11.04.08
Kinder Trip Report
Gyla and I had planned a trip to Biloxi this weekend but in the end changed our plans. We decided to go to Coushatta instead. Coushatta is a great Indian Casino in Central Louisiana. It’s about a 3 1/2 hour drive for us so we decided to go Friday afternoon and spend the night. Friday night they have a rebuy tourney and Sat is a $200 buy in Freeze Out.
We arrived about 4:00 Friday night. We registered for the Rebuy tourney and went to play 3 card poker. I was holding in there but Gyla wasn’t so she wandered off to play video poker. I played 3 card awhile longer then went off in search of Gyla. I couldn’t find her so I sat down to play video poker. It wasn’t a few minutes that she showed up with $1,000 shed just won in a VP machine. Go Gyla!!!! We played a little while longer then went to see what low carb entree’s we could find on the buffet. After a dinner of salad, boiled shrimp, and boiled King crab we went to the poker room for the tourney.
There were a little over 100 players. They were paying 10. The structure was $20 entry free. You could do 2 buys of chips for $20 each. Thats what everyone seemed to be doing so that is what we did. We were in for $60. I found my table and I have to say that this was about the softest table I’d ever played a tournament with. One guy was even calling with Ace high. There were a couple who seemed to know what they were doing. One was really really tight. A couple more were total donks. The guy on my right seemed to know what he was doing. I thought so anyway until her raised like 10 times the bb one hand and everyone quickly folded. He folded his cards face up. Aces of course. I guess he didn’t want to get them cracked. Everytime he had a really big hand he’d raise real big. He might as well have a neon arrow flashing down on him saying MONSTER HAND. It wasn’t long before I had the table pretty well sized up. I was able to small ball myself into a nice stack. I don’t really remember any notable hands. I made it to the end of the rebuy period and did the $60 add on and dealer special as everyone else was.
I found Gyla at the break and she hadn’t faired so well. She had a guy pushing all in on almost everyhand. Whenever he won he’d tip the dealer $15. He was also in the hot seat. Gyla’s rebought a couple of times but she was pretty card dead. She went out a little while after the break.
We started again after the break and I kept building my stack. Soon they broke our table and I was directed to what was described as “The Table of Death”. Groan. Apparently they had already knocked out a number of players. Where my first table was very passive this was livelier. A couple of the guys had pretty big stacks. I started playing and before long I had cleaned out one of the big stacks. The other was in the hot seat and couldn’t miss. I was doing well. The blinds were going up and I was staying ahead of them. Everything was rocking.
We took a break and they colored up some chips. I came back to find less chips than I thought I had. I don’t know if it was my mistake or theres but I’ll be sure to verify my chip count with the dealer before going to break next time. We started playing again. I was feeling good about making the money until I hit the Dead Zone. My cards absolutely fell apart at the worst time. People were going all in on every hand. There was little opportunity for a steal. I couldn’t even get connecting cards or overcards to push with. I sat and watched as my beautiful stack was blinded away. I did get an AQs. I called the big stacks 3,000 chip raise but flopped nothing and folded. In hindsight I realize I should have reraised him all in. I doube he would have called. I had fold equity at that time. I didn’t think about it then.
We finnaly were down to 2 tables and I was looking for an all in hand. I started to push with a K7 of spades. (Yes my cards were that bad.) My head overruled my guy and I folded. I should have listened to my gut. I would have tripled up. Instead I went out 13th when I was in the SB and the BB had Kings. 3 from the money.
We played some more Video Poker then some Let it Ride. I mananged to win some at Let it Ride. It got late and we went to bed.
Saturday we went over and registered for the tourney then had breakfast. The tourney started at 12. There was a smaller group for this tourney. We had about 60 players. They were paying 10. That sure sounded good to me. My table was pretty good. Again I started picking up post playing small ball. These guys were tight calling stations for the most part. There were a couple tourney savey players but that was all. Of course that isn’t always good news. It’s hard to play against calling stations. There was one guy at the table I couldn’t get a read on. He rarely showed down a hand. I couldn’t tell if he was a donk or an experienced player.
