FreeRollin' Sunday

I realize it's already Tuesday and I have a lot to write about from Sunday, but I had a lot of work to catch up on and for some reason I'm always really tired on Mondays. :)

First of all, Washington State is still intact! Mt. St. Helens spewed out a little ash on Friday and then just steamed for awhile. There's been continued quakes and even more steam, but no lava yet, and no silly-tourist casualties yet...

Amazingly, my wife and I were able to pry ourselves away from all of the excitement of mountain watching and make it over to the Casino for my turn at the Vegas Freeroll. Got there about an hour early, so Shawni bought into the main 3/6 game for $100 and I sat back and watched her, keeping to our promise of not playing at the same table together.

Now here's an interesting aside: after a hand, the dealer "washes" the cards on the table, then as he straightens them before the shuffle, he'll have the bottom card exposed to the players. Back in high school, I used to sit in class with a deck of cards, playing around with sleight of hands and card manipulations: palming, back-palming, forces, double lifts, one hand cuts, etc. and I learned myself quite a few card tricks. One of the simplest ones involved spotting the bottom card and keeping track of it to be able to find another person's chosen card. Recently, I read an article about the infamous MIT Blackjack Team; and other than just counting, one of the tricks used was Shuffle Tracking - watching for long runs of big cards and tracking those clumps during the shuffle.

With that thought fresh in my head, and with my knowledge of shuffling techniques, I started watching the dealers to see if I could spot... well, anything. And it didn't take me long. I noticed one of the three dealers in rotation that evening didn't ever bring the bottom card up high enough to get shuffled in, so it remained on the bottom during the riffles and cuts. The only time it moved was during the final half-cut onto the Cut card, bringing it to somewhere in the middle.

Five out of eight times I saw the bottom card show up on the board! Three times it flopped, once on the turn, and once on the river. I wish I could have taken a peek at the burn cards... I'd place bets on what they were. That dealer got moved to Shawni's table, which had 2 less people, so I was only able to "predict" a board card once out of 6 times.

Hmm... I'm going to have to stop by to "observe" some more and see if the percentage at a full table holds up. If so, I just may start chasing the river a bit more. Wouldn't you?

Anyways, back to the real world of Poker and to just hoping and praying you get the cards you want to get. I sit down at the second 3/6 table and buy-in with $50. First hand, I get dealt pocket 4's, and it get's raised around and capped before me. Geez. I pay $12 to see my first flop, and of course it's nothing but face cards. I tighten up for a few rounds, and then limp in UTG with AT of clubs. Flop comes... three clubs! Since I hadn't been involved in any hands in the last 15 minutes, I didn't want to scare everyone off by coming out betting. So I look at the board, wince a bit and give out an audible "ooooh" and just check. With a K on the board, someone does bet and he gets 4 callers, including me. The turn comes 7h. I ponder thoughtfully for a moment, then say, "Sure, why not?" and bet out. 2 call. River comes Qd. I shrug and say, "Gotta keep betting!" and toss my $6 out. One fold, followed by a strong raise. Sure, I'll take that. Re-raise. He pauses, gives me the evil eye, "I'll just call." KQ... but the Rivered Two Pair can't beat the Flopped Nut Flush! Mwahahaha. I'll take my $80 pot and the Oscar for the Best Slowplay of the Evening, thank you thank you. I see KQ whispering with the other caller on the other side of the table, saying nasty things about me I'm sure. But hey, the only thing worse than being talked about is NOT being talked about, right?

A few hands later, Tournament players are told to rack up and draw for seats. Walked away with $78. Not quite the chunk out of the deficit I wanted to take, but I guess I'll be happy with little nibbles to start. The Tourney starts off without a hitch, and just before the blinds I get dealt Pocket Tens and go in with a minimum raise. I get called by "Grunt" - a young punk who's shipping off for boot camp in a few months. The Flop comes Jack high, and he calls my minimum bet. Same on the Turn. By the River, it's still Jack high, he hasn't raised or shown any aggression, so I make a large bet (leaving myself T500) and he calls, taking away my chips with a pair of Jacks. I'm dealt 9T for my BB, and I get to see the Flop for free. Ten high, no straight or flush draws. I got top pair, so I push all-in with my T500. The only one who calls is Grunt. He shows K6. This time, my Tens hold up and I get my stack back from Grunt.

