I Mean It This Time!
New Year's Resolution season is here! First let me take a look at my 2009 list of goals:
- Lose 30 pounds by June 1st...didn't make the 30, but I am down about 20 pounds from my high in January...I'm proud of my progress.
- Become a winning player at $5/10NL by December 31st...yeah, not so much! Still at $.50/1NL, but running at about 3BB/100 over my last 4,500 hands or so...more work to be done here.
- Qualify to play in a major live tournament, no later than the WPT at Foxwoods in November...this one didn't happen, but I did cash in a $300 buy-in tourney at Mohegan Sun last month.
- Post at least once per week...lol...but it looks like I didn't post any less this year, either.
- Improve my position at work (or find a new job) by June 1st...10% unemployment rates didn't help me here, but I'm always looking around, keeping my ears open at work, etc.
And now for the 2010 goal checklist:
- Weigh 220 lbs or less by our next trip to Vegas (sometime this summer)
- Become a winning player at $5/$10NL by December 31st (not giving up on this one)
- Qualify to play in a major live tournament, no later than the WPT at Foxwoods in November (...or this one!)
- Grow our monthly live tournaments at the Lounge (we're averaging around 12-15 entries, I'd like to see this up to at least 20 by year-end)
- Plan three major vacations (Las Vegas, Ocean City (MD), and To Be Determined)
What I'm already doing to accomplish these goals:
- Reducing my carb intake by eating less bread, pasta, potatoes, sweets, etc.
- Reading poker books, blogs, and articles (already 75 pages into Elements of Poker, which I got from my brother-in-law Steve for Christmas...thanks!)
- Reviewing prior poker sessions, talking over hands with Todd, sweat sessions, etc.
- Collecting cell phone numbers & e-mail addresses from new players, and sending out messages reminding everyone of the next tournament.
What else I need to do to accomplish these goals:
- Get back on the low-carb horse after New Year's...I behaved during Thanksgiving, but there was just too much good, starchy, sugar-laden food around me these last couple weeks for me to pass up!
- Get back to the gym...it's at the end of our driveway...c'mon man!
- Buy and read Treat Your Poker Like a Business...and then another poker book, and then another.
- Look into buying a membership to a poker training site...I've got tons of FPP's on Full Tilt I can use to pay for one.
- Play more "main event" qualifiers...Foxwoods, Mohegan Sun, maybe even the EPT stop in my dad's birthplace of Dortmund, Germany.
- Send out e-mail recaps of the Lounge tournaments...I used to do this for the private tournaments we ran online, and I think it kept everyone interested...numbers went down when I stopped the recaps.
- Don't waste my sick/vacation days on so many Mental Health Days...plan days off & use them to play in live tournaments and for vacations.
OK now, let me hear a big 'Whoa Bundy' on three!
Showing posts with label Foxwoods. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Foxwoods. Show all posts
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Mohegan Sun's New Poker Room: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
Since I played $1-5 Stud on the opening night of Mohegan's first poker room back in '96 (wow, time flies), I just HAD to be there when they opened their new poker room, in their also-new Casino of the Wind...good excuse.
THE GOOD: the new room, and the entire Casino of the Wind for that matter, is super-duper-ultra-uber chic and gorgeous...take a look here. It took less than 30 minutes for me to get on a $1-2NL game, which I didn't expect for a Friday night, opening night, Labor Day weekend night. Must be the economy talking. The tables are slick- blue felt, silverish faux-snakeskin padding, auto-shufflers, with players club card swipers built in (ala the MGM Grand in Vegas). The chairs are oversized and very plush, with an adjustable-height lever...reminded me of Borgata's poker room chairs. Some people might not like this, but they take a $4 max rake instead of a $5 half-hourly "time" fee. It annoys me when I get dealt rags for like two hours at Foxwoods, and have to pay twenty bucks for such pleasure...I'd rather pay The Man after I win a pot.
THE BAD: the tables are jammed together pretty tightly...my chair was smashed into a few times by people getting up/sitting down at the table behind me. I'm sure some a few of the 40-plus tables will be removed after the inital new poker room buzz dies down, making it more roomy & comfortable. No drink holders of any kind, no side tables, nothing. I wonder how many times over opening weekend a game had to be stopped to clean a spill? They also use jumbo index poker cards...Harrah's poker room in AC uses the same size. Not easy to squeeze out your hole cards, have to shield them more than usual from nosy neighbors when you take a peek. I also didn't win a hand in an hour and a half, but my card-deadness kept losses to just $60.
THE UGLY: Oh my everloving Maker, the dealers were the worst I've ever encountered. Slow, very clumsy with the cards and chips, clueless...and that was just the first dealer. Players had to instruct dealer number 2 how to divide a side pot from the main pot. A min-raise was declared as an all-in by the same dealer, followed by a "so sorry!" I got to hear her say "so sorry" about 15 times during her down. Twice I kindly asked dealer number 3 to give me a second card, in back-to-back hands no less. We had about 6 misdeals in 90 minutes. The combination of zero pots won + crappy dealer tilt = me leaving the poker room. Supposedly these dealers had to graduate from a lengthy school at the Sun, but who knows what they were studying for that month or so.
