Johnny

Warning: Some of the links in this entry go to external sites and some are NSFW. If you hover over the links titles will pop up saying “EXT” for external link (link other than my home server), “NSFW” for the obvious, or “CLICK AWAY” if you wouldn’t mind if your mom/wife/priest saw it. Due to it’s nature the last link shouldn’t be clicked on by anyone.

On Saturday Ridge Forum buddy Snickers and I met up at Mounaineer Racetrack and Casino in West Virginia. It was one of the nicer rooms I’ve been in. The entry was large with a big front desk. Large monitors showed the wait lists for all games. You could give your name to the desk or enter it yourself at a kiosk. The room itself was very large. There was a lot of room between the tables, which was really great. It was the least crowded room I’ve been in and it still holds 30-something tables.

Getting there took a little longer than anticipated. Google maps comes up a little short, leaving you about 8 miles from your target at a really shady place called Gumby’s Cigarette and Beer World. Now I can understand how Google could think that I might want to stop there from my browsing habits, but they should continue the route even if they think I won’t make it back out.

The trip down was 99.4 miles and took just shy of 2 hours. Still a better drive than Niagara, but not as short as I expected. I did make a quick stop off the highway at a place called Jay’s hot dogs in the middle of nowhere. I was happy to see that my lunch of 2 hot dogs would cost only $1.38 - small town value! While I’m waiting a group of guys walks in and the cashier calls them over. “We ain’t from here!” the customer exclaims “We haff to read the menu.” The cashier and I just kind of look at one another… It’s Jay’s Hot Dogs, the menu = HOT DOGS. wtf? They are still pondering while I pick up my sack and head back to the car. The dogs were good. They come with onions and mustard but also with this really spicy chili sauce so I knew that later these dogs would be barkin.

Another 45 miles down the road I pass “East Palestine and Calcutta Ohio” A little international flavor to the community names. There were quite a few tricked out PT Cruisers getting off the highway here. So, if you a fan of tricked out PT Cruisers, East Palestine and/or Calcutta Ohio might be the place to be.

The road starts curving an undulating in a way that can only mean that you’re entering hill country so I feel West Virginia coming on, and around a bend I glimpse the big Ohio River. West Virginia and the Mountaineer are just on the other side. While in Niagara, Snickers had told me about Ohioans at Mountaineer talking about this rickety old bridge they crossed to get there. I’m wondering what it will be like. Driving east along the river I see it… it’s called the “Toll Bridge” but I call it “Dumbass Bridge” because you have to be a certified mouthbreather to cross it. It looks barely 2 lanes wide, the cars are crawling along it at what must have been a little over 5MPH. It’s lacking any actual pavement and instead has metal see-through grating. The sides are lacking with flimsy bars. From the name I assume there is a toll involved somewhere. Still, if it’s the bridge why condemn these people to dumbass status? Because you can see just a short way down the river where the highway crosses on a nice 4 lane arching proper bridge. Your humble blogger opts for the highway.

I arrive at the Racino and was able to drive directly to the proper parking lot right away because of Snicker’s last trip report. The parking lot is huge and right next to the racing grandstand. The poker room is inside the grandstand. There are doors out to a patio area and the racetrack is right there. When the horses are racing it must be a very different atmosphere in there.

The player’s card sign up and putting my name in for the $1/$2NL list took about a minute and within 10 minutes I was playing poker. They don’t call your name and table number. They call your name and then you have to look for a seating dude who shows you where to sit. When they called me I went straight to the cashier and the seating dude came up to me in line and told me where to go, which conveniently was the table right next to the cashier. I don’t know how many $1/$2 tables they had going, but at the peak of the night almost all of their 37 or so tables were sitting players. They had stud, omaha, limit and no limit in a bunch of denominations. The biggest game was $10/$25 no limit hold em with a $7000 max buy in. I won’t be sitting at that for some time! The dealer said that the play on that game gets really nasty.

I buy in for the full $300 and take seat 4 at the 10 seat table. With my beginning stack I have all but a couple seats covered. Seat 1 is a guy with a WSOP shirt and cap on. Seat 2 I can’t remember but he didn’t last long. Seat 3 told me his name but I forgot it. I call him Irish Chris Rock. He talked and smiled a little like Chris Rock, but he was redheaded and pasty white. To my left in seat 5 was Joel who had a little over a double stack when I sat down. I didn’t note much of seats 6 and 7 as the players there made no fireworks while they lasted and I couldn’t see them. 8, 9, and 10 were tight players.

