As I am now into my last week in Las Vegas, last night's $3/6 mixed game at the Imperial Palace would be my last for this trip. This time there were two mixed game tables running & I seemed to be at the much friendlier of the two. It turned out to be a reasonable night financially, though not the marathon session of previous weeks. I finished with a small profit, but the table broke just before 1am (unlike the 9am finish the previous week) & as there were no seats on the other table I decided to call it a night.
Hand of the night for my was in A-5 hi-lo, which is a 5-card triple draw game, with the pot split between the best 5-card poker hand (high half) & best A-5 low (low half, though there is an 8-or-better qualifier for low). As with most split pot games, it seems like the best way to play the game is to aim for the low & hope to back into a high hand. Of course this is all good in theory, until you are dealt some sort of strong-ish high hand, when you hope to win the high hand with no-one making a qualifying low. This often leads to unusual split pots when heads-up, so that two players with decent lows end up chopping (eg: A2467 v A3568 is a chop, with the A7 winning low & A8 winning high).
Anyway, to my favourite hand of the night ... I am dealt 2d2h4d4c8s on the initial deal. I decide to call & draw one, keeping the 2244, looking to hit a 4-outer to fill up (two pair 4s-up is unlikely to win multi-way in this game). Of course I draw the 3d, so now have 22344 with three low diamonds. This gives me something of a dilemma ... the 2d3d4d now looks tempting to play as a potential scoop hand, but then I'm throwing away two pair ... ultimately I decide to go for glory & discard two (of course no-one at the table notices that I have gone from drawing one to drawing two) ... and I manage to draw like a champion! 5d8d! I now have an 8-high flush & an 85 low! Of course this is again an improvement, but not ideal. If someone makes a 7-low I am crushed for the low & an 8-high flush is most definitely beatable for high, so that half is far from locked up. Regardless, I decided to raise & stand pat with my 8-high flush & am pleased to see that the other three players in the hand are all still drawing. Of course it probably helped my cause that a few hands earlier I had stood pat with a weak low & wound up winning the high when the only hand that called on the river was a better low (see the explanation above). I bet after the last draw & was called by two others & showed my 8-high flush .... and scooped! Not a bad finish for the last mixed game session at the Imperial Palace. Definitely a game I would recommend people playing if they are in town & looking for a fun game to play on a Sunday night.
Next on the agenda: More poker, back to the Rio to rail the main event ... and thoughts of packing & how to fit everything into my bags!
Showing posts with label Imperial Palace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Imperial Palace. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Mammoth mixed game session!
After a fairly quiet weekend, particularly for Las Vegas, where I picked up a new external hard drive & had a shortish session of $1/2NL at the Flamingo, I rounded off the weekend with a session in the $3/6 mixed game at the Imperial Palace.
The Flamingo session was fairly uneventful, with the highlight being a hand where a player opened for $10 & I called on the button with 55. The hand was checked to the river (think the final board was something like T9742) & I thought for a few seconds before checking behind on the river ... and my opponent mucked! Ship the pot! Also managed to lose the two big hands of the night to the same guy ... first when I tried (unsuccessfully of course) to get him off top pair with my middle pair (where I was betting every street, including pre-flop), then later I ran my AK into his KT on a KT8K6 board.
The mixed game at the IP was surprisingly tight this time. There were few hands that were 5 or more to the flop (or draw) & few that had 4 or 5 bets in pre-flop. Made for a different dynamic from previous nights in the IP mixed game! I got off to a slow start, but hit some run good around 3am (some 5 hours after I sat down) & this continued until the game broke at around 9am! I'm sure my body clock is going to be somewhat askew for the next day or two as a result, but its always good to book a decent win in a game that is enjoyable to play ... complete with the challenges of trying to figure out if you have the best hand, or should bet or check in a game like double flop Omaha or 3-2-1 Omaha, or 4 card crazy ocean Pineapple! I think this will be a place to find me if you are in Vegas on a Sunday night for the next few weeks.
Next on the agenda: some more tourist stuff, a haircut ... and some poker.
The Flamingo session was fairly uneventful, with the highlight being a hand where a player opened for $10 & I called on the button with 55. The hand was checked to the river (think the final board was something like T9742) & I thought for a few seconds before checking behind on the river ... and my opponent mucked! Ship the pot! Also managed to lose the two big hands of the night to the same guy ... first when I tried (unsuccessfully of course) to get him off top pair with my middle pair (where I was betting every street, including pre-flop), then later I ran my AK into his KT on a KT8K6 board.
The mixed game at the IP was surprisingly tight this time. There were few hands that were 5 or more to the flop (or draw) & few that had 4 or 5 bets in pre-flop. Made for a different dynamic from previous nights in the IP mixed game! I got off to a slow start, but hit some run good around 3am (some 5 hours after I sat down) & this continued until the game broke at around 9am! I'm sure my body clock is going to be somewhat askew for the next day or two as a result, but its always good to book a decent win in a game that is enjoyable to play ... complete with the challenges of trying to figure out if you have the best hand, or should bet or check in a game like double flop Omaha or 3-2-1 Omaha, or 4 card crazy ocean Pineapple! I think this will be a place to find me if you are in Vegas on a Sunday night for the next few weeks.
