Outer Monologue

Foxwoods Baby, Foxwoods!

Mary was away this weekend and I found myself bored late saturday night, so I headed down to Foxwoods.

I was sort of down that way anyway, having spent much of the day at Mark Edwards' house playing Advanced Civilization (a story unto itself).

The trip felt like that scene in Swingers where they head to Vegas (hence the post title), complete with late night drive and dawn return. I of course, played the part of Jon Favreau (clearly I'm not cool enough to be Vince Vaughn). The only differences here were that there were no hot waitresses to hit on (or at least, I didn't hit on them), and I won.

Wait, wait, WAIT you're saying! Your humble auteur went to a casino and didn't lose money?!

More on the flip...

I'll start right out and give the good news.

I left the casino up $118 after three and a half hours of play. Doesn't quite cancel out the amount I lost in first trip, but it goes a long way towards it.

Plus, it meant I've now left my last TWO tables at a casino up and confident about my game.

Anyway...

I arrived down in Mashantucket, Connecticut around midnight, and after parking in the least convenient of the available garages (for no other reason than I couldn't recall which was the best one), I made my way onto the casino floor.

My original intention was to head down on sunday morning and get a table before noon, but I figured, what the hell, I'm more than halfway there already, so I may as well just go now.

Plus, I was hoping to hit a good table of Rowdy Drunks, which would make winning MUCH easier.

Sadly, it was not meant to be. But more on that later.

I signed-in at the desk and added my name to the 2/4 list. The wait was reported as "less than an hour", so I turned around and bought $200 in chips, just in case I got bored waiting and decided to risk the 4/8 tables.

Luckily, they were replaying the Sox game in the sports betting lounge, so I was able to pass the time there.

I finally was seated at around 1:05am (wait time about 40 minutes) and found myself at a table much less favourable than I'd hoped for.

There wasn't a single Rowdy Drunk that I could see, and several people that looked, at first glance, like Young Sharks.

My first-glance appraisal of the table (including watching a few hands while I wanted for the big blind to get to me so I could play) put the table at something like this:

About 2-3 Young Sharks (or people trying to be young sharks), 1-2 Patient Pensioners (up late for that crowd, from what I've seen) several Friendly Novices and one guy who I can only call a "Veteran Grinder" (yay, a 5th designation!).

He was an older fellow and quiet, but he clearly knew what he was doing. As the night wore on (until he left), it was clear he was a pretty skilled player who knew what he was doing, though a bit too passive to really be classed as a shark. He generally won hands that he went to showdown in, so I tended to stay out of his way after the first orbit or so. He eventually left when I cracked his pocket kings with suited connectors out of the big blind (there were 5 players total on the flop, when I hit two pair). I can't blame him for it, either. It's a shitty way to lose a hand.

The first hour of play was eerily reminiscent of the beginning of my last trip, wherein I caught virtually no good cards (and never hit the flop). The only difference was my discipline, which held tight (very proud of that fact).

At the half-hour mark I was down about $38, having just lost the first hand I went to showdown with (top pair, I was out-kicked).

By the hour mark, I was down about $2, having made the aforementioned two-pair versus the Veteran Grinder's pocket kings. In that first hour, I played a total 8 hands past the flop where I had to voluntarily put money into the pot (aka, not counting playing from the big blind). I went to showdown on 2 of them, and won one of them.

I was, to put it nicely, not pleased.

And to top it off, the table was, for the first hour, not very interesting. There were no talkers, no fun, not even an "ooohhh" at a particularly pretty flop (saw several trip flops in that hour).

However, my patience was holding, which meant my hand discipline was holding, so I wasn't hurting (witness being even at the hour mark). So I was, oddly enough, pretty happy.

Things turned around after that. The table changed-up a bit at the far end (the Grinder left, the young shark at that end left and one of the friendly novices did too) as other tables were broken up and players moved to ours.

In addition, my end of the table finally got a bit chatty, as I started talking to the definite young shark sitting right across from me.

He was a funny guy, and a scarily dead-on reader (he put me on exact hands far too many times, and did the same to others) and we started having side conversations about hands after they were done... what we would have done (if we weren't involved) or what we had and how we would have reacted if the other guy had made a different play.

He was a no-limit player primarily and apparently in college and found limit pretty boring. However, against expectations for such a player, he had the discipline, patience and tight-aggressive play-style that a good limit player needs to win.

From what I've seen, most no-limit players tend to sit down at a limit table and raise too much and bluff at too many pots. They also tend to take a lot of bad beats, over-valuing top-pairs (top pair can and often does win at limit in my experience, but when you have a lot of callers [which you often do], you have to learn when to recognize when that rag flop just hit someone right in the face).

