My Night at Rockford Charitable Games

Chicago itself doesn’t really have casinos.  We have a few just over the border in Indiana.  But I live in the northwest suburbs and so I have to travel all the way around the city to get to those casinos (translated: 45-90 minutes each way).

What we do have is Rockford Charitable Games.  They put on “events” many days of every week where they have live poker and at least some of the money goes to a charity.  Last night it was right in my neck of the woods.  For background, I had a weird day.  It was probably the wrong day to be playing poker.  I got up at 4:30 AM to catch a 6:30 AM flight to Midland, Michigan to meet with a customer and then back home again at 7 PM.  So I drove right from O’hare to this banquet hall where they were holding this event.

How was it?  Well, on one hand I was impressed.  They have roughly 12 cash tables in operation spreading $1/2 NLHE, $3/6 NLHE and $2/5 LHE.  They also had a big $200 MTT with at least 3 tables running and several SNGs running at $25, $50 and $115.  The tables were mostly full.

I started the night playing a $25 SNG which was a waste of money.  We got $1600 chips, with starting blinds of 25/50 and the blinds doubled every 8 minutes.  So in 24 minutes if I played no hands I would have 8 big blinds.  I had only 32 big blinds in the first round.  It was kinda sick.  Two players were running the table with raw aggression (but showing down some good hands).  I made a couple of bad plays and found myself in level 2 with only 500 left (5 BBs).  I open raised all-in from MP with A7o and was called by the BB with J7s.  She caught a flush on the river and I was gone.

So I walked over to the $1/2 tables.  I bought in max for $150.  Early on I raised to $8 pre-flop with As 9s and had 2 callers–both the LAGs at the table.  The flop came Jc 3c 9d.  One of the LAGs who had called from the blind bet out $15 and I called.  The turn came 9c and he bet out $15 and I re-popped him for $45 and he called.  The river came a fourth club and I hated my life.  He checked and I checked behind.  He had 6c Tc and so he’d caught the flush on the turn and believed that potentially I had made a higher flush.  I don’t think that if I’d have pushed on the river he would have folded.  So that cut my stack way down early.

I played the night mostly tight which meant that I was being run over by LAGs all night.  There was no shortage of them.  We had lots of limping and lots of semi-bluffing.  There were middle pairs winning all night.  When I had a decent hand, I would get run out of it by a pot sized bet from someone with middle pair and a gutshot straight draw.  It was sick.  I lost two more big hands: once where I flopped two pair with KQ on a KQ9x board and went all in.  The villain called with JJ and caught a T on the river for the straight and the other time when I had JJ and the board came 99J and I pushed and was called with 94s and the river gave him the fourth 9.  In these two hands I did the right thing by getting in when I was ahead.  It happens.

Either way, it didn’t feel good.  I wasn’t comfortable and I felt like I was outgunned.  Some of it was the cards.  I was dealt absolute crap all night.  I think I saw 7T like 50 times in 300 hands.  I got dealt pocket queens twice and won with it twice for smallish pots.  Apart from that, I think I got pocket 7s, 6s and 2s once each and never caught a set.

The hardest part of the night was that there was one very good LAG at the table.  He was loose and had great instincts.  If I had nothing and decided to bluff he called.  If I had something, he folded.  I’m not sure if I was throwing off some tells–either physically or with my bet size–but he had my number (or got lucky a lot).  I honestly don’t know how best to play on a table full of LAGs.  I know conventional wisdom says “play TAG”, but most of these LAGs were smart and would fold when I bet OR had caught and punished me with huge raises that I either called (and lost) or folded to.  I’ll need to develop a strategy for this.

It seems like people who go to these events are poker players.  They are people that have had to work to seek out the game and have generally come a good distance to play.  In other words, there aren’t a lot of fish–no tourists, no casual players, no people who are there to play black jack but have watched WPT on TV and want to try their hand at poker.  These are people who play poker.  I was the fish, the casual player, the guy who thought he could play.

Anyway, I lost a good amount and felt like crap about my game.  So I went home and beat up on some online $.5/.10 tables.  I ended up just up slightly, but only because I was just messing around.  At one point I was way up but lost a lot of it when I ran up against quads (for the record, that’s twice in one night–once live and once online–what are the odds?).  It didn’t matter whether I won or not.  It had the desired effect of boosting my confidence.

So, would I recommend playing at a Rockford Charitable Games event?  Hmmm…if you are jonesing for some live poker and don’t mind a loose, fast game with solid players, then yes.  If you’re looking for a game with challenging yet beatable poker including some tourists and casual players, then no.

In other news…

I started reading the twoplustwo.com forums.  What an excellent resource.  I’ve learned a bunch of things already.  I also got partnered with a guy from Russia for a sweat session tomorrow which I’m looking forward to.

And Saturday I’ll be playing in a home tournament (and hopefully cash game) with some casual players.  I should have an edge, but I really haven’t had too good of luck in the home games so far.  I’m hoping for some good luck and I’m going to try to play a little better than I have in the past with these games.