I was sitting in the 9 seat. (We were playing 10 handed.) We had a hand that the 8 seat was in. At the end he thought everyone had folded after the river and he mucked his cards face down on the table. The dealer says to wait because there is another player in the hand. It was the one seat and he started hollering that the hand was mucked and it was dead. The dealer explained that the cards weren’t dead until they hit the muck. He kept grumbling so much that the floor was called. The floor explained the cards were still in play and the hand continued. Lots of tension.
One round later I was sitting in the BB with 59o. No one raised so I got to see the flop. I hit 2 pair on the flop and had little doubt my had was good. I bet and got callers. The turn didn’t scare me so I bet again and I thought everyone had folded. I said “Big Blind Miracle” and flopped over my cards to show the 2 pair. Then I heard the dealer say that there was another player in the hand. Yep. Same guy. There was an obvious problem that the guy next to me and I made the same mistake. I appologized. I went ahead and bet. He called. And I won the hand. He made a big stink about it and called the floor over again. Guess what………… I got my first one round penalty. I didn’t kick up a fuss but as I left the table I said to the guy that it was a pretty chicken sh*t thing to do to call the floor. The floor heard me and said the dealers are required to call the floor when that happens. I looked at the guy and said “I’m sorry sir. I thought you had called the floor. I should have realized you wouldn’t do that for something that was so obviously a mistake.” The dealer nodded to me to let me know that he had insisted that the floor be called. My penalty drug out because they were playing slow and they colored up the chips. Finally I got back to my seat.
Warning…..to continue reading what transpired next may be painful to the skilled poker player.
Everything was just fine when I got KK in 2nd positon. UTG raised. I was getting ready to make my obvious reraise when at that exact moment my IDK (Inner Donkey) decided to come out and play. I’m not proud of what transpired next. I’m hoping to purge the awful memory by reporting it all here. Maybe someone can learn from my mistakes thereby creating me some good Poker Karma that I can use for PLAYING THE WORST HAND OF MY LIFE. It pains me to recall the details.
I’m sitting there with a preflop raise to 3x the big blind……1200 chips. My obvious and only move with all the calling stations around was to reraise to about 4,000 chips. I was just about to do that when my IDK stated CALL. Oh no. Did I just call that raise. My IDK said that we want to build a bigger pot. Right. You see where this is going right?
We end up with about 4 or 5 players in the pot. The flop comes 10xx two diamonds. Good flop for me. It’s checked to me. (Even the preflop raiser checked.) I bet out an appropriate amount. I don’t want him drawing to a flush. (I don’t remember the counts. Wish I’d written them down.) I only got one caller so we were heads up. Of course it was the guy I couldn’t get a read on. For some reason I put him on a set of 10’s. He could have AA JJ or QQ. I had bet enough to bet out any flush draws I thought. I did think that my KK were hidden by the fact I didn’t reraise. It did occur to me that without a read on this guy he could have anything. That is the one problem with playing there. There are really a lot of inexperienced players and it makes reading them hard. My biggest problem was I didn’t know what he was……experienced or inexperienced. He could have been a calling station calling me down with any pair.
The turn comes An Ace of diamonds. There are 3 diamonds on the board. I have the Kind of diamonds so that is the nut flush draw. He checks……
I wish I could say that I took the free card and hit the diamond for the nut flush and took the pot. Unfortunately it didn’t end up that way.
TAKE THE FREE CARD YOU IDIOT. You have to remember My IDK had shown up. Did I take the free card?………………HELL NO. I bet out. Did I think that I was pot committing him? No. I just bet out like it was the best thing to do. What did he do? Pushed in all his chips. Now I’m sitting there wondering if this was a check raise or he was just betting because he was pot committed.
again STUPID STUPID STUPID.
Then…..not caluculating the great pot odds I had…….I did what all WEAK AZZ players do. Looked at my chips and decided that I still had enough to come back from and folded.
I’ll never know what he had. I’ll never know if I would have gotten the diamond. I COULD HAVE SEEN THAT RIVER CARD FOR FREE.
