I know, I know, I haven't written for a while. I was away in Niagara Falls last weekend with Momx2, thebmorekid, and his wife. And before that I didn't feel like writing another bad beat/whining blog about how bad I'm running. So, this blog is dedicated to a review of poker in the Niagara Falls area. I'll write another one soon on how I'm doing.
There are three poker rooms in the Niagara Falls area. On the American side you have Seneca Niagara and on the Canadian side there's Casino Niagara and the Fallsview Casino. All three casinos are within sight of each other. I played at Seneca and Casino Niagara, but didn't have a chance to play at Fallsview. Of the three, Fallsview looks the nicest and it should, it's the newest.
The Canadian casinos are affiliated with each other and it's readily apparent that Fallsview caters to the higher stakes players and Casino Niagara caters to the average person. In both of those rooms the wait times were frequently over an hour and a half. They do allow you to call ahead and put your name on the list, and I'd highly recommend doing it. At 11 am on a Sunday morning during a holiday weekend we had to wait an hour until the afternoon shift came on because they didn't have enough dealers to open any more than the three tables they had running. On Sunday night the wait at Fallsview was over an hour and a half as well and the room was full.
At Casino Niagara all they spread was $1-$2 no limit with a $100 max buy in. It seemed that later in the day they would open a game with a $200 max, but that was as high as they played. The dealers and floor people were very friendly and the locals who played there regularly were of the opinion that this was one advantage that Casino Niagara had over Fallsview. The rake was also pretty hefty as it seemed that nearly $5 was taken out of every pot.
Fallsview was definitely the nicer of the two casinos and it was packed on a Sunday night (again, it was a holiday weekend for both Canadians and Americans). The lowest limit game they spread was $2-5 NL with a $300 max buy in. They had no limit games going all the way up to $10-$20 with a $3k max buy in. While I didn't play at Fallsview, the observation of thebmorekid and I was that there were quite a few players at the $2-$5 tables who had no business playing these stakes, but had to because it was the lowest limit game in the room. Next time I'm up there, I hope to be rolled for that game and be able to take advantage of this phenomenon. According to the players I talked to, all of the games at Fallsview are time games and they don't take a rake.
We did play at Seneca and it was more on par with what you'd expect from an Indian casino poker room in the states. It had more tables than either Fallsview or Casino Niagara. I noted at least one $3-$6 limit Omaha game on the board and there might have been some limit hold'em as well. I sat in the $1-$2 NL game with a $200 max buy-in. They also have $2-$5 NL.
The other big difference between Seneca and the Canadian casinos was the free drinks. Apparently in Canada it is illegal to give away free booze, so you have to pay for any alcohol. However, the states remains committed to intoxicating it's gamblers and most of the booze is free (minus the obligatory tip to the waitress). Also, in Canada, you have to step outside to smoke, not a problem for me, but thebmorekid and his wife spent a lot of time in the cold. At Seneca you can smoke in certain INDOOR areas.
Overall the player mix was a combination of regulars and tourists. I didn't encounter anyone who was particularly tricky. But if you play in the low max games in Canada, be prepared to take some beats because players will feel pot committed pretty quickly. Essentially ABC poker is the order of the day because alot of the deep stack moves are taken away by the short buy in. That being said, it was a fun weekend filled with lots of interesting folks at the poker table. You'll have to read the next blog to hear about how I was 7 outs from being a winner for the weekend...
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
Running Bad?
You all know what it's like. Everything you do seems to be wrong. You bluff into the nuts, slowplay and let donkeys hit 3 outers, fold when you should call, raise when you should fold, etc...
We all love to believe that the poker gods (or luck, or karma, or whatever it is that you think controls the cards) have frowned on you. You start wearing your lucky shirt (or whatever lucky trinkets you have), sacrificing virgins, and getting fried chicken to honor Jobu. All in the hopes of turning it around. After all, its not our play that could be causing it, it must be bad luck.
