SICK night at Caesar's Palace

Sunday, January 19th - We were at Caesar's Palace shopping, and decided to check out the poker room.  It was pretty dead.  3 1/3 games, maybe a 2/5 game, that was about it.  Short list for 1/3 so we waited.  Debated leaving (we weren't dead set on playing) but got called pretty quick.  My wife sat down and I got seated at the next table over shortly after.

The game is 1/3 NL and you can buy in from 100-500, which is nice.  I just bought in for $300 to start.  I was going to consider buying in for more shortly after, since a few other guys had $500.  But I figured I'd check out the table a bit first.

First hand I look down at pocket tens.  Sweet.  I'm in early position.  I ask the dealer what game this is (1/2, 1/3) since I wasn't sure, and raised to $15.  Get 5 callers.  Lot of action.

Flop is pretty much the best possible flop you can imagine.  A-10-2 rainbow.  Couple people check, and I bet out $75.  Probably more than I should bet, but the flop was just SO good.  5 others in, someone has to have the ace.  Maybe $75 is too much but that's what I decided to do.  Asian guy to my right starts talking about how this is the biggest pot he has seen since he sat down.  Guy to my left SNAP calls.  (BTW, he just told his friend that he was going to play until his big blind and then get out of there.)  Everyone else folds.  Pot is over $200 now and I have a little over $200.  Turn is an offsuit 3.  I figure if he is going to call that huge bet on the flop, there's no reason to bet less than my whole stack here.  I say "all in", he INSTA calls.  Could not call faster.  River is an 8 or something, I flip up the pocket tens, he throws his cards away and instantly picks up the rest of his chips and walks away.

VERY first hand, more than double through.  Ohhhh sick.  That is what I call a good start.

I kept getting good hands.  Got 10-10 again shortly after and called $12 from an older guy in early position.  About 5 way again.  Flop the nuts - 10-8-5.  He bets $25, I call, everyone else folds.  Turn is nothing special.  He checks.  I figure he might not have a great hand, so I don't bet that much.  I think $35.  He calls.  River I don't remember, but now he leads for $35.  I raise to $120.  He folds.

Later, I look down at pocket aces and raise to $12.  Lady calls.  Comes around to that same old guy.  He makes it $35.  OMG, yes.  I thought about just calling, but then I thought - this guy HAS to have a good hand if he is raising me.  I reraise to $100.  Folds back to him.  He shoves for his whole stack of $250 or so!  I insta call.  Thinking we have the same hand, or KK, or whatever... I flip up my aces.  He shows - king jack!!!!  WTF?  Must have just thought I was full of it, and decided to make a play.  So crazy.  Ten on the flop gives him backdoor straight outs, but the turn is a 5 and he is drawing dead.  Scoop another MONSTER pot.

Basically, I had a ton of hands that played themselves.  Couple interesting ones.  One time I straddled the button (I was doing that all night) and after 4 limpers, I raised to $25 with 64s.  Lady goes all in on me.  I get a count because she was short stacked.  It was $95 total.  $70 more to call.  It's hard to do the math quickly.  Around $20 dead, plus $50 for my $25 and her call, plus $70 for the rest.  So I am getting like 2:1 to call, right?  Calling $70 to win about $140.  Have to be only good 33% of the time to call.  I figured she probably had a pretty strong range of hands, and just folded.  Overall I think it was a good fold.  I don't think I was going to have better than 33% equity most of the time based on some PokerCruncher stats I ran.  Like big pocket pairs plus AK/AQ, only big pocket pairs, etc.

Then later on I raised with KQ of hearts and the flop came K-J-x with 1 heart.  I think I made it $15 and got 3 callers preflop, and bet about $35 on the flop.  Lady went all in and it was another $65 for me to call.  I felt like she definitely wasn't bluffing.  So $60 preflop plus $70 plus $65, the total pot is about $200 and I have to call $65.  Plus I have some backdoor flush and straight outs.  I decided to call.  She ended up having Q-10 and missed her straight, so I won a decent pot.

Just a fantastic night of poker.  I think we only played for about 2 hours, 3 at the most.  I ended up winning almost $1000.  I only get a night like this maybe once or twice a year.  It was so freaking awesome.  Definitely gives me the itch to play some more cash games.

Right now my bankroll is sitting at about $3500.  Not great progress, I have been at around this or even $1500 or so higher for the last 6 months.  But at the same time, I still have it.  I usually go crazy and lose it all, or get super frustrated with poker and decide to just abandon it and throw it all back in the bank account.  This time I've been hanging steady for a solid year or so.

More poker to come soon!