Sigh. It will take me a long time to get over my total stupidity in that hand. I didn’t know you could make so many mistakes in one hand but I sure did it. I can’t even explain why I didn’t raise preflop.
On the bright side I learned a lot from it and I think in the end it will pay off greatly. Some things you can read in books but it desen’t hit home until you actually experience it yourself. Believe me I made a number of errors in this hand and I’ll remember it in the future.
Okay…..at this point I’ve had a penalty and played the worst hand of my poker life losing about 3/4 of my chips. I wasn’t in a happy place. A few hands later I was again in the blind and hit 2 pair. At the turn I was no reason I could be beat and went all in. I just didn’t happen to notice a little think like the BOARD HAD PAIRED 4′S ON THE TURN. Again……STUPID STUPID STUPID…..The same guy that took my money previously called and flipped over his hand. Quad 4’s. I was out. My biggest regret is that I never did find out if that guy was a donkey or a player. I guess I’ll never know.
Some days it would be better if you had just stayed home. I was having one of those days. LOL
I was out before the first break. How humiliating. It was terrible. I went and told Gyla I was out and saw she had a nice stack going. I wished her luck and I went to play more 3 Card Poker.
Gyla played a couple of hours more. I kept playing 3 card poker. I wanted to go check on her but so many times I’ll do that and suddenly something will happen and she’ll go out. I decided to sit and wait. Gyla finally came to tell me she was out 5 from the money. The same thing had happened to her that happened to me the day before. She went card dead after the 2nd break. She fianlly pushed with an AJs and got beat.
As she stood there telling me about busting out I hit 3 flushes in a row in 3 card poker. Nice. I decided it was time to up my bet but in conversation with her I put out my same bet. $10 in the front and $5 in the back. The cards were dealt and I picked mine up to find a beautiful KQJ of hearts. Can you spell Str8 Flush. Woo Hoo. 40-1 on the front bet. I won a total of $450 on the hand and cashed in for $775. That covered all our buy ins.
We headed back to Texas.
It was a great weekend. Mostly I learned that I need to play more live tournaments. Hopefully we can go back sometime soon. We both know we can win that tourney. We also know that there is some good experience to be gained there because there is such a wide variety of players. We are looking forward to going back. Next time I’m leaving my IDK home.
Ocean’s 11
Wednesday…..September 17th
Finally the day arrived for us to leave from California. We were so relieved to get approval to take our vacations with all the Hurricane Ike activity going on. We shut the house down. Cleaned all the food out of the fridge and cut off the main circuit breaker to the house and took off for the airport. We left early because the airport is air conditioned and we hoped to find some hot food there. What we did find when we got there were seats available on an earlier flight. We weren’t able to sit together but that was okay. We would take anything to get us to California as soon as possible.
I actually slept a good part of the way to CA. It is not normal for me to sleep on a plane especially on the way TO a vacation destination. It shows how tired I was from the storm. I only felt a little guilty about leaving Houston behind.
We arrived at the Orange County Airport in late afternoon. We went to the car rental. Some cash under the table got our “econo” car upgraded to a nice SUV. We took off for Oceanside. Gyla found It with no problems. We enjoyed our ride down the coast.
We were almost to the hotel when the phone rang. It was Linda and Jan waiting for our arrival. They came and greeted us at the hotel. We told all our hurricane stories then we headed off to Oceans 11 for some real food and poker. Gyla and I both played $4-8 limit but not for long. We were beat and made it an early night.
Thursday…..Sept 18th
We met Jan and Linda in the Lobby and went off to lunch. Some Cruise friends of theirs have an interest in a great restaurant at the end of a large pier in Oceanside where they treated us to a wonderful lunch. These two ladies (Judy and Karen I believe) were sisters and a real hoot. They are frequent cruisers so I implored them to join us on the Galveston Cruise in March.
