Tulalip Casino

Since this is called "PokerHobo", I thought I'd talk about my recent trip to Tulalip to play some poker. A bunch of the coworkers I normally play poker with wanted to take a trip to Tulalip to play some poker. It's been awhile since I've played at a real casino, I thought I'd join them as I could carpool with them (it would be a long drive if I couldn't). They had a $90 MTT (Multi-Table Tournament) where the top 10 are paid. Note that I'll be introducing commonly used poker acronyms as I'll just use them in the future, but I'll define them the first time I use them.
So the tournament starts at 11am, and 3 of us decide to get there by 10am to ensure we could get in. We actually got there about 10:15am and it wasn't a problem buying a seat. To kill the time, we ate at the buffet which was not bad for $10 as it was a brunch type menu.

For $90, you get 4000 in chips. For the first few hands, there wasn't anything wild going on and I won a few pots but it was still early. On one key hand, I get AdKd (Ace of diamonds and King of diamonds). Blinds were still low 25/50. I believe there were several limpers, so I make a decent raise (something like 6xBB (Big-Blind)) and get two callers. The flop is AQJ two hearts I believe. Given the raise, I didn't think anyone would have called with KT (King + Ten, it would have been stupid, but stupid does happen, but didn't happen in this case). So with TPTK (Top Pair, Top Kicker), I make a pot sized bet. One person folds and the other calls. So I figure this guy might have AT hearts or worst case AQ, AJ. AA, QQ, JJ would have reraised me pre-flop most likely. And KK would have folded unless he had the K of hearts. The next card was a blank. I bet out and he calls again. I'm now thinking he might have AQ or AT hearts. River is an Ace. This Ace means that it's less likely he has an Ace, but then it doesn't make sense why he would be calling unless he had QQ or JJ. I decide to check, and he goes all-in. I have him covered so I wouldn't be busting out if I call. Since there's really only 4 legitimate hands that beat me, I just couldn't fold and I called him. I asked him if he had the boat (fullhouse), and sure enough he did. So at this point, I'm pretty crippled, but I still have about 300 chips left.

Next hand I'm UTG (Under The Gun, meaning left of the BB, first to act). I look down at KK. I push All-In as I only have 6xBB, it doesn't make sense to raise and given the previous bad beat (preflop anyways), they may think I'm on tilt. So to my surprise, I get about 6 callers. This is not good as KK against one player is good, but against 6 callers, I'm more likely to lose than win. However, the guy behind the button decides to raise. He puts in a big enough raise that everyone else folds. This is great unless he has AA. He has AQo (offsuit) so I'm about 70% to win. I figured that several of the other callers must have has an Ace as well, so I'm pretty good to get a lot of chips back. He of course flops an Ace and I'm out of the tournament. Oh well.

For the remainder of the time, I played in a cash game. $200 buy-in with $3/$5 blinds. Because of the Washington Gambling Commission, the max single bet is $500, but at these stakes, this is usually an all-in anyways. There were two key hands that cost me a bunch of money. One hand I had AQo and raised and got two callers. I don't recall exactly what happened, but the end result is that I flopped an Ace and rivered a Q giveing me top two. I bet out $100. The first person goes all in, I figure I have him beat and I think he had less than $100 at this point anyways. The other guy then reraises me all-in for $600 I think. I had about $400 sitting in front of me. I think for a long time about what he could possibly have. He had min-raised pre-flop so I thought there was a possibility he had AA. It didn't make sense for him to re-raise me if he had a bad hand, so I decide to flop. He had KT and hit the gut-shot straight on the river. It was a good fold even though my read wasn't correct because he was gambling on a long shot (gutshot was about 7% to win on the river since I already had one of the Q). What a donkey! Although that pot was expensive, I didn't lose all my money.

The other big hand that cost me a bunch I had 77. I limped in, someone raised and I called. The flop is 7KK. I didn't want to slow play this, because if no one hit this flop, I wouldn't get any action anyways, so I make a small bet. I get raised so I go all-in. He has AK. The turn is a blank and he spikes an Ace on the river. I was about 85% to win before the river showed up. What an unlucky day.

So I ended up playing about 10 hours of cash games and I've decided that I do not want to be a pro playing cash games. I much prefer tournaments, so I'll stick with that from now on. Just sitting there for that long gets quite uncomfortable. I was actually ready to leave much early but due to carpooling, I needed to wait for my driver to go.