Donkey Boy vs D-Bag

March 10-12th, 2009

"I'm going to play some big pots", I proclaimed.

We were driving down to Harrah's Resorts, making a Atlantic City run after a long hiatus. Mudmucker had just informed me that he wasn't going to play any poker, because he didn't feel like grinding it out for hours. I concurred; I wasn't going to grind it out either, and that's when I announced my aforementioned strategy aloud.

After sucking down some oysters and drinks at happy hour at Phillips on the 2nd day, I finally sat down for some $1-2 no-limit poker at the card room in Caesars. After a few hands, I got dealt A-5 of clubs in the big blind. A d-bag, the only person at the table wearing sunglasses (lightly tinted, so clearly it was for looking cool and not to obscure his eyes), raised it to $11 from the cut-off [he had raised 3 out of the last 4 pots]. I called and the flop came 10 high with 2 clubs. I checked, and d-bag led out for a pot sized raise of about $30. My previous tight poker incarnation would have just called, but this time, sticking to my new anti-grinder mindset, I popped it to $100- about what he had remaining in his stack. We got all the money in the middle for about $10 more, and after a blank on the turn, I hit the club on the river. I showed my nut flush, and he smirked before finally mucking. I assumed I had cracked either a pair of jacks or higher.

He muttered something about having been rivered 3 times already, and told me, "Nice hand, donkey boy. Keep playing that way."

"Thanks", I replied.

The d-bag soon changed seats at the table, moving from my right to my left. He continued to spew off chips to everyone at the table, busting, re-buying, and insulting people the entire time. D-bag was on serious tilt, enhancing his douchbaggery by ordering Coronas with lime wedges, raising pre-flop blind, and criticizing the play of everyone else. When he left the table to take a break, the entire table ribbed him, and we all agreed to "not to tap aquarium glass" (Don't scare the fish! Don't antagonize him, just smile and collect his chips!).

I soon got into another hand with d-bag. He raised from early position to $8. There about 4 callers, and I looked down at Q-Q in late position. I re-raised to $40 and after considering it for a while, d-bag was the only caller. I checked in the dark, and the flop came Q-4-5 rainbow. Boy, was checking in the dark ever the right move. I watched as he put out a $42 bet, which I considered, and smooth called. The turn was a bit scary, a 6. I didn't think he had 2-3 or 7-8, but maybe he had a 5-7 which would have given him a pair and an open-ended straight draw. I checked again, and he shoved for about $100 more which I insta-called. The river came another 4, and I flipped over my boat. He stared for a long time at the board and at his cards, saying he couldn't believe he lost with his hand. He called me "donkey boy" again, and reached in his wallet to rebuy for another $200. He claimed he had pocket sixes, which meant he was behind every step of the way in the hand.

I scooped a few more uncontested pots, and ended the session up $375. By my conservative estimation, d-bag lost at least $1000 in just the couple of hours I had spent at the table. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
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Lungfish's Poker Challenge update:

I'm currently north of $70, having graduated from $0.02-$0.04 to $0.05-$0.10 and recently, after my last session, I'm on to the $0.10-$0.20 tables. Nothing exciting, just playing solid A-B-C poker. Still doing cash games, but maybe I'll try some sit and gos soon too. It seems that every internet poker phenom I see on TV nowadays claims they started with just a $50 initial deposit and never looked back.

Lungfish's Poker Challenge

My online sportsbook account has been tapped out for a while now. I'm loathe to redeposit any more money since a) getting payments from these guys seems to get increasingly more troublesome and unreliable (it's taken over three months to get a check the last two withdrawals I've made) and b) I'd rather buy undervalued stocks with any spare cash I have right now.

Therefore, I'm going to try to build up a bankroll with purely house money. How? Well, a couple of weeks ago, I placed 75th out of about 2500 players in an Omaha Hi-Lo freeroll tournament (not bad for my first time ever playing that game), winning $1.30.

I figured that was enough of a bankroll to get me started on the micro no-limit hold'em tables. I sat down at the $0.02-$0.04 tables, and after 26 hands, I'm now at $3.03.

I'm going to grind it out playing freerolls and the micro limit games and see how much scratch I can generate. Also, it will keep my poker game sharp, so I don't get slaughtered at the cash games (which has been the case my past few outings) in the poker rooms of Atlantic City.