From lunch we all moved on to Oceans 11 to meet the group for our journey to Ivey Ranch. That is where I found London and Roni. As I recall Hillary, Maui, Bonita, Julie, Cara were all there too. (Please forgive me if I’ve messed up that list. It’s been awhile.) How great it was to see them! We headed over to Ivey Ranch to find there were two types of jobs. Painting in the sun or planting in hard dirt. True confessions here………I’m not handy at all. I hate painting and my back and knees don’t allow me to do a lot of gardening. In choosing which I’d do I only had to see that Sun over the fence they’d be painting and I chose planting. Big mistake. I just couldn’t do it and ended up picking up empty plant cartons. I did my best but the heat got me. Julie and I ended up on the bench at the same time. One by one everyone else joined us. It was surprising how much we got accomplished before heading back to the hotel for a break before the evening festivities.
At the hotel we went to see Tana. She and her friends had arrived when we were at Ivey Ranch. I was reacquainted with Tana’s friend Robin and met Tana’s friend Karen from Missouri.
Thursday evening was a Welcome cocktail party in the tent. It was a great party. We had a great intro to our weekend with a round table with Linda Johnson, Suzie Isaacs, and Marsha Wagonner. We then had wonderful heavy hor d’oeuvres. I do think I played more limit poker that evening but I really don’t remember. We were also thrilled by the arrival of Michelle (Agntbluez). We were not sure if she was coming or not. We were happy she did. I do know it was a long day and we were in bed before midnight.
Friday……September 19th
Friday we were up early as Gyla had scheduled a massage in the room by Linda’s favorite massage therapist. What a hoot. This woman was serious. Gyla thought she would get a nice relaxing massage. Not with Espie. She was really working Gyla over. I could hear the yelps all the way down the hall as I escaped to go down for one of the excellent breakfasts served at the West Inn.
Finally Jan, Linda, Tana et al and Gyla all showed up and we loaded into our minivan for the trip O11 and the Lips tourney. I stood in the registration line with Cara (R You Freaking Kidding Me). We talked about how we hoped we got a table where we didn’t know anyone because we don’t like playing against our friends. Famous last words. Not only was Cara at my table but so was Bonita (Alfbo) and DeeDee (Slygolfer). To make matters even worse I looked up to find Pam Brunson filling the seat to my left. One of the infamous Hold’em Hotties from OK was to my right. It turned out to be a great table. Pam Brunson is the BEST. We had so much fun. She was playing with Casper, her Dad’s card cover. She told me her Dad had bought it back from Howard for her. She looked beautiful and she told me she’s lost 225 lbs. How is that for inspiration?
The play was good at the table and not crazy. I found that I was enjoying the camaraderie at the table as much as the poker. Pam cracked Bonita’s aces right off the bat and Bonita was out. I was pretty card dead but managed to keep my stack intact during the first couple of levels. I was content with how things were going until this hand comes up. I’ve got J10 in late position. It’s folded to me. I raise the standard amount. I get called by Pam on the button, the small blind, and Cara in the BB. Pot contains 1200. Flop comes J 9 7 two diamonds. I want to bet my top pair gut shot str8 draw to get out the diamond draws. I bet around 1500 over the pot size. That got everyone out but Cara. She is the one person I wanted out of the pot. She will bet you with anything. You can never put her on a hand. She’s also chipped up. The pot now has 4200 in it.
The turn comes an 8. I have hit my str8. Problem is it’s a diamond. Hmmmm. Cara bets out 800 chips. That is a small bet for that size pot. I get the feeling that she is feeling me out. I reraise her. She goes all in. I’m stuck now. I’m pot committed. I call and sure enough she has something like 5 8 of diamonds and I was out.
I really hate that I got caught up in a stupid hand like that. With anyone else the play probably would have succeeded but I’ve played with Cara enough to know that I needed to just play small ball. Later Cara told me that she bet out the 800 to try and let me know she had the flush because she didn’t want to put me out. Problem is all she did was give me pot odds to call. She could have had anything from trips to a hand like mine to the flush. You never know.
So I was out. Gyla was still in. I found Lucky Linda who hadn’t been so lucky either and a few others who were out. Linda and friends were on their way to visit Linda’s sister in law. I joined the group. We piled 7 in our rented SUV (thanks to our upgrade). We had a nice drive to see some of the country side. We spent a pleasant afternoon drinking cold drinks on Linda’s SIL’s terrace at her lovely home.