In keeping with our rather good gauge of comparing the play to online tables, this table was more difficult than the Full Tilt $1/$2 NL tables I usually play on in comparison to Seneca Niagara’s tables being $.10/$.25NL tops. The players were tight, I’d give the table a VP% of about 12. They were aggressive. I didn’t do much for the first several hours. After about 30 hands I tried to get cheeky. In the BB I had :Jc :8c and checked it down. The flop came xx4 and I led out and got flat called by Joel. The turn paired the board with 4s and I bet out again and got called. I don’t remember what happened on the river except that Joel was nice enough to show me his quads. So, I tried to bluff out quads using nothing but a tight image. Dumbass me.

A few hands later Snickers shows up and comes over. I say that I’m doing alright except for this bastard getting quads as I point to Joel. Joel piped in that I had nothing at all, which I didn’t expect, so there goes my total fabrication of a bad beat story! Snickers buys in and sits 2 tables behind me.

3 more hands come where I could have lost more. I check the BB or flat call a button with 67o, can’t remember my position. I flop a straight draw and I’m priced in with first to acts bet and Chris Rock’s call but I fold it because I just got a bad feeling. As it turns out, the river that made me the straight made Chris Rock’s straight flush. Happy to get away from that for $2. On another hand I’m sandwhiched between Chris Rock and Joel. Chris has the button, I have AKo in the SB, and Joel has the BB. Chris might have raised, he liked to raise, if he did I flat called and if he didn’t I just completed. I’m thinking that he probably raised though. I didn’t like my position between Chris, the tables wild better, and Joel, the only guy to have me covered and a pretty good player. Joel calls or checks and the flop comes 99x. Chris’ hand jerks and freezes on the flop and I think “ha!” and fold to his bet. Joel calls. A on the turn and T on the river. They go to town and both end up with the same hand, 9T and they both have boats. Also in there I have a quality hand but fold only to watch others go to the river to see that I would have lost, but I can’t remember the hand. At this point I’m feeling really good being down only $60.

People start to bust. Some rebuy and they usually rebuy for $100. And when I say they bust they usually bust to Joel who is playing a game that I really can’t pick up on. He’s seemingly tight but every once in a while shows down with a pretty subpremium hand, but is confident that he’s ahead and he often is. He knows position but limps UTG a lot. Whether by design or chance he mixed up his game nicely and I couldn’t put him on anything. His stack sat at about $1800 when I left.

This goes on for 3 hours or so. By the time I talk with Snickers again I’m up about $20. My cards weren’t terrfic. I had AK the hand above when I folded. I had AQ a few times, a few pocket pairs, mid connectors, TT a couple of times and JJ once for the entire day. The couple times I had TT I raised to $10 first in the pot then took it down after the flop with a strong continuation bet. Chopping seemed to be standard and table folds to Chris in the SB and I pick up my cards and say “Chop?” and he says “You want to chop?” “Ya” I say and so he says “Then I raise it $10.” I say “Thanks a lot” and fold. Chris says “Well I don’t know about you but I came here to play poker.” I ask the dealer if Chris would lose money on this play and the dealer said no, if I fold there is no rake. Oh. Different story then. The table started to loosen up. WSOP was replaced by Penguins Guy, who was passive and eventually was felted but he provided some action. Seat 2 was replaced by Assfinger Man.

Assfinger man was a treat. He was an old guy with bushy white hair. Do you remember James Stockdale who ran for Vice President on Ross Perot’s ticket? He was a lot like that guy, except for the assfinger. The index finger on his right hand was stained a deep brown with the browest part in the center and fading to a coffee-cup light brown from there. This was either becuse he smokes non-filtered cigarettes non stop for 50 years or because he sleeps with his finger up his ass. Judging from his persona, play, and lack of an external voice box I’d guess the latter. He did his part to soften up the table, playing a loose aggressive game.

Chris remained in seat 3. He was your typical shortstack. Seriouly, just the kind I post about, playing ultra aggressive without an edge and depending on fold equity or lucksacking it. It was very interesting, though, to hear him talk about why one should play shortstacked and how he does it on Stars, playing $1/$2 and $2/$4 for the minumum buy ins. You can imagine the thoughts racing through my head, but I just nodded in agreement. Chris was an indominable spirit, and I pegged him for West Virginia by the accent, but he was from Ohio.