But somewhere, deep inside ourselves, our confidence is shaken. We wonder if all those previous good results were just good luck and not the skill that we had given ourselves credit for. Were we just getting lucky before and our current results are more reflective of our skills? It's a tough realization that our own play might be the cause of our dwindling bankroll.
The truth, as with many things, lies somewhere in the middle. When you're running good, you play better, and that, in turn, creates more "luck." When you're running bad, or playing bad, it becomes a downward spiral. The trick is getting out of the cycle. And that's about where I am right now.
If you think it's all me playing bad, then you should know that in back to back tourneys I went out on 80-20 situations. The first time I had TT vs. 99 and he flopped a 4 flush and finished me off on the turn. The river even brought a 5th flush card and gave me a set to boot. The second time I had QQ vs. 55 and managed to survive the flop, no spade or flush draws this time, but the cruel turn was one of the two outs he had left.
But I can't turn a blind eye to poor play. I have been negative for the past few weeks in cash games online. I have tried playing more passively, playing hyper aggressively, and most styles in between. Each seems to work for a little while, but none seems to produce any long-term results. So am I getting unlucky or am I playing poorly? Probably a little of both, after all, I did make $600 playing in home games last week, so that's gotta count for something...
We all love to believe that the poker gods (or luck, or karma, or whatever it is that you think controls the cards) have frowned on you. You start wearing your lucky shirt (or whatever lucky trinkets you have), sacrificing virgins, and getting fried chicken to honor Jobu. All in the hopes of turning it around. After all, its not our play that could be causing it, it must be bad luck.
But somewhere, deep inside ourselves, our confidence is shaken. We wonder if all those previous good results were just good luck and not the skill that we had given ourselves credit for. Were we just getting lucky before and our current results are more reflective of our skills? It's a tough realization that our own play might be the cause of our dwindling bankroll.
The truth, as with many things, lies somewhere in the middle. When you're running good, you play better, and that, in turn, creates more "luck." When you're running bad, or playing bad, it becomes a downward spiral. The trick is getting out of the cycle. And that's about where I am right now.
If you think it's all me playing bad, then you should know that in back to back tourneys I went out on 80-20 situations. The first time I had TT vs. 99 and he flopped a 4 flush and finished me off on the turn. The river even brought a 5th flush card and gave me a set to boot. The second time I had QQ vs. 55 and managed to survive the flop, no spade or flush draws this time, but the cruel turn was one of the two outs he had left.
But I can't turn a blind eye to poor play. I have been negative for the past few weeks in cash games online. I have tried playing more passively, playing hyper aggressively, and most styles in between. Each seems to work for a little while, but none seems to produce any long-term results. So am I getting unlucky or am I playing poorly? Probably a little of both, after all, I did make $600 playing in home games last week, so that's gotta count for something...
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Pro Player Sightings
Just wanted to add one more note from the Borgata trip and then I'll be through with it. Because we happened to be up there during days 3 and 4 of the Borgata Winter Open Main Event, we saw a ton of poker players. This might not be that exciting to most of you, but I thought I'd compile a list of players that we saw. Hopefully thebmorekid will help me make this a comprehensive list. Please forgive me if I spell any names wrong. I could get them right, but I don't feel like doing all the research.
In the tournament we saw (in no particular order):
Gavin Griffin
Men "The Master" Nguyen
Lee Watkinson
Vanessa Rousso
Jared "WacoKid" Hamby
Justin "ZeeJustin" Bonomo
Brian Haveson
John Hennigan
John Juanda
David Tran
Nam Le
Roy Winston
Isabelle Mercier (thanks thebmorekid)
In the tournament room:
David "The Dragon" Pham
John Phan
In the poker room:
Joe Sebok
Layne Flack
Gavin Smith
Mark Seif
Vince Van Patten
JC Tran (thanks bmore)
In other places in the hotel:
Bill Gazes
This post will be updated as thebmorekid and I go over our collective memories...