To my right is a young kid wearing a Mickey's Pub and Grill T-shirt. His first time in a tournament, and he'd blown most of his chips during his very first hand. The button goes around and he's the BB. I limp in with A4s, and everyone folds except for the two blinds. The Flop comes 469 rainbow. I bet in for 250, just happy to scare the blinds off. SB considers but folds, and Mickey, being short-stacked anyways, goes all-in. It was another 200 to call and I seriously considered folding; but I knew Mickey was pretty bummed about losing so much so quickly and was just acting in desperation, figuring he'd lose and try again next week. I decide to oblige his death wish and call, and he shows a 57o. I felt it was a good decision on my part, but the Turn is a 5, and just to add insult to injury, the 8 on the River completes his Straight.

The tourney started with 33 (3 tables of 11), and I mostly folded my way to the final table of 10. I did manage take out one guy, when I had JJ and he went all-in with AQ. The dealer dealt the three Flop cards and turned over a Q. I rolled my eyes in disgust, thinking my pocket pairs were beat again, but when I focused back on the table, the 3rd Flop card was a J. Apparently, this was an ongoing theme of the night, as there was another hand where AA went up againt QJ. The first exposed Flop card was an A, but the cheers from AA were silenced when the Flop continued to spread out K and T.

The blinds were now up to 200-400 and the BB was 2 hands away from me. At this point, I was the short stack with just T575, so I had to make a move. I went all-in with A9s, and my buddy Grunt called. This time he had the Pocket Tens, and I couldn't catch another A for the life of me.

Ah well. I already have another 20 hours logged, so I'll be back next week. I watched the rest of the Tourney, and wouldn't you know it, the final two were Grunt and Mickey. The silly thing is that both of these guys are under 21 (MIdway is an 18 and up Casino); so neither of them would be able to take the Vegas trip. They were both in it for "fun" and if they happen to win at the final table, they'll be able to auction off their satellite seat to the highest bidder. Damn kids nowadays. I went to watch Shawni lose the rest of her buy-in, but I heard that Grunt ended up winning that night.

That Sunday was also the first of a weekly Sunday night free Pai-Gow Tournament the Midway is holding, so the both of us signed up for that. Similar to Blackjack tournaments, you play 9 hands against the house, and the only real "strategy" is in how you bet. I'm in the first round of play and we all start off with T500. Everyone goes in with a standard T100 bet and a couple of Nickels on the Bonus. One lady gets Quads on her first hand, with 15 on the Bonus, so she's already up T375. Needless to say, she played conservative the rest of the round (and hitting a few more bonuses didn't hurt her either). I don't remember how many of the hands played out, except that I fell behind early and had to chase for 3rd place (top 3 at each table moved on). I quit playing the bonus with 4 hands left to go and just went all in with T420. If you read about my previous Pai-Gow experience, you can guess what happened... I pushed the next 3 hands.

The final hand, two others had already busted out, and so I was on the bubble. The girl who hit Quads was definitely in, and I estimated the remaining two had about 600 each. I asked the dealer who was first to bet, so I could bet accordingly and hope to hold on. He shook the dice, and lucky me had to bet first. I said screw it and left my 420 out. The dealer jokingly moved it all to Bonus. Yeah right. I humored him by moving moving a Nickel over anyways. The next guy just bet minimum, and the old lady at the end of the table put out about T150 total.

I saw my cards and bust out laughing. Three of a Kind. And the rest of my T415 bet? Push, of course. So I increased my final total to T435, and got up to leave as they were counting the rest of the chips. But old lady had lost her bets, and ended up with only T425! Wow. My wife qualified at her table, so we were both in the semi-finals. $600 for first, and $200 each for 2nd and 3rd. Not bad for a Freeroll!

For the semis, only 1 person per table would move on, so I played safe with T100 per bet and avoided the bonus (which was good cause I didn't get one at all!). I hit 4 Pai-Gows in a row and lost the first four hands and was down to T100, then amazingly things turned around and I doubled up 4 times in a row. So going into the final hand, I had T800 and everyone else was at 200-300, except for second place with about T700. So I changed down and put out the minimum bet of 5. I sat back and said, "Good luck Dealer!" I got a couple of glares, but hey, rooting for the house is a valid strategy in these types of tournaments. Second place bet out about T150, so I really needed for him to lose or push and I would be in the clear.

The Dealer had a great hand, so everyone lost, except for Second place, who pushed. I gave out a loud cheer, until I realized he pushed because he had a Flush... along with a hefty Bonus bet out there. Turns out Shawni got beat by a final hand Bonus as well. That really sucks. No one should get to win like that, unless of course it's me and I'm barely beating some old lady who doesn't know what she's doing. :)

Anyways, it was a fun-filled night, so I think we know how we're going to be spending the rest of our Sunday nights for the next few weeks at least. Heh, so much for my Monday productivity!