Saturday was a very unusual, uncharacteristic day for me. How so? Well hell, first of all, I was coming off a cash in my biggest ever live tourney, measured by field size and buy-in. I was still pretty much half asleep in frog pajamas, when the Good Doctor Mondo dragged my dog ass out of bed around 9am to spend most of the day in the Lazy River pool, and as much I really don't care for pools, swimming, and all that jazz, the MGM Grand's Lazy River was really kinda cool.
Anyway, it was eventually time to play some poker, and I found a 3/6 HORSE table at the MGM. Apparently, 3/6 HORSE is a rare bird at the MGM, indeed. I was told it was only the 2nd time that game was ever spread. Unfortunately, the only thing more rare than running that game, was me having any kind of hand. I sat in at the start of Stud, and didn't win a pot until the 2nd hand of Razz. Ick. Only won a couple of pots, and dropped about $70 over nine orbits. Okay, fuck it, I'm hungry, let's grab a sammich and play some 1/2...off we go!
I sign up to find a 14 name waiting list, but it's only about 20 minutes before I'm sitting down to what appears to be a possibly profitable table. About one orbit in, I pick up KK (either UTG, or EP1, I now forget which). Naturally, I bump it to $14 to go, and I only get one caller - a large tattooed Latino guy who reminds me of some of those Unique Whips folks. Anyway, he calls, and we see a flop of 642, with two hearts (I have Kh). I didn't like the flush draw, so I bet $20, and he raises to $40. I flat call, and 6h shows up on the turn. He checks, and I'm immediately suspicious of turned trips. Still, I check behind, and the Qh shows up on the river. The dude bets $40, and I'm sure he's got a 6, but I have the K-high flush, and call. Well, the read was mostly right. He had 64. Yup, the turned boat. Yup, he called $14 PF out of position, with nothing more than 64 soooted. Nice hand, sir.
That's cool, I've still got $120, and a great read. I'll get it back. Over the next 2-3 orbits, I fold a ton of trash pockets, but watch as this same guy raises 90% of all hands preflop, between $14 and $20 each time. And when he got callers, he C-bet 90% of those times. Twice he was called down and had to show trash like T7o, so he's basically betting not ATC, but ETC (every two cards). The only times he ever folded to flop or turn bets were when he was raised off pots by a dude at the end of the table who looked...suspiciously...like his brother or cousin. They were virtually identical looking, except for the ink. And no, I'm not stereotyping. Anyway, I didn't suspect collusion, just bad aggro play. I'm gonna get paid off, eventually.
And then...BOOM. AA under the gun. Normally, I'd raise this up to $12, $14, or so. But I've got monkey aggro two seats to my right, in the small blind. He's going to raise, and I'm going to get paid. So....I....check. And then five limp behind. And monkey aggro....checks. Fuck. He raises every hand except this one. Still, the flop comes Q42 rainbow, so I feel okay. Now that we're several days later, I'm a bit fuzzy, but I believe the donk checked, I bet $20, and he and one other player called the flop. Okay. Rag on the turn, and monkey aggro shoves a stack that's now smaller than mine. Obviously, I overshove -- he's trying to push me off.
Except the player behind me calls. Monkey aggro turns over AQo, just as I thought...and then the player behind me shows 44 for the flopped set. I miss my 1 outer on the river, and 44 stacks us both. Gack.
I know, I know, I know....never limp AA. But I felt I was playing a player more than the cards that hand. He was raising every damn hand, and I knew I'd get to make a large 3-bet. Meh. If it's any consolation, I figure the 44 would have called a $14 bet PF with implied odds of the expected monkey call out of the small blind. But still, now I'm on tilt. Lost a buy-in in 45 minutes where the only hands I played were AA and KK. I needed revenge, and I was going to get it at....
....table games. Please do me a favor if you're ever with me in Vega$, and I make a move towards the table games. Stop me. I don't care how. Just stop me.
First, I dump $60 in two hands of Pai-Gow, before I realize wtf am I doing playing a game best played drunk in $5 increments, for $30 bucks a hand (and sober, at that). So I take $140 over to 3 Card Poker, where I'm quickly back up to $250. Do I leave, having recovered about 1/3 of my loss for the night? No. I swing down. I swing up. Eventually, I turn that $140 into about $350 or so. I've actually recovered over half my poker loss, and my entire Pai-Gow loss.
Do I leave? Hell no. Not until 20 minutes after the Dealer of Death arrives I lose all of that, and even $100 more. Fortunately, I stopped myself after I pulled out my very last C-note, before turning into chips that would eventually belong to Mr. MGM. What an expensive lesson. Here I am, down a few hundo for the trip thus far, even having cashed in the Mega Series, and having had one nice 1/2 session. No more table games for Mondo, ever. I can't be trusted. Every time I was up, I just knew I'd go up more. When I was down, I just knew I'd recover in a hand or two. Yup. Just say no.
I'm please to inform you that I did not play a single table game hand my entire last 38 hours in Vega$. Hopefully, hard lesson in monkey tilt learned.
Part 3 later!
No comments:
Post a Comment