"You Must Have a 6th Sense"

On my first Sunday in Vegas, I got a late start for the day and didn't make it to my first poker session until after dinner (it was an early dinner, but it was after dinner none-the-less).  I got stuck in my room because I had to finish my Ante Up column.  So it was about 6pm or so when I finally got settled into a seat at Planet Hollywood after waiting for about 10 minutes.

This was an unusual game for PH—it was very tame, actually pretty dull.  Usually the games are pretty wild there.  Not this time.

How tame?  Well early on I called $10 from the button with King-10 of hearts, then folded to a three-bet of $25.  Two guys went at it heads up.  There was betting every street and on the river they both got it all-in. They turned over pocket Aces and pocket Kings!. Neither had improved at all and I should mention that there were two Queens on the flop.  I couldn't believe they didn't get it all-in preflop.  The guy who initially raised and then called the three-bet was the guy with Aces!  Very strange that he didn't four-bet, especially since he was the big stack at the table.. And this was Planet Hollywood, a room where you could easily see two players get it all-in with 7-2 and 10-3!  By the way, I'm not so sure I'd be that happy about getting it all in with either Aces or Kings once those pair of Queens showed up

I called $10 with pocket 9's.  It was heads up and the flop was Queen-hi; no 9.  He c-bet $15 and I decided to call in case he was just c-betting with an Ace-King type of hand.  The board bricked out and there was no more betting.  He showed King-Jack and my 9's were good.  The guy was obviously surprised to see that I had called his flop bet.  The guy next to him said to me, "Oh, what a call! You must have a sixth sense."  I thought, but did not say aloud, "No, it's called a float, look it up."

Despite that "monster" pot I was losing as I couldn't catch anything else.  My stack dwindled down to about $85-ish.  Ordinarily I would have added on but by this time the table had thinned out quite a bit.  That's the trouble with playing between 6 and 8 pm.  People start leaving for dinner or evening plans and it takes awhile for the evening crowd to file in.  So people left the table and there were no replacements coming.  I was just about to take off, as it was five-handed, when two new players came, obviously they were buddies and also obviously they weren't experienced at the game.  I thought I'd stick around awhile.  But they each only bought in for $140.  By this time a couple of the players, including a woman who appeared to be a reg, started asking if they could break the table.  The floor said no, she didn't want to start breaking tables so early.  With a short table and no big stacks at the table, I didn't feel the need to buy more chips.  I was just gonna play  another orbit or two to see if more players showed up.  I was actually hoping they'd break the table (or another one) so we could combine and play at a full game.

Anyway, there was an aggro who had come not long before and proceeded to piss away most of his $300 buy-in in pretty quick fashion.  He was down to his last $19 and he shoved, under-the-gun. I had Ace-King of spades in the big blind. I started thinking about raising if there were any callers.    But one of the new guys raised to $50 first.  Hmmm.....I wasn't going anywhere, not with my stack of only ~$85.  And it made no sense to just call.  I shoved.  The new guy snapped called.

The short stack showed his cards: 6-3 of clubs.  Really?  The Spanish Inquisition?  I certainly didn't expect that.  He must be a fan of Grange's now nearly defunct blog. But the other player didn't show so I didn't show either.  I really liked the flop, which had two Aces on it.  After a brick on the turn, the case Ace showed up on the river.  I must say, it had been a pretty long time since I'd gotten quads.

That was a decent double-up, but more players kept leaving the table, and we were back down to five players.  The lady on my right made one more plea to break the table and once again she refused.  There was no reason to stay, four small stacks to fight for pots with.  I decided to leave as a protest to their refusal to break the game as much as anything else.  So I racked up and said to the other players, "I'll make it easy for you.  I'm leaving so they'll have to break the game."  Note: they did have enough seats elsewhere for the four of them, I'm not sure if they could have handled five but we could have drawn for seats and the wait for the odd-man out wouldn't have been very long.

So I took a walk over to Bally's, having dropped $20 at PH.

I had to wait a bit for a seat.  Then, early on, in the small blind, I called $7 with 7-6 of diamonds.  It was seven-way.  The flop was 8-6-6, two hearts.  I checked and the preflop raiser bet $12, there was a call and I made it $30.  They both called.  I bet $40 on a 10, one caller.  But I checked the river, which was another 10.  My thought was that I had the bottom boat on a double paired board, play it safe.  But of course now I'm thinking that someone getting to the turn with a 10 is pretty unlikely.  Anyway,  The guy showed just an 8.  The other guy said he folded an 8 on the turn.

Then I got pocket Aces and after a couple of limps, I made it $12.  Two players called my raise. Then one of the blinds shoved his last $70 and it folded back to me.  To be honest, I'm not sure what the proper play is in that situation.  He made such a big raise, it would be unlikely anyone else would call after I called.  So maybe there's no point in raising?  I dunno.  I guess if one of those two left wanted to play for $70 against my Aces I should have been ok with that.  But I decided to raise instead.  Just couldn't help myself.  You get Aces preflop, you just keep raising until you get a fold or a call.  At least that was my thought at the time, but thinking about now I'm thinking a call would have been better.  Of course it likely made no difference.  What do you think, should I have just called?

Well, I made it $130 and of course the other two players folded. He showed Ace-Queen and groaned when I showed my rockets.  He did catch a Queen on the turn—but no runner runner for him and I dragged the pot. 

I was pretty much card after that so I ended up leaving up $120.  So for the night, I made exactly $100.  I was reasonably happy about that.