Strike Two

Having discovered that “Lightning Poker” was real Texas Hold’em played on an electronic table, I heard that cash games would also be spread. The game was to be $1/2 NLH. Good news indeed after the horror of $5/10 Limit on last year’s cruise.

However, the players didn’t really like the machine and whenever I popped in at the casino in the next few days, it lay silent and empty. I started to doubt I would get my cash game.

Then I bumped into the poker manager (well, the floorman who seemed to deal with poker) and asked about the Sit-n-Go scheduled for the next sea day. “Might not go ahead” he told me. The machine was broken and needed specialist repair. But possibly they would revert to playing with a real dealer.

Next day, not only was the dealer-dealt tournament a “go” but the players were playing cash before the tourney. Apparently these games had been going on for days but since they were running on a blackjack table in the corner of the room, I had not noticed !

Bad beat ? Maybe, although it did mean that my wife was not a poker widow until the latter part of the cruise.

As soon as I sat in this game, I experienced a bit of epiphany. I was genuinely better than most of the other players!

I was running OK, which helped, but the fact was that it seemed I couldn’t lose.

I knew some of the players from the SnGs. None of the payers seemed to be really strong, but there were definitely two groups. The more experienced players played OK, but rather predictably and without sufficient aggression in my opinion.

The others were of a type that I rarely come across at The International. Those were the weak-tight players. They were totally incapable of any moves, it seemed, and completely oblivious to tournament strategy (especially short stacked).

For example, one of these players playing an 8BB stack raised the button for more than half his chips with KQs then genuinely agonised over the call when the BB put him all in for about 3BB more.

This player actually went on to chop the tournament with one equally clueless individual and one of the experienced players. This tells you how soft it was. Mind you, I finished 11th of 12 in this SnG so maybe I shouldn’t comment !

Both types were playing in the cash games along with the occasional passer-by. Those poker newbies mainly played an extreme weak-passive game that was absolutely guaranteed to be a losing proposition.

I am not a strong cash player. Although I do think I am above average in the universe of all cash players, I am not far enough ahead to overcome the rake and poor discipline and come out a consistent winner.

In this game, however, I felt like a pro !

I was still playing my very loose style but instead of just leaking chips, I found I was able to play a lot of flops and generally get paid later in the hands. I found that I could read the players easily.

I did not make the very most of this good situation, but I was making FAR fewer errors than the other players and as we know, poker is a game of the fewest mistakes. Never have I made so many easy and winning calls with Ace-high.

I turned $200 into $650 and then in the 2nd session, $650 into $1,300. Unfortunately the casino threw us out at 2:30am. I would have loved to play all night ! Mind you, the “last few hands” did provoke some crazy plays so I was able to take advantage.

For example, Alan was one of the experienced but predictable players. He was pretty tight pre-flop, but very easy to play on the flop. If he missed, he check-folded or folded to c-bets essentially 100% of the time. Meanwhile if he hit, he would put a lot of money in with a modest made hand like TPGK.

In my opinion he played too passively and somewhat weakly, but his tight hand selection was still enough to make him a generally winning player in this game.

Occasionally, however, he would go mad with a hand. He would put in huge bets preflop with semi-premium hands but not AA/KK. Very exploitable.

And here was another example of his occasional mad plays. I over-limped with Kc9c, and Alan raised to $13 from the button. He announced that he was going all in on the flop no matter what (for about $200 more).

I believed him, so it made it an easy pre-flop call to fit-or-fold. He dispelled any doubt that he would go through with the flop push, by putting it in blind.

When the flop came King high I gladly called the push. Unfortunately he hit running 2pair with his AJ-suited, but I was happy with the decision.

The only problem with the game was that it started late (not till about midnight) and finished early (by about 2:30am). I would have liked to play this game 24/7 !