Finding ways stall and delay

Well, looks like my wife another way to keep me very busy and I have no intentions of complaining. Google Reader and the recap will just have to wait.

OhCountess has booked us 2 nights at the Treasure Island Casino to celebrate New Years Eve. With the grandparents watching the kids, we get have some grown up fun for the last few hours of 2008.

I'm actually doing my best to save time off from work so to accommodate going to a couple and maybe a few other meet ups in 2009. Yo! As strange is this may sound, I've driven back to work today for a nice little half day before taking tomorrow off in honor of forced PTO (paid time off). Why do we get New Years Day off?

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Last night, we got the kids dropped off at the grandparents and headed to the casino for supper. This is an indian casino that has rockin' food. Must be a good way of drawing the suckers in to play the copious array of -EV games and machines. It also sports one of the smaller card rooms in the area. It's about the same size as Binion's. Maybe a little smaller and definitely darker. It's also smokier then any other room I've ever played.

Last night, the card room was really slow. They only had a single tables of $2/$4 and $3/$6 LHE (We only get limit here in Minnesota).  It took a while but a spot opened up at a new table of $2/$4. Since it was a school night, I only got to play for a little over an hour. Sometimes these little hit and run session can be very profitable, last nights was just a little profitable.  The play was really quiet. Lots and lots of calling stations...which means you usually have to catch a hand to take a pot.

I played only two hands in the first 30 minutes and one of those hands was simply a call from the LB. The cards were pretty crappy even for this kind of game. When I have a table full calling stations, I usually try to see more flops with connectors and small pairs. Those types of hands weren't coming either.

The first hand I played hard, I had AQc. The hand of the devil. A young kid had raise from UTG a few limpers joined the fun and I raise it up. 2 spots to my left is a guy with a lot of chips that had never not called. Now it folds back to the kid. He reraises. I'm really sure he's just trying to be a dick. The limpers in the middle now abandon their chips and it folds back to me. I have the hand of the devil and haven't really shown any signs of life for 40 minutes. "Dealer, I raise." The guy that's never not called calls and punk kid raises again. I think that was the cap. I call and so does the guy that never not calls.

The flop is utter garbage. Punk kid is first to act and raises. Still feeling the rush of the hand of the devil I of course raise again and mister weak/passive on my left calls. Punk kid looks at me and raises. Without blinking, I raise once more. Everyone calls. The turn comes and brings with it a 4th suit. This time punk kid checks (I told you he had jack and diddly). I raise. WP on left calls and punk boy folds. I'm still ace high. The river comes and it's yet another worthless looking card. There are no real draws completed. I raise...still feeling the power of nothing and this time WP on my left thinks for a while and folds. 

I had watched him do this on several occasions. I had a feeling he wasn't happy with his hand. I'm really not sure if this was a bluff. Ace high might have been good, but it does provide a good example of why table image and aggressiveness are important even in no fold 'em hold 'em. The punk kid knew that I wasn't going any where. The older guy on my left may have had a small pair, but he wasn't going to keep paying me off. As far as they were concerned I had AA which might have actually beat them.

A similar hand played out later. This time I had AKo. I played it exactly the same way as described above. Everyone dropping away this time by the turn, but unfortunately I didn't notice one guy was all in. My AK didn't improve and he pairs his 2. This absolutely sucked for me. I didn't show my cards, that might have been a mistake but I laid down the showdown to only a pair of twos. This made a few guys at the table a bit pissed and planted seeds of doubt in their head about my actions.

I finished out the session playing fairly solid ABC poker. I knew I had been caught with my hand in the cookie jar with something smaller then a pair of 2's. 

My plan is to tonight, spend a bit more time tonight raking chips from drunk kids. We are staying there again. Look for me if you are there :)

Yeah, what ever.