USA - Golden nugget Omaha8

Same again ... beginning to become a grind.
Played the Omaha hi-lo at the Golden Nugget & again came away with another mid-field non-cash finish. Things were going great until the dinner break. I'd had a combination of good play & good running to build my stack from the 12k starting stack up to about 32k. Of course after the break it all went downhill. I was moved to a different table & with the blinds continuing to rise (after dinner the average stack was just over 6 big bets) any pot that you lost became significant. Of course I managed to find a few hands where my huge draws missed & others where my nut hand was counterfeited on the river (the good old river A or 2). I eventually finished around 50th out of the 138 starters.
After leaving downtown I went back to the Imperial Palace to find that they had a $3/6 mixed game up & running. I put my name on the list & sat down at a $1/2NLHE table in the meantime. Of course I ran fantastically there, with the highlight being picking up kings in the small blind. The table had been playing fairly loose, but of course when I pick up a hand there was only 1 limper & when I made it $6, even the big blind folded. The limper came along & my c-bet on the J-high flop took the pot without a fuss. Of course most other draws missed, but proved costly, combined with some uber-slowplay in one hand. There were about 5 or 6 limpers & I decided to call on the button with JT suited. The flop was 7-high & it was checked through. The turn was a J & the cutoff bet $6. I called & everyone else folded, so I thought there was a decent chance my hand was good. Another low card fell on the river & I called his $16 bet, only to be shocked to see him turn over KK!! Yes, I run good!
Anyway, I eventually got a seat at the mixed game & was dealt into a baduci hand. No problem, I've played it a bit since I got here ... and following Deathdonkey's tips I'd been making some money. Anyway, I managed to end up with an 87 low with a 7 badugi, only to see my opponent (who had been betting all the way) turn over AJ642. What a great start ... a scoop ... but no! It seems that at the Imperial Palace they play baduci with the ace playing low for the badugi half of the pot! WTF??? This meant that my opponent's 642A badugi took half the pot! At least I didn't get scooped ... of course I mentioned the fact that this was the only place where the ace played low for half the pot & how it was stupid from a strategy perspective because you could never have a nut-nut hand, only to have some of the players respond with comments like 'but the ace is low in badugi'; 'well that's part of the strategy - to keep the ace or not' & other silly comments. Of course this meant that the game would be good, but it also meant that I would need to stay focused to avoid becoming one of the other donkeys at the table. Anyway, the game was fairly uneventful for the most part, with a reasonably standard mix of games being played - Baduci, razz, stud8, Omaha8, badugi and the 'novelty game' double-board Omaha, with my run good continuing to mean I was down a little, until the table I was at broke & I was moved to the other table (yes, there were 2 tables of this game running). Of course they were on a different part of the rotation & I found myself playing 3-2-1 Omaha. Of course this prompted the standard 'how do you play this' question & I went & got myself one of the Mixed Game sheets they had around the room. In 3-2-1 Omaha, there are 3 flops, 2 turns & 1 river card dealt (so all up a total of 12 'board' cards on the table) & being Omaha, you must use 2 of your 4 hole cards, combined with 3 cards from the board to make the best 5-card poker hand. The catch is that you can only use one of the flops, one of the turns & the river to make your hand. Sounds simple, but its a little confusing when trying to play this for the first time. To give you an idea, lets say you have a J in your hand & there is a J on each of the three flops, this means that you have one pair (of jacks), which can not improve to three jacks because all the jacks are out & you can only use one of the flops in your final hand. Of course as I soon realised, this means that the winning hand is almost always a straight or better (often being a flush or full house), which makes high suited cards the most valuable in this game, with high pairs also being good to have.
Of course the game broke before we got to the next odd game in the mix - 4 card ocean crazy pineapple! My first thought was WTF? Turns out you get 4 cards to start the hand & a flop is dealt & there is a round of betting. Sounds normal so far, but after the round of betting, players discard one card from their hand. This leads to the flop & another round of betting and another discard. The river is dealt & there is another round of betting. This isn't the end of the hand however, as there is another board card (the ocean) & another round of betting. At the end of the hand there are 6 cards on the board & 2 cards in the hands of the players' hands, with the best 5-card hand from any combination of the 6 board cards & the 2 hole cards of each player. Sounds interesting, though I didn't get a chance to play it.
Anyway, I finished the night with a small loss ... another case of run good!
Next on the agenda: A day off from tournaments, possibly playing cash games at the Rio or elsewhere, with the possibility of an episode of the Donkcast in the works as well.