Jose Canseco was there. Well actually this is what happened. I have a friend who I do side bets on flops with sometimes and he was at the $100 table. There's a really good looking blonde with some xxl "gazangas" (as my boy called them) and I recognized her as Jose Canseco's girlfriend (or wife). The only reason I know this is that I've played baseball against him and seen him playing poker and she was there both times. Anyways Canseco showed up a couple hours later and seemed to be on tilt...I think he spent time on the "dark side" where all the California Black Jack games are. Then he came back and lost $100 before sitting out for 20 minutes while his girl finished up. He does seem like a cool guy from my experience with him. I won't front, I idolized this dude when I was little. I mean come on, he was that 40-40 dude.
and his lady
Now to my donktastic play.
First hand? Pocket aces. Of course anytime you raise on your first hand at a table, all of the players look at you with pure hatred and sigh and all this bullshit like that.
Three callers, everyone folds on the flop, +$73. Sweet.
Third hand? Pocket eights. Here's how the action went:
I call the blind in early position. Two other people call, then the blind raises to $25. I am the only caller. Flop is 3-4-6, rainbow. I check, he bets $50, I call. Turn is a 9. He looks at me and checks. I bet $60. He tanks and finally calls. River is an ace. He checks, I check, he shows AK for the winner.
Now, what looked like was gonna be a good night on my first hand, looks like it's gonna be a shitty night on my third hand. All of a sudden I went from being up to being down and didn't really feel like I did anything wrong (although I underbet the turn if my read was strong, which it was).
My stack ended up going down in the same fashion that it has the past few months. There are definitely a lot of leaks in my game that I need to improve such as:
1. Strong continuation betting: My continuation bets seem to be pretty telling because whenever I have nothing (AK or middle pair, etc.) I always get called. When I have a strong hand (like the aces yesterday) everyone folds unless they flop a monster.
2. Not giving off tells: for the same reason mentioned above. More than ever I feel like I am getting called at the wrong times and people are laying down their hands at the right time for them.
3. Thinking every hand through thoroughly: I've made some bad calls (as you will soon see) and I think a lot of my easy tells come from the speed with which I bet at times. I need to take more time to think through each play/bet/call/raise/etc.
Anyways, even though I am a profitable player I feel like I can be a lot more profitable if I raise my level of play, obviously.
So last night my comeback trail started when I had pocket kings and somehow milked two players for basically a triple up to like $350.
That's when I gave out my first bad beat:
Early position player (Bill the Grinder) calls the $5 blind. The guy next to him, who just rebought and was slightly tilted, raises to $20. I have 99 and call the $20. Three more people call the $20. The action is back to Bill and he does his patented all-in move for about $150. The original raiser immediately folds. I thought about this for an extremely long time: although Bill usually does not bluff, I put him on a small-medium pair or AK/AQ trying to isolate the original raiser, who was on tilt. Bill knows that no one was strong enough to re-raise the $20, so most likely the only caller he would get would be the original raiser. However, I also know that Bill is not a risk-taking player. He likes to move his entire stack in when he feels he has the best hand. I eventually called based on this theory (which may be correct or may not be): I'm in for $20. There is $125 already in the pot, plus Bill's additional $150. So I'm calling $130 for $275, giving me roughly 2:1 odds on my call. I'm about 60% sure that I have the best hand, which is why I made the call.
I was wrong about having the best hand.
Bill had JJ but I turned the set and got lucky. I felt kind of bad because Bill is like a resident player and a really nice guy. I don't talk to him too much because I try not to make friends at the casino, but he is a cool guy. I apologized (why do I always feel the need to apologize after sucking out?) and we both agreed that he wanted a call from someone who has only two outs so he took it with class.
Bad beat #2: I have pocket kings. I raise to $25 and get about four callers. Great. Two of them are loose players and one is tight. I know if I can dodge the ace or a crazy board, I'm going to push hard on the flop. Well, I got both. The flop comes A56 with three spades. Fuck. I'm thinking that I have two red kings. The first player to act comes out betting $50. First guy folds and I check my cards. Suprise, two black kings. I call the $50. I want to get this guy because he made a move on me and then showed the bluff. Yes, I hold grudges. I'm the only caller and the turn is a blank. He bets $75 and I insta-call. River: six of spades. Bingo. He checks and I move him all-in for his last $60. He reluctantly folds (kind of surprising considering the pot was about $350) and I just dished another beat.
The night went pretty well although I ended up losing about $100 on my last hand when I tried to bet a guy off with my 22. It turned out he had KK, lol. At least I scared him into checking the river because I honestly thought he had napkins. I guess I need to work on my reads too, lol.
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