I got a brief experience Saturday night of one of the craziest limit table I’ve ever seen. Fortunately, (a) I got to change tables quickly, and (b) I left with more money that I started with.
For the second weened in a row, I played all three nights. And for the second weekend in a row, I made a net profit, although this weekend I made a profit all three nights.
But let’s get to that Saturday night. I got to Artichoke Joe’s a little later than I had wanted, mainly because I was being a bit lazy at home, watching basketball and getting my laundry started later than I wanted. So I didn’t get there until nearly 8pm and I didn’t get seated until nearly 9pm.
They were running 4 $6/$12 tables and the turnover was slow. Yes, I could have taken a $3/$6 seat, but I instead spent the time watching the $6/$12 tables. I identified the table where I wanted to be, although it wasn’t the absolute best situation.
But when my name came up, the seat was at the worst table of the four. I came in behind the button and found, to my amazement, pocket queens. The table had already seen several limpers, so I raised. The flop was a near dream: A-K-Q rainbow. The flop was bet early had several callers, and I raised again. The turn and river were blanks and my set took down a total pot of between $150 and $200.
A new poker book that I found and am now reading calls the live raise bet, raising the blinds before the cards are dealt, the “stupidest” move in poker. I agree, and as the books says, what’s the point in raising before you even see your cards?
I have learned to identify players who do this as “gamblers,” not “poker players,” and know when I see one at my table that they are there for the “action,” not to make money in the long run. Well this table was a first for me. I saw a hand where the under-the-gun player placed out a live raise, and then the next player put out a second live raise, making it $18 to go before the first card was ever dealt.
I knew that this was a table that could provide wild fluctuations and a serious risk to my money. I had already asked for a table change, and I got it soon afterward.
The good news is that the table change was to the table that I had identified as being the best for me. This table had two huge stacks, in seats 4 and 6, and I got seat 2, not the best placement against big stacks.
I soon identified the stack in seat 4 as a calling station, while the seat 6 stack was a pretty solid player. I was able to isolate the calling station a couple of times, and ended up watching his stack get ground down before he finally left. To be fair, he may have left with a profit; he left with only $20 chips, and two good stacks of those, but his huge stack of $2 chips had disappeared (and he’d lost a few of the $20 chips as well), but I also don’t know how much he bought in with or how much he pulled out if he lost his buy ins.
Sunday afternoon I experienced my first freeroll tournament. I had cashed in an earlier tournament, which got me entry into this one.
I began with an utterly bonehead play. I was UTG just a few hands in and raised with A-10 offsuit. I got just two callers, the SB and the BB. The flop came K-10-9 rainbow and I bet out with middle pair. The SB called and the BB folded. The turn was a blank, I bet out and got called again. The river brought another blank. I checked, and the SB bet. I thought for a moment and the called. He turned over A-9. I saw the ace and folded too quickly, then immediately regretted it.
I was able to recover and get a fairly big stack into the middle rounds, but then some bad luck with big hands sent me to the rail. I hit a good $6/$12 table and made a nice little profit for Sunday, thanks largely to a known calling station two seats to my right. All in all, a nice poker weekend.