In the tournament we saw (in no particular order):
Gavin Griffin
Men "The Master" Nguyen
Lee Watkinson
Vanessa Rousso
Jared "WacoKid" Hamby
Justin "ZeeJustin" Bonomo
Brian Haveson
John Hennigan
John Juanda
David Tran
Nam Le
Roy Winston
Isabelle Mercier (thanks thebmorekid)
In the tournament room:
David "The Dragon" Pham
John Phan
In the poker room:
Joe Sebok
Layne Flack
Gavin Smith
Mark Seif
Vince Van Patten
JC Tran (thanks bmore)
In other places in the hotel:
Bill Gazes
This post will be updated as thebmorekid and I go over our collective memories...
Monday, February 4, 2008
More on Passive Play
Okay, so in my last blog I promised you that I would explain a little more about my Borgata trip. It was one of those trips where I was never up. Of course, when you start with a $350 buy-in and don't cash, you're already in a decent sized hole. But even if you take out the tournament, I was only up in the cash games for a brief period around 4 or 5 pm on Tuesday evening. And that wasn't much (maybe $30 or $40).
As I think about my trip, I realized that a couple of things happened. First and foremost, I had a guy sitting two spots to my left who I could never figure out. He seemed a little drunk when he sat down and frankly looked like he had just rolled out of bed. To top it all off, he was probably in his 50's. All-in-all he wasn't that impressive. He would accumulate chips and then lose them in some wierd ways. But when I got up at 2 am, he was still there and looked like he was sitting on a winning session.
At the risk of giving those who play against me more weapons to beat me, here's what happened. It seemed that every time I raised pre-flop, he called. After the flop I'd bet, sometimes a continuation bet, sometimes because I hit the flop. Either way, it seemed like I couldn't shake him, he always called. Many of these times I'd then check the turn either because I still had nothing (if I had c-bet the flop) or because I didn't want to play a big pot with just a pair. Regardless, it seemed like he'd either fire a bet on the turn and then follow it up with one on the river, or he'd check the flop and bet the river. No matter what, it seemed like I always found myself facing a pretty good sized bet on the river with a marginal holding. Usually I found myself folding in this spot.
My timing also seemed to be off with the other people at my table. I only ran a couple of bluffs, but they always seemed to run into legitimate hands. A couple of times people would hit on the turn or river, but most of the time it seemed like I just couldn't buy a pot.
All of this caused me to become passive, both out of frustration and because that's what I do when I go on tilt. I started clamming up, waiting for a good hand, and just generally become weak-tight. So that's what I did and you know how this story goes. When I finally picked up AA, I got two callers (despite hardly playing a hand). KQ suited makes a flush and I get sent up to the room to think about things.
So on day 2, with the losses of day 1 still sticking in my head, I continuted to play passively and didn't seem to be raising nearly enough. It didn't hurt that it seemed like every pot was an eight way limpfest and that raises to anything less than $20 (10 times the big blind) would still get 4 or 5 callers.
Either way, I need to be more diligent about how much I limp and call. Since returning from the trip I've been playing a lot of really aggressive raise or fold poker on Full Tilt and have been CRUSHING the 25-50 cent game at a rate of nearly 9 big bets per hour. Hopefully this will continue. This week's lineup includes the regular home game tomorrow night and then Bmore's Brawl on Wednesday night. Friday night should be a good online session as Momx2 is going out and once the kids go to bed, well, there just isn't much else to do but play some cards...
As I think about my trip, I realized that a couple of things happened. First and foremost, I had a guy sitting two spots to my left who I could never figure out. He seemed a little drunk when he sat down and frankly looked like he had just rolled out of bed. To top it all off, he was probably in his 50's. All-in-all he wasn't that impressive. He would accumulate chips and then lose them in some wierd ways. But when I got up at 2 am, he was still there and looked like he was sitting on a winning session.
At the risk of giving those who play against me more weapons to beat me, here's what happened. It seemed that every time I raised pre-flop, he called. After the flop I'd bet, sometimes a continuation bet, sometimes because I hit the flop. Either way, it seemed like I couldn't shake him, he always called. Many of these times I'd then check the turn either because I still had nothing (if I had c-bet the flop) or because I didn't want to play a big pot with just a pair. Regardless, it seemed like he'd either fire a bet on the turn and then follow it up with one on the river, or he'd check the flop and bet the river. No matter what, it seemed like I always found myself facing a pretty good sized bet on the river with a marginal holding. Usually I found myself folding in this spot.
