Seattle mornings

The curse of early wake-up is my lot in life.  Five a.m. is becoming the new normal. The photo above is where I escape to for coffee and to let my wife sleep for a couple more hours.  This is the community room at our apartment complex and the sofa is my chosen seat.  The swivel chairs are not that comfortable.  In the background is our awesome free coffee machine.  It dispenses both regular and decaf Starbucks Coffee as well as hot chocolate, and favorite of the grandkids.  Why anyone drinks decaf is one of the great mysteries of life to me, it seems like cuddling with a hooker.  I am usually alone here but lately often joined by Amy, a recently arrived New Jersey woman who also wakes up earlier than her husband, George.  They are a very gregarious couple and workout monsters.  She does yoga and uses the excercise room, he runs, bikes and does personal fitness training.  My other frequent companion here is Ramona the cleaning lady.  She talks nonstop, in Spanish, on her Bluetooth phone.  It annoys me but we ignore each other which is fine with me.  I am starting to recognize quite a few of the residents who stop by to grab a coffee on the way to work.  Not much conversation just a friendly howdy or wave.  That is also fine with me.

On the dark side is a guy nicknamed "The Pajama Guy".  I am not sure if it was my wife or me that first coined the expression.  He walks the  halllways in pajamas and houses slippers, sometimes even barefoot.  He will smile and sometimes say hello but I have never had a conversation with him.  Not sure what I would say.  His other oddity is the coffee machine.  He will literally put a dozen creamers in his coffee plus a bunch of sweeteners.  He does this several times a day so we are nearly always out of these.  Fortunately for me I drink mine black.  Not so much for the other residents.

Last night the apartment management hosted "Grillin and Chillin", a wine and barbecue event.  It was well attended save for pajama guy who thought it was last week but inexplicably didn't show up on the correct date.  The managers' husbands cooked hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill (available to residents 24/7) and provided lots of side dishes.  I met a few neighbors, had a hard cider and ate too much.

Who won?

Playing in the Tulalip morning tournament there was an amazing hand.  I folded 5d/6h in early position.  3 or 4 players saw the flop which was 7h/8h/9h.  It was checked around.  I was kicking myself for folding the open ended straight flush draw particularly when the 5h hit the turn.  It was bet and called with 3 players involved.  The river brought an 8 to pair the board.  It was then bet, raised and called.  The players hands turned over were:

Player 1:  A/2 hearts   for the ace high flush
Player 2:  8/8 for quad 8's
Player 3:  10h/Jh for the jack high straight flush (flopped)

Amazingly no one was knocked out (except for me if I had played...with the 2nd best straight flush).   Only way it would have been more amazing would have been a full house or two also involved.  I was eliminated a little later with AK suited vs AQ suited when she hit a queen.   It would have need much more "fun" to have gone out on the other hand.

Played 6 hours of Omaha with no high hands and terrible luck.

Table Change!!!!! PLEASE!!!!

Sometimes you sit down at a totally toxic poker table.  This happened to me yesterday at the Omaha game.  I sat down in the 7 seat and was dealt a hand immediately, even before I had chips.  The guy in the 5 seat told me he had a seat change request and if I had not looked at my cards we could change now.  Great, seat 5 is my favorite as it is much easier to see and read the board, so we switched.  I immediately found out why he wanted to change.  The 6 seat was a raving maniac!  Most omaha games are total limp fests  (as they should be due to the ability of the flop to destroy great starting hands and put tons of draws up) but this guy and the seat changer were into preflop raises and re-raises every single hand.  Rather than a cost of $4. to see a flop it was $16....and sometimes $20 when they both straddled. I just tried to stay out of the way most of the time.  So, massive pots developed every hand and there was huge variance in chip stacks.  I was up $60, then down  $60 a few hands later.  I was hating the game.  One of the regulars moved to a different table and I put a request in as well.  I was relieved to move with about an $85 stack.

The next table was "normal" with occasional pre-flop raises but no capped pre-flops.  Sometime during the course of the game I went on a big and long heater, dragging pot after pot and taking 1/2 often.  Lightening struck late in the afternoon when I flopped a set of Queens and rivered quads.  The high hand held up and with 4 omaha games going was worth $200.  Around 6:30 I was tired and hungry and despite still running well cashed out.  How much you ask?  I took 4 1/2 racks of $1 chips to the cage plus $130 in $5 chips  plus my $200 in $25 greenies.  Total cash out of $780 on my original $100 buy-in.  Best day of poker in a long time.

Also, as I was racking my chips the very good player next to me complimented me on my play.   This guy is an awesome player and always leaves with chips.  Nice way to end my day.

The Love Continues @ $17/hr.

My earn rate Thursday was $17 per hour, but was lucky at the end to escape with it.  The omaha game was a little crazy with a couple of aggressive players raising a lot.  On one hand for me it does not change my game.  A fold is still a fold, a playable hand is probably more playable.  The problem is that the raise with multiple players creates a "protected pot".  With so many cards in play and so many draws you are sucked in to these monster pots to the river.  I was fortunate to avoid several and win a couple. The hot shot raisers didn't fare too well.  One dropped a couple hundred, the other would have also but got lucky on two high hands worth $250 to him.

Every 10's full earns a ticket to a big drawing Tuesday.  I have lots of entries but unfortunately can't play that day.  Gotta take granddaughter to dance class.  Good to have my priorities in order.  

Min Wage Plus

Sometimes you just have to put your poker playing into perspective.  Since moving to Seattle I have switched from exclusively a tournament player to primarily a cash game player.  I am comfortable with both types of play having "cut my teeth" on low limit cash games for many years.  I still love, love, love omaha hi-low despite the accurate description as "a game designed by sadists and played by masochists".  The Sunday game was a good one for me despite not winning any of the $150/every half hour high hands.  I posted one full house only to knock it off with quad jacks with minutes to go. The very next hand I lost to quad aces.

