I had a chance to visit Foxwoods poker room, because of some training I attended in Boston. Here is the story.
-- Bob
"And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God."
But, since these windows don't open, I have to settle for putting out my hand and scratching the butt of Bob (that would be me).
Bad beat Numero Uno: Boston seems to have closed for the day. Of the numerous stores and strip malls around my hotel, nothing is open. In fact, the first 4 gas stations I pass, all adjacent to a major interstate, are closed! This is not good. Unlike Nolan Dalla, I cannot get my souvenir shopping done in 1 orbit. This will likely cost me a day at the tables.
3:45 pm, training is wrapping up for the day. I'm still mulling over whether I should even try to make the drive to Foxwoods. RGPers have suggested it may be upwards of 150 miles, one way. Traffic on 95 can be brutal at this hour, etc. Also someone[1] told me the Boston area traffic system appears to have been designed by drunken Irishmen. The nice young lady seated next to me is telling me about all the wonderful things to see and do in Boston. Even as she is going on about historical sites and shopping, she morphs into the Matt Damon character from Rounders, smiles, and says "Lets play some cards."
Here we go! Boston is a really beautiful city. Clean, no graffiti, and lovely countryside to drive through. Also, maybe two thirds of the radio stations are playing the "retro" (they don't call it "oldies," yet) 70s and 80s music I prefer. Traffic is heavy, but moving along nicely. I am repeatedly amazed at the courteousness of New England drivers! With no one darting in and out of lanes like maniacs, everyone can get to where they are going more quickly. It's a stark contrast to Philly driving where, in the extremely rare event that someone waves you into their lane, they wave you with the finger anyway, just on principle.
By 5:15 pm I have covered 70 miles in 75 minutes. On the radio, Bachman Turner Overdrive is belting out "Taking Care of Business," with it's driving, compelling beat. I'm handling the drumming duties on the dashboard. When they coined the term "rock and roll," this is what they were talking about. If you prefer today's music, fine, but let's not call it "rock and roll," shall we? This is going to be a great trip. I set an ambitious goal: I'd sure love to win enough to cover the souvenir shopping, which would be about $300.
6:30 pm. I'm in a 1-5 stud game. Another break, timewise, as there is no list, for this game at least. I get on the 5-10 list after walking over to a separate desk they have for 5-10 and higher games. I don't know why they need two desks, but ok.
1-5 game. Sticking tightly to the starting hand guidelines in S&M (basically the same as the excellent Chip Reese section of Super/System). has served me well in the past, so that's what I'm doing. However, the others seem to be there to play, with 6 or 7(!) people often seeing fourth street. Maybe the increased action comes from the 50 cent ante, in addition to the $1 force. In AC, where I am used to playing, there is no ante in 1-5. Also I guess the spread betting allows for more looseness early on. So, I'm sitting there folding like Superman on laundry day, when I finally play a hand for $3 that I wouldn't otherwise play (3J)A just to give some appearance of action. I need not have worried, as my Ace gets no respect when I catch a King on 4th street and bet out $5. The hand goes nowhere, and I know better than to try to push it against this many players. Happily, during the hand my name gets called for the 5-10.
5-10 stud. Same structure here as in AC. 50 cent ante, two dollar forced bring in. I am now "the young guy" at the table. I'm chatting nicely with the players, except one whom I'll call "Obnoxious Lady," who doesn't seem to like me - or anyone else.
I'm catching nice starting cards here, and playing them straightforwardly. I throw in a few raises to try to get heads up with players who I think may be ahead of me, if there's sufficient money in the pot. This works out as I catch up a few times.
Example: I started (JJ)7. Four of us see fourth street for $5. I catch a 6, suited with the 7 (but neither Jack). Kx opens for 5 and I make it 10. Obnoxious Lady, who had Qx, and another guy bail out. I win with Jacks up, beating Kings unimproved. Obnoxious Lady - here's a surprise - doesn't like it. "That's a stupid play," she tells me, then mutters something else to her neighbor. "What was that?" I ask, "I couldn't hear you over all these chips." I can't believe I just did that. I'm never anything but nice at the table, really.