My muses for this idea are Chris Ferguson (who turned $0 into $10K in 16 months) and Daniel Negreanu (who is attempting to turn $10 into $100K playing only no-limit ring games). Let's see how I fare!

Chasers

I think most gamblers loosen up the reins and bet more aggressively when playing with house money. I'm the opposite. When I'm up, I like to exercise caution and nurse my winnings. The flip side of that is I tend to chase my losses. In fact, if you ever see me playing $50 hands of blackjack or reraising all-in on a draw in poker, it's a tell-tale sign that I'm stuck a few bills.

Tonight I lost a $170 pot playing $0.50/$1.00 no-limit. Long story short, all the money went in on the river when I made the nut flush. Unfortunately, the river card also paired the board and my opponent's 2 pair improved to a full house. (How ironic is it that I play cards online after work to unwind?) The bad news was that I dropped my $100 buy-in inside of 10 minutes. The good news was because I busted so early, none of the slate of baseball games had started yet.

Doing some quick research, I saw that Pittsburgh looked like a good play against Houston. This was what I read up on from ESPN.com:

"Paul Maholm is in the process of taking a big step forward. The Pirates left-hander has been very effective since the tail end of May and has notched 17 strikeouts against just two walks in three July starts despite taking the mound against the Yankees, Brewers and Rockies in Coors Field. Maholm has also solved the opposing Astros' biggest threats, allowing sluggers Lance Berkman and Carlos Lee to combine for just five singles in 35 total at-bats."

When I saw he was even money against a rookie converted relief pitcher on the Astros with a 6.28 ERA, I was sold. I liked it so much, I bet it 3 times.

1) Straight Wager	07/22/08 17:54 ET
bet 60.00 to win 57.14	Result: Pending

Pirates(Pittsburgh) Maholm Astros(Houston) Cassel

07/22/08(20:05 ET) Pirates(Pittsburgh) -105

2) Straight Wager	07/22/08 18:28 ET
bet 100.00 to win 95.24	Result: Pending

Pirates(Pittsburgh) Maholm Astros(Houston) Cassel

07/22/08(20:05 ET) Pirates(Pittsburgh) -105

3)Straight Wager	07/22/08 18:32 ET
bet 250.00 to win 238.10	Result: Pending

Pirates(Pittsburgh) Maholm Astros(Houston) Cassel

07/22/08(20:05 ET) Pirates(Pittsburgh) -105

Again, you'll never see me with this ridiculous amount (for me) of money on a single game unless I'm on tilt from a big loss. At last check, things were looking up for me- Pittsburgh was up 8-0 late... and if I end up jinxing them by posting this early, I'll be taking out a home equity line of credit to place a 4 figure bet to chase.

Memorial Weekend 2008

Our latest AC trip was about a month ago. Lungfish and I had been receiving free room offers from Harrah's in the mail for the past few months so we finally decided to check it out. 

I woke up pretty early on Sunday and packed a bag of multi-grain crackers and a bunch of almost all black bananas to snack on. I would later regret packing the latter when we finally checked into our rooms that afternoon and discovered that they had finished rotting and had turned into banana plasma. 

We arrived at Harrah's well before the daily 1:15 poker tournament started. Since we had some time to kill, I jumped on a blackjack table. It was single deck and they dealt the cards face down to each player. I wasn't used to holding the cards in my hand and then to make things even more complicated the dealer instructed me to 1. wave them towards me to hit, 2. tuck them under my chips to stand, and 3. flip them over if I busted.  I was already not feeling so hot about this table but then when I finally got dealt a blackjack I was only paid 6 to 5 on it.  Single deck blackjack sucks.

The buy-in for the tournament was $40+10 and I drew Table 7.  I sat next to a college kid who sat next to a grandma and a couple seats down from her was a heavyset older guy who said he just finished in the money the day before.  

I win a few pots and make it to the first break. Heavyset guy who previously finished in the money is the chip leader by betting aggressively and not being called.  I get dealt pocket J's and make it 5x pre-flop to go. Heavyset guy goes all-in and I call. He mutters "you got me" and turns over his suited K-10. But a K comes out on the flop, nothing hits on the turn or the river and I'm out.  Bad times.