Live games in Atlantic City

Like I mentioned yesterday, I didn't have a computer to play on for a few days, so I played the cash games in AC. I was dead tired the first day, so only played a couple hours since I was almost falling asleep at the table. (Still hadn't caught up on sleep. When I left AZ, my flight left at 5am on the 31st, so I just stayed up until my flight. I couldn't get to sleep on the plane, so when I got here(to NJ), I just decided to stay up for the rest of the day so I could get on a semi-normal sleep schedule. So I ended up staying up for like 40 hours straight- which has become almost standard for me every 2-3 months or so to adjust sleep schedules)

Anyways, about the cash games. The games in AC were good, as usual. I played the 5/10 ($1,500 buy in) games. I'll probably end up going once every other week or so to AC to get away from the grind of online poker since I'm so close. Live poker gets pretty boring, but is a good change of pace. It's soooo much slower though, so after a few days I'm usually pretty bored with playing live. Online I 8-table and play about 800 hands per hour, and live I play about 30, so it's a huge difference.

I'm always curious about the people I play with live, like what they do for a living and how they have a lot of money to gamble with. At the higher stakes games people are often throwing around thousands of dollars like it means nothing, sometimes rebuying several times, so I always wonder what some of the people do to get their money. Obviously you have your older crowd(businessmen, retired guys, etc...) - but I'm talking about the 20-something year olds who aren't other pro players. I'm always curious as to where they are getting so much money to be flashing around. Obviously some are into illegal stuff, but they can't all be, can they? I see some of the same guys there every time I'm in AC, pockets stacked full with wads of $100 bills, and they definitely aren't making their money from poker.

Here's a few hands from AC:

I think this was from the 2nd day I was there- I had been at the table for about an hour. I hadn't been picking up many hands at all, but had been trying to make some plays with any hands I had gotten to that point, so didn't have too tight of an image. I pick up KK and I raise it up to $50. Folded around to a player in middle position, and he makes it $100. I had seen him do this one time so far, and he showed down Queens. I hadn't seen him three-bet other than that time, and he seems relatively tight for the most part. He seemed to be a pretty good player, possibly a pro. A shorter stack called from the blinds. I decided to re-raise. It got back to the player who had three-bet me, and he made it another $1,000 or so. That would just about put me all-in if I decided to call. The shorter stack called, and it came back to me. I thought for a minute, and folded my Kings face up. The table reaction was hilarious. "what are you doing!!!!!!!" said the guy next to me. "wtf, did he just fold pocket kings!!" I would have felt like the biggest idiot in the world if my read was wrong. The players flipped over their cards, and he showed AA against the shorties AQ, so my read was right, and ended up saving me $1k there. In most situations with 150 big blinds or less I'm usually getting all my chips in with KK, but this situation I felt I was behind. I won't get into a lot of boring detail here, I'll do some strategy blog posts in the near future.


One interesting hand was against a rich guy who played extremely crazy.(I assumed he was rich because he played like money didn't matter, and when he went to reload he pulled out a ridiculous amount of money) A few hands earlier I busted him when I had AA. He reloaded and was raising pretty much every pot pf. He was a regular, and what a couple other players mentioned was that although he plays kind of crazy pre-flop, he definitely knows what he's doing post-flop. He did his standard pf raise to about $60, and I pick up AQ with position on him, and call. Heads up to the flop.

Flop: Q-J-9- rainbow(rainbow means none of the same suits)

He checks, and I bet $100. He thinks for about 3 seconds and pushes out $1,500, and goes all in. I definitely hadn't seen him overbet a pot like this yet, and although he played crazy, I didn't think he was an idiot, and I think in this spot I'm either way behind, or he's got a Ten and wants to draw. Maybe a pair + draw. Since there's no flush draw, I think it's less likely that he'd make a play like this with a draw, and I haven't seen live players do this much, as opposed to online players. He said, "if you don't have two pair, you should fold." I think for a while, and decide to fold my AQ. I had good position on him, so figured I'd wait for a better spot against him where I didn't have to call $1,400 with one pair, although I hated folding since he was playing like he was on tilt, constantly showing down bluffs, raising blind, etc... He said, "good fold" and showed me a Jack, but didn't show the other card.


A hand from the last day I was in AC- Tuesday, is just kind of a funny hand. This player it was against was literally one of the biggest fish I'd ever played against. I was playing very aggressively at the table, and raising a ton pf, and taking down a lot of pots on the flop. This player was getting very agitated by the way I was playing. "You don't even have anything, you are just betting every time. I'm going to catch you." He said, as he stared me down, and folded for like the 5th straight time on the flop to my continuation bet. I kept playing pretty aggressively, and he kept mumbling to himself and staring me down like an angry bear. He was maybe in his 40's, with a big beard and a baseball cap, and looked grumpy like he hadn't slept in a while. From what another person at the table told me, he had been at his table all day, and he was down about $3,500.

Anyways, fast forward a little bit. Over the next 30 minutes or so this guy goes on a ridiculous run. Hits quads, runner runner flush, full house, etc... Gets his stack up to around $5k, and we finally get into a hand heads up together, which I'd been waiting for. I raise QT from middle position, and he calls from the blinds, all while staring me down and mumbling(seriously.) I have around $4,200, and he has me covered.

Flop: Q-3-J

He donks out $400 into a pot that's only around $100. I literally started laughing out loud( I didn't mean to it just happened- wasn't like a loud laugh, more like a chuckle, but I don't chuckle) and called. The turn was an Ace. He takes about 5 seconds, and fires out $1,000. I fold, and he instantly slams down KT for the nuts and says , "ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! how did you know........man i play bad!!! i should have bet small again." I said, "no you are playing well sir, nice hand," trying to keep him happy, and at the table. Pretty much the whole table was laughing hysterically at this point. Unfortunately for me, he had $5,500 at that time, and it quickly dwindled down to about $2,000, before he got up and left, and I got none of it.


Anyways, AC was good, nice to play live for a couple days, but definitely happy to be back to playing online. I talked to a guy who plays the 10/25 in AC, and says the standard buy in is often $10,000+ in that game. I had been debating playing in it this summer, but I wouldn't want to buy in with that much. I'd want to buy in with like $2,500-$5,000(like I'd initially planned), but I don't want to be one of the short stacks at the table if the game plays real deep. I don't think I'd be able to play my game if that was the case. So when I'm in AC I'll just keep playing the 5/10 games for now.