A little later I have the bring-in with a deuce. I have another deuce in the hole, but a third one is showing. No one raises so we play on. Everyone is checking, so I get to continue with this substandard holding. By sixth street I have
(2x)255x no straight or flush opportunity to speak of.
Obnoxious Lady has (xx)4xx4
Another guy has (xx)656x.
Another guy checks. Obnoxious Lady bets 10 and smirks. She's "going to get me this time." I dump the hand - $10 is practically a pot sized bet with the action on this hand. Obnoxious Lady goes postal. She can't believe I laid down a hand for a single bet. Other guy pays off her trip 4s to the end with nothing but a pair of sixes!
Nothing eventful happens for a while. I am pleased to see that I can get food at the table. Well, pleased to eat at the table and save time. Less pleased to watch a gentleman with the table manners of a sasquatch half eat / half attack a basket of chicken fingers. I swear at one point when he needed both hands for non-eating duties I thought he was just going to put his face into the basket.
I hover at about +150 to +200 for a while. I should leave, but the table I'm at impresses me as weak. I stay a while.
Now it's 10:45. I had planned to leave at 10:00, with the long drive ahead. I tell the table that this will be my last hand. As if written by script, this beauty is what developed:
Me (xK)K
Obnoxious Lady: (xx)T
Deuce brings it in. Someone else makes it 5. I make it Ten. Obnoxious Lady makes it 15, so she's on trips or Aces. Another Ten is accounted for, no aces are, so that's what she's probably got. Four of us go to fourth steet.
Me (XK)KK !
Obnoxious Lady: (xx)Tx
Nice guy: (xx)x6
I bet, she raises! I pop her back. Nice guy is calling all the way. Fifth comes down:
Me (xK)KKQ
Obnoxious Lady: (xx)TxA
Nice Guy: (xx)x66
The ace worries me considerably. I am still inclined to bet, but one thing I'm "working on" is slowing down /laying down hands in which I have a strong read. Too often, an otherwise passive player puts in a bet or raise and I KNOW what they have and I call anyway. A couple saved bets can really add up. Of course, I'm not considering laying down here, but I do slow down. I check. Obnoxious Lady bets it, and now Nice Guy raises! Aiyah! Is he full already? Is he her husband?
I have to call, Obnoxious Lady delights in reraising, of course. I call that bet too. Sixth:
Me (xK)KKQQ in that order.
Obnoxious Lady: (xx)TxAx
Nice Guy: (xx)x66x.
I bet, Obnoxious Lady raises and I reraise. Nice Guy calls all the way, which is starting to worry me more than Obnoxious Lady. No one seems concerned that my board is KKQQ. I check the river, figuring I'd only get action from better hands.. Obnoxious Lady bets. Nice Guy raises! Aiyah! We both call. I say, out loud, "quads huh?" Nice Guy rolls Three 3s over and, miracle of miracles there is no case 3 on his board. "Full house," he says. I look at Obnoxious Lady, certain she has Aces full. She mucks with disgust! She must have had just the trip aces! Woohoo! Full house good! I go home now! Actually, I ante one more time as I am busy stacking a monstrous (for 5/10) pot, which could have been even bigger if I'd not been a wuss[2] on the end. I now have way too many chips to carry :- ). My last hand is uneventful, except I notice that Obnoxious Lady has an empty rack, and very few chips. "Can I have your rack?" I ask, pausing long enough to think that Rafe Furst would be proud of me as I add, "It doesn't look like you'll be needing it." I won't print her reply, expect to say that it rhymes with "duck shoe."
I do locate a rack, but after filling it with reds I still have chips. I awkwardly stack some on top and start to the cage. I notice a young woman standing about 25 feet from the cage. You can't *not* notice her. In this unremarkable crowd she stands out like bozo the clown at a state funeral. (I mean in degree, rather than manner :-). Also, she is dressed in an outfit suggesting that perhaps later in the evening she'll be accepting an academy award. Also, she possesses a figure that could make the Pope kick in a stained glass window. Not that I was really looking.
We make eye contact for a perhaps a nanosecond and I immediately pivot 90 degrees left to the cage to cash in my chips. Now, I'm looking straight ahead, but my peripheral vision sideband sonar is active.
