Playing poker in Tampa

I finally had a nice session here in Tampa, Florida.  The last time I was in Tampa, towards the end of summer in 2013, the results were mixed but negative.  This session evened me up for the two trips, though.  The session was a mostly decision-free session, albeit on the short side.  I got to the Tampa Hard Rock Hotel & Casino around 8:30 and was seated almost immediately at a shorthanded table for a little 2/5 action.  (I’m still executing my New Year’s resolution to play a lot more 2/5 in 2014.)

The table consisted of (in clockwise fashion:

1. A “pro” to my immediate left (who was nice enough, wasn’t trying to run me over, who was capable of a few moves and loved to raise limped pots with position)
2.  An older gentleman in seat 10 (or 9; not sure whether the tables are 10- or 9- handed) who would lead almost every flop regardless of action pre-flop
3. A few nits in the 1-4 seats
4. A complete and utter fish in the 5 seat (who was more than happy to dump buy in after buy in, before getting bored and going to play Blackjack for $25-100 / hand)
5. A newbie / straight forward chick to my right, which rounds out the table

There weren’t too many hands of note, but I have 5 hands to discuss / share.

Hand 1: I take advantage of seat 10.  It’s limped around to me in the SB with 89hh and I complete.  We see a flop of 3 5 6 – not sure whether there’s a heart on board.  On queue, seat 10 leads $15 (as he always does) into the $25 pot and it folds to me.  I flat my gutter + 2 overs.

Turn is bingo – I hit an 8.  Of course, I’m checking to him yet again and he leads for $25 this time.  I just call.

River is a 5, pairing the board.  I’m not happy with that card, but I’m happier than the river being an overcard.  I check a 3^rd time and he contemplates his bet – and leads for $30.  I beat him to the pot and say “call.”  I wait a while for him to flip and he shows KJcc for a complete bluff.  I scoop with my 8’s and a few eyebrows are raised with my snap / “weak” call.  Really?  Why are they surprised?  Have they been paying any attention?

Hand 2: I raise on the BTN with AQo to $25 after one limper.  Seat 10, in the BB is the only one to call and we see a HU flop of 5 7 T, two hearts.  He leads (on queue once again) for $20.  I raise to $55.  He thinks for a bit and flats.

We check the non-heart 2 turn and check the blank river.  I wait for him to flip once again (not sure whether the rules are last action flips first or clockwise flips first).  He shows after a bit, he shows A6ss for a missed backdoor (????) and I show AQ for the scoop.  I should have bet the turn!  Oh well.

Hand 3 (questionable hand): I’m dealt KK (with Kd) in the BTN.  I raise to $35 after 2 limpers and seat 4 (tight gentleman) calls.

Flop comes 7 8 T (2 diamonds).  He checks and I lead $40 into $~70.  He check raises to $90.  We’re sitting on about $275 effective to start the hand, so I’m looking down at around $200.  There’s $200 in the pot - $250 if I make the call with $150 behind.  It’s very possible this guy limped 77’s and 88’s (I think he raises TT, but I haven’t seen him make an aggressive move all day), but I doubt he’s showing up with J9, after calling a sizable PF raise.  I just don’t see waiting for the turn to get it all in when there’s not a lot of turn cards that I will like: a 9 sucks, a diamond sucks, a face card sucks, a T sucks.  I put him on a cross between a diamond draw and A T (both with about 25-35% equity), so after careful deliberation, I opt to shove.  He thinks for a few and finally folds.  Is it wrong to shove there?  Should I be flatting and letting him shove the turn, calling off all cards?  It just felt so wrong to let him have a card here.

Hand 4 (questionable hand): I get mixed up with Seat 4, the fish where I limp Ad8d along with ~3 others.  I’m sitting on $225 effective.

Flop comes 8 9 4 (two diamonds).  Fish leads $20 into $30 and I raise to $65.  He calls.

The turn is a diamond (which also completes the straight – though don’t remember which particular card – may have been the Td if that makes a difference).  He leads for $75 into the growing pot and with less than $175 behind, I shove the remainder.  Is this a mistake?  He deliberates for a good long time and finally folds.  Before he folds, I show my 8d to rile him up a bit that he’s folding to mid pair because he thinks I have a diamond flush.  I told him I didn’t want to see the river diamond because I wasn’t sure my 8d would be good enough.  This hand bothered him quite a bit because he went on to dump about $1.3k to the table over the course of about an hour and a half.  Unfortunately, none of his dumping was to me – but this guy took his losses in stride; I think he had a good time doing it.

