I Heart the Horseshoe

After work tonight, a friend and I made the trek to Hammond Indiana to play in the newly renovated Horseshoe Casino.  They opened on 8/8.  The whole casino is beautiful.  My buddy says it is like Vegas.  Having never been to Vegas, I don’t really know.

The poker room is beautiful.  The most amazing poker room I’ve been to.  Not that there’s a high bar.  Previous to this, the poker room at the Stampede Casino in Calgary was the nicest I’d visited.  This one was much nicer.  Very high ceilings, wood everywhere, nice tables, nice carpet, nice chairs, very good dealers.  They have a high stakes area that apparently deals $5/10 NL and $20/40 FL.  They also have a separate room for the $100/200 and $200/400 game.

They had roughly 35 tables running tonight (on a Thursday).  The wait wasn’t more than 15 minutes for any stake.  Everything was run very professionally and smoothly.  And to top it off, they were offering a bonus of $500 to anyone who caught quads, $1000 to any straight flush and $1500 to any royal.  Throughout the night you’d hear a table shouting about hitting quads.

I started the night at $1/2 NL.  I played well and ran my $200 up to $330ish…but then back down to $230ish by calling down some bad players who would bet 10% of the pot into my drawing hand.  I’d miss my draw and end up paying them $20 for their top pair, two pair or set that they were massively underbetting.

After dinner we put our names back on the 1/2 list, but there was a 15 minute wait.  Just outside the poker room they have two PokerTek PokerPro tables.  If you haven’t heard about these yet, they are definitely worth a peek.  They are basically fully-computer-driven live poker tables.  Its basically like playing on the internet, but you can see the other players.  The best part is that they seem to draw bad players.  At the Horseshoe they have them spreading $.50/1 NLHE.  We sat down to just screw around until our names got called (they must have eventually called our names, but we never heard them).  I played my online game there.  I was basically playing tight and aggressive.  I raised in position, but took some advantage of the table’s propensity to limp.  I picked good spots to bluff, but mostly showed down very good hands.  In about 1 1/2 hours at the tables I had run my $50 buy-in (I bought in low because practically everyone at the table was playing $20-30 stacks) up to $450.  The next player behind me had about $200.  Everything I did was working.  I was flopping great, but making bets that would get called or pushing people out when I wanted them out.  I stacked other players around 8 times, $25-40 at a time.  I folded when I was behind.  I think my showdown win percentage was probably like 80%.  It was sick.

Playing that well and winning that much is great.  It felt good to have my play rewarded.

When I felt like I was getting bored and that some players were “targeting” me, I got up.  I figure an 800% return on my investment was good enough for me.

I went back into the live room and sat down at a 1/2 NLHE table.  This table seemed to be full of some semi-loose regulars.  The play was good and I felt like I was probably one of the worst players at the table.  In order to combat that, I decided that tighter and more aggressive was the order of the day.  I bet I played 8/6/3 at this table.  It seems to me that this style works for the semi-loose casual regular live 1/2 game.  Why?  Because they want to play.  They don’t respect a $10 PF raise, even if you’ve folded every hand for 3 orbits.  Because they are winning a lot of hands with top and middle pair, they don’t worry when you make a c-bet of 2/3 the pot.  So if you’re lucky enough to flop a set, you’re probably going to get paid.  I don’t think slowplaying is a good idea at these tables either.  It seems like if you bet, you’re likely going to get some action.

So here’s the big hand of the night.

On the button with Ah 9h.  Four limpers.  I raise to $10.  (This is seriously the first hand I have played in 3 orbits.  I’ve been card dead.)   Seat 1 calls and Seat 4 calls.  Flop comes 9d 7d 9c.  Seat 1 checks, seat 4 checks, I bet out $22.  Seat 1 calls, seat 4 goes all in for $90ish.  I snap call.  Seat 1 surprises me with a raise…he is all-in for about $40 more.  I obviously can’t fold, but I am a bit nervous.  Did another player keep 79?  One of these guys certainly has the flush draw, am I about to get rivered?

Seat 1 flips over 77.  He has a full house.  Crap!

Seat 4 flips over 2c 9c.  He can only win with a 2.

Then, the turn comes A.  I made a better full house!

Then, as if to add some insult to injury, the river is another A.  I make aces full of 9s (instead of my winning 9s full of aces).  I scoop the pot for a net profit of around $200.  I play a couple more orbits, but I’m really done.  I win a hand or two more, getting a little more credit for my bets than I should.

I have a 1 hour+ drive home and it is around 12:15.  So I cash out.  I’m up over $650 for the night.  After the first orbit I played, I was never down all night.  This was easily the best session of poker I’ve played so far.

Can I say that I feel proud of how I played?  I think this is the good kind of pride.  I played well and disciplined and it worked.  It feels good.