Monday's Foxwoods trip: First Three Sessions

[shipitfish]

As regular readers know from my last few posts, I spent Monday of this week all day at Foxwoods. I effectively played six sessions, as I sat down at six different tables. I don't think most people do this at Foxwoods, but it really is a good idea. Game selection is a central part of good poker play, and even though it is annoying to switch tables at a casino (at least, as compared to online play), I tend to do it any time I feel it's necessary. In this post, I talk about the first half of those Foxwoods sessions.

I started in the $1/$2 blind NL HE game, which has a $100 maximum buy-in. I got a seat in a new game, which means everyone had the same stack size to start. I stayed there about an hour and a half. I like to start in those games, because

• you get twice the usual comp rate (giving $1/hour instead of $.50/hour), which if you're lucky, they will credit you for the whole day even if you switch games, and
• this game, its structure, and rake really intrigues me.

Indeed, I have been trying to figure out if the game is actually beatable. There's no question that the competition is soft and solid play will beat the opponents in the long run. But, it's one of those games where the rake is a major factor.

To be precise, there is not actually a rake; it's a time charge. Each player is charged $5 each half hour to play in that game. Now, some quick math shows that's $10/hour per player. With ten players, the house is taking $100/hour off the table. With a maximum buy-in of $100, that means a whole buy-in leaves the table every single hour. In my opinion, it's hard to be a favorite over the house in that scenario; you've got to be one hell of a NL player to bust a fresh buy-in each and every hour.

This time, I took a hard look at the play in the game. I tried to figure out who was building stacks. I wanted to know what style of play can actually seem to beat that rake, at least in the short term.

I discovered that it is, quite simply, a gambling game. The people willing to make huge gambles -- taking the worst of it with draws, making huge semi-bluffs and catching is "good play" in that game. These people were building stacks. The mantra in that game has to be "double up, or just go broke and head to another game". I was surely a better NL player than at least half of the table (and that's not Hellmuth-ian conceit; the play was just plain abysmal, that's all). However, tight-aggressive play isn't the way to beat the rake. And if I wanted to gamble, why wouldn't I just go to the craps tables? So, I went and put my name on the $5/$10 O/8 and HE lists, and waited for another seat. Eventually, I got one after about 37 hands (taking an hour and a half and three time charges). I had leaked $64 into the in the NL game. (There were no interesting hands, BTW -- just a number preflop raises and allowing myself to be bluffed out because I missed all the flops.) Fortunately, I got a call for an O/8 game just as the next time charge was being collected and the big blind was about to hit me, so at least I got maximum play for my money.

I had received a seat in the O/8 game, which was just starting. Since I had arrived, a few of the usual O/8 players had been trying to get this game to run. I didn't particularly mind if it ran short-handed, but many players at Foxwoods won't sit in a game if there are fewer than 8 players, and this was the third time they'd called down the list.

Fortunately, eight answered the call, so the game ran. Foxwoods runs (more or less) only one O/8 game: a $5/$10 game with a kill to $10/$20 at $100. I used to always avoid this game, because I simply felt my O/8 skills were barely good enough for $3/$6 and maybe $5/$10, and the kill was of big concern from me. I've been playing $5/$10 O/8 regularly online at Pacific and $3/$6 on Pokerroom.com, but playing with a kill worried me. I was comfortable with HE at $10/$20, but hadn't really thought I was ready for O/8.

Furthermore, the last time I tried to play Foxwoods' O/8 (in August), I felt very uncomfortable and played scared (even though I was up $30 (three big bets) for that session). However, I've gotten in a lot more hours of O/8 since then, so I decided I really wanted to give it a try this time. I walked over, dropped down my chips from the last game, and went to the cage to get some more.

When I returned, the eight people had gathered to start the table. I recognized three of the "regular players". This scares me less than it used to, especially since I read Mike Cappelletti's mention of this specific game. The regulars just aren't that good, it seems. I'm nowhere near the O/8 player Mike is, but I do trust his judgment on finding a juicy gamef.

As I often do when I play a game in which I am not yet 100% comfortable (I'd say I am about 75% comfortable in that game), I played a solid, non-tricky, tight, obvious game. If I can't use that strategy to beat (or stay even in ) a game where I'm not fully comfortable, then I am just not ready for the game.

So, I sat down and played a nice, tight-aggressive game of O/8. I noticed that the regulars rarely raise without the nuts, but they loved to call. A few of them, particularly the older folks who play, are definitely perennial calling stations. It's obvious that they chose Omaha and prefer it because there are so many draws they can pick up. They will even call down with draws as weak as gutshots on paired boards and sixth-nut flush draws.

In a little over an hour and half of play, I won a total of 9 pots, only three of which were not scoops. I played very few pots, but as is expected in a loose-passive game, I got action despite my tight table image.

The only mistake I really made was a strange play that baffled even me immediately after I did it. I had called from late position with the K J 3 2. There were about four people in the pot. The flop came A T Q. It was bet into me, by someone I thought was betting the nut diamond draw on the come. I raised with the nut straight. There'd been a caller in between us, so we saw the turn three-handed, and since it's a kill pot, there is $100 out there. The turn fell the Q. I didn't really want to see a card like that. Not only did it pair the board, but it also introduced a heart draw, and I could easily get trapped in between the nut flush and a full house with my K-high heart flush if it came on the river. I was still thinking that I had the best hand, but I am worried there was a set out there, and my secondary draw, which really actually made my hand somewhat stronger, worried me because I might get trapped. This is my typical "I'm not totally comfortable in this game" paranoia at work, and it lead me to check the turn when it was checked to me.