Hand 5 (I think I played it okay, but open to opinions): I raise to $35 with AKo from SB after a few limpers.  "Pro" to my left flats and everyone else folds.  Flop comes K Q X and I check.  I think if I bet here, I blow pro off all his bluff hands, and this seems like a "scary" flop for a PF raise / flop check that pro can lead.  As expected, pro leads for $40; I consider check / raising but opt to call hoping for further continuation bets.

Turn is J and we check through.  River is another J and here's where I think I should consider leading about $50-60 but I'm hoping he can't let it drop the fact that I checked 3 times.  I opt to check and he insta-checks.  I don't know whether he'd call a small value bet - perhaps $40-50 instead of $50-60.  I begrudge the fact that he respects my play and isn't trying to push me off hands.  As soon as he checks, I know I'm good and flip up AK without waiting for him to move.  He sighs and folds; I think he had a pair of Q's.  I just felt like it was so standard for him to at least fire off one more barrel, but I guess I judged him wrong.

 Oh yeah!  I almost forgot to detail that I had the opportunity to play with a former bracelet winner and 2004 6^th place WSOP main event finisher, Al Krux.  It was pretty cool sitting down with a guy who has likely seen it all.  I categorized him as a tight nit – he never really made any moves in the time that I spent at the table.  He was more having fun, enjoying a cocktail.  Cool experience, nevertheless.

Are you a blogger?  Do you like free money?  Be sure to sign up & play in the Bitcoin Blogger Freeroll poker tournament coming up over the next few weeks!

Churn and turn in the Meister family

Things have been reasonably quiet for me in the poker world.  I've been running like poop in the live setting - continual suckouts, normal bullshit.  In the online arena, I've been crushing; it's always a pendulum...

In the coming 3 weeks, I will hopefully have plenty of time to ply my live poker trade in Tampa, FL though, in the hopes that a change in scenery will allow me to shake off the run bads of the live poker scene in Maryland.  It's always nice to go to Florida, enjoy good meals and nice hotels at the expense of my company.  We'll see if the Florida poker scene goes better than the last time I was there - where I was card dead for most of my time.

This post, alas, is not a poker post.  It's more of a life post.  Overall, things have been bleak at work for quite some time - we don't have new work coming in, and the work that we do have is clearly destined to not cover the employees currently on staff.  Therefore, I predict there will be staff reductions.  Now, I consider myself adaptive - willing to change with a fluid situation, and therefore don't allow my career to stagnate.  Rather than wait for the inevitable layoffs to occur, I have taken it upon myself to look for programs and projects elsewhere.  Since I am fortunate enough to have both a pension and generous 401(k) through my work, I have given priority my current employer, conducting a job search first within my company.  I forecast that the work "cliff" that the employees face will happen in mid-March, allowing a month and a half to find other employment.

Seeing this "cliff," I started applying for jobs back in November, allowing myself plenty of time to pick and choose.  However, there isn't a ton of work available within the company.  The reality is that in my line of work, there is a shrinking customer base because our customer's priority is to reduce expenditures.  I have been completely upfront with the management team that I report to, and they are well aware (and encouraging me) that I am looking for other work.  In fact, they recommended an open requisition that I applied for when I first started looking.  Prior to Christmas, I had a phone screen interview where I apparently impressed them.

Last Tuesday, I was invited for an in-person interview - they put me in for an additional job as well (without my knowledge).  Given the information, I felt they stacked the deck in my favor, giving me a selection of jobs; one job has overarching responsibility for 30+ engineers, and the other would report the the overarching job and be responsible for ~5-10 engineers.  Needless to say, I was offered the bigger job yesterday.  It couldn't have been more perfect: I am getting a nice salary increase, keeping my current benefits, and most importantly taking a new role with the company that very possibly could propel me to an upper management role within a few years.  Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself, but I'm very excited to take my new position.  The job will be a challenge - I've never managed ~30 people before - but I think I'm up to the test!