We arrived back at O11 in time to see our ladies finishing up the tourney. I was happy to see London, SDJen, TxHallHoldem, and Riverlady all at the final table. Go Lady Poker Sharks!!!! We railed awhile but it was time for dinner and I was starved. We headed out to the tent. It was an awesome night. The dinner was great. The entertainment was a talent show and believe me…..it was entertaining. River Lady sang a song from a Broadway Play and was wonderful. The highlight of the evening was a group of ladies doing a skit to the song Good Vibrations. It was about the funniest thing I’d ever seen. What a group they are!
Again we were back in our room before Midnight. Everyone was going in different directions after the show but we headed back to the motel. We are just a couple of party poopers. LOL
Saturday …………. Sept 20th
Saturday was the day of the CA State Championship. We went to register. I found myself at the table next to the one I started at in the LIPS tourney. Again I was in the No 2 seat and the same Hold Em Hottie was sitting next to me. Go figure. River Lady was sitting directly across from me at the other end of the table. Play started and I hit a straight on the flop. I picked up a nice pot. It was the last one for several hours. Like the day before I just survived. I picked up more trash hands then you can imagine. Someone was playing almost every pot so the stealing opportunities were slim. I hung in there for a very long time. I was moved to another table and got a seat next to Tonya (Desert Angel). Cara was also at that table. Cara had a tiny chip stack but managed to build up a nice stack. She ended up losing it and was out. Tonya was obviously still feeling the effects of the pneumonia. She didn’t look great but it didn’t hurt her poker. She did well and made the final table.
The only other big hand I had was when I was in the hand with A10o and the flop came 10 10 10. While I was trying to figure out how to handle it I hear someone betting ahead of me go all in. You can’t beat that. I was very relieved to double up. A few hands later I had pocket 10’s and raised. The person behind me went all in. It was a little more to call than I wanted to but I was pretty much committed so I called. She had JJ and I didn’t improve so my stack was short again. I made the mistake of not watching the clock and lost my fold equity when I went into the blind just as the blinds made a huge jump. I ended up going all in with 10 10 and got beat by an AK. I went out about 5 before the money.
Again I was disappointed. I hung in there longer than the previous day but I just didn’t get to play my game in either tourney. My cards were that bad. The only premium pair I picked up in both tourneys was KK. I was in the blind and wouldn’t you know…….it folded to me. I had AQ a few times but I don’t think I ever had AK. I could have done some stone cold bluffing but it’s just hard for me to push my chips in the middle and go out with an 8 3 os because some wakes up in the blinds with a hand.
After I went out a bunch of us used our lunch coupons to get some lunch. I played some 3 card Poker with Gyla. Fortunately she won because I didn’t (notice a theme for this trip). We went over to the Quality Inn where Jan and Linda were hosting a Wine and Cheese party for the LPS and the Hold ‘em Hotties among others. It was nice.
Finally it was dinner time. Again out in the tent. After dinner they had had some surprise entertainment. By special request the group that did the Good Vibrations number repeated the number they had done the previous year. All I can say is OMG……..it was as funny as Good Vibrations. All I can say is those ladies must have a lot of fun at their games. The theme was California Dreaming and they had a Beach Boys type band and they were great. I danced like I haven’t danced in many many years. All I can say is OMG. Whoever would have thought a dance with just women could be so much fun? After that we headed back to the hotel (by now you probably could have figured that out on your own).
Sunday …………. Sept 21
After breakfast we were back to Oceans 11 for the last tourney. This is the Tag Team Event. It is a Benefit for Ivey Ranch. Gyla played the Hold ‘em levels and I was going to play the Omaha H/L levels. I’d learned OHL for this event but had never played live before. I knew it would be a challenge handling 5 cards. They set up cash tables that would alternate play with what was being played in the tourney. They started with Hold ‘em in the tourney so the Cash started with OHL. I sat down to play but really wasn’t in the mood to play cash.
