Heh guys,

Thanks [url=http://www.ridgepoker.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1214:1lo5tria]for all the tips[/url:1lo5tria] and it's time for the trip report. My wife wanted to give me a nice b'day present by taking me to a casino and I was really excited. I have never played live other than some drunken dumping of money at Vegas. This time, I decided to play well as I am sure I will need it some time. I read some B&M strategy etc. and I decided to play as loose as I can as I think that's most profitable.

We get to Mt. Pleasant, Michigan and check into a Bed & Breakfast place. We were kind of spooked by the B&B place, as this is our first time doing this and the place looked like a vampire house from a horror flick. We also haven't seen many old-style American houses, but the old couple were very nice. My wife joked that they are going to eat us for their breakfast after they cut us with an axe. Too much watching of Saw, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It turned out be very nice. The old guy was extremely nice, showed the whole house, which actually is quite beautiful. We chose a one bedroom out of the six beautiful ones he showed.

ok, ok, you are getting bored. Let's get to the casino. We took a small nap and we are off to the Soaring Eagle casino. My wife went to get some thing to eat, and I walked into the poker room and signed up for a 1/2 NL (100$ max) game. I immediately got an open table and got seated. It's the corner seat (7 or and the dealer says 'cough up 6 bucks'. What? It's the session fee, he says. Duh! It's 1/2NL, 100 max and you have to play 6$ per half-hour? Then, he asks me: 'Do you want to post?'. I know what that means, but I make the first newbie mistake. I quickly say 'yes', out of nervousness. Duh! I put 2$ UTG. I look at my cards, trying to not show that this is my first serious hand live. I quickly check after looking at :6s: :9s: I calmly look at the whole table (some of these reads I picked up over time). 1s is an Asian looking dude, 2s don't remember, 3s middle aged white guy who seemed to have a clue (let's call him the solid guy), 4s a 40 some thing woman. The two people to my left and right (Paul) seemed to know each other and looked like construction workers or some thing. The Paul guy is talking a lot and talking to his buddy on my left. Anyway, off to the flop, It's all spades AQX. Baam. I start value-betting. Bet some thing like 20, solid guy calls and the woman calls. Some brick on the turn. I bet some more, sold guy folds and the woman calls leaving herself with about 15$ on the river. I put her all-in, she hee-haws and finally folds, duh! I take a nice pot of about 80$ to bring me up to about 140$. Dealer says 'welcome to the table!'. Here we go.

I stuck to my game plan. Play loose and play small ball unless I have the nuts. After a few hands of limping, limp-calling and raising in position, I hit nothing. I played hands like :Kh: :8h:, :7s: :Ts:, 33 etc. Seemed like, the whole table is crazy except the Asian and the solid guy. I was impressed with the solid guy as he bet small when he had some thing but not quite big hand. He bet big when he had good stuff. He also check/raised a few times with two pair etc.

Anyway, I grind down to about 100$, and some one busts probably busted by the solid guy. I move to that seat which is the central seat and I can see the board really well. I am starting to like the game. A few more limps etc. no hits. Then, a guy to my left who seemed slightly tight limps. I raise to 10$ with ATo. My phone rings, fucking shit. My first raise, I don't want to be disturbed. I pick it up and my friend starts wishing me about bday etc. Dealer strenly says I can't talk on the phone while in a hand. Fuck you , it's not WSOP. I hand the phone to my wife and I am back to the game. Amazingly, every one else folds and we are HU. Flop comes T59 rainbow. The guy bets almost pot, I announce all-in and regret it almost immediately. I can hear my wife screaming at me for playing too fast again. turn, river and the river is an ace! guy says I have two pair and shows 59, fuck off, I have two pair too. He mutters 'suck out' and I take a very nice pot to put me around 190$.

