A Week on the Lake and a Night on the Felt
I'm up almost $14k more than last month already!Yesterday I made the easiest $75 of my life. While playing cards at the Venetian this buddy of one of the guys on the table really wanted more cash to go blow in the pit. He pulled out one purple and one black chip from the Excalibur (500+100) and offered it to the guy sitting next to his buddy for $500. The guy declined, and I quickly said, "Sold!" At that point the guy realized that he sould try to bargain, and he finally got me all the way up to $525. I put the chips in my pocket and said, "Have fun!"
Later that evening when I cashed out, I pulled the chips out of my pocket and asked Brian at the poker cage if he could cash them. Ninety seconds later after a phone call to the Excalibur main cage he handed me six $100 bills. Nice.
That's kinda how things went for me yesterday. I played my first session for the month of April after some more time off and time thinking about my game. I have been on this no-limit adventure trying to find a way to increase my bottom line but the bottom line is that I am not good enough yet to make the type of money possible in those games. Right now with my bankroll dwindling I need to go back to my bread and butter, limit hold'em, and especially of the whiffle ball variety.
I sat in the 15-30 game at the Wynn yesterday afternoon feeling like I was going to the dentist. I mean c'mon. A couple months ago I was playing the highest regular stakes games in town, and now I'm not even in the top section any more. But, I'd gotten myself to this place, and now I have to get myself out, just like you have to go to the dentist if you break a toof, and my face has been bashed in recently.
Well, the fun didn't stop as soon as I sat down. I get stuck $350 immediately while not winning a pot in the first hour. I then go on a sick little rush to find myself up $350, and then QQ runs into KK and AA runs into AK and KQ on a K high flop.............. yeah a bunch of money went in the middle of that pot. Running like Sebok I call it.
Anyways, I quit the Wynn up $31 which felt monumental considering recent history. I then heard that the Venetian had a 15-30 game going and I had to go play there. I strongly encourage y'all to support the Venetian poker room as much as possible as they are easily the best room in town. Their customer service is top shelf. The room is beautiful. There is space between the tables! You can have delicious comped food delivered right to your table. Like, actually really good food. I order creme brule there all the time. And, for the 8-16 limit games and up, rake is....... $1. Good luck beating that anywhere in the world.
So, I sat down and immediately lost $160 on my first hand. Arrrrgh. I don't remember which hand did it, but shortly thereafter something clicked and I could not lose any more. I believe it was my following big blind where we saw a flop three handed (SB, me, Button limper... good game) and I held the Q J . Flop 8 9 x , check, I bet, call, call, turn x, check, bet, raise, fold, 3-bet, call, and called on the x river. So much sweet action! I never looked back from there. I took KK into a 4-way capped (5 bets) flop that came K87 rainbow, get 3 bets in on the flop 3 ways, 3 bets on the turn 2 ways, and paid off on the river by a severely overplayed AK. All this action was against a tight old guy (image... learned later far from reality) too. And I thought I had just gotten lucky against aces LOL.
I think I flopped sets four times in a row holding pocket pairs, and three of them won huge pots, while I made my only mistake of the day on the fourth one. Long story short I held 88 on a Q 8 7 , 7, Q board, and the only possible hands that my opponent could have had to pay off my river bet were JJ, TT, 99, or A8, but my opponent would have 3-bet me pre-flop with the first three, and the fourth is so unlikely that I should have checked behind on the river when the second queen fell. I obviously did not like the card at all, but I never miss a value bet, and as the thought "There's so many other hands he'll call you with Devo! Fire!" I kissed six chips goodbye and threw them in the pot. There's a big difference between betting for value and making bad bets, and this was a case of the latter.
Anyways, I quit after four hours up $1358, plus the free $75, plus $31 from the Wynn, good for my highest winning day since February 23rd. How sick is that?
