Generic Poker at Riverside

Between work and training for several road races this fall, I haven't had many opportunities to play poker. Truth be told, I haven't really made much effort to carve out time to play, either. Probably an issue for another post.

This Thanksgiving weekend, however, provided me the chance to combine a Huskers football game with a couple of nights of poker at Riverside Casino & Nit Retirement Village. First, I stopped off in Marion for a wonderful traditional Thanksgiving dinner whipped up by the wife and mother of uber-wingman Santa Claus. Santa has some great women in his life. Then I headed out for some poker.

Thursday evening, Riverside only had one cash game running, so I had to kill some time in the bar watching the late football games, sipping a beer. Not an entirely horrible turn of events. After an hour or so, I finally got a seat in the $1/$2 cash game. It was filled with a bunch of players straight from poker central casting. Grumpy Granny was there, on my left, whining about the temperature being too low and her cards being lousy. Poker Professor was in the three seat, whining about his students and how others were playing. We had two Young Dudes With Bored Girlfriends Watching Them, both of whom were predictably arrogant, terrible, and (eventually) busted. There were two Retired Almond Brokers, playing one hand every two orbits. The other three players were Interchangeable ABC Players. I was left to play the role of Jester, a role which I thankfully have plenty of experience with.

Yes, I had landed in a Generic Poker Game, where I had never played with any of the other players, yet knew precisely how they played. To say the table played ABC poker was an insult to literate poker players. This was more like Dick and Jane Poker:

See Jane check. Check Jane, check!

See Dick bet. Bet Dick, bet!

See Jane raise. Jane likes to check-raise.

See Dick fold. Dick is sad.

Given the Riverside buy-in of $60-$200, the nitty players, and the fact the standard preflop raise was $5-$8, the game played as tight as my testicles in the nasty polar wind chill of the Husker-Hawkeyes game the next day. I raised preflop with pocket pairs five times, and three times flopped sets. I managed to get paid off on one of those hands. I quickly settled into a basic strategy of only playing Top Ten hands, and not making any moves. It was more profitable to simply drink Captain and Diets, watch football, and wait for a big hand versus big hand showdown than to try to run over a table of players who wouldn't put a dollar in the pot without at least top pair.

I managed to get up $150 or so. The late NFL game ended, and I decided to play no more than another hour, knowing I had to be up early in the morning to tailgate for the Huskers-Hawkeyes game. That's when I was in early position and looked down to see the Holy Grail of poker hands.

Yes, it was the Duck Pho. Offsuit, even, to give me two flush and straight flush draws instead of merely one. Easily one of the super-elite premium hands.

I limped in, as did six other players.

Flop was Ad-3c-5c. Wheee .... llll!

Donkey Kong!

I checked, as did the other players, to the button. The button bet $15. I min-raised, expecting at least a couple of callers. Nope, everyone folded to the button, who sighed, then flashed pocket Tens and folded. I tabled my hand, and the rest of the table glared at me; clearly I had breached some sort of protocol by playing "just" deuce-four. I tried to explain that the deuce-four was a special hand made famous by one of my poker friends, but they all acted like I had tried to share a recipe for bacon-wrapped shrimp with a minyan of Orthodox Jewish rabbis. Oh well, guess they'll never know how tasty bacon-wrapped shrimp or duck pho can be.

I raked the pot, tipped the dealer, and racked up. Generic poker may be cheap, but it ain't profitable.

At least the Huskers walked away with a small profit the next day.

Labor Day PSA / Riverside Poker Emporium & Donk-A-Rama Trip Report

I made a run over to the Riverside Poker Emporium & Donk-A-Rama last night, to meet up with fellow Ironmen Santa Claus and River Joe.  On the drive over (mostly on I-80), I encountered fairly heavy traffic, likely due to the confluence of the Iowa Hawkeyes' first home game today, and the Labor Day holiday.  There was a lot of rather reckless driving, so because I love my readers and want you around to stack off to me for years to come, please be careful this weekend if you are out on the roads:

• Don't be the slowpoke driver in the left lane who causes traffic to pile up for several miles while you fail to pass.  Large groups of cars moving at high speeds with frustrated drivers who are likely following too closely and focused too much on you rather than the car in front of them are a recipe for disaster.  Yes, you may be entirely within your rights to drive in the left lane, and yes, those folks behind you should settle down and maybe not violate the speed limit so flagrantly, but driving isn't about being right or teaching folks about traffic laws, it's about everyone making it to their destination safely.  So, please pass or get over.
• If you are immediately behind a slowpoke driver, keep a reasonable distance between your cars.  Tailgating is an incredibly dangerous way to tell someone to speed it up, particularly at highway speeds, and especially when there are cars or trucks next to you in the right hand lane.
• If you are further back in a line of vehicles waiting for a slowpoke to pass, tailgating is even more dangerous and less useful in resolving the situation.  Chill out.  It can be frustrating, but you are likely still moving along at 60+ mph, so the actual delay to your travels is likely less than 5 minutes.
• If you are coming up on a rolling traffic jam caused by a slowpoke, do not pass the passing line on the right and then try to cut into the passing lane ahead of the folks already in line.  This is likely the most dangerous thing I saw yesterday, with cars repeatedly trying to squeeze into the passing lane, which pissed off drivers who were already in line, who in turn tried to prevent the line cut by speeding up to tailgate even more tightly.  Folks, nobody wins in a high speed game of chicken.  Please wait your turn.  But if someone is rude and tries to cut in line, back off and let them cut.  Even though you're right to be annoyed, there's no need to be dead right.
• Finally, if you pass a slowpoke, there is absolutely no reason to "teach them a lesson" by passing them, then moving in front of the slowpoke in his lane and hitting the brakes.  I saw this incredibly reckless maneuver at least three times, and I'm baffled by what the driver felt s/he was accomplishing while putting a lot of folks in danger.  You've passed the slowpoke.  Time to drive on at your preferred speed.

I can't say I'm completely innocent of all of these practices.  I get annoyed at slowpokes, and probably tailgate way more frequently than I should.  But let me tell ya, working on a number of lawsuits involving bad motor vehicle accidents, seeing photos of mangled cars and gruesome injuries, and reading medical records and autopsy reports, can really drive home the horrific tragedies that result merely because a couple of drivers were more concerned with driving their way than being considerate of other drivers sharing the road.  Just as an example, I'm currently working on a case involving a three semi-truck collision, where one driver died on impact, one driver died after suffering horrific burns, and the third driver (who was not at all at fault) walked away with minor injuries, but has such severe PTSD that he likely will never drive a truck again.

So please, if you are on the roads this weekend, drive safely. 

* * * * *

The poker session itself was rather pedestrian.  I managed to donk off three buy-ins due to the dreaded combination of #runbad and #playbad.  As an example of my #runbad, we were playing short-handed, so I called on the button with 9d3d.  Flop was Jd-9s-3c.  Donkey Kong!  I get it all-in with another guy for about $150 each.  He shows J5.  Excellent.  Turn is ... 5d.  OK, I still have redraws.  River is a black Ten.  I no longer had redraws.  As an example of my #playbad, I was up against the table uber-LAG who had been luckboxing weird two pairs and unlikely straights all night, but also showing off a lot of big two and three barrel bluffs.  I flopped top pair with JT, and check-called the flop and turn, figuring he would fold to a raise, but would keep firing all day with air.  River was a King, and he put out a suspiciously large bet.  I had a feeling he just caught up, but it was a huge pot, so I made the crying call ... and he rolled the King, natch.  Just a terribly stupid play on my part, getting greedy by not raising earlier in the hand, and then paying off the river.  There were tons of other examples of both #runbad and #playbad, but I won't bore y'all or depress myself by rehashing them here.  Bygones.

Despite the hit to my bankroll, I did enjoy seeing Santa Claus and River Joe, who were really the only two entertaining guys at the table, except for the Uber-SVB.  This guy hit at least four full houses and two additional sets in roughly 30 minutes, and got paid off on every hand.  It got to the point where the table was (half) jokingly guessing which set he flopped every hand.

I also had the pleasure of meeting a crAAKKer reader, Ryan, a/k/a "CRM114FGD135" on Twitter and AVP (yo dude, buy a vowel).  Ryan also knew Santa Claus from the IMOP trip reports, and claimed to have learned a lot from my poker strategy posts.  I can only presume he meant he plays exactly the opposite of my style, since he seems fairly bright and also managed to walk out with a rack of red chips from the 1/2 NLHE game.  I vaguely remember doing that once upon a time ....

Poker Odds & Ends

While I work on creating a few pages for Ironman of Poker information, I’m skipping a regular blog post for the day. Instead, I’ll share a few random items of note from recent sessions at Riverside ATM and the Meadows ATM.

* * * * *

At Riverside, I watched a 2/5 NLHE table while waiting for a seat. This was the main game with a must-move feeder game. There was easily $15K to $20K in play, more than I’ve seen on any 2/5 NL table. By the chatter, the game was filled mostly with regulars who weren’t afraid to put a lot of chips into play, running big plays, and calling down light (often correctly). One hand, there was a $10 straddle, a raise in early position to $60, and five callers. The flop came down J-J-x, and after a bet, a raise, and a push all-in, everyone folded to the all-in raiser who tabled J2o as he raked the pot. From the chatter, this seemed to be a typical hand. Crazy.

* * * * *

Also at Riverside, I flopped a full house with K8s and stacked JJ. A couple of hands later, I play 64o for a raise OTB and again flop a full house. Donkey Kong!

