"The Pen:" Live NLHE Chat Thread

Got to the bar-poker league Friday night (about an hour early, as per usual, to start putting players on the list), and the place was packed. Every table in use.

Oh well, these people will leave before our start time, no worries.

Clock keeps ticking. They've paid their bills and are just sitting there talking. 15 minutes...20...25. By this time, we've got the two main tables set up, and have enough players on the list to start a third, but don't have the actual table capacity.

Owner of the league arrives about 15 minutes before start. Goes and talks to the bar staff, as we're supposed to be guaranteed space for three tables when there's enough players.

He discovers that all these people were there for a "celebration of life" for somebody. OK, we'll start with two tables, and get the third set up when we have space. Makes that announcement to the player base and the dealers. Got the third started a little late, had a good night.

We had a fundraiser for a softball team Saturday. A lot of fun. Afterward owner told me that he's bailing out after the April semi-annual. As part of that conversation, he let me know that he'd talked to someone else about Friday's situation, after he'd agreed that starting late on #3 was ok. It got quite heated. That apparently broke the camel's back.

He let me know that another couple, who used to be regular players but have started their own poker league, have agreed to talk to the bar owner and see if they can strike a deal to take over. Then, I'll have to connect with them to see if it's something I want to continue with. I imagine I will, if they want me to go on. They're good folks, we get along well.

I'm sad about the current owner not being part of it. Really enjoyed working for him & his wife. I told him a while back that it was the first job I've had since my first one in Colorado where I actually enjoyed the work I was doing and the people I dealt with at that work.

So, we'll see. It isn't as if the money from that job is great income. It is a lot of fun though, and the money is nice, slowing the spending of my retirement savings.

No better way to spend an evening than getting it all in pre 3 times as a 92/7 favourite and losing all 3 the same way.

Clearly all the dealers at my casino are mechanics.

:(. I managed to lose a hand I was a 99.6% favorite in the other night, for all the opponent's chips. Sigh.

Brag/Beat:

AA vs AxKh all 3 times.

Flop XXXhhh
Turn blank
River Xh

Just INSANE. Every single time.

Variance:

Got UBER-tilted and went to the high limit blackjack playing 200-500 a hand. Won 14K.

FU to the mechanics.

The last part is nice.

fold river

Family restroom built specifically for this type of event

Yuck.

Congrats on convincing the pit that you are just an action junkie.

Closed for renovations.

Yeah they saw me walking in with steam coming out of my ears.

By the time I’d fully spun it up, the floor had 3 guys in suits watching me and trying to convince me to play one more shoe. Overheard them talking about the count. I jumped right into their conversation with “I have 10,600 right now.”

I think they think I might be a counter. I’m not. Do I know the count at any one time? Not exactly. But the side games they offer make people look at certain cards and keep track of all the 6/7/8s gone from a shoe so people get the vibe of “there’s more faces here than normal” so let’s crank it up a notch or two. I don’t know if a shoe is +4 or +6 but I can tell you if it’s closer to -6 than +6. And they cut half the shoe anyway so just relax and go buy a tailored suit not that pile of crap you just bought off the rack.

So they concluded whatever they concluded and they turned their attention to the baccarat table directly across from me where some older lady was betting 2-10k a hand and destroying them. After she got her 6th win in a row, most of the rest of the room started tailing her bets. Her streak ended in the 15-20 range.

Room got taken for probably close to a 100k in 2-3 hours. And it’s not a big casino. That’s a huge hit for that place. Womp womp.

yeah i'd agree with this, long before i found poker i played a bunch of blackjack as like a 16 year old in casinos in the basements of hotels in ecuador

and even then i had a good understanding of when there's been a bunch of face cards/small cards/very few aces have come out/etc and which at least in the mental tracking of an irresponsible minor not treating it that seriously, i believe i was a slightly above break even player (never had a really bad session getting wiped but had plenty of very good ones so i think that's accurate but more so to rungood)

so while i'm sure you are directionally correct in this and would agree that if we quizzed you during various peaks in the count whether you thought it was high or low you'd be accurate for the most part

but then you gotta really ask yourself, why bother settling for the most part, when there is an option available allowing you know it at all times?

