It's (a)Live!

Well, last night (technically this morning) was my introduction to the Arizona Card Club scene. It sounds like they are trying start up cardrooms like in CA so this was nicer than a homegame, but not by much. They had trained dealers and nice tables and custom chips, but the space itself could use some work. The room is open three nights a week: Thursday-Sunday. There is talk of adding more days, but it depends on the profitability of the place.

Here's how it works: There is a $10 Annual Fee, $5 at the door each time, and $1 on the button. That's it for fees. When it's five or less it's 50c on the button. It's not a bad deal and the low table rake helps for the NL games as less rake=more chips in your hand=more money you can win. When I got there, they were spreading a 1/2 NL game on 2 tables with a $100 max buy-in. Not too bad. What makes it great is that the players are horrible. And I mean horrible. I honestly can't recall a better NL game that wasn't a $10 buy-in home game. Now, I'll get down to the hands.

QQ: I doubled up against A8 on a T55 flop.

AA(1): This one I liked my play a lot: Well, not my play, but how I sold the hand. The kid I was playing against was the bigstack at the time and he was calling decent preflop raises fairly light (I had lost a small pot with TT against his 86). How it went down was I made a decent sized raise to $16 and him and this other guy called. He bet $10 on a 374 flop. I had around $40 left, so I moved all-in. Other guy folded and he went into the tank. I was a bit worried about 56, but him betting that wasn't consistent with his previous play (he liked to slowplay). As he thought, I was sure I was ahead, so I hollywooded him. He had the hoody and sunglasses and I pegged him on the kind of player who's read enough to know the "strong means weak" tell. So I started him down, trying to look as intimidating as I could. I sold the bluff. I knew my read was spot on because his body language started to change once I started staring. He called and I won.

AJ: This hand was a heart-breaker. It's one of those hands where you know the right this to do and you still do the wrong thing. There was a straddle from this loose and crazy player and I elected to call in position to keep the pot size down (he was apt to raise with a lot of cards, so I didn't want to raise as a pot control measure). The blinds saw the flop and with no raise it came down QT8. The straddle bet small and I called with my double gut-shot as did both of the blinds. The turn was a blank and another light bet. I didn't think my fold equity was very high, so I decided to just call, as did the blinds. The river was a 9 and the SB went all-in. He had me covered, with $140 left in my stack and $50 in the pot. The other two guys folded and my immeadiate reaction was "he's got KJ". I tried to probe for information, offering him $5 to see any card. He wasn't that good of a player, but he wasn't the kind to make a crazy bluff. When I asked if he had the K, he looked surprised that I would ask and did a check-back. That through me off and I made the call. He turned over KJ and stacked me. It was a pretty amateur mistake by me and I still am not sure why I called. I felt like Daniel Negreanu: I made the read, reasoned it out, and still made the wrong decision. Though this hand did save me further down the line when I folded KcJs on a JcTc9c flop to his open push.

AA(2): So I re-bought for $100 and my next BB I pick up AA with a ton of limpers. I decide to make it $30 to go as I expected someone to call and I was offering fairly poor implied odds. So two people call. And I'm OOP. With a pot bigger than my stack. The flop comes QJx, all clubs. I decide to check as if I bet, I wasn't folding, so this lets me think about the hand the most with min-risk. The first caller checks, and the 2nd guy goes all-in. I don't have the Ac and I think about it for a minute. I didn't think he had the flush, so I was mostly worried about a pair with a club or two-pair. The clock is called on me, I hem and haw, and I decide to call, getting 2.5-1 on my money. The other guy folds and he shows my the best hand ever: KJ. All red. The turn is a club, making me feel a bit better as there were less ways to lose (I was still a bit frazzled from the AJ hand). The river was a blank, and I'm back in the game!

Nothing much really happened for the rest of the night. The players were pretty bad (loose-calling stations), but I had a hard time hitting hands. I would just miss and miss. I think I made two draws the entire night. At the end, we played four handed with the absolute worst player I have ever played with. She was calling station extreme. I just couldn't get anything going as she was call with any two and hit, leaving my hands in the dust. 62o: good. J6o: good. K8o on a JQx flop against my K9: good with the 8 on the turn.

So it was a grinder night for me. I made one good bluff with 67 (I got the two guys off overpairs). It's worth talking about, so I'll break it down as making two players fold overpairs is pretty crazy in this game.

So I have 67o on the CO 6-handed. The guy next to me limps and the button raises it to $12. We all had pretty big stacks at this point, so the limper and I called. The important point here was that this was the raiser's last hand. He was the big winner and had a little under $1K (he was actually hitting hands against super-loose-calling-station-women and getting paid off nicely). He had mentioned that this was his first winning night as the two times he had been there, he lost $200 each time. So this all played into the hand. The glop came 582, two clubs. It goes check, I check, and he bets $10. The other guy calls and I think that this is a super-weak bet and I raise to $40. Now I had been playing pretty "tight" the whole night, never getting out of line. The last time I made a big bet, I had a set of threes. He thinks about it and calls and the other guy folds. The turn is a red J and fire out $80. He makes a speech about how it was his last hand and how he thought I had clubs, but was letting me take the pot. I say that I didn't have clubs, and take down the pot. He claimed to have TT while the other guy said he had 99 (my outs!).

So that was my card club experience. I hadn't played live NL in a long time, but I think I'm working out the kinks well. I was able to see some of the leaks that had opened and they should be plugged up fairly quick. I'm reading NL Holdem: Theory and Practice again to brush up on some more of the theory. If I play again tonight, I'll give a write-up tomorrow.