I'm hoping the dealers were just experiencing opening night stage fright, and that my next visit will be less agita-inducing. Or at least that they hire some Hurricane Mikey-quality dealers. But the bottom line is I now have live poker 15-20 minutes closer to home than before (Foxwoods), and both the wife & I like Mohegan Sun so much more. If you've been to both casinos, I'm guessing you feel the same way.
Next goal: qualify for Mohegan's $750k guaranteed tourney at the end of October...
Since I played $1-5 Stud on the opening night of Mohegan's first poker room back in '96 (wow, time flies), I just HAD to be there when they opened their new poker room, in their also-new Casino of the Wind...good excuse.
THE GOOD: the new room, and the entire Casino of the Wind for that matter, is super-duper-ultra-uber chic and gorgeous...take a look here. It took less than 30 minutes for me to get on a $1-2NL game, which I didn't expect for a Friday night, opening night, Labor Day weekend night. Must be the economy talking. The tables are slick- blue felt, silverish faux-snakeskin padding, auto-shufflers, with players club card swipers built in (ala the MGM Grand in Vegas). The chairs are oversized and very plush, with an adjustable-height lever...reminded me of Borgata's poker room chairs. Some people might not like this, but they take a $4 max rake instead of a $5 half-hourly "time" fee. It annoys me when I get dealt rags for like two hours at Foxwoods, and have to pay twenty bucks for such pleasure...I'd rather pay The Man after I win a pot.
THE BAD: the tables are jammed together pretty tightly...my chair was smashed into a few times by people getting up/sitting down at the table behind me. I'm sure some a few of the 40-plus tables will be removed after the inital new poker room buzz dies down, making it more roomy & comfortable. No drink holders of any kind, no side tables, nothing. I wonder how many times over opening weekend a game had to be stopped to clean a spill? They also use jumbo index poker cards...Harrah's poker room in AC uses the same size. Not easy to squeeze out your hole cards, have to shield them more than usual from nosy neighbors when you take a peek. I also didn't win a hand in an hour and a half, but my card-deadness kept losses to just $60.
THE UGLY: Oh my everloving Maker, the dealers were the worst I've ever encountered. Slow, very clumsy with the cards and chips, clueless...and that was just the first dealer. Players had to instruct dealer number 2 how to divide a side pot from the main pot. A min-raise was declared as an all-in by the same dealer, followed by a "so sorry!" I got to hear her say "so sorry" about 15 times during her down. Twice I kindly asked dealer number 3 to give me a second card, in back-to-back hands no less. We had about 6 misdeals in 90 minutes. The combination of zero pots won + crappy dealer tilt = me leaving the poker room. Supposedly these dealers had to graduate from a lengthy school at the Sun, but who knows what they were studying for that month or so.
I'm hoping the dealers were just experiencing opening night stage fright, and that my next visit will be less agita-inducing. Or at least that they hire some Hurricane Mikey-quality dealers. But the bottom line is I now have live poker 15-20 minutes closer to home than before (Foxwoods), and both the wife & I like Mohegan Sun so much more. If you've been to both casinos, I'm guessing you feel the same way.
Next goal: qualify for Mohegan's $750k guaranteed tourney at the end of October...
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
The Blunder Of It All
Got out of work early today, so the wifey & I drove to Foxwoods for a cash giveaway (Jen won the guaranteed minimum of $25, no new car for us). Against my better judgement, I decided to play a little $1/2 NL. Bought in for $200, and watched the middle-aged doofus of a guy to my right check/call all the way with pocket fives on a T-T-9-x-x board, and win. Also saw him call a flop bet, then push his chips in front of his cards - but not across the betting line - on the turn before the guy in front of him could act. It was obviously an attempt to get the other guy to check and see the river for free, so I set my sights on this angle-shooting loser(ASL).
A couple of hands later, ASL raised to $8 pre-flop, and I looked down at A-Q (I feel Hurricane Mikey, Doyle Brunson, and Phil Ivey all cringing as they read this, lol). I popped it up to $23, hoping to get heads-up, which is exactly what happened...nice.
The flop was a beauty: A-Q-9, rainbow.
ASL checked, and after thinking for a couple seconds, I decided to check my two pair as well. This was a huge mistake, since he'd probably call a bet with a lot of worse hands, and I'm only losing to A-A/Q-Q (not likely since I have A-Q) or 9-9.
The turn brought an eight, putting a second heart on the board. ASL checked again, and NOW I decided to bet the $30 I should've bet on the flop. ASL instantly said, "All in," without touching his chips.
I thought for a minute...does he have J-T for a straight? Maybe. Does he have a flush draw? This is a possibility, since he made such a huge raise (he had more chips than me, and I started the hand with about $230). I usually read over-raises as some sort of semi-bluff/drawing hand...plus he didn't move in his chips, which I also read as a sign of weakness. He could also have A-8 for a worse two pair than me, so I decided to call.
Or he could have pocket eights for a set. And of course ASL slow rolled me, showing just an eight, then sliding the top card over to show the other one underneath.
