I left for Topeka on Friday at 12:30pm and arrived at 4:00pm, I brought Denise and the boys with me so first we headed for the hotel to get settled. My last two trips I have been staying at the Fairfield by Marriott, the rooms are spacious, the beds are very comfortable and the rate is about the same as the super 8 across the street. The Fairfield also has an indoor pool and Jacuzzi so my boys go swimming 4 times/day.
I got to the poker room at Harrah?s around 5:30 and there was plenty of action in the room. I got seated by 6:00pm and right away the night was proving to be a test of my internal control not to go full tilt and steam off thousands of dollars. The first real hand I played went like this.
Blinds: $2, $5 (no limit)
10 players at the table, I am one behind the button. 4 players limp in
My Hand:7s, 8s (I just call)
Flop: 6h, 10h, 9s
I flop the nut straight, the small blind who also limped in bets $20 and it is folded around to me, I figure he has either a good 10 or a flush draw, I elect to just call. The player on the button, who is a solid player that I know to be a professional, also calls.
Turn: Jc
The small blind bets $40 and I figure now is the time to press so I raise to $90
The solid player to my right immediately raises to $250, I know for a fact that he has the K, Q, and has me drawing dead. I fold. He shows K, Q,
No big deal, I flopped the nuts and on the turn had the sucker end of the straight – It happens. About 30 minutes later I get dealt pocket aces. I raise to $30 and get one caller. Flop comes 7, 2, 9, I bet $50 and the other player whom I know to be a very weak player moves all-in for $120 more, I call – He shows K, 8 (a bluff) turn is K, river is 8. NICE! He wins with 2 pair.
45 minutes later I am BB and dealt 3h, 3s, Player before me raises to $20, it is folded to me and I call the extra $15
Flop comes: As, 3c, 4s
I check, he bets $40, I raise to $140, he calls – his call was a tad bit scary because he did it so fast – If he had A-K i felt he would have been a bit suspicious as to what I just raised him $100 with. I immediately think he has A,A
Turn is: 8h I lead out with $200 and he hesitates for 20 seconds and announces ALL-IN. He has over 2k in front of him and I have apprx $900 more. I immediately go into the tank and I am replaying every action trying to find a reason to call – I am 98% sure that I am beat here I just can’t believe that I am this unlucky to get a cooler like this – If he gives any tell at all that he has something other than A, A I want to call – However it is just not there. I tell him that normally I pray to get my chips in with this hand but I just can’t seem to put him on anything other than A, A – I announce that I fold and turn my cards face up. The table gasps and I can count at least 5 people at the table that would buy my hand for the $350 I have invested just to call this ALL-IN. After I fold he shows A, A, and I feel good about the laydown however I am now crippled emotionally over having a real cooler like that.
After that hand I am just trying to focus on getting back into the game and not letting my emotions get out of control. This night the cards were just playing pranks on me all night – 2 hours later, Again I was dealt pocket 3’s and flopped a third 3, with a board of 9, 10, 3, (I am on the button, 2 players in the pot) player 1 bets $40, player 2 calls, I know I have the best hand and I am happy picking up the pot right here, so I raise to $140, player 1 moves All-in, player 2 folds. I call for another $350 player 1 shows J, Q, (open ended straight draw) I am 74% to win however tonight I know that I am drawing dead, Just that feeling – sure enough K hits on the river. I played till 6:30am and was down $900 I felt as though the game was drying up – and frankly I did not feel like catching anymore great hands as I would not be able to play them correctly so I left to go get some sleep. Sessions like these are very tough and hard to press on, It was not the $900 that I cared about so much, It was continually being either 2nd best or getting drawn out on in a very painful way, The feeling of no matter what I have I can’t win.
I slept for 4 hours and took a very long shower and built up my confidence enough to return to the poker room. At apprx 2:00pm a No limit game opened for the day and I was ready for action – after 3 hours I was down another $700 and seriously thinking that I needed to go home and not play for 3 weeks. It was more of the same, I had hands that I could have sold for twice there price to many players at my table and had to fold because I knew I was beat. FINALY I flop a set of 6’s to a board of 6, 9, k
Little do I realize that the man behind me who flopped a set of aces last night when I had the 3’s just flopped a set of 9’s – I mean am I really that unlucky??? But too bad for him the turn was a 6 and in the end I depleted his whole stack of Appx $750 with my quads. I was now back to even for the day however I had allot of work yet to do.
Sitting next to me was another rounder named Frank and I had come to respect his game very much over the last 18 hours. Frank is a solid player that rarely bluffs. He plays a very conservative game. We became buddies and I found out that he had been playing professionally for just over a year. He asked if I would be staying for the Sunday morning players and I told him I was not sure, as I wanted to leave Sunday. He informed me that the Sunday crew was VERY juicy so I thought I had better stick around; at around 6am things were certainly looking better. At 8am we had 6 live ones at our table and Frank and I were killing the game. By 8am I was $900 ahead and had no plans of leaving this table, I am a conservative player however if certain people entered a pot I had to be in there regardless of my holdings – It was that sweet! These guys were buying in for $160 – $200 and re-buying every hour. Frank and myself had to have the majority of $5 chips that were allotted to the poker room – About 7k between us. There were really no interesting hands to report for this session as you really did not need a big hand to take down a big pot – there were times that I was check raising with middle pair and 10 kicker just because I knew how weak my opponents were. I played 30 + hours of poker that session and ended being up $1,800 considering that I was down $700 at one point that was one hell of a session, needless to say I will not be missing any Sunday mornings at Harrah’s.
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