Next on the agenda: some more tourist stuff, a haircut ... and some poker.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Deuces Cracked Homegame & other goings on
To begin with I must apologise for the lack of updates ... this hotel wireless is frustrating me & I have been prioritising other things when I am able to use the internet.
Anyway, events of the last few days have included: The Deuces Cracked Homegame at Aria, a Stud8 tournament at the Golden Nugget, a HORSE tournament at the Orleans, a mixed game at the Imperial Palace & some brief cash sessions at the Luxor & Hooters.
The Deuces Cracked homegame was great fun. Was good to catch up with Chuck, Rob, Joe & the rest of the DC team I had met in Australia, as well as meeting some other coaches & members & being able to put faces & real names to DC names. As far as the poker was concerned, I sat in a $4/8 mixed game, which began as a mix of Holdem, Omaha hi-lo & Crazy Pineapple ... and soon became somewhat different! Of course being labelled a 'homegame' I started off playing like a homegame ... I have 3 outs for a gutshot ... I call; 2 outs for a bigger 2 pair ... I call. Of course from a purely financial perspective, such decisions are not wise ... and of course it was only after these decisions began to be more noticable (ie: I had far less chips in front of me than when I started) that it occurred to me that I should be doing something a little different with my game. So I changed up my game, and the nit that had been waiting to emerge had a chance to join the table. As a result of this transformation, the results turned around.
Of course as the night went on, the games got more unorthodox. At one point the game turned into what became known as 'Slomaha', which on the surface is run like a standard game of Omaha hi-lo. Of course this changed when some of the players decided to show random cards from their hand during play, and eventually turned into a strange cross between Omaha & Stud. The game was played where players were forced to turn over one card (of their choosing, though occasionally this was done at random by the dealer) from their hand after the completion of the round of betting before the flop, before the turn & before the river. There were some strategy considerations regarding the cards that people turned over - do you turn over a pair, a low card, the random 'dangler', etc. This meant that after the river was dealt, there were 5 community cards & each player had 3 of their 4 hole cards exposed in front of them. This of course changed hand reading, as it now became somewhat like a stud hand where you could see people's boards & determine their possible holdings from that. The third card made a lot of difference regarding low hands - given that it is Omaha, you need to use 2 cards from your hand with 3 cards from the board, so that when 3 hole cards are exposed, it became obvious who could qualify for a low. I did OK at this game, though when the game changed to Baduci I had far more success & managed to recoup most of my earlier losses. All in all a fun night. Definitely looking forward to the Bowling next Thursday.
After the recent tournaments, which turned into luckfests because of the typically horrible structures (5 big bet average stacks ... its a game of skill!), I had sworn off tournaments in Vegas for a while, yet still went to the Golden Nugget to play the Stud8 tournament, which as expected turned into a luckfest. I managed to get crippled by the table fish in two hands where he made monsters against my somewhat mediocre holdings, when it seemed like every other hand he had played he had had relative garbage (and had been playing it like the nuts!). Of course even with a short stack I managed to outlast him, however I was unable to regain my chips from the opponents he had so kindly donated them to.
I also decided to try out the Orleans Sunday night HORSE tournament, but that too turned into a luckfest after the first few levels & I busted relatively early from that one. Maybe I should try some NLHE tourneys to change things up a bit??
I also ventured to a few poker rooms that I had not played at previously - the Bruce Buffer Poker Lounge at the Luxor & Hooters. Not much to say about those rooms - played some $1/2NL at each & made a small profit at both ... and of course left with my 'souveneir' $1 chip.
The $3/6 mixed game at the Imperial Palace seemed almost like a homegame with some of the games on offer. I finally made it through an entire rotation of games (which took over 5 hours to get through all 10 games, playing 8 hands of each game) & discovered quite a few games I had no prior knowledge of!
Highlights from the night included:
Playing hi-lo 5 card draw (called A-5 hi-lo) I started with a pair of 7s, drew 3 on the first draw, did not improve, drew another 3, picked up another 7, so drew 2, picked up the last remaining 7 on the final draw, bet, was raised, so I three-bet, only to be called down by the guy who had three kings (from the initial deal) to scoop a pretty sizable pot ($100+).
Finding a wheel (23457) in 2-7 triple draw on the second draw & getting paid off in 2 spots.
Folding the same hand as the winning hand in 4-card Crazy Ocean Pineapple (89 on a board of KT7J35), when I assumed that my turned straight was no good. Of course the other player in the hand had the nut flush draw that missed (yes, even on the 'ocean')!
