So I spent the better part of 13 hours at Foxwoods yesterday. Shockingly, the tables weren't nearly as crowded as I expected them to be. Still packed, yes, but no 4 hour wait for a table.

I put my name on a 2/4 list to start. When I sat down, I got some ribbing for not posting right away, instead I opted to wait for my BB. They were like "c'mon man, it's 2 friggin dollars...besides, they call this 'no fold 'em hold 'em." So my first hand as the BB is QQ, and I raise a limped pot. I get 3 or 4 callers, I forget. Flop comes 10 2 3 rainbow. I'm first, so I bet out, and I get 2 callers. Turn is a blank, I fire out 4, 2 callers. River is a 4, I bet, seat 1 raises, I call, he has a straight. Stayed in on a gutbuster the whole time. Hey, that's the name of the game right, no fold em? Anyway, I took a little bit of a pounding at this table, so this guy Jared I met, and I get transfers to a 4/8 table.

Having never played anything else but 2/4, my instincts told me that this game would be better i.e. tighter. Hmmm, kinda right, but still a pretty loose game. I don't know why, but I was intimidated at first of playing higher stakes. I got over it.

My table had your usual charachters. The college kid with sunglasses, the foreign guy (usually eastern european), the middle aged guy with a big stack of chips, but it's because he bought in for that amount, not won them, and the quiet guy who never says a word and just takes your money.

Well, once I sat down, the cards got so cold, you'd get frostbite. I couldn't hit a card on the board, even my mucked hands which were about 93%. I counted a few hands in when I realized it, and i got up to 43 hands without touching a board card, till I hit trip 3's, which I had folded. The next hand I hit 2 pair which boated on the river, but alas again, I had folded preflop. So, I said that whatever 2 cards I get next, I'm going to play. I got 7 9 of hearts. I hit my straight on the turn, and raked in a 50 dollar or so pot. I went on a bit of a rush here for about 3 hands, then things got cold again.

It was then that I heard them announcing an Omaha 8/b game that changed to Hi Lo Stud every 1/2 hour. Jared and I signed up for it and switched tables. Quickly, the game was good, Jared got 3/4 of a pot one time when a guy was quartered on the low. I scooped a pot with the wheel one time. I had pocket Aces in the Stud portion and i had another pair showing, and they got cracked by a straight. Only time I saw AA all day.

After having enough of this I went back to a 4/8 table and sat down. Different table and right to the right of me was this Asian girl who had never played in a casino before. Some guy was explaining the betting structures to her cause she had played home games before, but not like this. Well, she was your basic, I bet really strongly, and raise really strongly when I have the best hand, but people didn't realize this, and her 100 dollar buy in tripled in 4 hands. She had 4 pocket pairs that tripped up on the flop, J's, 7's, and 4's. Then she had pocket 9's, and she quadded on the flop, and people had straights and flushes and everything you could possibly want in that situation. I was so jealous of all those pots she raked in. 2 kids at the table, I really respected. Tight, aggressive players who only really played when they had premium starting hands, and their chip stacks showed it. I too, was up around 200 bux when the following hand occured:

I had J 8 o in the BB, and no raises. Flop comes J 8 2. I bet out, there's a raise, a call, and I call. Turn comes a 4, I bet again, another raise (now to 16) another call, and I call. River comes a 10, I bet, call, now the 3rd guy raises! I call and flips over 9 Q offsuit, another gutbuster straight draw that he paid almost 30 bux for a 4 outer. The original raiser had AJ, which is what I had figured on. What really annoyed me is that my stack is now depleted a bunch. I spent about 60 bux or so on that hand, but "that's poker".

Well, that annoyed me, so let me continue on to 2 more hands. First off, I get 77 and I raise, and I get no callers except for the BB, which is that Asian girl. She brings her cards up to her face, kinda giggles and says, "I NEED to see a flop". Flop comes J 3 2. She can't stop laughing, bets first, I'm forced to muck, and she flips over 33.

My last hand was A 3 in middle position. Flop comes 2 4 5 rainbow. Golden. I bet, there's a raise, 2 calls and me. Turn comes a goddamn 3, the worst card I could possibly see. 6 high straight sends me back home.

I noticed things that I have to change about my ring game playing. I'm used to too many tournaments and I was rusty in the beggining of my 12 hour stretch yesterday. Believe it or not, it's kind of a different game, and I know what I need to do to make myself a better player. No more 2/4 though, I think 4/8's a better game, but that's just me.

