I was in New Orleans this past weekend. I managed to get to the casino for a little under one hour, at a $1-$2 no limit table. In that 50 minutes, I made $129. My kind of outing. Most of the table wasn’t very good, they were overly aggressive. My motto is, “When they play tight, you play loose. When they play loose, you play tight.” Which I did. The two good hands I had both paid off, and I pulled off a stone cold bluff on my way out, since I had built my rep already.
Last night was not so good. I got demolished again at bar poker. You start with 1,000 in chips (And I got another 300 for ordering a meal there). In the fairly early going I had pocket 10s and raised the blinds to 100. I got two callers, and then one guy came over the top with a raise to 400. I called, the other two dropped out. The flop was K-x-x. He put in 500. I grudgingly folded. So I was already short-stacked. After that I never saw another good set of cards. We were leading into chip-up time. I was down to 520 and the blinds were going to 50-100. With a pair of 7s, I went all-in. One person called me, the girl who had four shots, with A-10. (I’m not saying it was a bad call, just annoying when someone doesn’t put any thought into it.) Two more Aces came out, and I came out to the car. Blech.
How come I can’t beat these idiots at the bar?
Still, $129 to the good over the last week.
I thought the poker room was okay. Nothing speical either way.
Gilly’s: I’ve come to the opposite conclusion. The blinds go up fast. If you don’t get up early, you’re in trouble. Especially because everyone else is swilling beers and getting bonus chips for it. I’m thinking you have to make moves early, with cards or not. If you can get ahead early, then you can muscle around a little and/or wait for good cards to come.
On the other hand, I’m doing terrible so far and you’re doing fine, so maybe I should take your advice!
Good job in NOLA -> Did you like the poker room (besides the winning part)?
I played the double-show at Gilly’s last night -> played tight and came in 5th in the second game (almost made the final table in the first game). I think the trick to these games is to really limit the number of hands you participate in early on. This serves a double purpose: First, it keeps you out of trouble when the donks come calling over the top. Second, the better players do notice when you haven’t played many hands so that you get more respect later on (by which time the donks have either fallen by the wayside or have revealed themselves to you).
I’m hoping for a revival of the neighborhood game next week.