Trip Recap

BULLET I suppose the trip was a modest success, financially. I had a great 3-hour session in a $10/20 game at the Taj the night I arrived, and the rest of my play basically evened out. Not a hugely profitable venture, but a nice change of pace.

BULLET After a 14 hour session on Friday I decided to head home Saturday instead of playing again. I didn't want to risk burnout after 3 long days of playing. Even though I'm sure the Saturday action was great, I'm happy with my decision.

BULLET For the first 2.5 days of play, I had very good feel for my tables. More than ever before, I really had a good idea what my opponents held and how they'd act. But towards the end of my session on Friday, a guy sat down who completely altered the dynamic of the table, and it really threw my game off. There had been one maniac at the table who played any 2 cards to the river almost every hand. He had been amazingly lucky and had a very large stack of chips in front of him. But I had been sitting next to him for several hours and was doing a pretty good job of reading him in spite of his wildness. The new guy was a preflop maniac, playing any 2 cards, often for a raise, but he played fairly well postflop. They were sitting next to each other and their antics pretty much put the whole table on tilt. With one exception, I did a miserable job of adjusting my game. Hopefully with more experience, I'll know how to adjust properly to changing conditions.

BULLET I mentioned one exception, which was a play I made shortly after the new guy (NG) joined the table. This was certainly the greatest poker play I've ever made. We'll pick up the action on the turn, where the pot was already very large. I held 98 (suits irrelevant) on the button, and after several checks the original maniac (OM) bet with the board showing K978. I knew him well enough to know that he'd try to checkraise any hand that beat me, and the pot was huge, so I raised hoping to force out the 3 people acting after me. 2 of them folded, and then NG 3-bet. He hadn't been at the table long enough to know that OM was a complete moron, and he had heard others at the table talking about how tight I was, so I knew his check/3-bet meant my hand was worse than his. At worst he had to have a set, more likely a straight, and probably JT for the nut straight. But after OM called, I had to call 1 more bet and hope for a miracle on the river. I expected any miracle would have to take the form of an 8 or 9, but the river was a J, which seemed like a horrible card for me until NG checked. He looked genuinely concerned about the Jack. Then OM bet again. At this point I it was obvious to me that NG had the best hand and I had the 2nd best hand. OM betting was an blessing, because I realized that if I raised, NG would have to assume I have at least a T for a straight and he might fold. With the pot so large I figured it was worth a shot, so I raised and looked at NG and made a sheepish "I'm sorry" face. NG agonized and finally folded. OM called my raise, and NG immediately informed OM that I had a straight. When I turned over my hand an announced 2-pair I think he might have thrown up in his mouth. "JUST TWO PAIR???! I FOLDED 5-6!!! OH MY GOD!" I quietly stacked the $425 pot.

BULLET Asian casino employees have some cool names:

secondary bullet He
secondary bullet Trung
secondary bullet Nho
secondary bullet Thang
secondary bullet Phat
secondary bullet Supa

It makes me wonder if any American name sound like cool words somewhere in Asia...

secondary bullet Ron is the Vietnamese word for "pudding"
secondary bullet Betty is a slang term for a state of inebriation in Tagalog
secondary bullet Charlie sounds kinda like "shitbird" in Korean
secondary bullet Your average Cambodian would find the name Ralph highly amusing, but couldn't really explain why. Actually that might be universal.
secondary bullet Tony sounds like the Cantonese word for "girth," especially with that Hong Kong accent.

BULLET I played a bit of the $15/30 game at the Taj, and I really felt the difference that the 2/3 blind structure makes. I've got much more experience with 1/2 or 1/3, and the $10 small blind really made the game feel a lot different than what I'm used to. I don't remember feeling that way in my occassional shots at Party's $15/30 game, so that makes me think I've come a long way since my last try at that game.