PING...............(PONG)
Contact off the starboard side captain.
PING..........(PONG)
Getting closer captain.
PING......(PONG)
Collision course captain!
OK, so she's closed to 5 feet and stopped.
Bob: Analysis brain?
Brain: Professional temporary companion sir, open for
business. She sees all those chips and pegs you as someone
with fresh disposable income!
Bob: Negative. I don't know much about that business, but
I suspect real pros never look like Julia Roberts did in
Pretty Woman. No, real pros probably look a lot more like
this:
http://www.freeyellow.com/members6/tiltboy/group2.gif
Brain: She's interested in you!
Bob: Negative, I'm wearing a wedding ring and....
Brain: HAHAHAHA! That was a joke!
Bob: Doh! I'd stab you if I had a pencil!
Eric Idle: What about a poin-ted stick?
Brain: OK, seriously, you're not in her league. [3]
Bob: We're glancing over on the way out.
[(glance) - she's staring at me, arms crossed, neither smiling nor frowning.]
Bob: OK, let's get out of here. Back at the hotel I'll
feed you some Tennyson.
Brain: Woohoo!
Bob: HAHAHA! That was a joke! It's time for Beavis!
Brain: Ohhhhh, that one's gonna cost you.
We never did figure out what that was all about.
I've met my goal for the day, and even surpassed it a little. Outside the night is clear and crisp. I retrieve my valet parked rental, tip $3, and retro rock the 108 miles back to Boston, smiling all the way.
So, when I get back to Foxwoods ;-) I decide to return to the 5-10 stud well for what will surely be another drink. This table seems decently loose passive, but I can't get anything started. There is one guy at the table, a young guy - by which I mean younger than me - who must have $1K in reds. He seems to be playing wildly, but he keeps winning with just enough. I watch him beat a guy with a pair of 6s (guy had a pair of 5s). I've seen this scene before. I once played against a really young Asian guy at the Trop. 5/10 stud, the guy had $2K in reds - 4 racks. I watched (with open arms) as he spewed a rack and a half back into the game in about 90 minutes - an unbelievable loss rate. But not this guy (Gary, I think someone called him). He keeps pounding the table with fishy looking moves. As I said, I'm getting nowhere. Three times in an hour I start with 4 of a suit, with 0 or 1 of my suit accounted for, and miss. The table is quite friendly and loose, but I can't get anywhere. Finally I'm dealt (AA)7. Gary makes it $5 with a Jack showing. I make it 10. He calls. I bet out 5 on fourth after we both blank and he mucks his Jacks, face up. "No sense chasing Aces," he says. I show him my cards and say "Nice read." Gary's no fish, he's a good player who knows the locals - knows when he can play marginal hands. Definitely time for a table change.
Alas, the next table is no kinder. In short order I'm placing my 4th Ben Franklin on the felt. By the time they call me for Hold Em, I pick up the remains of my 5th C-note - 8 measly red chips. I can't believe it. I can *not* believe it. Besides taking a beating for the session, I'm behind for the trip. New mental goal: Just get back to 0 for the trip. Free entertainment, right? That's still going to be a disappointment though, a big one, even.
As I make my way across the room, I briefly consider taking $100 and trying to double through twice or thrice at BJ. Nah, threshold of misery and all that. The best, and for me only, +EV situation available here is in this room, making high frequency, low cash investments at odds I judge to be favorable. Pushing little clay soldiers out to do my bidding across a little green felt battlefield.
I sit down at a 5/10 HE table, with a kill (at 95) to 10/20. Finally, things begin to go my way. I'm picking up some cards, and finding ways to win without great cards. I get to play Q5s "for free" after I post a kill to 10/20. Flop comes down 569, two of my suit. I check and raise the flop against a rockish local man and a charming local pepperpot. I miss the turn but bet out and pick up the killed pot.