After he hit his two-outter, I missed my four-outter on the river and had to payyy the man heees money.
My usual routine after losing is to go for a long walk around the casino and think about why I lost. Of course the first thing I thought was I should've bet the flop and been happy to take down a $50 pot. But maybe he calls anyway and I still lose my stack, making for an even more lividing exit from the poker room. But I'll never know since I didn't make the correct play in the first place.
So what's worse: playing a hand wrong and losing; or playing a hand right, getting unlucky, losing, and going on tilt? I know the answer is to play every hand correctly, but for some odd reason I don't feel as bad about this hand since it was my mistake to not bet the flop.
The rest of my day at the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation went just fine, as I had dinner with our friends Dennis & Kathy at California Pizza Kitchen. Jen was on a "hot streak" at the slots, and is notoriously never hungry when in a casino, so it was just the three of us. Food was good as usual, I had penne in a pesto cream sauce with chicken and sun-dried tomatoes...yum! We yapped for a while, trading old Vegas and bowling stories. I got to tell them my tale of woe from the poker table, and they were kind enough to listen and give me some much-needed sympathy. I was definitely in a better mood when we left CPK.
I also managed to hit a couple of four-of-a-kinds on video poker, slashing my losses in half. Jen ended up losing too, but we stayed well within our budget for the day.
I just finished my nightly online poker session, and made an unimpressive $15...but at least it wasn't another three-digit loss. The fact that I'm not too upset over the last 24 hours worth of poker badness is a good sign...I'm controlling the tilt factor, which I think is a needed trait if I wish to make consistent money playing cards.
We'll see what tomorrow has in store for me...
Got out of work early today, so the wifey & I drove to Foxwoods for a cash giveaway (Jen won the guaranteed minimum of $25, no new car for us). Against my better judgement, I decided to play a little $1/2 NL. Bought in for $200, and watched the middle-aged doofus of a guy to my right check/call all the way with pocket fives on a T-T-9-x-x board, and win. Also saw him call a flop bet, then push his chips in front of his cards - but not across the betting line - on the turn before the guy in front of him could act. It was obviously an attempt to get the other guy to check and see the river for free, so I set my sights on this angle-shooting loser(ASL).
A couple of hands later, ASL raised to $8 pre-flop, and I looked down at A-Q (I feel Hurricane Mikey, Doyle Brunson, and Phil Ivey all cringing as they read this, lol). I popped it up to $23, hoping to get heads-up, which is exactly what happened...nice.
The flop was a beauty: A-Q-9, rainbow.
ASL checked, and after thinking for a couple seconds, I decided to check my two pair as well. This was a huge mistake, since he'd probably call a bet with a lot of worse hands, and I'm only losing to A-A/Q-Q (not likely since I have A-Q) or 9-9.
The turn brought an eight, putting a second heart on the board. ASL checked again, and NOW I decided to bet the $30 I should've bet on the flop. ASL instantly said, "All in," without touching his chips.
I thought for a minute...does he have J-T for a straight? Maybe. Does he have a flush draw? This is a possibility, since he made such a huge raise (he had more chips than me, and I started the hand with about $230). I usually read over-raises as some sort of semi-bluff/drawing hand...plus he didn't move in his chips, which I also read as a sign of weakness. He could also have A-8 for a worse two pair than me, so I decided to call.
Or he could have pocket eights for a set. And of course ASL slow rolled me, showing just an eight, then sliding the top card over to show the other one underneath.
After he hit his two-outter, I missed my four-outter on the river and had to payyy the man heees money.
My usual routine after losing is to go for a long walk around the casino and think about why I lost. Of course the first thing I thought was I should've bet the flop and been happy to take down a $50 pot. But maybe he calls anyway and I still lose my stack, making for an even more lividing exit from the poker room. But I'll never know since I didn't make the correct play in the first place.
So what's worse: playing a hand wrong and losing; or playing a hand right, getting unlucky, losing, and going on tilt? I know the answer is to play every hand correctly, but for some odd reason I don't feel as bad about this hand since it was my mistake to not bet the flop.
The rest of my day at the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation went just fine, as I had dinner with our friends Dennis & Kathy at California Pizza Kitchen. Jen was on a "hot streak" at the slots, and is notoriously never hungry when in a casino, so it was just the three of us. Food was good as usual, I had penne in a pesto cream sauce with chicken and sun-dried tomatoes...yum! We yapped for a while, trading old Vegas and bowling stories. I got to tell them my tale of woe from the poker table, and they were kind enough to listen and give me some much-needed sympathy. I was definitely in a better mood when we left CPK.
I also managed to hit a couple of four-of-a-kinds on video poker, slashing my losses in half. Jen ended up losing too, but we stayed well within our budget for the day.
I just finished my nightly online poker session, and made an unimpressive $15...but at least it wasn't another three-digit loss. The fact that I'm not too upset over the last 24 hours worth of poker badness is a good sign...I'm controlling the tilt factor, which I think is a needed trait if I wish to make consistent money playing cards.
We'll see what tomorrow has in store for me...
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