Ok, off to more SNG's on Party Poker. I have 3 Firsts in 2 days. Till next time....

-Gregg-

Game in Selden last night...

Well, where do I start? I've been running into some unlucky cards lately, really bad beats, and fish who outdraw till the end of time. Usual Tuesday crowd last night, NL Hold 'Em but with a 20 person field, a little bigger than usual. I noticed some new faces, including a much older chap and some kids who couldn't have been older than 17. It smelled like Long John Silvers in there.

We had 3 tables (7,7,6) and I was seated at the small table with the older fellow, 2 EXTREMEMLY tight players, Erod (who has tightned up considerably lately) and a loose raising person. *side note-this last person was the person who in a previous game was raising with garbage to get out of the game because he was tired. He effectively dumped his chips to whoever called him, he had 10 7 offsuit so pretty much anybody beat him*

I couldn't hit a face card, and most of my cards were 6 2, 9 7, 10 3, etc. Even though the blinds were 5/10 and we started with 1000 in chips, I folded folded folded, only to find I hit monster flops 96% of the times I bailed. So, I played a couple hands with crap, hit 2 pair, and would get sucked out on river to a gutbuster straight. I chilled out again for a while. The older player hadn't really played hold 'em before and I instructed him when it was first time to deal. When I told him to burn one and turn one, he thought that each player got another card, or was exchanging one like 5 card draw or something. I thought he would be easy money.

Cut to Erod, raising UTG with pocket 10's, and everyone folding but the elder. Flop comes A 9 7, Erod bets, guy calls. Check the turn, check the river, old guy flips up pocket Q's and asks "Is this good?" hmmmm...

I found something in here to be a huge hole in the game in Selden. Well first off, no one understands the idea of a sizable raise. If the blinds are 5/10, why would you raise to 250 preflop and expect callers? That's a quarter of your stack just to see a flop, and the raiser picks up 15 to 25 in blinds. The huge hole, is with all the betting preflop and on the flop, the turn is almost ALWAYS checked, and the person who was ahead could have won the pot right there but instead gets rivered or outplayed when a flush or something hits.

Well, after 2 levels at this game, we switch tables. I lost 140 in chips at the first table and went in with 860 against a fish who had a HUGE chip lead, prolly around 3K. Luckily he was directly to my right, and was one of the more respectable players in the game, ironically. He actually wasn't a fish at all.

The most memorable hand of the whole tournament was at this table. Everyone folded to me and the BB, an extrememly tight player who check raises everything and puts you all in on every river if he's in. Knowing this, i called in the SB with KJ offsuit. BB checked and the flop comes A K 10. I bet 100 and he string bets all in. He puts the chip in reaches back and says "eh, I'm all in". I immediately looked at the leader of the game and said, "I'm pretty sure that's a string" and that's when all hell broke loose. Apparently, some other guy had been talking trash with the stringer, and it escalated into expletive laden outbursts. The stringer then insulted a woman there who turned out to be the guy's wife and poker turned almost turned into a fistfight.

Anyway, back to the hand. The string was ruled just a call, and thinking I was behind, I did my ol' "check before the card hits" check. The turn was a Q, and the board being a rainbow, it gave me the stone cold nuts. He looked at it pensively forever, and fingered his chips. I thought, if he had been willing to put me all in on the flop, why not do it now? After what seemed like a week, he checked and the worst possible card came on the river, a J. Now the board had a straight, and we split. I couldn't have been more pissed off if I tried, but it was my fault for checking blindly. He later told me he had a 10 on the flop.

With the blinds going up to 50/100, I had no choice but to sit back go all in and pray for a double up. I eventually went all in with K 10 in the big blind for about 400. The small blind called with QJ, and I was quite excited when the flop came 4 J K. Turn however was another J, and the river paired the 4, giving her a full house and me a seat on the couch. Overall, I was dissappointed with my play, but my lack of any decent starting hands had something to say about that too.

Erod ended up taking home the tournament, and I was quite impressed with some laydowns he made. Not typical Erod style at all, I give him kudos.

In other news, I came in 2nd in a $10 SNG before the Selden game, and was pleased with my ability to finish in the money, being a serious short stack 4 handed. I had pocket 8's and pushed all in and got called by QQ. Flop came 9 6 7, blank turn, and a magical 10 on the river, and I was right back in it. I made him go all in on his next blinds and outplayed the 3rd place player to finish 2nd. Till next time, Monteith, out!

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