* * * * *

At the Meadows ATM, someone jokingly suggested giving up poker for Lent. An older regular player said, “Jesus wants me to play poker. My priest just gave a sermon about being fishers of men.”

* * * * *

My string of winning sessions at the Meadows ATM came to a crashing halt this weekend. I built up a nice stack with a great hero call for a $250 profit, but gave it back plus a couple of buy-ins when I ran a flopped second nut straight into the nut straight, a flopped flush into a bigger flush, top two pair into a rivered straight, and pushing with a pair plus straight draw against TT and … TT, and blanking out. Eh. Such is statistical variance.

* * * * *

Herding Yaks at Riverside

Work took me to eastern Iowa the past two days. Tuesday night was spent beating college buddy Santa Claus in a NLHE tourney at his place, along with enjoying some Chinese takeout, wine, and gin. I suppose I should also mention I lost in that tourney to Mrs. Claus, who called my flop bluff with A-high, which held up over my K-high. Rigged, I tell you!

Wednesday I mediated a case, and got done in time to make a short stop off at Riverside Casino, Insane Asylum, and ATM near Iowa City. It's a nice looking casino and golf resort, with a 14-table poker room. But, the poker room is quirky enough to qualify as the Mandalay Bay of the Midwest:

• No electronic devices can be used at the table at any time, in any manner, even if you are not in the hand.  One old guy admonished me for Twittering at the table, claiming I would void any high hand or badbeat jackpot, even if I'm not in the hand.  I felt like saying I didn't give a flying pig, but it looked like the fellows at my table took their jackpots very seriously, so I acquiesced.
• Dealer tips are not kept by the individual dealer.  Nor are the tips pooled with the other poker dealers.  Instead, poker dealer tips are pooled with all the other dealer tips from the pit games.  Not a lot of motivation for the dealers, and it shows.
• The tables seem slightly larger than regulation vegas tables, making it hard for a lot of people to see the board from the ends of the table.  One dealer had trouble reaching bets, so he would put the deck down on the table, half stand, lean forward to pull in bets two-handed, then sit back down and pick the deck back up.  Very odd.
• The chairs swivel, but are not on wheels, and are not adjustable for height.  Their fixed height is too short for the tables.
• They have HHJs for quads and straight flushes, but they are quite small.  There is also a bad beat jackpot and a "mini bad beat" jackpot.  Pick a promo already!

When I arrived late afternoon, there were two 2/5 NLHE games in progress, with a main game and a full must move game.  I got seated within minutes.  The action was pretty wild, with a lot of pots where 4-5 players called $20-$25 preflop, and postflop big bets were being called down by third or fourth pair, which often won the pot.  I saw one $1600 pot where five players called $25 preflop, and three players got it all-in on a flop of:  Js6s2s.  The hands:  KsTd, 9s3s, 8s4s.  Hand runs out blanks.  Within minutes, the winner and the loser of that hand both got called to the main game, taking a ton of chips with them.

Our game suddenly became uber-passive, with a lot of limped pots, and no 3-betting preflop.  I manage to turn out just over a double up by playing maybe 10 hands in two hours, and scoring medium sized pots with:  a flopped set of 8s filling up on a card that made the nut flush, a flopped set of treys knocking off flopped top two with AK, my own flopped top two with AK holding up against a pair with flush draw, and 3-betting out of the BB preflop with AQ to steal $100 in limp-calls of a $20 preflop raise.  That's it.  That's my session.  Exciting, eh?

There was plenty of excitement in the room, however.  The main game looked to be playing psychotically, with a ton of big pots.  The players all seemed to be regulars, and there sounded like a lot of bluffing, 3-betting, and big moves being made.  At one point, I tried to estimate the chips in play, and figured there had to be $11K to $13K on the table--two players had over $2000, two other players had over $1500, and the rest all had at least $800-$1000.  By contrast, at my table, I was one of the two big stacks with $600 when I left, and most stacks were in the $100-$250 range.  At the main game, pots of $500-$1000 were being pushed regularly.  At my table, the most exciting moment was when a debate broke out among the old farmers as to which Vegas casino had the best action--a couple backed the Riviera, and a couple backed the Orleans, and one guy threw out the Flamingo.  Actually, that conversation alone should tell you how the game at my table played.  Although both games were labeled "2/5 NLHE", it's pretty clear that those games had nothing in common but their limits.

Which brings us to the Yaks.  One guy was stacked twice in one orbit with Yaks, running a flopped set into a monster draw that got there (Q8s gutterballed Broadway), and a few hands later flopping top set with Yaks against a set of 9s.  Of course, the 9s river quads.  Hilarity ensued, which was aggravated by the "apology" of the guy with quad 9s.  A little later, two other guys get it all-in on a junky low flop, only to find it's Yaks vs. Yaks!   Of course, the board four-flushes.  Bonus hilarity ensued!  Altogether a very satisfying poker session.