Casino Arizona

I just spent a week in Phoenix playing $5-150 spread limit with a $350 capped buy-in. It started out great with a $1,700+ cashout my first night. But then I ran bad and played blackjack, which I never do and for good reason since I have not won at blackjack since I moved to Vegas. So I ended up winning like three hundred dollars for the trip.

World Series of Poker is like a week away. Re-Bet and myself have a plan. This is going to be interesting, exciting, scary, and I hope really profitable.

May Challenge, Day 7 and Final Results

Total Profits
Highwaytime: $2,130
Carolina John: $1,641
Re-Bet: $1,366

Biggest Chip Stack
Carolina John: $1,571

Opponent Knockouts
Carolina John: 46
Re-Bet: 32
Highwaytime: 29

So it's Sunday morning at Planet Hollywood and we've been playing all night. This is our last May Challenge session. Some guy sits at the other end of the table with a $200 max buy-in. He scans the table, looking at the other players and their chip stacks.

Re-Bet, Carolina John, and myself are sitting in the 2, 3, and 4 seats, and when he scans our end of the table he loses his cool and does a cartoonish doubletake. The look of confusion and consternation on his face when he sees our chips stacks is beautiful. We are all chip shuffling $100 black chips.

It's a good session overall. At our high point we all have over $1,100 in front of us and each of us cover the rest of the table combined.

The last two days I am known as Sylar to some players in town for the weekend. Carolina John said something at the table how I looked and acted like him, and at first I argued but it occurred to me it's a good poker personae to be the guy that takes your chips and steals your brain. You don't really want to fuck with that guy.

Carolina John wants to claim overall victory in the May Challenge because he won Opponent Knockouts and Biggest Chip Stack, but in reality I took down the big elephant by winning in the most important category, Total Profits.

And I won the "9-high Ship It Challenge." To win you had to--

(A) Show a 9-high bluff
(B) Say, "Nine High. Ship it!"
(C) Get pushed the pot

So the week was fun and profitable, but I don't think I've ever played so much in one week. I'm going to take the day off.

May Challenge, Day 6

Total Profits
Highwaytime: $1,510
Re-Bet: $1,016
Carolina John: $835

Biggest Stack
Highwaytime, $1,480

Opponent Knockouts
Carolina John, 33
Highwaytime, 25
Re-Bet, 23

I am about to share with you the secret of my comeback in the May Challenge.

I took a break from the tables a couple sessions ago (Day 4) to get something to eat with Re-Bet. After we ate, we were walking back to the poker room through the mall that adjoins the casino. On our way, we encountered a store with the classic animatronic fortune teller Zoltar. I bought a fortune for a dollar, kept the printed wisdom, and since then everything is working.

May Challenge, Day 5

Total Profits
Highwaytime: $1,099
Carolina John: $895
Re-Bet: $486

Biggest Stack
Highwaytime, $1,480

Opponent Knockouts
Carolina John, 26
Highwaytime, 20
Re-Bet, 16

May Challenge, Day 4

Total Profits
Re-Bet, $894
Highwaytime, +$337
Carolina John, +$181

Biggest Stack
Highwaytime, $1,480

Opponent Knockouts
Highwaytime, 17
Carolina John, 16
Re-Bet, 15



Thirty-two hours of poker. Started out way in the hole but cashed out almost fifteen hundred. What a sick session.

It's funny how people view you as a wild and aggressive player when you accumulate a big chip stack. Don't get me wrong. When I'm sitting behind a thousand dollars or more in a $200-cap game I won't be playing timidly, but I'm not going to be trying to outplay the entire table every hand like some guys want to think I am. Last night I moved to a new table with a $1,400 stack. I hadn't been there for a whole button round when a hand came up where a lot players were limping into my straddle pot, and the player next to me said, "Wow, look at all these limpers. Everybody wants to play for four dollars. Of course knowing you, when it's your turn it'll suddenly be a hundred!" I had never seen this guy before and had played only one hand at his table, in which I was not out of line. But he was dead serious.

I won a lot of my chips in no limit crazy pineapple against the player known as Big Marietta or Crazy Town. He is a cheerful chemist who constantly looks like he just stepped out of a shower. Throughout the session he would lose hundreds at poker and leave the room and return a few hours later with blackjack winnings. Apparently he cannot possibly lose at blackjack. For a while it was three-handed crazy pineapple with Re-Bet and Big Marietta, and it was a bloodbath.

