Day 2: Career Day (so far)

"Drop the top and let the sunshine in..." -- Cee Lo



Day two was actually Wednesday, October 25. I’m a day late on posting this. So anyways, I got off work and contemplated going straight to Hollywood Park, but my boy Matt called me and said he wanted to grab some food because he was near my crib. So I went to meet up with him and thought I’d stop at home and throw some laundry in. Then he decided he wasn’t hungry and the laundry room was full at my apartments so the trip home was pointless. I ended up staying home for a couple hours and hanging out with Sennai, checking myspace, watching poker, etc.

Then at about 9 pm I went to Hollywood Park (or “HP”). I showed up and put my name on the list for the 200 NL game, I really didn’t want to get involved in the 100, but at the same time I only had $480 in cash on me. I was seated in a few minutes and sat down at a decent table. With my first buy-in, I worked it up to $500 when our table broke about two hours later. I was not too happy with the table breaking because I had become pretty comfortable at this table and felt I knew the style of players pretty well. So I was moved to a new 200 NL table and as soon as I sat down I could tell it was going to be interesting. The button raised to 25 and got three callers. He bet out the whole time and at the showdown of the hand, the loser showed Q-5 suited for a one-card straight with the 5. Ugly. When I was on the button I raised with 9-9 to $20 and got five callers. Flop came with an A and K and I lost. Anyways, this table played extremely crazy. Seat 9, who I’ll call “Ipod,” was one of the loosest players I’ve ever played with. It was impossible to put him on a hand and he had about 1200 in front of him. He won two monster pots while I was at the table and some old lady was battling with him. They both had the large stacks and completely controlled the table as the two loosest players that were hitting most of their hands. The table broke only about 30 minutes after I got there and I lost $150 at the table with hands that dominated pre-flop (AQ vs. A-7, 99 vs. 10-7, etc.) but were beat after the flop.

I was happy for the table change and I moved to a new table, but “I-Pod” moved to the same table and sat on my left. He was a pretty cool guy and seemed to have a lot of fun. His table personality really reminded me of Daniel Negreanu, playing pretty loose and joking with everyone, while at the same time pissing them off when he cracked them with 4-7 suited, etc. I hit a huge hand when I went all-in with As3s on a board of AJ69 with two spades and a $100 pot already established. I was hoping to take the pot down there, but one player thought for a while and made the call. The river was a rag that wasn’t a spade and I thought I was probably beat by a higher ace or two pair. When I said “I have the ace,” the player said “ace is good,” and showed KsJs, so I was drawing to a higher flush. Through the first two hours I played, the player to my right was calling every pre-flop raise I made (as was “Ipod,” but that he was calling everyone). Myself and the player to my right were about equal stacked at appx. 600 each. When I was in the small blind, he raised on the button to 20. I had Qs9s and I knew that “Ipod” would call, so I told him “since you give me action on all my raises, I’ll give you action.” And he replied “That’s how you lose your money, trying to get it back.” So the three of us saw the flop, which was Q93. Money. The only thing I could possibly worry about here is if “Ipod” has 33. “Ipod” checked and button bet 30. I thought about raising but figured I might be able to milk him. So I called. “Ipod” thought about calling and folded. Turn was a 2 and button says “Well, if I’m gonna go broke I might as well do it on this hand,” which told me that he really wanted a call. I thought if anything, he hit a set of deuces on the turn. But I didn’t think he was that strong so pushed him all in and he reluctantly called with AQ. The river was a 10 and I cracked him for about 600. I won a few more huge pots with the nut flush, king high flush and took down a lot of 100 pots. End result: I cashed out for 2862 and was in for 400.

Great day for me. I stayed up ALL night long and went straight to work from HP. I stopped on the way to buy a shirt and socks to change into. Grimey, but I’m a grimey dude. The overnighter was worth it and I feel really good about the way I played. I stole mid-size pots when I felt it and I trapped people at the right times. Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come. I definitely favor the 200 NL game over the 100 NL game.

Today: 2462
Overall: 2262