A Cherry on Top (AC Trip Report Pt. 4)
Saturday, January 28, 2006
That's a whole lot of trip report! Let' s wrap this up.
The next morning, we woke at 11:15, all shocked that so much time had passed. The guys wanted to play more, but I wanted to go home. Roose particularly wanted a tourney, and I finally convinced him and Hole over breakfast to go to the Taj for the SNGs. They hate the Taj, and I know why. That place is huge, as far as poker rooms go. It's the largest in AC. But it's also the dirties and loudest.
We decided to play in a $50+15 SNG. We all sat at the same table. Winner takes all, for $500. We agreed that if any of us won, the others got their money back. Might as well spread the love. At the table was a motley group. There were a couple of timid internet players. One woman was all miffed at the 1K in chips and quickly escalating blinds. At least, she was miffed before the tourney. As it turned out, it didnt' matter. In the first hand, a guy limped with AA, she bumped it up with AT and then hit an Ace on the flop. She pushed, he called and that was that.
I tried to play loose, but lost a couple of early hands. I was at about 600 left and looked down to AA in the BB or SB. A big doofy guy on the button limped. I pushed. He called with QhJh. With some chips behind me, I began stealing blinds when the timing was right.
I should probably go back a bit and mention something humorous. A black guy on my right, who I'll call Questlove, because, hell, he looked like Questlove, raised preflop. Hole is a loose mofo. He called. The flop was Ace high. Hole bet. Quest raised all-in. See, Quest was a seasoned player, but he wouldn't stop table coaching. Hole took his time, a rare thing to him. When he finally called, he had AK to Quest's AQ. Quest was short stacked, but managed to make it to third place (I took him out).
Now, after this hand, Quest started saying, "Weak tight man. That guy is weak tight." Quest missed the first hands of the SNG, doing god knows what. He didn't realize that Hole and I were buddies, so I decided to exploit that. Hole is anything BUT weak-tight. But that's not what I was saying. From there on out, with any of Hole's raises, I was mumbling to Quest, "He must have KK or AA to be raising like that. He's so weak tight." A little subterfuge if you will. Ultimately, Hole lost, but I was happy that I could play a little bit of mind games.
When it got to three, I took out Quest. I was left with the guy who doubled up on the first hand. We were about even so we agreed to a chop. With a lesser payout, I gave Roose and Hole half of their buy-in back. Most importantly, I felt terrific. 9th out of 58, 5th out of 38, 1st/2nd out of 10. I kicked some serious poker ass.
This trip wasn't financially successful. All in all, I was up a small amount. Poker alone, I was up a bit (I don't count Pai Gow, where I lost $75, in my poker ledger). I avoided table games for the most part. I played solid poker. I made some amazing runs, including 2 final tables in one day.
It made me feel like I could really do this. I could be a successful poker player. That's the plan. I'm taking this for real now. Slow and steady, but progressing. I couldn't be happier.
posted by Jordan @ 7:03 PM,
2 Comments:
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At 8:01 PM,
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Sound like it was a good time! Thanks for the write-up!!
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At 2:49 PM,
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Congratulations Jordan! Sounds like you did really great on your trip to AC. I have never cashed in a tourney in AC, though I have final tabled at various other live brick & mortar tournaments in my day. But never in AC.
And I agree about the Taj. I like to play there, and last time I was there I was playing at a table right next to Robert Varkonyi, winner of the 2003 WSOP main event. But it is loud and dirty there, no doubt. And when there is a concert playing at the Taj during one of the poker tournaments, you can barely hear a thing. Although at those times there tends to be some nice tang walking around the poker area, in the mini skirts and the blond poofy "jersey hair", etc. So that's all good.
Congrats again man, keep us updated. Great writeup btw!
