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Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Have You Ever Used a $500 Chip For A Card Protector?

On Sunday, we finished loading up the U-Haul and hit the road at 11:30. After we got checked into the motel, headed up the road to the Horseshoe Hammond, and ate dinner in the Buffet, I got a seat in a $1/$2 table about 5:15 local time. Within an hour, I ran into a nasty cooler for my first buy-in. I had K9 on a KK5 T 5 board against 55. Ouch.

After that I went really card dead and was slowly bleeding chips, which always seems to happen right after I get in a hole. As we're getting close to leaving, I was down to $135 of the $500 that I brought, and got a double up. I limped with 88. The Flop of Q66 was checked around. The beautiful 8 came on the Turn. The SB bet $20. I figured he had a 6, since the Trips always seem to be in the Blinds. So I raised to $50, and he called. I went All-In for $83 on the River. He was surprised when I said Eights Full.

I won a couple more pots before we left, and finished down $132, which isn't bad considering I had $500 on the table. Everyone else left Hammond down a little.

On Tuesday, we got to the Horseshoe Council Bluffs at 3:00 local time. After checking in, I went with my uncle to do some gambling. He doesn't play poker, but he does play Craps and other table games. We found a $5 Craps table, but it was ice cold. I end up dropping $195, but my uncle bet more aggressively and lost $350. We then headed over to a 3-Card Poker table. I bought in for $250. I lost the first four hands when the Dealer got Pair, A-high, Pair, and Flush. I immediately got up, and left the table. I've ran into to many Hot Dealers this year to lose the entire buy-in.

I left my my uncle in the Pit, and headed over to the Poker Room. It's a nice room with around 25 tables. However, they were only using two of them, a $1/$3 NL and a $3/$6 Limit. Even in the evening, they only got a second $1/$3 game started, but it was never full.

The Poker Room had a couple of unusual rules. First, the max buy-in for the $1/$3 is $200. Second, they have the NL straddle from UTG, just like Greektown used to have. Third, they use yellow $.50 chips. This is because the max rake at the $1/$3 is $5.50, and $4.50 for the $3/$6.

After waiting for a bit on the list for both games, I finally got a seat at the $1/$3 table. There were a few players with some large stacks, and few young "Internet Geeks" at the the table. I decided to buy-in for the minimum of $100, and short stack.

Shortly after I sat down, a guy sits down on my direct Left, and buys in with two Black $100 chips, and starts using a purple $500 chip for a card protector. It was very obvious he's a regular in this room. He's been at the casino since late last night, and had just come from playing a long session of Craps that went very, very well. As soon as he sat down, I assumed that he would start throwing money around, and I was not wrong. He was definitely Action Guy at this table. He even got some of the Nits to play more hands than they normally would.

Because he was on my direct Left, I went into Super Nit mode. I didn't try to gamble with him. I simply was very patient and waited for a hand. It got even worse for me when the seat on his Left was taken by a "Local Pro". Fortunately, I did manage to get a couple of hands before I left the table up $201.

Because my seat sucked at the $1/$3 table, I put my name on the List for the $3/$6 game. One of my Road Crew, DougPoker, was at the table, and I wanted to play some hands against him. But he had some horrible luck, and busted out. I ended up taking his seat. I was only there an hour because I got really tired. I had some good hands, and some annoying ones. I ended up $26 when I went back to the room.

On Tuesday, we put on the miles. 958 to be exact. It was a rough day. We'll be pulling into Reno sometime this afternoon.

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