I’m in seat 4, Joel in seat 5, and a gruff looking gentleman with a deep eastern european accent sat in seat 6. His first hand played was strong, slowplaying then betting the turn on a strong hand and winning a large pot. After that he just seemed like your average donkey, playing without regard to position and too loose.

The rest of the table was the same for a while, if not the players themselves at least in style. Later on a slightly annoying guy sat in seat 9 and I could tell he’d get felted by the time he left.

Snickers is ready to go and he waits for a couple minutes until my button passes and my beer comes from the waitress. She had a French accent that could only be topped by Borat’s scenes in Talladega Nights. “Allo! Wood zu like a bleverage? Can I get zoo anyzing?” Just about the whole table couldn’t stand it and when everyone admitted it the dealer finally broke down and said it made him insane too. The security guard said she was German and has lived in West Virginia for a long time. She certainly didn’t fit my stereotype of a West Virginia girl as a little backward hot, and armed.

So my beer comes. They are very cheap and so I also got one for Chris who was wondering if I was still pissed off about the chop. Chris seemed to be sobering up. He finally busted out to Joel though and left and so Joel got the beer when it arrived and corrected my lame ass tip too, which was an accident on my part. I limit myself to the one beer while I’m there because I saw some cops on the road and Ohio is no place to get a DUI. Bastards made me afraid of beer. Maybe I can get some therapy from Thebatsman. Then I meet up with Snickers briefly and we talk about some hands and the room in general. He says that his table was looser than mine and that I should put in for his seat, but my table is just starting to loosen up nicely and I have a read on everyone. Snickers had thought that Wheeling seemed softer in his trip reports and one of the dealers at our table actually said that he prefers to play there because the games are softer, which was notable because it’s run by a different company. Joel had also said that Wheeling was softer. Snickers and I say that maybe the next trip should be to Wheeling even though it’s about 45 minutes further for me, the drive might be worth it.

We say goodbye and I hit the table for another 90 minutes or so. Eastern european guy was replaced by a different guy who was a calling station and very difficult to push off a hand, 2 seats to my left. I was still up just a little bit and I didn’t want to play loose into Joel or the calling station so I remained tight. I had seat 10 dominated with my KQ over his K8 on a flop that was something like 99K. However, the river brought another K and saved him as we split the pot. My AQ hit the A or the Q and villain hit 2 low pair but the board paired as well. Joel caught it first and stopped the dealer from pushing the pot to villain.

Then I was dealt my best hand of the night, JJ in the SB. Calling station limps, seat 9 limps, I raise to $12, calling station calls ( of course), seat 9 calls. The flop comes 345 with 2 hearts. I bet $30 and the calling station raises! Seat 9 folds. Well, the calling station minraised me and I want to know more. Finally, I get to play a hand where a physical tell you can’t get online might could come into play. I reraise and make the bet an even $100. His face becomes very red and he looks like he wants to vomit. Yes! He tanks for a bit and flat calls the $40. The turn is a blank. He doesn’t have QQ, KK, AA. His reaction to my reraise made me feel good about the prospect of going up against a set. What could he have? A5 with a flush draw? I push a $100 stack out beyond the betting line and he looks at it like it just flipped off his mother. He tanks. He gets a long time as the dealer and Joel are talking about Wheeling. I try to join in and say something funny and laugh because Calling Station is staring at me, but in reality I’m trying very hard to control my breathing. I feel that I have the best hand but I really just want him to fold and not draw out. After several minutes he folds and I take a nice pot. The dealer wants to guess what I had and I say that it’s ok to guess and he says “a set of 3s” and I just say no. Seat 9 says that it ’s not JJ because that’s what he had. Ha, if you did then you’re a bigger donkey than I thought. When I got up to leave Calling Station asks what I had and I said JJ. Seat 9 gets a little animated and says “That’s what I had!” Calling station says he had 77.

I get AT and take it down with a continuation bet after the flop. Same thing once more, forget the hand. I cash out with $483, having bought in for $300. Not bad considering the table, my cards, the $5 rake *ouch* and tips. Just about an even $30 per hour.

Driving back I almost turn onto Dumbass Bridge by mistake which looks even more like a dumbass proposition in the dark with icy rain. If mothman was going to get my ass, it was going to be that night on that bridge. I switch lanes and get on the highway and drive home, which is 26 miles further than work and takes about 2 1/2 hours. I stop for Tacos in East Palestine and/or Calcutta, but there are no PT Cruisers around.

And if I don’t get another post up in time… Merry Christmas!

This entry was posted on Monday, December 10th, 2007 at 4:22 pm and is filed under trip reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.