I wise up and slowed down a little bit watching players a bit more. Paul and his buddy are totally clueless. A new comes into the old seat I left and is in BB. Paul limps, a few limps, new guy raises to 10 I think. Paul calls along with some other people. Flop comes QXX. Paul checks, new guy bets, Paul calls and turn is a Q. The new guy goes all-in, Paul immediately calls. The new guy was scared to death and asks do you have a queen. Paul turns over :Ad: :Js:, new guy shows KK, there are two diamonds on the board. River is an ace for a major suck out. Paul was like, heh I had a flush draw too, you know. We all nod :-) The new guy was actually very classy, didn't say much and went to rebuy. Paul continues chasing his flush draws (heh heh, back door draws) and busts another guy when he has 4-card flush draw against a smaller draw. I believe he was up around 300$ at this point.

His buddy, meanwhile, busts after going all-in for about 40$ with various hands including 45s, AKs, Q8o etc. That seat is replaced by a psychologist wearing Raymer like glasses. He was uber-nit and seemed to know Paul. The uber-nit moves to my left, after the guy on left leaves. I was slightly unhappy with that as I wanted the tightie to be on left.

Back to my hands, I get dealt :Ad: :Kd: By this time, I am playing 70/5/0.5 kind of game, though that's about right for the 90/5/0.1 table. Solid guy limps, uber-nit limps, I raise it to 20. All fold back to solid guy who calls and uber-nit folds. Flop is some random crap like 762 or some thing. He checks, I check. Turn is a 6, he checks, I check. River I think was a 7 or a 6. Solid guy bets 20$, and I quickly call. He says 'ace high'. I show my AK silently and I win the pot. Immediately, next hand, I am dealt AKo. Some limps, I raise it again to AK and to my surprise no one calls. I show AK and every one is like 'oooh, back to back'. At this point, people pegged me as playing only big cards, I believe. I was dealt ATo after that hand. I limp-folded as I didn't think people would believe me third time.

I am upto about 175$ after limp folding and paying the enormous session fee thrice. Then comes the best hand of the night. Uber-nit limps, I have 87o on the button and I raise it to 10. I have been doing this on the button for some time and Paul who is usually the SB or BB was kind of annoying. He was talking to my wife, kept telling her to take me to take me away from the table. Paul calls in SB along with BB (a new guy in a bright yellow Michigan t-shirt), Uber-nit folds. Flop comes :Kc: :8c: :8s: Woohoo ! Paul checks, I bet 20 (about 3/4 pot, I guess). Paul has about 300$ and immediately check-raises me to 60$. I am like wow! As I am counting the chips to call, I remember thinking that I have to call about 50$, so probably the raise wast 70$. I am not going any where, and for the first time, I started thinking. He could have an 8, but it really looked like a flush draw to me. He could have any thing including :Ac: and crap. I wait for a few more seconds and he asks me how much I have. Before he finished his sentence, I say 'all-in' and push about 100$ into the pot. He insta-calls and shows :Kh: :6h: No miracle for him and I win about 350$. He went on a small whining session complaining that I raised with 87o and stood up. I told him nicely that 'I got lucky'. He left immediately and as soon as he left, the whole table laughed and joked about his play. I didn't say much other than telling the uber-nit that he wasn't unhappy when he sucked out against KK.

At this point, I was really confident and I knew that the only guys who might give me trouble are the Asian and solid guys. I kept playing my style and it was a lot of fun playing so many flops. It's amazing how many marginal situations you are pushed into.

Uber-nit leaves or moves to another seat and Vietnamese looking guy sits. He takes some chips from his pocket showing some green 25$ chips. His 5$ chips were different from ours. They are from Blackjack tables as I found out. He seemed like a regular to me, as he posted less than 50$ and then immediately rebought to 150$ after the hand. Interesting, I didn't know this. He put on a Eskimo looking hat and every one was commenting on the hat.

Ok, solid guy limps, Vietnamese limps, I raise to 10 with :Jd: :Qd: Both call. Flop comes Jxx, both check, I bet and Vietnamese guy calls. He checks some brick turn, I check. He checks on brick river, I bet small and he pays me off. I don't see his hand, but I guess he had a small jack. A few hands later, I am dealt QQ, Viet guy limps, I raise it up to 15, every one folds (by this time it felt like no one is willing to mess with me), Viet calls. Flops comes QXX with two spades. I bet small, guy folds, duh! In retrospect, I should have checked, but whateva.

