Weekend Updates and Lessons Learned (8.2.2010)

The Trip to AC

I really have no structure for this post so I’m just going to start going off.  I accomplished a lot this weekend.  Checked out a few neighboring towns and places around AC.  I liked Brigantine and could see myself living there.  It is a chill little beach town that is secluded from the filth of AC.  However, it’s only a few minute drive from there to the Borgata which is very cool.

Roommate:

I met up with my potential future roommate and we got along very well.  He has a good sense of humor and is 100% committed to signing a lease.  He is a grinder at heart just like me.  We certainly won’t get in the way of each-others goals, if anything we would help each-other stay motivated and focused.  Also, he isn’t some random poker bum with no real shot.  From what he told me he almost hit Supernova Elite last year.  He also grinded up over 150k working his way up through full ring cash before it all collapsed.  Crazy he accomplished so much, but forgot the most important thing in poker which is bankroll management.  It’s going to be that much harder for him to rebuild from nothing because the money now seems so petty to him, but he knows what he has to do.

Live Poker:

Now for the bad of the trip.  I put in a good amount of time playing live.  Let me say it was an absolute nightmare.  The theme of the weekend was card dead.  I finished up about +$130 after playing about 20 hours combined.  Friday night into Saturday morning I ended up on a very profitable table at the TAJ.  I felt it was against my morals to leave the table.  I knew it was just a matter of time.  Problem is the TIME never came.  Card dead from 5:00 a.m to 9:00 a.m.  The sickest run of bad cards I’ve seen in a while.  If I get 1 god damn hand per hour I’m fine, it was really unbelievable.  I remember not even being mad, just accepting the fact that I would not get another hand.  I left at 9:00 a.m.  Walking the boardwalk to get to my car I found it interesting that I was surrounded by life and functional people.  I felt like a piece of shit.  My eyes were on FIRE, I felt very bad.  I had been up approaching 23 hours straight.  I had just played cards from 11:30 p.m to 9:00 a.m to bank a measly +$130.  Even worse I missed one of the places the next day that I was supposed to look at with my friend because my schedule was that messed up.

The nightmare continued on the table Saturday night into Sunday morning.  This time I played 11:00 p.m – 5:00 a.m to lose -$60.  At 4:55 a.m I decided I would leave in 2 more hands when the button hit even with a measly $80 profit or so.  Of course I’m dealt AA.  I pop open $12 preflop.  2 Callers.  Flop comes :

AKK

Full house ok not bad right?  Well one of the callers had KJ off and turned the 4th king for his one out.  Another $240 that I win 95%+ of the time, but can’t hold on.  I immediately left the table after one more hand since I was going to leave anyway.  Even the dealer was like “Holy Shit”.  So fitting that would happen.  Sunday afternoon I played before I left again, another card dead session for 4 hours or whatever, but still grinded out about $60.  I guess it’s saying something that things went that bad the entire weekend and I was still up +$130.  I had a feeling it wasn’t going to go well because last week was the shittiest week ever.  Oh well. 

That being said, the live games were incredibly bad.  You’re unlucky to have even 2 fundamentally solid opponents on your table with 1-2 NL.  And there are actually 1-2 live regulars, it’s pretty funny because they think usually they’re incredible poker players.  Online you would be lucky to not have 5 or 6 fundamentally solid players.  It is very feasible to pull over $400+ average off those tables just playing 2 nights on the weekends, which I plan to do.  You still have to table select though.  There are shitty tables even if the players aren’t fundamentally solid.  They may not be solid, but you aren’t going to extract enough money to make your time worth-while if the opponent is only sitting there with a $50 stack behind him.  Or if the opponent is passive tard-box pre, but avoids an even moderate sized pot like the plague.  I had to switch tables three times this weekend, I’ve never had to do that before live.

7 Lessons Learned

1.  On low limits; the hotter the girl-friend the shittier the poker player.

An interesting correlation here.  Makes sense because with a hot girl-friend you don’t have time to really improve at anything.  Your full time job is pleasing her!  Isn’t it fun!?!

2.  You can’t stay up 24 hours and just carry on the next day like nothing happened.

It just DOESN’T work like that.

3.  Don’t talk, tweet, or text about poker EVER unless you’re talking to another poker player.

SERIOUSLY no one cares.  Keep it to yourself.

4.  Strongly consider investing in an Iphone to secretly play with when grinding a live poker game.

Useful for when you go card-dead from 5:00a.m - 9:00a.m.  You can also use it to quickly take notes on every player if you’re really bored.  Not sure why you would need to do this because live is VERY slow, but I found myself doing this at 8:00 a.m the one morning after being up all night.  Why?  Because I was so tired I started losing my mind, they all looked the god damn same.

5.  There is always a hot girl trolling a casino somewhere in AC at any given time.

ALWAYS.

6.  90% of them come with boyfriends.

The usual ratio.  They would shrivel up and die if they went 24 hours without the constant stream of attention.

7.  Their boyfriends are REALLY bad at poker.

As mentioned in lesson #1.

-bag