My timing also seemed to be off with the other people at my table. I only ran a couple of bluffs, but they always seemed to run into legitimate hands. A couple of times people would hit on the turn or river, but most of the time it seemed like I just couldn't buy a pot.
All of this caused me to become passive, both out of frustration and because that's what I do when I go on tilt. I started clamming up, waiting for a good hand, and just generally become weak-tight. So that's what I did and you know how this story goes. When I finally picked up AA, I got two callers (despite hardly playing a hand). KQ suited makes a flush and I get sent up to the room to think about things.
So on day 2, with the losses of day 1 still sticking in my head, I continuted to play passively and didn't seem to be raising nearly enough. It didn't hurt that it seemed like every pot was an eight way limpfest and that raises to anything less than $20 (10 times the big blind) would still get 4 or 5 callers.
Either way, I need to be more diligent about how much I limp and call. Since returning from the trip I've been playing a lot of really aggressive raise or fold poker on Full Tilt and have been CRUSHING the 25-50 cent game at a rate of nearly 9 big bets per hour. Hopefully this will continue. This week's lineup includes the regular home game tomorrow night and then Bmore's Brawl on Wednesday night. Friday night should be a good online session as Momx2 is going out and once the kids go to bed, well, there just isn't much else to do but play some cards...
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Stargazing and Playing Passively
The OM Rounders crew is back from the Borgata and overall it was a great trip. Unfortunately, I was one of the few who came home stuck.
First the highlights:
We drove up on Tuesday morning in the minivan which allowed thebmorekid, soooted42 and quedog to watch Rounders on the way up. Monseiur Frank was kind enough to ride shotgon, so I wasn't completely chauffeuring everyone around. Interestingly enough, the trip from Baltimore to AC is just long enough to watch the movie.
When we arrived we went to check in and Bill Gazes (who had busted out the day before) was checking out right next to us. Then, as we headed up to the rooms, thebmorekid decided to hang back. The main event was on day 3 and was just about to get going, so he saw a number of pros (I'm sure he'll say who on his blog). When I joined him I saw Lee Watkinson, Gavin Griffin, and a few others.
We all registered for the $300 event on Tuesday and then went up and watched the pros get started. They were down to about 85 players, which made stargazing pretty easy. The way I relate it to non-poker players is that it was like going to your favorite sports team's fantasy camp and seeing not only the big names that everyone knows, but also a bunch of other people that you have followed at one time or another.
Continuing with the highlights, I have to give a big congratulations to quedog for making the top 25 in the $300 event. We all had a tiny piece of the action and I think that paid for my lunch on Wednesday. Nice job quedog and welcome to the Card Player database club.
We also had another friend of ours who chopped in the 20k guarantee on Wednesday. On top of that, thebmorekid, soooted42, and quedog all had winning trips overall. Which then leads me to the lowlights of the trip.
I played pretty well in the $300 event. I slowly built my chips up from the $8k starting stack to about $13k before the following hand was played out. I was on the button and picked up AJ. I had been playing very tight early on and my raises had gotten a lot of respect. With the blinds at 200-400 with 25 antes, there were a couple of limpers when the action got around to me. I made it $2k and everyone folded around to a guy two to my right. He hadn't been doing anything special and he decides to push for another 7k or so. I went into the tank for a while trying to figure out if he'd play AQ or JJ that weakly pre-flop. I had already ruled out the other hands that would have me dominated (AA, KK, QQ, and AK). I finally decided that he had a small pair (at least a pair below JJ) and that we were racing. I thought it was a good opportunity to pick up some chips, so I called. He turned over 55. I felt good when the flop brought an ace, but he hit runner runner to make a straight and I was down to about 4k in chips. The blinds went up shortly after that, and when I lost another race, I was sent to the rail with about 400 players still alive in the tourney. I'm actually very happy with how I played in the tourney and feel like if I continue to play that well, another good cash is out there somewhere in the future.