So he made the game, finally, far more interesting, and our conversation perked up the other players at our end, making our whole end a generally more interesting and friendly place.

And happily, at the same time, I finally got some cards.

Now mind you, when I say "got some cards", I don't mean GREAT cards. I didn't see a pocket pair until almost the two hour mark (and saw three total the whole evening, winning with none of them), but I started pulling more big cards and suited connectors.

And more importantly, I started hitting the flops.

I won several small to medium-sized pots such that I was up about 40 bucks by the one and a half hour mark (yep, 40 bucks in thirty minutes).

Then I hit two flops hard... and I mean HARD.

The first one was a J10s that I called with under the gun (a bit loose, but with the amount of callers this table always got, I was getting my odds). I flopped the nut straight on a rainbow flop and slow-played it, and it checked around (to my chagrin).

The turn was a rag and I checked it again (there were some relatively aggressive players after me that I just KNEW would bet into it). A guy two after me bet out and it called around (I took a second to call, but didn't hollywood it at all).

The river was an ace (inside I cheered), and I checked again. The same guy bet out again, and, amusingly to me, my friend the college student glanced at me and folded (damn, I must have a bad tell). Almost everyone else called around, and then I raised and got two other callers (including the guy who bet out). With restraint I turned over the straight and raked-in over a $60 pot.

The other hand was slightly more than an orbit later (the college guy had left by then, and I also had a new guy to my left).

I was in the small blind with 9-10o and called, mostly because it was going to be a family flop (the guy in the big blind was cheering about it as it was called around, and he was pretty passive, so I didn't think he'd raise).

I avoided the urge to yell out "Everybody Gamboool!" (sorry B, it wasn't quite that kind of table).

The flop came out 10-10-3 rainbow. I'd flopped a set. Again, I opted to slow-play it. It was unlikely that I could have been beat, and there were few cards that could have come that would have made me more likely to be beat.

Sadly, it checked all the way around.

The fun part was that I turned the nut full house. Yep, a 9 came...

At this point, I knew I had the deck pretty much broken, so I checked it again and to my extreme (but totally non-visible) pain, it checked around again.

The table was increasingly skittish as the night went on, such that I don't think I would have had any callers had I bet out on the turn (or maybe one, but I wanted several).

So anyway... the river...

Yeah, the river was a 10. I'd made quads. At this point, the deck was just a small pile of paper shreds I'd broken it so badly. I probably should have bet out at that point, but I still had hopes that someone else would bet first, especially someone with a looser image than I had.

So I checked. And two guys later, out came a bet, and there were several calls (4 or 5, I believe). When it came back to me, I raised smoothly, and got two callers (including the guy who bet out).

I turned over the obvious winner and pulled in the cash...

It wasn't as big a pot as the straight, but it was still a pretty good size.

I had a few more winners as the night wore on, but those were the biggest two.

The most I was up was $124 (I played one more orbit after that and then left).

By 4:30, I was starting to feel just the beginnings of burned out, and knew I had a long drive ahead of me, so I decided that it was time to go. I asked around if anyone had a second chip rack (my chips would no longer fit in the one I came with).

It was funny, people were like "the cash-out is just over there, just carry them", to which I replied "yeah, but I can just see myself spilling them all over the place on the way".

When it became clear there wasn't a second chip rack, I decided to just risk it, and of course, as soon as I got up... chips everywhere...

It gave everyone (myself included) a good laugh, but it's just so par for the course for me ;)




All in all, a good night, and I was mostly very pleased with my play.

I can recall only two hands where I really question my play (both times I laid down before the river, but lost more money than I should have), and a few starting hands I likely shouldn't have played, but not alot of them.

Oh, and as to bluffing... it's virtually impossible at a table like this, but once you have a significant enough table image, you can do it once in awhile.

I won two small pots on bluffs. I had Ace-big both times and raised pre-flop in early position. The flop came out rags and I bet out and people folded to me. Of course, this was after the flopped straight hand and the quads hand, after which people started playing more warily with me.

I can definitely classify myself as a "Young Shark" this time, for which I am quite proud.

I'm also quite proud that I did so well considering that I only ever held three pocket pairs the whole night (Jacks, 9's and 8's) and didn't win with any of them and was able to lay them down (though I held onto the jacks one betting-round too long). I won it all with unmade drawing hands and big cards.

So I made my movie-like exit, cashed-out, hit the bathroom, got lost in the casino looking for the entrance to the parking garage, got lost in the parking garage looking for my car and finally hit the road at around 4:50 in the morning, driving off into the sunrise.

Okay, NOT very movie-like, unless you cut out all the middle stuff ;)

Posted by Campbell at August 28, 2005 06:15 PM