there's also not a single session where i'm not surprised by how good or bad a situation is appearing vs the reality of the count and i've seen a number of people who vary their wagers at the exact opposite times they want to do so - not once at any table i've sat at have i seen anyone correctly adjust bet sizing with the count

like i've seen people see seven low cards come out in and in response they quadruple their bet size assuming the count is good - we've all seen this happen where everyone does their little wink and nod and now everyone who was playing $50 a hand earlier are now blasting $250 on this one, but what they don't know is that last hand started at -12 count and finished at -7 and while prospects are not so bleak going forward as one hand earlier, it's still a pretty terrible spot despite that many at the table are upping their wager

i often find myself at a loss in those situations, i would imagine raising my bet for a single wager during negative counts wouldn't cost me too much ev, but it could be the best possible thing to

it's like my friend was getting a sports betting account from a bookie and the bookie asked him "are you a sharp bettor" and he wasn't sure how to respond to that, because while he doesn't want get kicked off the site earlier than necessary but also the problem with that question is nobody views themselves as a dumbass, so you also can't say "no i'm a dumb bettor" because wtf would say that, when you hear people talking about any gambling, it's always in the form of crushing and how good they are

so i kind of feel that by not joining in on those situations, i'm making myself stand out more and by joining in then perhaps surveillance will be like "oh see he isn't counting, he just raised here because he saw those little cards come out"

while it takes real study/experience to get get good at it (at least for me, i still consider myself very bad at it, i'm still very much in the learning/testing stage and although things are going well, i wouldn't call what i've done a success at this juncture) by far the biggest impediment for me was never even bothering to try doing it when i played earlier

Been in Vegas for work but have squeezed in a few sessions (and gotten stuck ofc).

Things I’ve noticed, it’s been 6 years since I last was out here.

Bet sizes are smaller on average.

I have seen zero overbets across all steaks. I have played 2/5, 5/10, 10/20, 25/25 and 100/100.

Other than 100/100, no one really goes for it.

I got set over set, wasn’t very deep (just north of 100 big blinds), took this line and didn’t get stacked…

Call preflop, x/r flop, lead turn, lead river.

I got stuck early and now the biggest game I can find is 2/5 so I’m definitely leaving tomorrow stuck unless I hit a BBJ or something.

They tried to give me a chance AA v JJ all in pre for 35k and we chopped as he hit his J on the 2nd river :(

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today the pit boss was very actively watching the table after he noticed me, the kid who started the shoe betting $10 was now doing tons of hands in a row with lots of piles of chips, soon he had a clipboard and was taking notes on it while regularly looking at the table, felt for sure that he was counting along and trying to notice any bet changes so i pretended not to notice and it was back to a neutral count by then anyway so i just flat bet

kept talking to him about traveling to act nonchalant and as if i weren't counting (we discussed that earlier so it was a natural discussion) and then once he was satisfied i wasn't counting i couldn't help myself and jumped back in a little despite knowing it'd be best to just keep flatbetting the rest of the shoe and then leave but lost in those spots which probably helped

felt like i made a huge blunder today, had about 500 at the table and got up to get a beverage and make some bets, afterward i saw original table was mid shoe and meanwhile there was another table unoccupied in another section so went there instead, did pretty well, and then got reprimanded for having chips at another spot as the shoe finished - it was negative by then so good excuse to leave but this is also when the other pit boss really started watching me, i guess that screams pro to them??? or maybe just a coincidence as that guy was kind of watching me already and was going to do that anyway

who knows

felt kind of dumb, like bruh, just review the tape and you'll know for certain, why tip me off so obviously counting along and using a system that's so clearly ineffective - i mean lol at starting to count along mid shoe, i guess he could see if it got better or worse and if i adjusted or not but i mean c'mon bruh

unless he was recording other game info, but can't see what it could be

Rick- are you saying you left your chips at the table and played at another? Or you took the chips off and went to another one?

The former seems bad while the latter seems completely inconsequential.

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Dude has a score card. Its for pit personel who cant count. Alot of it is to see how you respond to them sweating so hard. This is a PREFECT time to fcuk with em. You have to eat some variance but it is worth it.

