Casino Trip 2/5 NL

Last night, I took a trip up to Casino Windsor with a couple of my friends from school. My last two trips to the Casino have been quite successful. Ive profited $620 and $510 respectively, playing both 1/2nl and 2/5nl. Needless to say, I felt quite confident about my live game coming in. The players at Windsor are pretty weak and in my experience, I have noticed that there are very few good regulars and a lot of clueless dead money fish.

So, I sit down with 200 against a table of unknowns. After a few rotations, i had a pretty good read on my table. Besides one younger kid and one middle aged looking business type, my table was full of fish. Money was flying around the table and mid/top pair type hands were repeatedly being shown down for massive sized pots. After just a few rotations, I realized that this table could be very profitable.

My first big hand was against a regular named Adrian. Adrians image is lag. Hes in pretty much every hand and raises most hands to 30 preflop, regardless of position. Right away, I knew that I just had to wait and get a decent hand against Adrian, and I could double through him pretty easily. So, my first big hand, I pick up K6 hearts on the button. After 4 limps, I raise to 30. Adrian (BB) and CO (Arab guy, plays pretty ABC) both call. Flop bring K78 rb. Adrian checks, CO checks I bet 50 and Adrian calls. Adrian then immediately checks in the dark. Without even seeing the turn, I shove in the dark. Turn brings a 10 and Adrian thinks for a while and calls. He shows 99 and river brings a blank. Ship it. Top pair is appartently golden in this game.

Im now sitting with about 400. My next big hand comes when i pick up 56 hearts from the big blind. UTG raises to 30, UTG +1 and CO all call. I decide to call and see what the flop brings. Flop comes 355, 2 spades out there. UTG bets 30, all folds around to me, I just call. Turn brings 7hears, UTG checks and I check behind. River brings 3 hearts and I fill up. UTG bets 75 and I put him all in for 150 more. He calls and mucks A3. Ship it.

Im now sitting with about 700 when this hand comes up. I pick up 22 on the button. UTG+1 raises to 25. Table folds around to me and I call. SB and BB both call as well. Flop brings A52. UTG+1 bets 40. I raise to 100 and both sb and bb fold. UTG+1 thinks for a second and shoves for like 80 more. I snapcall and he shows AJ. I scoop the pot and am now sitting with around 1000.

So here is the hand of the night. Im in for like 340 and Im up around 650 at this point. I really regret making this play here, not because I dont think I played the hand well, or that my semi-bluff wasnt believable. The Villain in the hand is Adrian. As mentioned previously, villain is a major calling station. I swear it just kills Adrian not to play every hand. His style is profitable in a sense that when he does have big hands, he usually gets paid (since he calls down so weak and is constantly splashing, etc). My guess is that hes still a losing player, but I dont know that for sure.

So I pick up AK clubs on the button. After a millon limps (typical for this game), i make it 40 to go from the button. UTG+1 (Young, thinking player, pretty TAGish) calls and Adrian completes. Flop brings J97 two clubs. I have the nut flush draw and position and am ready to play a big pot.
Adrian makes it 50 and, UTG +1 folds. I bump it up to 150 and Adrian, of course, immediately calls. Turn brings a blank, 5 hearts. Adrian checks and I decide to keep going (prolly a mistake in retrospect, i should have just checked behind) but I bet 200. Adrian thinks forever and calls. River brings Q spades. Adrian checks once again and at this point, I think my read on him is pretty solid. His hand looks a lot like one pair. Hes out of position and has played the hand extremely passively. I have been the aggressor throughout the hand and have not been out of line up to this point, showing down strong hands and scooping several big pots. So at this point, Adrian has about 250 left. I knew that he didnt improve on the river and was very confident that his hand was Jx. 10J-AJ were strong possibilities, as well as Jx. At this point, Adrian checks the river blind (Another sign of weakness) and I decide to bet the rest of his stack (leaving me with 350 or so if he calls). Adrian instantly calls and says just a Jack. He flips J4. Disgusted, I berate his play, telling him that hes terrible blah blah blah and that hes going to lose all his money blah blah u know the usual.

He calls over the floor manager and this guy lectures me for a few minutes on table ettiquite and so forth. Sure enough, while Im talking to this guy, Adrian gets into an absolutely massive hand (1k) with the previously mentioned Young, thinking TAG. Of course, Adrian donks off all my money to the kid. Poker is so sick sometimes.

The rest of the night was just blah. I couldnt really get anything going and was frustrated about my play against Adrian. Looking back on the hand, I played it how I ordinarily would against a thinking, typical, online TAG. That was my problem right there. Albeit expensive, I learned a pretty valuable lesson, that will definitely help me in the future. You have to know who you can bluff and who you cant. Tonight, I learned that the hard way. After all that, I ended up down $35 on the session, lol.

Ill be back though. Im heading out to Vegas the 10th-14th and feel pretty confident about my game going in. Should be fun.

Holla