About now, 2 things happen. The game gets shorthanded, but a tidy, conservative looking, middle aged gentleman takes a seat. I'll call him Diamond Joe Quimby. Diamond Joe plays the first 7 or 8 hands in a row, winning none of them. So, we're 4 or 5 handed for a while as people come and go. It's me, Diamond Joe, tight young local, and some transients. I'm playing aggressively, mixing it up in most hands, and pushing things like any King or any Ace for a raise. Oh, about now our very competent, friendly dealer (Steve) asks the floor if we can suspend the rake. Floor is standing there, mulling it over. I'm thinking "I guess I'm naïve; I figured there would be a straight forward formula such as if p<=n then no rake." I'm thinking that, but I'm saying, "Pretty please (blink blink)?" So, OZ the Great and Powerful decides to grant our request. Woohoo! I nice shorthanded game that I feel I can control, and no rake!
Diamond Joe is in almost every pot. So am I, I guess. But, he's betting out more aggressively than I am. If I catch anything - second pair, third pair, anything - I let him bet into me all the way. Three hands in a row I win by calling him on the river, only to hear him say "no pair." Diamond Joe tells a passerby that he had "been playing well, but then I took a break and did some drinking." Nyaha. He is exchanging a ton of banter, mostly with me. I think he's trying to be funny, but it is coming off as slightly belligerent. Most importantly, he has singled me out for his generosity. EVERY hand he sets aside two red chips and tells me, "Er, ah, if you're in this pot I'm going to er, ah, raise." Remember in Animal House, when the girl in the Bunny outfit flies through this 13 year old boy's window and lands on his bed, and he just looks up and says "Thank you God!" It was like that.
To make a long story short, I am just pounding this guy. Every few minutes he's reaching for another 100. The dealer is short on chips, so I keep selling him 20 reds at a time. Basically, I am collecting Diamond Joe's 100s on my side of the table. I take one brutal beat. I start off with QJ. Diamond Joe and I go a couple bets. Flop comes AJJ and we cap it. Turn comes a beautiful Q and we cap it. The Ace of diamonds comes off and skewers me through the heart on the river. I check and call, knowing I am beaten. I'd save a bet here, but the pot is far too large. "Er, ah, A5o." No matter, that generates a kill and we are enjoying the presence of a woman waiting for a 15/30 seat. As players waiting in a lower limit game often do, she is playing too loosely and throwing off plenty of chips.
Once again I stay too late. "Last hand," I declare, hoping for the same effect those magic words brought last night. Not quite, but I do win the last pot which was a kill. Now that I think of it, we managed, maybe, 1 kill in every 5 hands shorthanded! A full table must play more like half 5/10, half 10/20.
I check my resources. I have three crisp, new Ben Franklins, courtesy of Diamond Joe. I make 2 stacks of 20 reds, and still have 5 reds and one of those neat yellow $2 chips left over. Twenty seven itty-bitty, teeny-tiny, oh-so-beautiful dollars more than I started with. I exhale and cash out, in some ways happier with tonight's win than I was with last night's. I note that skill #0, table selection, was what eventually paid off. Keep moving until you find your fish.
The drive back is uneventful. As the tires hum across the asphalt, Thin Lizzy is singing "The Boys are Back." Have I mentioned that this is rock and roll?
[1] Jesse the Body Ventura
[2] I've seen people spell the word wuss incorrectly on
this forum as "woos." The etymology of the word, from the
surprisingly good film "Fast Times At Ridgemont High"
(really, a good look at high school life circa 1980 - but
I've leave the film reviews to John Harkness) is that a wuss
is someone "who is a wimp *and* a pussy." Ergo, the correct
spelling was w-u-s-s-y. Shortened by convention of usage,
the current orthography (as proclaimed by me) is "wuss."
Please modify your personal dictionaries as appropriate.
Now beat it, you punk.
[3] Neither are you, my friend.
Postscript: I'd really like to take some time to polish this report and include one or two more anecdotes, and may do so at some time. But I have to leave for ATLARGE IV in a couple hours - woohoo!
Bob "BobbyD" Dainauski
Allentown, PA
robertd@fast.net
[ Editor's note: If you enjoyed this report, read BobbyD's "How to Write Good (RGP Trip Reports)" ]
Published with the permission of the author.
Reproduction without the author's permission prohibited.
Home Email: webmaster@gocee.com (Ken's Poker Page) ©1998 Kenneth R. Churilla
