ace. Good! He bets $25 and the blond does her hesitate and call and I think about jacking it up big here, but that made my hand too transparent to the regular and he would get away from a big raise so I did the next best thing, a smaller raise to $60, BB folds and the regular looks like he wants to RR but just calls and the blond tags along yet again.

Now at this point I don't feel nearly as good about my hand. The regular seems to feel he has a monster and is smart enough to not think that with a hand like AK or AQ here. I am hopeful he doesn't have AJ or a set.

River ($213) 3h5sJhAc, 5h (wham bam!), regular leads for $60 and has another ~$100 or so left, cool, nice value bet, he has the flush, must have AK or AQ hearts. The blond stares at the flop, and is disgusted and shows the dealer her hand, the dealers face is shock and horror as she mucks, humm that was interesting, but I have a regular to stack right now, so I push, and he insta calls and tables AhKh and I table the Ad5c for the boat.

After the hand the blond starts asking about the board cards and says "Damn, I miss played that hand badly, I had JJ". Since she was rather new to poker I asked her if she had one or two jacks in her hand, she said JJ. And the dealer confirmed this later. WOW! I dodged a bullet there, she had me covered at this point, but mis read her hand, didn't see the full house and mucked.

I felt a little bad for her, but was not going to split the pot with her and she did not ask. I did not see the best hand mucked, and frankly being able to read your hand is a basic skill in poker. Chips go to the player with the better skills at the table.

One of those WOW hands...

So seat 5 that has been on monkey tilt has bled off his stack and is replaced by a semi-regular who buys in for max and generally presents himself as knowing what he is doing. I haven't played with him before, and he just walked in the door and sat so he has no clue about the husband that is the hyper LAG.

Seat 5 raises to $11 UTG, folds about to seat 7 and she calls OTB (oops she has a monster, JJ+) and the husband calls from the BB.

Flop ($34) 3x5xJx, BB checks, UTG bets $30, BTN calls and BB RRAI for ~$150 total. Now UTG is definitely pained by the AI. He finally folds after showing the other end of the table his hand, yep had to be AA, BTN insta calls with KK and BB reluctantly tables J6o.

UTG is now on monkey tilt and reloads, thank you husband of the cute blond, I will have to start calling to tilt master, as you definitely tilt the other players!

BTN rakes a nice big pot, great more for me! The husband and wife leave after that hand, booo I wanted her stack and him to reload and keep playing wildly. Oh well, thats poker.

The hand that turns a winning session into a losing session...

I have been doing well, picking up several smaller pots and a couple of stackings of short stacks and am sitting with about $400 when this bugger comes up.

The table has started playing bigger now that there are a few deeper stacks. We have 4+ players with $300+ stacks now. And opening raises of $6-$10 are being called by 6+ people. I have changed gears and am now looking to steal pots PF by RR big when we have these $6 raises and lots of callers and I am in late position and playing post flop with speculative hands in position.

I pick up 8c7c in the SB and have a family pot brewing with a $6 open from UTG a fairly solid player, but some what unknown to me. Sure enough its 9 handed for $6 to the flop.

Flop ($54) 6h9h10c (bingo!) I am looking to CR big on this flop and check, BB checks, UTG leads for $30 with about $60 behind, tourny-donk with ~$400 calls from MP and folds back to me. I push for ~$400, blinds fold and UTG snap calls AI for less and MP tanks a whole 30 seconds and calls.

UTG QsQh, MP JcJh, YES!!!

Turn and river... 7h Ah CRAP!!!!!

I hate when they have less than 10% chance of winning but still do. Oh well thats poker.

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 08.638% 08.64% 00.00% 78 0.00 { QhQs }
Hand 1: 04.540% 04.54% 00.00% 41 0.00 { JcJh }
Hand 2: 86.822% 86.82% 00.00% 784 0.00 { 8c7c }

MP plays another 15 minutes or so and racks up and leaves without making it totally obvious that he was hitting and running.

I reload and manage to trim my loss to ~$100 for the night before leaving at 3:30am by which time the table was not a good one. No one had a decent stack and all were decent players that are not going to stack off with me lightly. No sense in continuing and call it a night.

Poker Nation

So one of the new socail gaming clubs in Poker Nation.

Poker Nation has (4) tables, and runs nightly tournaments and cash games. The primary cash game is 1/2 NLHE with a 100BB capped buyin. The room is well ran with professional and semi-professional dealers that work for tips only. All things considered they do a good job, but one must remain vigilant to protect one's self from dealer mistakes, not unlike in any poker game. I find that I am a little more "on gaurd" than if say I was playing at the Wynn in Vegas.

Poker Nation has a $20 membership fee to The International Card and Game Players Association. Which is fine with me, as the ICGPA is fighting for poker player rights here in AZ and could have an impact on the legality of poker online and nation wide.

Poker Nation uses the ICGPA form of a button fee which ranges depending on the number of players from $0 to $2. If you want to do the math feel free, but it ends up working out to less than if you were to play in a raked or time charge game at any local casino.

Depending on the dealer and the player make up of the game, they are turning out somewhere between 25 and 35 hands an hour. The games often play short handed without a great fear of the game breaking up. I have spent hours play 5 and 6 handed and never had to worry about a typical casino nit wanting to stop the game.

The room bases it rules on Roberts rules of poker. Which is good, as so many people in this town have been subjected to local casino rules, that simply do not fit with the rest of the world.

Introduction

Welcome to Poker in the Valley of the Sun, the greater Phoenix metro area.

I am a local poker player that has been playing live or as I prefer to refer to it as table poker for most of my juvenile and adult life.

I moved to Phoenix about 12 years ago, before the great casino sell out that severely put a crimp in the local poker scene. In the past the Phoenix poker scene was a rival to the best in the country like Vegas and LA.

A few years ago the casinos in an effort before the poker boom to make the most out of their situation sold out poker players in order to get black jack and other table games like three card "poker" and Pai Gow. Currently the maximum bet in poker allowed in $150, which has resulted in a strong limit hold'em community but has killed the big bet games like PLO and NL hold'em.

With the void in place, social gaming is taking up the void and slowly filling it. Under AZ law it is legal to host a poker game as long as the host is not taking a rake from the game. Some inventive ways have come up to take advantage of this loop hole, like button charges and membership fees.

I primarily play in the social gaming clubs now in the Phoenix area and make regular trips to Vegas to play higher stakes games. This blog will follow my adventures in the social clubs and trips to the Wynn.