This has been a super rough month both professionally and personally. I lost almost $12K in 130 hours of work and my personal life has been seeing some struggles as well. I have been forced to miss work on several occasions due to personal issues and I have taken time off due to run bad/confidence issues, and then compound that with the fact that my bankroll is the lowest it has been in a year. This life of a professional gambler is not easy on the soul. It's quite tough at times, and I totally understand why so many people go broke so frequently. I've been greatly tempted to take my entire roll and play 200-400 and see what happens, or put it all on the don't and figure out now whether I'll be broke or get a roll going again. It's hard to revert back to a place that you were a year ago, wondering what the hell you have done with the past year, but then again, I have more cash and money in the bank than I did a year ago, I have more toys than I did a year ago, and I am happier with my life now than I was a year ago.
And then I talked to people with jobs and how hard it was to get one of those jobs, and I thought about how much I make simply playing the 15-30 game ($50/hr), and how much I really don't want to go broke anymore. I'd much rather play 15-30 for the rest of my life than have ANY career job that I could possibly get right now.
The past week has been dominated by the lake. Every day Sunday through Thursday was spent on the lake. Here are the highlights:
Sunday: Went and checked out the ruins of St. Thomas on the far north end of the Overton Arm. St Thomas was a Mormon settlement from 1867-1938. The town was abandoned as the waters of Lake Mead rose into the streets and forced people from their homes. I'm not sure whether the government paid for those houses and property lost or not, but either way it is a trajedy in my opinion. Let private property be private. The lake could have easily be held at the level it is at today and the town preserved. The lake level is down almost 100 vertical feet from the high water level, and the ruins of the town of St. Thomas are once again above water. It was quite fascinating wandering around the town for the afternoon.
Monday: Went out with Jared intending on fishing for the afternoon. Ran into friends on another boat. Went to beach far away. Drank a bunch of beer, and then after sunset when faced with the prospect of cruising the boat 90 mins back to dock, putting it on a trailer, and then driving 45 mins home did not sound like a wise option when our friend had extra sleeping bags for Jared and I.
Tuesday: I crawl out of my sleeping bag with the morning sun heating my bag to about 700 degrees. I got up, shook off the sleep, jumped in the water, and began cleaning up the beach. At this point I saw a park ranger boat at the mouth of the cove with a guy on the bow looking at us with binoculars. In case you did not know already, I have an aversion to authority, so I'm like, "What the heck do these guys want?!?" Also mind you, we're ten miles from the nearest marina, 12 miles from another, and 18 miles from the one we launched out of. We're in the middle of nowhere as far as Lake Mead is concerned.
So, the boat pulls all the way in, I walk out to the point to talk to them, and he asks me if I am with the other boat. We had our pontoon (renamed "Piece of Ship") boat out and were with Ron's boat, and the Search and Rescue volunteer was asking about Ron's boat. Yeah. Those are my friends. Then he said, "Do you know Bryan or Jared?" Wow. You gotta be kidding me. Yep. I got search and rescue called on me. I was supposed to be back Monday night, but never really had an official itinerary, and couldn't call anybody due to a lack of cell phone service. Of all the things I've done in my life, of all the places I've guided, of all the missions I have done as a member of Search and Rescue in Colorado, this is what I get search and rescue called on me for: drinking too much and deciding to sleep over instead of driving and boating home in the dark. Life is funny.
Tuesday, part two: On the way back Jared and I come across a 93 Kawasaki stand-up for $300, pay $280 for it, pick up Danny, and head right back to the lake. Nope. Not addicted at all.
Wednesday: We fix said jet-ski, fix another, head to the lake to "test" them, head home, put on softball gear, and head straight to softball game with jet-skis still hanging off the back of my truck.
Thursday: Same procedure. More stand-ups on the lake.
It's really good for your overall poker game to have a place that you can go and escape the distractions of the world for a little while. The lake is that place for me, and it has been a sanctuary in the past month.
Peace and good luck,
Devo
posted by Devo @ 4:15 PM
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