Then the real carnage began. I went downstairs (the tournament was in the event center) and sat down at a 1-2NL game with $200. I don't remember a lot of big hands, but by the time I got up at 2 am, I was stuck quite a bit. I came back on Wednesday morning and played some more 1-2, losing another $230 or so. I'll make another post about the cash games later. I'm waiting on some feedback from thebmorekid and mulling it all over in my head before I put anything in writing.
All-in-all it was a great trip with some great people. We saw tons of pros, including a drunken 1-2NL game with Sebok, Gavin Smith, Layne Flack and some others. Congrats to Gavin Griffin for taking down the tourney and becoming the first person ever to pick up a WPT title, an EPT title, and a WSOP bracelet!
First the highlights:
We drove up on Tuesday morning in the minivan which allowed thebmorekid, soooted42 and quedog to watch Rounders on the way up. Monseiur Frank was kind enough to ride shotgon, so I wasn't completely chauffeuring everyone around. Interestingly enough, the trip from Baltimore to AC is just long enough to watch the movie.
When we arrived we went to check in and Bill Gazes (who had busted out the day before) was checking out right next to us. Then, as we headed up to the rooms, thebmorekid decided to hang back. The main event was on day 3 and was just about to get going, so he saw a number of pros (I'm sure he'll say who on his blog). When I joined him I saw Lee Watkinson, Gavin Griffin, and a few others.
We all registered for the $300 event on Tuesday and then went up and watched the pros get started. They were down to about 85 players, which made stargazing pretty easy. The way I relate it to non-poker players is that it was like going to your favorite sports team's fantasy camp and seeing not only the big names that everyone knows, but also a bunch of other people that you have followed at one time or another.
Continuing with the highlights, I have to give a big congratulations to quedog for making the top 25 in the $300 event. We all had a tiny piece of the action and I think that paid for my lunch on Wednesday. Nice job quedog and welcome to the Card Player database club.
We also had another friend of ours who chopped in the 20k guarantee on Wednesday. On top of that, thebmorekid, soooted42, and quedog all had winning trips overall. Which then leads me to the lowlights of the trip.
I played pretty well in the $300 event. I slowly built my chips up from the $8k starting stack to about $13k before the following hand was played out. I was on the button and picked up AJ. I had been playing very tight early on and my raises had gotten a lot of respect. With the blinds at 200-400 with 25 antes, there were a couple of limpers when the action got around to me. I made it $2k and everyone folded around to a guy two to my right. He hadn't been doing anything special and he decides to push for another 7k or so. I went into the tank for a while trying to figure out if he'd play AQ or JJ that weakly pre-flop. I had already ruled out the other hands that would have me dominated (AA, KK, QQ, and AK). I finally decided that he had a small pair (at least a pair below JJ) and that we were racing. I thought it was a good opportunity to pick up some chips, so I called. He turned over 55. I felt good when the flop brought an ace, but he hit runner runner to make a straight and I was down to about 4k in chips. The blinds went up shortly after that, and when I lost another race, I was sent to the rail with about 400 players still alive in the tourney. I'm actually very happy with how I played in the tourney and feel like if I continue to play that well, another good cash is out there somewhere in the future.
Then the real carnage began. I went downstairs (the tournament was in the event center) and sat down at a 1-2NL game with $200. I don't remember a lot of big hands, but by the time I got up at 2 am, I was stuck quite a bit. I came back on Wednesday morning and played some more 1-2, losing another $230 or so. I'll make another post about the cash games later. I'm waiting on some feedback from thebmorekid and mulling it all over in my head before I put anything in writing.
All-in-all it was a great trip with some great people. We saw tons of pros, including a drunken 1-2NL game with Sebok, Gavin Smith, Layne Flack and some others. Congrats to Gavin Griffin for taking down the tourney and becoming the first person ever to pick up a WPT title, an EPT title, and a WSOP bracelet!
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