A Good Time At Foxwoods

Another trip to Foxwoods last week and it worked out nicely.

My brother-in-law had buy-in into an ACT II for the Foxwoods Poker Classic, but busted out first when his pocket aces were cracked.

I sat in on an ACT I earlier, and played for the first half. Basically, I was dealt pocket 2s in the SB. Middle position limped in. Button raised to 200 (2x the BB). I called, limper called and the flop came A-2-5. I bet out $400, middle position folds, button reraises all-in. I worry about a better set, figure the straight is unlikely because of the raise. So I call. Buttom flips over pocket Ks. She ends up with a $25 chip left. I double up. Afterwards, I can't really believe she went all in with the A out there. I bet it saying I'm not really afraid of it or I have it. Which basically kills her KK. Oh well. I would later bust out when I made a questionable call for 1/3 of my chips with AJ and a board of all low cards. Guy raised all-in, I thought, and called. He had KK and an A never appeared. It did appear later. Unfortunately I was all-in preflop with pocket 7s (it was the first hand I had in a while and my stack was dwindling). And the caller had an A5. The Ace wasted no time and showed up on the flop. I excited the ACT I and proceeded over to the sign in.
I had a decision to make... 2-4 limit, or 1-2 no limit. I like the limit at Foxwoods as the rake is only taken from the pot. So if you put no money in, you lose no money. At 1-2 NL, the rake is $5.00 every half hour from everyone. Which means you can sit there and lose money if you get no playable hands.
Last time I was at Foxwoods, I sat down at a 2-4 limit table at 11:30pm and finally stopped at 5:00am turning my $100 into $300. Not too shabby.

So this time I decided to give the 1/2 table a try. I sit down at a full table, and there are about 3 or 4 people at the table that know each other (mother, son, friend, friend), but they seemed to be on the up and up. After awhile the two friends left and it was just mother and son. Anyway, I sit there for a while and my $100 buy-in dwindles down to about $40. I finally hit a couple of hands, A5 and AQ that stayed the best hands and finally had a stack higher than my starting.

I'm waiting for a hand, and get dealt 66 in early position, so I limp in. Middle position person (player A) with a large stack raises to $15 (this is not a HUGE bet, this is standard at this table). A late position player calls, I call.
FLOP: A - 6 - 3 (rainbow)
I'm first to act, so I bet $40. Player A calls, 2nd player folds.

TURN: 9.

Now at this time, there is some NCAA stuff on the TV (George Mason just beat UCONN), player A is not focused on the table... which works out. I want to win this right now. So I push All-in. It's about $140. Player A is looking at the TV, finally turns around to the table and seems my stack in the middle of the table and does a little jump, asks me how much (he has me covered). Then calls. Without much thought. He flips over AQ. And he's drawing dead. I scoop up a HUGE pot.

A little while later, my brother in law comes by and I cash out. $400 and change. We were going to dinner and I didn't want to worry about carrying a bunch of chips to the cashier, so I colored up. Felt nice to carry around 4 black chips.

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I've been playing a little more online. Primarily at Full Tilt and at Titan (I got $50 "free" dollars at Titan, I just can't cash it out for quite sometime). And basically breaking even on both. I play micro limits so there's not much POKER being played. Just hand selection. It's hard to be patient sometimes.

Though I finally got to a point where I can play my aggressive style and it pays off. I have to play MTTs and stay tight until the antes kick in and get a little higher. Most "bad" players are out, and people will fold to strong bets. I was in a MTT on FTP that started with 177. At about the 50 player mark I found myself the chip leader. That lasted awhile, until I made some stupid plays. Played a little fast and loose with my stack and had it dwindled. I was almost busted when I thought I was on the button and trying to steal the blinds, when it turned out I was in the SB and ended up reraising an UTG raiser. I had A5 and almost half my chips committed, so I called (dumb move as well). Raiser had A9. Flop comes Q-A-2. Luckily for me, the Turn came a 2, which killed his kicker and we split the pot. I would later finish in 12th when someone turned an Ace. Oh well. Unfortunately it was a satellite and the top 2 got seats into a WSOP qualifier, and only positions 3-7 paid any cash. But it was still a good performance by me.

Unfortunately, I was up until 2am in the tournament. Had to get up early the next day to drive 2 hours to see relatives. Man that was a tough day.