The new job does not come without downside, however.  A stipulation of the job is that I will be traveling for the next 4 months to Denver, CO.  While I'm not one to shy away from travel, I will be away from my wife and children for weeks at a time.  Hopefully, I can work out something whereby I travel home on weekends and milestones / scheduled vacation.  Regardless, I think there's plenty to do out in Denver - Black Hawk poker rooms, Breckenridge skiing, hiking, perhaps catching a Rockies baseball game (I'll be there 4 months starting mid-February so I'll be done by mid-May, early baseball season), etc.  Do any of my readers have experience with the Denver area?

I've been trying to find information about te Black Hawk poker rooms, but can't find anything.  What are the deals / comps / good action rooms?  From my understanding, there's the Ameristar, the Golden Gates, Lodge Casino and Isle Casino.  How do they compare from one another?  What is the best skiing in relation to Denver?  I only mentioned Breckenridge because I've heard of it before.  Is it good there?  What other activities are typical of the area?  I'm figuring it'll be a granola-type place, with a lot of earthy people.

FWIW, probably not gonna try the newly-legal weed!  Don't know how well that would go over with the job...

Off to Tampa!

Random Musings & Plans

I will be Tampa, Florida for work next week.  I'm hoping to get in quality time at the poker tables, seeing that there won't be a ton of work to do after the day is done.  I've been to Tampa before - I usually get over there at least one time when the Poker Meister family travels to Florida to visit Disney World, Universal Studios, etc.  I'll usually take a night and drive the hour from Orlando to Tampa to get in a 5-6 hour session.

This time, though, I'll be staying 5 minutes from the Seminole Hard Rock / Tampa, and hope to get in a solid 4 straight sessions.  They're currently running various promotions - I'm hoping to cash in on some of it!  As a minimum, I'll get 15 hours in which will qualify me for their drawing of 2 winners for a $5300 entry into the $10M Guarantee tournament that they're running.  If I win entry, I honestly don't know what I'd do; the tournament runs Aug. 22 - Aug. 26...  I guess I'll walk down that road when / if I get there...

In the "spare" time I'll have away from the live room, I hope to hit up a bit of online poker.  As you know, I've been playing on the Seals website.  I've also been researching on www.pokersites.com for other sites available to me.  For U.S. players, it's been few & far between, but Seals has been enough to eek out a small profit & keep my skills sharp.


As an aside, I tried to book a room at the Hard Rock, but [even with the poker room "discount"] their room prices are astronomical.  I think I'm staying at a nicer hotel, but it would have been far more convenient to stay and play at the Hard Rock instead.  They don't have rooms even close to the established per diem allowance that my company allows for travel to Tampa.

Regardless, there are 2 other rooms in the area: Tampa Bay Downs and Derby Lane Poker Room.  Given time, I'd like to check both of them out as well, though I'm familiar with the Hard Rock and its loose / gambly players.  My plan is to get the 15 hours in at the Hard Rock, and then venture out to these other places.  I don't know anything about the other 2 rooms though - whether they're sketchy, reg fests, etc.  I'd love comments about them if anyone knows anything.

Hopefully, I'll meet up with a fellow blogger who has more-or-less stopped blogging altogether.  Word is that Cmitch just cashed in the WSOP Even #53 and will be flush with cash to fling around the table...  Perhaps I can grab some of it off of him :-).

The Meat & Potatoes of the Post

At the beginning of each year that passes, it is my ambition to not only exceed the prior year's dollar per hour average at the tables, but also exceed my hours / sessions at the tables.  Last year, through July, I put in 40 sessions for a total 157.5 hours.  For the same time, during 2013, I've put in 24 sessions for a total 108.5 hours.  I have a lot of time to put in if I hope to exceed or at least match last year's output.

For dollars / hour average, I'm far ahead of my average last year - so far ahead that I have a lot more gross earnings in 50 hours less time.  Pace-wise, I have a lot of catching up to do!  If I can indeed get my 20 hours in for the week - and I'm targeting 25 hours as my goal - I can probably at least catch my gross hours for 2012.  Equaling or exceeding the session count will be the toughest part, though.  Perhaps with the opening of Maryland Live! towards the end of the summer (August 28, according to CBS), play will be more conducive to me adding hours because my wife can be convinced to go shopping while I go play... what I call a symbiotic relationship!