Wild Cards Weekend

Seahawks? No comment. Chargers? No comment.

So much for a home-team Superbowl for me and my wife.

There was definitely some better wild card action at the casino over the weekend. We hit the Silver Dollar on Friday night and the place was packed. We were number 6 and 7 on the wait list, so they opened up another table. First hand was crap, and then I hit 3 Full Houses in a row. Two other hands I mucked within the same orbit would have been Full houses as well.

Up $100 in the first 20 minutes. I figured I had blown my karmic wad for the weekend and almost considered racking up, but dammit, I hadn't even gotten a drink yet! We hung around for about 4 hours, the wife stayed even, and I bled away my early winnings (of course!).

My last hand of the night was brutal: JJ in MP. Flop comes AJ8. EP bets out, and I just call, not wanting to scare off the others in the hand. Another A on the turn. Sweet... EP hit his trip Aces but I've got Jacks full. He bets out, someone after me mucks out of turn, so I figure it's time to raise it and go to war. It gets capped and the River is a brick. Cap it again! "Ace Jack, you win dude," he says as he turns over his A8. Shit. I was so blinded by my flopped set, and he came out betting so strong that I put him on an Ace with a weak kicker (I would have slowplayed the 2 pair). That beat pretty much cleaned me out.

If nothing else, Silver Dollar is tracking hours in January for a $3000 prize pool Freeroll in February, so on the plus side, my early rush allowed me to stay for awhile and rack up some time.

Still plenty of cash in the Poker box from the previous weekend, so we head back on Saturday night. Starts off pretty tame, and eventually I'm holding 33. "Flop it or drop it," I tell myself. And boy, did it ever flop... 3JJ. An elder guy bets out his J of course, and I take it easy, still reeling from the previous night's Full House beating. Turn is a blank and I just call. The River drops the last 3. Holy moly! My first ever Quads at a real table, and a Jackpot Quad at that! I raise the guy just for kicks - I gave him back his last $12 call after the hand, as I was getting paid $90 from the Monte Carlo jackpot anyways.

I don't know how common Monte Carlo jackpots are around the country, and I don't think I've ever heard of it online; but basically a dollar is taken out of every pot (along with the house rake) that goes into the "Player Supported Jackpot" pool. This pool is divided among Quads and Straight Flushes and Royal Flushes - every place does it a bit differently, and some places even pay out for the Wheel Flush. If you hit one of those hands, you get paid whatever that hand is currently listed at. The only requirement is that both of your hole cards have to play for the straight flushes, and obviously you have to have pocket pair for the Quads.

So Quad 3's were at $90 at the time... but wait! Silver Dollar just started a "Quad d'jour" at the beginning of the year, and 3's happened to be that day's special... worth $350! Order up!

I tipped the dealer 10% of the jackpot, and I doubled up my buy-in within the hour. Unfortunately, that second rack essentially belonged to my wife, so we left the table even, but with an extra $300 in the to-go box.

Seeing how things were running for me, of course we went back on Sunday. It wasn't quite as busy, so none of the drunk, casual players donating money at the tables. But it was definitely some of the worst play I'd ever seen. Guys were raising with any face card, cold-calling with anything suited, hanging on to their bottom pair all the way to the river.

Fortunately, I recalled how I would get sucked out if there were other maniacs at the table and I tried to keep up with them. So I adjusted and stayed tight, hardly raised and didn't try to steal even one pot, as I can usually do with the casual players. Coincidentally, Iggy posted on Sunday about these loose-aggressive games, how the variance is greater and you'll suffer the bad beats, but it's worth it as the wins you do take will be huge.

Prime example: I take a few nice pots with Top pair, and a lucky BB special that flopped a straight, so I have some extra chips to play with. I raise once with Big Slick and hit a K on the flop. But runner-runner diamond and some idiot who came along for the ride proudly shows off his T3d for the win. I raise again with KK in LP and get called around. Board is all under-cards and I bet all the way, but the river puts a 4-card straight on the board and I check it through. A different moron flips 92o for the straight and tells me I'm lucky I didn't bet cause he was prepping to check-raise me.

I take it all in stride, and pretty soon I'm holding QTc - two clubs on the flop and the Kc on the Turn. I'm kind of worried about the Ac, but I didn't recall anyone raising pre-flop so I happily call 3-bets. River puts a straight out there, and two fools raise and re-raise and I just call, as if I'm stuck in the middle. The first dim-wit (I had to use a thesaurus for more words to describe these guys) flips over some low-ball straight. The next knuckle-head throws down his 84c with a HA! I shake my head and chuckle inside as I turn over my hand. There was over $150 in the pot so I'm back up and over.

The next hour doesn't bring me any more favorable hands, so I racked up and left with another $100 surplus for the Poker box. I'm still patting myself on the back for being able to adjust to the table and not go on tilt as I've realized I've done in the past. Just need to keep it up and weekends will be much more fun than they have been in the past few months!

I know my last post was about taking the plunge onto the Inter-web thingy, but nothing major to report there, unfortunately. I'll wax poetic about it later... it's almost noon and I've got a lunch-date with a 3/6 table. :)