The crazy pineapple came to an end when the shift manager was called for a decision and realized for the first time that there was a no limit crazy pineapple game being played in his house. He said, "There is no such thing as no limit crazy pineapple," and told us that this would be the last hand. He gave an explanation why, basically that it is a game where players control too much of the action and a lot of disputes will arise, too many for a no limit game where whole stacks are at stake. I didn't agree but I didn't see any point in arguing. Other shift managers knew about it and allowed it and I will just play it again on someone else's shift.

So if we look at the scoreboard now, what do we find? The results are quite interesting, yes?

May Challenge, Day 3

Total Profits
Re-Bet, +$594
Carolina John, +$309
Highwaytime, -$233

Biggest Stack
Re-Bet, $1,205

Opponent Knockouts
Carolina John, 12
Re-Bet, 7
Highwaytime, 6

Sucks when you are completely card-dead, then flop top set and get all the money in on the flop and lose to a two-outer on the river. Meanwhile you are watching Re-Bet putting it all in with two outs and hitting and laughing maniacally.

Things got a little better when we switched to no limit crazy pineapple. One thing I really like about the Planet Hollywood room is they will spread pretty much whatever game you want as long as you have a few players who want to start a game.

No more messing around. I am putting on the "conductor hat" and bringing my iPod. It's all over but the crying.

May Challenge, Day 2

Total Profits
Carolina John, $114
Highwaytime, -$53
Re-Bet, -$106

Biggest Stack
Carolina John: $1,125

Opponent Knockouts:
Carolina John, 11
Highwaytime, 4
Re-Bet, 4

Just to show how bad I was running for most of this session, I made a $5 bet with dealer Chico that he couldn't shut up for his entire down except to speak to facilitate the flow of the game in his capacity as dealer, and I lost the bet. I was down about $600 at one point but managed to keep it respectable by session's end, which was about eight in the morning.

Carolina John had a swingy session but as you can see from his KO and stack size numbers the hat is back and in full effect. When he was at one of his low points, Kevin, after catching a two-outer against John on the turn, challenged him to a heads-up session. I was walking by their table when this happened and I couldn't believe he was seriously calling John out like that. I later asked John about it, and it turns out Kevin was indeed serious.

Todd was on his way to another spewy, disastrous performance before he turned it around big time, so congrats to him. The high point was his self-described "courtesy check" on the flop with trip tens against John's AA. It's unclear how courteous it really was since he checkraised to $300, but the Gambling Duke would understand.

My friend Roland, who is almost exclusively an internet player, came out to eat with us and afterwards he decided to sit down in the game. We got a rotation PLO/NLHE game, which was good since we have both been playing a lot of PLO lately. He had a rough session but hopefully we will see him come out again and book a good win.

As a final note, Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi, along with his brother Robert, Mark Gregorich, and some other high stakes players have been playing $100/point Chinese poker the past couple days in the back of the Planet Hollywood poker room. It is rumored that The Grinder will be an official sponsor of the room.

May Challenge, Day 1

Total Profits
Highwaytime: $147
Carolina John: -$140
Re-Bet: -$166

Biggest Stack
Carolina John, $580

Opponent Knockouts
Highwaytime, 1
Carolina John, 0
Re-Bet, 0

John claims he was at a disadvantage this session because he forgot to wear his special black baseball cap to the poker room. It is an indispensible part of his poker arsenal and without it he was generally out-of-sorts and not himself.

Calm Before the Storm

So I haven't been playing too much the past few days, just putting in some online hours here and there. Been mixing in NLHE with the PLO. My opinion is that < 200 max NLHE on UB is easier to crush than on FT, whereas conversely I think the PLO games are tougher on UB than on FT at those stakes. My BB/100 is about 10 for both games on UB this month.

This hand is not exactly representative but is crazy enough to post.

Yeah, K7 dude insta-called the flop for almost a full buy-in with an ace on board after two guys pushed in front of him. He was the preflop 3-bettor and when he called so fast I was like, fuck, top set? Err, no, actually it's no pair and no draw.

These few days are really the quiet time. These next two months may be pivotal for me as a poker player. Re-Bet and myself have a plan for attacking a soft spot in the WSOP this year, but to be properly bankrolled for it I need to have a solid May.

Fortunately Carolina John and Re-Bet will both arrive in town in a few days, which should fire my competitive instincts. I'll be playing live pretty much all day and every day while they're in Vegas.

We haven't worked out all the sidebets yet, but be assured we will have several.