Gyla didn’t fare too well in the first level of Hold ‘Em. I found my seat to be between Jakie (PocketJacks) on my right and Lupe on my left. Oh Great. Not only would I make a fool of myself dealing with four cards but I’d do it in front of friends. In the end I didn’t do too badly. I picked up a few chips but nothing great. Gyla didn’t fare to well in the cash game either. Our chips were down but I didn’t really care because I still didn’t want to play. I made a half hearted attempt until it was my turn to play in the tourney again. I didn’t catch much to play but managed to go out about even. I was playing very conservatively. That was our plan.
I handed it back over to Gyla. We were out of chips in the cash game and I didn’t want to put any more money in it so I just wandered around till it was my time to play again. I checked in with Gyla just before the end of the level. She had 1 $500 chip left. We urged the dealer to hurry so she could get it all in before the break. She went all in blind. In the end she had AJs but was beat by the BB. We went off to have lunch and to do other things.
We ended up in 3 card poker again. We played with Roni, Tana, and London. It was fun. The dealers were having fun with us. I managed to hit trips TWICE so I won about $300. We won our buyin back from the Tag Team tourney anyway. Linda Johnson came up to the table and we had the pleasure of teaching her 3 card poker. She played about 7 hands and won all of them. She walked away up about $140. They don’t call her Lucky Linda for nothing.
Gyla got up to leave which pushed the hand that would have been London’s to the woman who took Linda’s place. Wouldn’t you know it that hand was a straight flush. If Gyla had stayed one more hand it would have been London’s. That game can be just as sick as poker.
Everything was winding down at this point. A lot of people were leaving so we said good bye to a lot of our friends. We had the awards dinner that night. London, Roni, Gyla, and I sat at Jan and Linda’s table. We got to visit with Linda’s Mom and Linda’s Sister in Law who I had met the day before. Once again dinner was wonderful. The awards started with Linda and Jan’s top 10 awards. They were all funny. Gyla received an award for the one who needed to find a new hobby because she had gone out early in all 3 tourneys. Actually that wasn’t true but it was funny. Gyla turned the tables on them when she got on the microphone and said she owed it all to the lessons she been taking from Jan and Linda for 3 years at $300 an hour. Everyone cracked up at that one. Cara got the award for being a Party Animal. (I’d explain that one but my What Happens at O11 Stays at O11.) I wish I could remember more but I can’t. Beautiful Crystal Bowls were presented to the winners of the tourneys and gifts given to our O11 Hostesses. There was a lot of recognition to staff was made and it was well deserved. It was a very well run event and I don’t give that praise out often.
All day long they had been announcing the names of winners of drawings they were holding for cash. It was a casino promotion. They kept scanning our cards all weekend for entries into the drawing. Suddenly in the tent there was this big commotion. A woman came in yelling something and suddenly Linda got up and ran out. She had just won $1100 in the drawing. She truly is Lucky Linda.
Gyla and I were headed to Michelle’s for the night so it was time for good-byes. It was tough. I wasn’t ready to leave everyone. We didn’t know if we were going to have electricity when we got home and I knew I had to report to storm duty in South Houston on Tuesday. It was tough. We said our good byes and headed out.
We found our way to Michelle’s lovely condo and visited some with Michelle and Frank before heading to bed. The next morning we made it to the airport early enough to have a good breakfast. While we were eating the electricity went out in the whole airport. They said it was the first time in 18 years that had happened. We felt like we were jinxes. They kept the airport running but we were going to have to go down stairs to the runway and up stairs to the plane. That was not going to be fun with the heavy computers we were carrying. Fortunately the electricity came on before we left so that problem was solved.
We got home to find that our electricity had been turned on and my EOP assignment had been changed to a place closer to home. We were able to wash clothes and put food in the refrigerator again. What we used to take for granted we now considered a luxury. It was good to be home.
It was a truly awesome trip. Oceans 11 casino is small but excellently run. It has the friendliest dealers and all the food is awesome. Suzanne Carter and crew really put on a first class event. I won’t miss another one.
