It may seem that I have not been playing much poker lately and truth be told, I haven’t been playing as much as I like. With the next couple weeks being the holiday season I’ll have some more time to dedicate to my Sit N Go challenge. I made it up to Black Hawk Sunday the 16th and I played for 12 hours. I booked a $175 profit or 2.9 Big Blinds per hour, not bad. It was a pretty interesting day in all and I was reminded of what an odd bunch poker players are.

I arrived up the Hill at 2:30 in the afternoon. I had played at the Gilpin last time and booked a good win but I wanted to play at Central Station. When I pulled up in the parking lot it was dead. I sat there for a minuet waiting for a valet but no one came. The valet service is not that great at Central Station but it doesn’t bother me too much. I figured something was up and that the poker room was mostly likely dead so I decided to go to Golden Gates.

The Gates is my favorite room in Black Hawk. The valet service is always great and the guys/girls are very cordial. I was surprised that the room was so busy and that there was a waiting list. It seems that most of the Station players had made their way over to the Gates because a water sprinkler line had busted and caused some problems. The Station was temproraly closed. A couple of the players who were there made it sound as if a water main had broken and flooded the room and that they expected it to be closed for days. I called and emailed the Station poker room to see exactly what had happened though and they were open for business the next day.

Overall the play was pretty bad at the table but there were about 4 players who were pretty good. I played ABC poker and tried to chill out on my raising. I raise more than the average player when I play limit, but with two good players to my right and one 3 seats to my left I was being held in check. It was weird though because it was the first time where we all just stayed out of eachothers way and picked off the shitty players. The Asian guy 3 to my left would tap the table when I would win a pot and I would do the same. All of us had been showing down strong hands when we opened with raises and I became very comfortable with the flow of the play. I had built my initial $100 into $200 and the Asian had about $400 behind him when an interesting hand came up.

There was a young lady who was a pretty good player, but had mentioned she is much better in tournament situations. Thinking back on her play you could see some of the adjustments she failed to make. The funny thing was is her boyfriend was playing at the table and he was just God awful. He busted multiple times and she gave him money to stay in the game. Anyway, I mention her because she was a solid player and was involved in the biggest pot of the day/night.

The Asian was in the 4 seat, she was in the blind in the 8 seat, and I was in the 10 seat. I open the pot for $7 with QsQc and it folds around to the 4 seat. He looks down at his cards very quickly and stares at me for a few seconds and 3 bets it. She calls the 3 bets and it ends up getting capped ($27) 3 players to the flop. At this point I’m not concerned about her flat calling the whole time, but I’m concerned about the Asian’s hand. We have been staying out of each others way and he knows that I have been opening with very strong hands from early position. I put his range AA, AK, and KK really. I don’t see him capping with AQ, AJ, JJ, 10-10 or anything like that since he has to know I would only have AA, KK, QQ, AK at this point.

Right before the flop came out the 4 seat stands up. I had seen him do this earlier in the day and he had a very mediocre hand. He tried to intimidate the player on later streets by staring at them and telling them to muck. The flop came out JJA and I wasn’t too happy about it. I lead out to see what he would do. He immediately raised and the girl called. At this point I don’t like my hand but I had a feeling that he could be trying to push me off my hand with the girl just calling behind me. I re-raised and so did he. The girl capped the betting figuring that was the future action. A King came off on the turn and things just kept getting worse. I checked and he bet, the girl called again and I raised to try to push her off the pot. The pot was huge at this point so I wasn’t going anywhere knowing I was likely beat. He just called and the girl folded. The river was a Q and I still wasn’t sure I was ahead. I bet into him and he raised me again. I said, “you know the way you’ve played this hand I have to believe you have Aces or Kings but there’s know way I can fold this pot to you at this point.” He said, “yeah, yeah, I have Kings, muck. What do you have?” I called and he said, “well what do you have?” I tabled my pocket Queens and he became furious, flicking his cards with his middle finger and throwing down AdJd for the flopped boat.

Overall, I played the hand pretty bad but I was going to the river regardless due to the pot size. I was surprised that he got all crazy pre-flop with AJ but he temporarily struck gold. He stayed at the table for 2 hands and tilted pretty bad and moved over to a new table. The girl said, “One of you better have show a boat or I would have flipped out.” She had K-10 of diamonds.

The rest of the night was somewhat uneventful until one of the players got kicked out. An old Asian man had been playing at the table all day. He was super tight and didn’t speak much. He had left to get some food. He had been back for about 30 minuets when a floor man came to the table and said I need to speak to you. At first, I thought he was looking and pointing at me. It was clear he was in trouble.

Floor man: “Did you go over to the ___ and get some food?”

Old guy: “Yes”

Floor: “Did you throw food at the server?”

Old man: “No”

Floor: “Yes you did, don’t lie to me. The server said you ordered your food and threw it at her. You don’t throw food at employees. Gather your chips and get the hell out of here.”

They moved away from the table and finished their discussion. The old man returned shortly and collected his chips. He’ s a regular there so I don’t think he got eighty-sixed or anything, but I can’t believe someone would act like that. Through out the day I sat with a bunch of unique individuals. The jerk, the 2 musicians, the accountant, 5 crazy asians, and all the friendly dealers.

Happy Holidays!