There was one guy at my table that looked familiar.  Movie star?  Poker pro?  I don't know anyone here so just forgot about it until he mentioned going to the Tri-Cities soon.  I asked if he ever played at the Crazy Moose and he replied yes, often.  His name?  Del.  Now I remember playing with him there.  Small world.

My game was spot on that day.  I made good reads, good calls, good folds and played a smidge tighter than usual.  I was up $240 on my one time $100 buy-in and ready to quit.  Unfortunately I got caught up in a couple of monster pots that I could not find a fold in.  On the last one I hit a full house with my A/6 on a 6/6/A/8 board only to lose to A/A/ in one hand and 2/3 in another.  That hand cost me at least $50.  So, with some family business to attend to I cashed out for $205 (I also paid $15 for lunch out of my chip stack), so figure my 6 hours of play were paying about $20/hr.  Much better than the Seattle minimum wage of $15 and a lot more fun. 

How Not To Behave and Good Week

The Sunday poker tournament at Tulalip was interesting.  I was out early but had a crazy thing happen.  There was a vacant seat to my immediate left probably 30 minutes into the game.  They were still seating alternates so this guy takes the seat and gets his stack of chips.  He was in mid to late position and saw maybe 3 flops, mucking each hand.  My big blind, he limps behind and then a late position player raises 3x big blind.  I look at my hand and have J/J.  The raiser has a smaller stack than mine so I re-raise pot size.  The guy next to me freaks out.  He throws his cards at the dealer, exposing 3/3 and starts swearing about not playing a f...ing hand!!!!!  The dealer warns him about the swearing and throwing cards but he continues ranting.  The floor is called who warns him and he continues and wants to speak to his supervisor.  They walk off and he returns shortly.  He then asks who called for the supervisor.  The big guy next to me (chewing on an unlit cigar) says "it was me".  It wasn't but this was getting fun.  The floor comes over again, the guy continues ranting and they pick his chips up and kick him out, escorted by security.  Unbelievable.

So, after getting knocked out on my K/9 suited shove called by two players, one holding J/J (I could have beaten pocket aces since I caught trip 9's, but he hit his jack), I got on the omaha list for high hand day.  My monster win came on one of those thankfully rare hands when the whole table seemingly goes crazy.  A new player UTG straddles (only straddle of the day), I call with 10/10/x/x and the player next to me raises.  Multiple players call and the straddle caps it.  The flop is sort of good for me 10/A/K, but I am wary. The straddler bets, I call, next to me raises and I think we cap 4 handed with no low draws.  I know exactly where I am with probably 2 flopped straights and a possible over set but the pot is huge and I am in it to win it.  The turn is a brick and it gets capped at $32 each 3 ways.  The river?  Case 10, thank you.  It is bet and raised by me, I take the giant pot and ultimately the high hand worth another $100.  The straddler whips some crap on me about calling $32 on the turn and I reply, "you built a huge pot that I could not fold a set".  He busted out shortly afterward and I cashed out for $360 on my $100 buy-in.

Fast forward to Thursday, another omaha high hand day.  No big hands for me, made the board twice but could not hold it.  A guy at our table hit a royal flush and another guy hit 2 straight flushes plus one more aces full high hand.  Despite no jackpot wins I probably had the best day at the table with some solid wins and cashing out for $300 on my $100 buy-in.  I was happy with my play this week and happy to win some cash.

New Casino

Discovered a new casino with a morning poker tournament just 15 minutes from the apartment.  So, filled with eager enthusiasm I made the drive today.  It is located in a strip mall in Mill Creek, just off the Bothell Everett highway.  It is owned by Washington Gold, the same owners of the Crazy Moose in Pasco and is about the same size.  The poker room is 4 tables and they feature various cash games.  The buy-in was $40, for 5000 chips with a $20 add-on for a couple thousand more.  Everyone bought the add-on, most before the game began, others right before the break.  The structure was very fast, with initial blinds at 50/100, 15 minutes.  The $25 chips disappeared after the first blind level. 

I started off strong, flopping a straight with my 4/6 in the big blind (unraised), but was fairly card dead after that.  A short stack raised big UTG and I re-raised all in with AJ suited (yeah, I know, stupid), but he called and tabled A/10 and I scored a double up.  Didn't keep the chips long as I checked my option in the big blind with K/3 of clubs.  The small blind completed, everyone else folded.  The flop was ace high with 2 clubs.  He checked, I bet 1,000 and he check raised to 2,000.  Thinking he might have an ace but with lots of outs to win, I 3 bet to 5,000.  He thought for a short time and went all-in (I had him well covered with about 5,000 to spare).  I called and he turns over.....A/3 of spades!!!  What the what was he thinking he could beat?  Sadly, the board failed to yield a club and I am again short.  A couple of hands later I shoved with Q/8 in the cut-off and the big stack in the big blind was happy to call with K/K.  Player down.

Reviewing my play I certainly could have avoided both losses.  My best option on the first hand was  just to check behind on the first hand to take the free card on the flop.  I could then call a smaller bet on the turn if I missed and see the river fairly cheap.  Even calling his check raise would have been scarey for him given his kicker.  I possibly could have gotten to the river for only 2K, or folded on the turn to a large bet.  That said, I think his shove of my 3 bet was pretty dumb of him.

Yes, I could have waited for a better hand to shove with.  My thinking was that the s/b and b/b were both older, tighter players and would fold to 6x big blind with most hands.  Just bad luck to have the B/B find pocket kings, another player had kings the hand before.  As another p.s., any weak ace would have taken the pot....there were 2 of them on the flop.