No remarkable hands after this, Asian and Solid guys busted a few idiots to build their stacks to 300$+. I finally leave after paying my 5th session fee for dinner. I had about 275$ after I cashed out and I was very happy as my wife was upset at my Vegas money dumping. She knows that I play well online, but she just doesn't like me to gamble in a degenerate way. She is also shit-scared of live players.

Anyway, I tell my wife, let's go to the most expensive place on this casino for eating. We go to a nice looking restaurant and the hostess asks us to wait for the table to set up. The restaurant seemed completely empty, but whateva. My wife starts checking the menu and doesn't find any thing vegetarian. Hostess says they don't have any thing vegetarian but she can get us a salad, yeah right. I eat every thing, but my wife is a strict vegetarian and we laugh at their business sense and leave. My wife was happy that I didn't dump my winnings in a useless place. We go to the buffet and have a sumptuous meal.

Back to the tables, there is a long list now since it's the peak time. Amazingly, I get the same table and go to my old seat! Asian, solid guy and uber nit are still there. I try to do the Viet guy trick, post 50$ and ask the dealer when I can rebuy as I was not sure. She didn't understand my question and the uber-nit-psychologist explains to me the rule nicely. You have to go below 50$ and then buy. Thanks maan.

So, I try to pull off this 50$ short-stack thing. I ask my wife to get me 100$ more chips. The game went short-handed very quickly with two more guys and all were playing tight. I fold a few hands as I get crap. I am in the BB, get AQo. Asian guy raises to 10, some new tightie calls, I think I have no option but to go all-in. I push all-in. The Asian guy called all-ins with suited connectors before and seems to know the equities. He calls,, I show my hand and he doesn't show, the board comes 45678. I am like, ok, that's good, let's chop. He turns over :9d: :Td: Fucking shit! My wife is back with 100$ chips and I can see in her eyes that she is not happy with my all-in. I explain to her later why I went all-in, but she never likes me doing crazy things live. As much as I hate his call, he was correct to call.

I was slightly dazed after the hand. The table went extremely tight as all the nits started folding. I raise with :4d: :6d:, JJ and just get the blinds! It was getting boring, then two college kids came and sat to my left. Both were gambling big time. I limp-call-folded a few hands as I got nothing. The woman from first session comes back totally drunk and starts talking to me. "I was playing 3/6 and nobody respects my raises. It's limit you know. I have AQ and the dude calls me with 68". I am like yep, no-limit is better etc. She is totally drunk and has some argument about session fee. Floor comes and explains to her that she can wait a few minutes and pay 3$ instead of 6$. I get no hands, get whittled down to about 50$.

My wife was feeling sleepy, so we left shortly after. I check the amount of money we have and total profit: +80$ I think I have donked out a few chips limp-calling in the first session. We go back to B&B and my wife has 911 typed in her phone, just in case. I tell her to take it easy though the house was a bit spooky in the night. I watch a little bit of TV before going to sleep.

We don't get murdered in the night and wake up at about 9:30AM. We go down and the old man made some nice French toast. We had about 2 hour chat with him about various things including politics, India, American culture, his children etc. He tells us how he built the house and how he maintains his 20 acre land alone etc. He was really really nice and I recommend the B&B ([url=http://www.michigan.org/travel/detail.asp?p=G7355:1lo5tria]Roycroft Inn B&B[/url:1lo5tria]) to any one going to Mt. Pleasant.

I wanted to go back to casino, but my wife was totally bored. So, we head back home.

Overall, it was a great experience. I played a bit too loose, but I think it's wrong to play too tight in these games. Hopefully, I can go to Vegas and play some time.

Edit: fixed the final profit, as my wife mentioned that we only cashed out about +175$ in the first session

Great report. I had to read it fast because I have some work to do but it sounds good.

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They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. - Carl Sagan

Yes very cool.

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"99% of the players are cake suck at poker" Randy 4/15/08

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Randy: I'm wrong

I hear this all the time. Always makes me smile.

Excellent report! I really like the extra details as it makes it very entertaining in addition to the poker itself.

The BB story was funny as well.

Great account, sounds like you guys had a good time!