40...The Beau...and FREE nights at Harrah's Hotel

I pulled a nice session Thurday night at Harrah's and felt that I played really well, even though the results did not reflect this. I got there at about 4:30pm and sat in a 1-2nl game with $300.00 and the only person I know in the game is Summerall. The game turned out to be somewhat of a juicy table as my reads on every person turned out to be right on. It turned out that I was going to be a on a "Freeroll" for this session as I got away from some hands early that would have surely busted my first buy-in. About an hour in I pick up A-Qo from the button and call a raise from the mid-position player of $15.00. We also get 3 other callers. Flop comes out Q-J-5 rainbow when someone fires out $60.00. The original raiser also calls and I go in the tank. I was thinking of the articles I have been reading from Hellmuth recently, and Bill and I have talked about trying to emulate his game. I pitch my top pair top kicker in the muck and the post flop raiser tables J-5 after busts the original raiser for one buy-in. I played regular for about another hour when the following hand came up. I knuckled from the BB with 5 other limpers with 10s-9s and the flop comes out Qc9c10h. I did not like that flop flop so I knuckled to see what action would transpire behind me. Raise...re-raise around to me. I decide to channel my inner Hellmuth and ditch this hand as I did not like the flop at all with the straight out there. Needless to say the hand wind up playing out as follows...Turn was a 9h and the river was the 3s...your boy tables pocket 10's to snap off the villain in the 4 seat. I am now on a freeroll. I should be busted out after those 2 hands and I cannot but think of how Phil H. does it. I was amazed with the man last year when I watched him fold pocket Kings....and what was it Queens also? I just decided I was going to try to play as solid as I can and I am now freerolling for this buy-in. After another 2 hours I am literally down to $35.00 and I work it all the way back up to $200.00. After another hour I am back down to $45.00 and I pump it back up to $185.00. At about 1:00am lots of people start to leave and there are lots of changes when someone sits down to my left. I don;t pay any attention to him and I continue with my game. It was I think 2 hands later when I glance to my left and ..."TEX...Where did you come from". My buddy Tex had snuck into the seat on my left and I had not even noticed...even though a couple of beers could have been the culprit also.

Saturday night was my 40th birthday, and my wife and I headed to New Orleans to party and have dinner...and of course play a little poker. BTW...I think I mentioned this before but Daniel Negreanu and I were born on the same day. Anyhow...We ate at Besh's Steakhouse in the Casino, and it was ...Well...OK. I had the blackened Redfish and it was really good, but the dessert Julie ordered kind of sucked. I headed to the tables after this, and ran into Tex right as I walked in the door. I followed him to the 2-5nl table and lay a behold there was JoeB and MattB and Tex all sitting on the right hand side of the table, and what do you know...there was a seat right in the middle of them where a guy was racking up his chips...SCWEEET. I sit down and join the party. We have Joe in the 1 seat, Me in the 2, Tex in the 3 and Matt in the 4. Needless to say we had a blast. I kind of noticed a few "Mumbles" and heads turning on the other side of the table though as we started doing shots of Jagerbombs with a toast ...to whatever...My Birthday...Our friend Marvin...whatever. Julie and scooted out about 1pm as we had to bring her to the airport in the morning as she is heading to Vegas for her job. Yea, how you like that, My wife is heading to Vegas and I am stuck back here in Louisiana...Oh well. I racked up most of my stack and it looked like all I did was "Bleed" off a little...I think $60.00

