Saturday, September 8, 2007

Up $2790

Well, my girlfriend originally planned to come to LA around this time for work, but work has changed and she'll be in NY, and so the serendipity of my subletter flaking out at just this moment means that my apartment is open. So I'm flying out of Burbank 7am tomorrow morning, and back to LA a week later. I'm looking forward to this quite a bit. Anyway, this is why I decided to play yesterday, as I don't think I'm going to play any big sessions in NY, I'll see if I can get a PLO game together at my apartment, but, that's about it.

Anyway, I played pretty great yesterday. I've broken $16k on this trip, and with this, I've found a real serenity that allows me to play my best all the time. I've gotten to the real nice calmness similar to my November to December streak, where nothing out of my control don't bother me. And in this session, I ran so cold for the first two hours, suckouts cooler, and I'm down like $2k to start. And it doesn't bother me one bit. I find myself, playing great, still totally focused on the games of everyone else at the table, still figuring out how to profit from them.

So, on the first table, I lose maybe $200 or so. Playing ok, I was up a few hundred to start, and I made a few bluffs that didn't workout, and I hit no big hands. There's a $545 tournament at 7, which I'm feeling that I want to take a shot in, so I get up and play that. In the tournament, on hand number three... I call a small raise with pocket 3's, flop a set, and lose everything when she turns the nut flush, and the river blanks. Hmmm... Well, better than playing for 3 hours and bubbling, actually much better.

So, back to the cash game. It's a particularly busy night, as the tournament I played in is part of a big thing there now, the table is pretty tight. Anyway, I wind up sititng with this dude who busted me with T7 a few months ago. He's a very strange player, very very bad, but he shifts gears from being an over-betting maniac when he's down, to being a complete lock-box conservative player when he's up. Anyway, I've sat down on this table with $2500 (in for $4100 for the day so far), I'm up a maybe $1k here (on what I can't remember...), when I get AK. I raise to $100, 3 callers. Flop = KTX 2 spades. Donkey is first to act, and goes all in for $1400!!! Wow, ok, this was like a $300 pot before this bet, it's just absurd. He does this weird act, that wheever he makes his stupidly huge bet he yells out “I have a dream...” sometimes singing it, usually with his hand out like a politician. Anyway, I pretty much insta-call. Dude at the end of the table is thinking and thinking, and folds, and said he had AK as well. Anyway turn = J of spades, and he turns over his Q9 of spades, river = blank. Well, I can't fault him for this, he did have an all in hand (flush draw and gutshot). So, god bless.

What I'm kind of surprised at is that I don't tilt. I don't even react really, I just kind of smile, and shrug, and I don't even say “nice hand.” I show the king, and fold, and don't worry about it. He takes it on himself to needle me a bit. I do my best to kind of make a show out of it “hey my friend!” Etc. It's amusing, it amuses me at any rate. He keeps holding up his stack of 100's and saying how “this is your money. I know you're going to get it back.” I'm rather surprised to find I'm amused by his banter, I respond with something like “Thanks! I'll do my best to take it.”

Eventually there's a small pot that he's in, it's checked to me on the button, and I'm counting out a bet, and he kind of yells out “Time! Wait!” And starts counting out a bet. He knew that he checked, he knew that it was on me, I'm not sure if he actually thought this was funny, or if he was actually trying to pull something. But, kidding aside, I kind of thought that I needed to draw a line, and I get a little pissed and start to call the floor. The rest of the table tells me to relax, so instead of calling the floor, I point at him and give him a really stern warning of something like “Sir, that is angel shooting. And I really don't like it.” And then I put my bet out, and the whole table insta-folds. After the hand, he doesn't apologize, but you can tell he was a bit cowed.

Anyway, I knew I wouldn't get the money back from him, and I don't, he spends most of the time walking around, letting his $2k or so sit on the table. I do get it back from flopping three sets, AT flopping two pair, on someone's broadway, and rivering a boat. And a bunch of little bluffs that work out. It was weird, after that little exchange, I just started running good all of a sudden, after a whole session of running bad.

Ok, going to play now. I think I'm going to watch that UFC fight first though. See all y'all soon.

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