No offense but you are a moran for not taking the time to fire some bets off during the neutral time. Get his attention. mumble something about getting it back..then,"HERE WE GO CHEQUES PLAY". BOOM. Hes keeping score you are the yahoo sports better. He will 100% remember you blasting off in a neutral count. If there is ever a question and he has any input hes gunna say "RR, that guy, oh yea hes good action"

Leaving chips - oh shyt , sorry man was running like absolute ass over there. came here to mix it up. You know how that goes. I can get a little carried away sometimes and I forget my stuff. Ill try not to do it again. thanks for looking out. OK wheres the action?!

DO YOU SEE THE THEME?!?!

leaving chips - did say exactly that thing - oh yeah i just thought there'd be better juju over here at a fresh table as i'm running very badly over there

scorecard - i was definitely planning on doing that exact thing and blasting a few random spots just to prove that i wasn't counting but he only did it for about 4 hands before leaving (count only changed by -3 during that time and we still had about 6 decks left so it was pretty meaningless and I was waiting for a run of face cards before upping it with "time to get it back" but he left before that could happen" because i was concerned at that point that since the count was still in the positive overall (hence why i had 50 out there in the first place at a $10 table) that if i ramped up he may find the real count at that moment was positive from surveillance and then conclude i was counting but just momentarily frightened by his clipboard

interesting about the scorecard thing, tried finding examples of what they look like but couldn't

This is kind of surprising. Maybe it’s because the local pros get so much volume vs unknown players that they likely won’t see for months/years/ever again that they can just nit it up and and are worried about getting as much called value as possible?

I know in my Philly casino games at 2/5 and [5 or 10]/10 get overbets often enough

Curious what normal BIs are for 25/25 and 100/100? There is a regulate 50/100 game that goes in my room but I don’t want to be that guy that just wanders over to the back corner of the room to be a spectator.

I know this guy, he’s stuck piles and keeps giving it away. Find him. He goes by “Rampage”

25/25 buyins ranged from 10k to maybe 30k give or take
100/100 ranged from 20k to infinite (2 guys sitting like 300-400k deep)

Sadly I didn’t get the pleasure of playing with Rampage.

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Just realised that it’s the end of Feb and there’s been almost no ‘shredding the gnar’ chat. Turtle’s absence being felt

You boys know how much I love it - pl reassure me that it’s still happening?

Fortunately I’m on Facebook with Ace so I can keep up with him and his lad’s exploits

Did something happen with Turtle? Did I missing something?

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Brag: Could set a personal 1/3 NL record this afternoon.

Beat: Currently sitting on 5 losing sessions in a row. I've never recorded 6 in a row in 889 sessions.

Variance: Not even stuck 3 lame-o BIs, but stuck a handful of cheezeburgers for the year which is annoying.

GcluelessrecordchasingnoobG

I've got 9 days so far this season and 6 of em have been powder days. Conditions have been excellent (or I have gotten lucky with the days I chose).

Some family friends got us some free lodging at the Arabelle at Vail in a flat I could never afford this lifetime. Was ridiculously luxe, and Vail isn't on our pass, so we paid rack rate to Vail Mountain for 2 adults 2 kids which was $1150. Thankfully Vail delivered the previous night with 13" from midnight to 8AM. That softened the blow a bit.

As of a couple days ago he's still alive. Probably just living IRL I know it's crazy

Last week I was in San Antonio on bizness and took the wife along with me.

Wife likes taking in sporting events in different cities, which is awesome. But in San Antonio, all they have is the Spurs, which is basketball, and you couldn't pay me money to watch a bball game. But she looks up the Spurs schedule, and goddammit, they have a home game while we're there. And goddammit, we can see the Alamodome from our hotel window. But for some reason their lone home game last week was played in... Austin?

Apparently they have a tall guy? Rats, missed that.

Instead watched the Canada - US hockey game in the lobby.

GrunninggoodatlifeG

Sounds like a lot of excitement, I hope you didnt hurt yourself. I'm no huge sports fan in general (PGA excepted) but NBA basketball is fun as hell, especially in person.