Sunday...Dropped Julie off at the airport at 9am for 2 weeks. Damn...What am I going to do for 2 weeks while she is gone?? PLAY POKER...immediately got on the phone...There's a nooner at the Beau and I am an hour and a half away...I steer the Jeep toward the coast...Hit Reid with a Text and get a confirmation from him in minutes that he is heading that way also. ...SCWEEEET.
I think we had about 60-70 people and get seated next to these 2 guys that just drove in from Pensacola to play. They are both seated next to me and together as they signed up late. Side note here for a shout-out: I also got to meet Eric C the new Tourney Director and he says he reads the site/blogs all the time...Thanks a bunch Man!!!...So the 2 P'cola guys are chatting it up as we get the cards in the air, and they seem like good players. 6 hands later one of them is crippled when his Pocket Aces gets cracked by K-Jo and 4 more hands and he is out...That sucks.
I got crippled on the following hand. We are in the 4th level with the blinds at 50/150/300. I limp in with 5 other people from the SB with Jh8c and the flop hits Jc7h3s...I knuckle and curley top with the black windbreaker on that has just moved to our table makes it 600 to go...everyone folds to me. Now I have not played with this guy before so I am being somewhat cautious and trying to control the size of the pot. I don't want to play a huge hand here, but thats exactly what I wind up doing. Turn peels off the 8c. wash, rinse, repeat. I knuckle while he bets 600...I smooth call. River is the Ah. I knuckle and now he fires out 1200. Now there are lots of hands that beat me, but I just did not have him on an Ace...and if he did have a dry Ace, I have him for a nice size pot...I call and he tables As7c...WOW. This drops me to 8BB's as I only had 2700 left...a couple of hands later I look down at As-8s and the guy UTG raise to 600...I ship from MP and Windbreaker boy re-shoves from the blinds and the knucklehead UTG calls...and turns up A-J...A-J after a shove and re-shove...How could he think he was god there? Oh well...windbreaker boy tables pocket Queens to have us both in trouble...spade on the flop...spade on the turn and suddenly I have suck-out possibilities and bam...heart on the river and GeneD is bounced. I stuck around and played some 1-2nl cash as I still had some horses as Reid got down to 3 tables. Was able to get my entry back. It is so cool to have that "Sting" of getting bounced from a tourney only to head to the cash game and get that sting soothest once you win your entry back...Now your ready to go again. Also got to meet Marc one of Reids former co-workers...super cool guy. After Reid hit the rail with 2 tables left, he and I hit the bar for a couple of cold beers and chatted for a quite awhile. I really enjoyed our conversation.

From there I headed back to Louisiana and headed back into Harrah's to finish off Sunday night. Jack Simpson was there and got to chat it up with him for awhile. This hand sticks out at me...I had AKo on the button and I call a $20.00 pre-flop raise from a guy in the 1 seat that I tried to get a prop bet with (More on that later) and we see the flop heads up...A-9-4...he checks I fire out $20.00 and he smooths. Turn is another 4...Check-Check...river the Q...He check min-raises me to $60.00 and I call...He turns A-Q. I was talking to one of the guys that commented bout "Slow" playing there...Slow Playing??? I asked him, "What...you thought I could get him off A-Q with an Ace on the board...you think he would have folded?"...No I think I lost the minimum I could in that situation....I don't know.

OK...prop bet story....again the ipod thing came up at the table right after the above hand and I explain that it is "NOT THE STATE POLICE"....that it is Harrah's and go on to explain that I play poker with my ipod and headphones ay numerous tables around the State...and they start arguing with me...and then Shreveport cam up and this guy claimed you cannot listen to ipods in S-port and I laid a hundo out on the table and said, "Wanna Bet...I will call the casino's right now"...he crawfished. One cool thing I got was there were walking around the poker room giving out FREE hotel rooms to poker players...SCWEEETT. I will be playing at Harrah's every night this week

Other stuff...Congrats go out to:
--Tim "Raisin Cajun" Hebert for his 5th place finish in the $200.00 Orleans open for close to 10 large
--Jeremy "thechmist83" Gaubert for finishing 58th in the Main Event of the WSOP for $115,000.

Other rants from the podcast:

--Haralabos rips Scotty a new one in an episode of Big Poker Sunday...seems Scotty got all sauced up on the set of the 50k H.O.R.S.E event and was acting a fool...MFing people and the dealer. Haralabob was just kind of pissed because it was supposedly DeMichel who got he heat.

--BarryG and JoeS meet with Russ Hamilton to get his side of the story. First Russ was going to goon the show himself until his lawyers stepped in. So Barry and Joe meet with him to gather the necessary info and go on the show themselves...basically what we got was a whole lot of nothing. Not digging at BG and JS as they were in a tough spot. From what I gathered there was money won on UB from a superuser account and that money was transferred off the site to Russ H's house....HHMmmmm...suspecious you say?

--I mentioned earlier about using the cash games to gain your confidence back when you are playing in a tournament series. I find this essential in my success at tournament series. I learned this from Clonie Gowan as she was amazed that JoeS and GavinS only play tournaments and no cash games. She commented about how she would fell just losing...over and over again. When your bummed about busting out of tournament and book even a small win...it helps

--Another guest that I really liked was David singer. When asked about how he is so successful he gave the Bruce Lee analogy of "Becoming Water". Thats it folks...you need to become water. In other words conform...adapt to the situation around you. You pour water in a teapot then the water forms and becomes the teapot. Adapt to your environment and never play the same way in any given situation...OK...enough deep crap.

"You're gonna listen to me? To something I said? Hasn't it become abundantly clear during the tenure of our friendship that I don't know shit?" Jason Lee as Brodie in "Mall Rats"