All-in-all a crazy game that is fun to play, and can at the right time be good for the bankroll, though it can also be very swingy, obviously. This was helped by one of the players who would almost always post a blind straddle when UTG & was later posting 'sleeper straddles' in various positions (for example a sleeper straddle on the button meant that if folded to him, it would act like a straddle where he has last option after people called his raise, otherwise it would act as a standard bet where he had the option to either call or raise).
Next on the agenda: more poker I guess ...
Anyway, events of the last few days have included: The Deuces Cracked Homegame at Aria, a Stud8 tournament at the Golden Nugget, a HORSE tournament at the Orleans, a mixed game at the Imperial Palace & some brief cash sessions at the Luxor & Hooters.
The Deuces Cracked homegame was great fun. Was good to catch up with Chuck, Rob, Joe & the rest of the DC team I had met in Australia, as well as meeting some other coaches & members & being able to put faces & real names to DC names. As far as the poker was concerned, I sat in a $4/8 mixed game, which began as a mix of Holdem, Omaha hi-lo & Crazy Pineapple ... and soon became somewhat different! Of course being labelled a 'homegame' I started off playing like a homegame ... I have 3 outs for a gutshot ... I call; 2 outs for a bigger 2 pair ... I call. Of course from a purely financial perspective, such decisions are not wise ... and of course it was only after these decisions began to be more noticable (ie: I had far less chips in front of me than when I started) that it occurred to me that I should be doing something a little different with my game. So I changed up my game, and the nit that had been waiting to emerge had a chance to join the table. As a result of this transformation, the results turned around.
Of course as the night went on, the games got more unorthodox. At one point the game turned into what became known as 'Slomaha', which on the surface is run like a standard game of Omaha hi-lo. Of course this changed when some of the players decided to show random cards from their hand during play, and eventually turned into a strange cross between Omaha & Stud. The game was played where players were forced to turn over one card (of their choosing, though occasionally this was done at random by the dealer) from their hand after the completion of the round of betting before the flop, before the turn & before the river. There were some strategy considerations regarding the cards that people turned over - do you turn over a pair, a low card, the random 'dangler', etc. This meant that after the river was dealt, there were 5 community cards & each player had 3 of their 4 hole cards exposed in front of them. This of course changed hand reading, as it now became somewhat like a stud hand where you could see people's boards & determine their possible holdings from that. The third card made a lot of difference regarding low hands - given that it is Omaha, you need to use 2 cards from your hand with 3 cards from the board, so that when 3 hole cards are exposed, it became obvious who could qualify for a low. I did OK at this game, though when the game changed to Baduci I had far more success & managed to recoup most of my earlier losses. All in all a fun night. Definitely looking forward to the Bowling next Thursday.
After the recent tournaments, which turned into luckfests because of the typically horrible structures (5 big bet average stacks ... its a game of skill!), I had sworn off tournaments in Vegas for a while, yet still went to the Golden Nugget to play the Stud8 tournament, which as expected turned into a luckfest. I managed to get crippled by the table fish in two hands where he made monsters against my somewhat mediocre holdings, when it seemed like every other hand he had played he had had relative garbage (and had been playing it like the nuts!). Of course even with a short stack I managed to outlast him, however I was unable to regain my chips from the opponents he had so kindly donated them to.
I also decided to try out the Orleans Sunday night HORSE tournament, but that too turned into a luckfest after the first few levels & I busted relatively early from that one. Maybe I should try some NLHE tourneys to change things up a bit??
I also ventured to a few poker rooms that I had not played at previously - the Bruce Buffer Poker Lounge at the Luxor & Hooters. Not much to say about those rooms - played some $1/2NL at each & made a small profit at both ... and of course left with my 'souveneir' $1 chip.
The $3/6 mixed game at the Imperial Palace seemed almost like a homegame with some of the games on offer. I finally made it through an entire rotation of games (which took over 5 hours to get through all 10 games, playing 8 hands of each game) & discovered quite a few games I had no prior knowledge of!
Highlights from the night included:
Playing hi-lo 5 card draw (called A-5 hi-lo) I started with a pair of 7s, drew 3 on the first draw, did not improve, drew another 3, picked up another 7, so drew 2, picked up the last remaining 7 on the final draw, bet, was raised, so I three-bet, only to be called down by the guy who had three kings (from the initial deal) to scoop a pretty sizable pot ($100+).
Finding a wheel (23457) in 2-7 triple draw on the second draw & getting paid off in 2 spots.
Folding the same hand as the winning hand in 4-card Crazy Ocean Pineapple (89 on a board of KT7J35), when I assumed that my turned straight was no good. Of course the other player in the hand had the nut flush draw that missed (yes, even on the 'ocean')!
All-in-all a crazy game that is fun to play, and can at the right time be good for the bankroll, though it can also be very swingy, obviously. This was helped by one of the players who would almost always post a blind straddle when UTG & was later posting 'sleeper straddles' in various positions (for example a sleeper straddle on the button meant that if folded to him, it would act like a straddle where he has last option after people called his raise, otherwise it would act as a standard bet where he had the option to either call or raise).
Next on the agenda: more poker I guess ...
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
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.
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.
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