This was a terrible move. Not only did I give all the other draws a free card to beat my probable scoop holding, but I now forced myself to call on the river almost no matter what came (except maybe a diamond). Betting the turn in this spot would have given me information about what I was up against. Callers indicate that they are probably just on draws, and a raise almost surely communicates a full house. The top full house might call and slow-play, but I didn't really think AA was out there, anyway. I think I checked because I felt that I would not be able to fold if raised, which is not an excuse, it's just an indication of bad play. I desperately wanted to show the hand down, and I thus played scared. I got lucky, though, as the river came 4, and I was now 100% sure I had the best hand when it was checked to me. Two players called, one holding an AK and the other with a naked Q. Both held a busted diamond draw, joking with each other how they were glad it didn't come. The naked Q was sure to pay me off to the river, and the other diamond draw would have called on the turn, so my bad play cost me two big bets, but it could have also cost me the pot if I hadn't gotten luck on the river.

This play, which happened about halfway through this short session, worked to my benefit because the good-playing regulars started making fun of me for giving the free card on the turn. I further marred my clueful image when I accidentally said, "I was worried about the diamond draw", when I meant to say "I was worried someone was full". They really thought I had no clue after that. I of course didn't correct my misspoken phrase and decided a clueless image was good against the regulars who were winning players.

Two people busted out of the game, and a few more left, and we were left four-handed. A fifth player had a stack still on the table but had wandered off. Then began the annoying "I won't play short handed" Foxwoods mantra. It's annoying because instead of just getting up and leaving, they whine and complain that the floor didn't properly fill the first two seats that became open and that's why it's now short (because those would-be players found different games in the meantime). I countered by saying that we should just keep the game alive and play short, and that's the way to ensure that more people play eventually. This is a standard casino game fact: running games are easier to fill than games that have yet to start. No one was interested, so I went to the board quickly and put my name on almost every HE list, except $2/$4 and $20/$40. I came back and, since I had to wait anyway, I counted down my stack carefully to discover I was up $119.50 for that O/8 session. Not bad for my first real try at Foxwoods' O/8. And, it wasn't too long before I got called for a $4/$8 HE seat.

Once I sat down in the $4/$8 game, I discovered that two people from the O/8 game had also landed there. It's not all that surprising, since it was a new $4/$8 table and it was the first game that had opened since the O/8 game broke.

As is typical in "just opened" tables, I noticed a phenomenon that Roy West was recently writing about. Namely, people tend to play quite tight when a table just opens. I have actually been growing some fondness for such tight-weak "no action" games. I've been playing them a lot (indeed, even as I write this entry) on Full Tilt Poker (where I am desperately trying to earn that elusive $600 bonus that requires so much play to actually earn).

The fun thing about these games is that raises from late positions (last three, button included) are a favorite to pick up the blinds at about 2-to-1, depending of course on the players in the blinds. This means that you get to raise in late positions with basically any two cards (because you are betting 2 small bet to win 1.5 small bets, a bet of 2-to-1.5 when the odds are likely 2-to-1 against getting called). Plus, if you do get called and connect in some strange way with the flop, you not only win a good pot, but you gain a loose aggressive table image which serves you later once the table has gotten looser as a whole and you've tightened up.

So, I had some fun with this, including twice when I raised from the cutoff without looking at my cards and then just randomly flipped over to show the table. Once I even mentioned that I hadn't looked, and the other time I actually had woken up with an offsuit AK. So, I was creating a pretty good (i.e., confusing) table image for this tight table. It further helped that I was catching some reasonable starting hands that did warrant raises in any game. These higher-than-average starting hands that I got for this 53 minute session also helped to confuse my opponents. I ended up making $85.50 for this short session thanks to this combination of factors -- a full ten big bets for less than an hour.

Also during this session, I ended up in a strange argument with one of the players from the broken O/8 game. Someone else at the table heard the floor call down the O/8 list (which didn't run that time anyway), and asked our table's players about the game and its kill structure. (Many $4/$8 players are making one of their first casino visits after playing online, where kills are unheard of, and have questions about that). I explained the kill structure, and mentioned the game was unlikely to run. He asked why, and I said, nodding toward the two players from that game, "they broke the game because they didn't want to play short-handed, and now it'll be tough to get it going again". The male player of the two, who was a tourist from Kansas, shouted: "We didn't break that game; the people who left it short-handed did." I simply burst out maniacal laughter at his sophistry. This just made him more angry, as I laughed hard through the next few hands, raising each time. My read was that the guy was embarrassed about the fact that he wouldn't take on short-handed play and felt threatened about it. He would have been better saying: "short-handed O/8 is a different game that I just don't like". Instead, he made it look more like he was wimping out of the game. I of course didn't really care, I was just mainly more annoyed that he was blaming the floor people for "not filling the game fast enough" as the reason it broke. He refused to realize his ability to impact the situation: if we'd kept it going, it would like have not broken and probably filled up within a half an hour.

Anyway, I like to do this at poker tables sometimes -- to laugh much harder than is appropriate -- anyway. In this case, since I was doing it in combination in front of a messy, unstacked mass of yellow chips while raising lots of pots, it cultivated a table image that suits those tight-weak games just perfectly. People who are new to casino poker or are new to the limit (the typical profile of a tight-weak $4/$8 player) either just get looser against me ("He'll raise with anything"), or go more tight-weak ("He's going to raise every street so I need a better hand to play him"). I find this table image works best for me when I am at limits below which I normally play, because the players are easier to read and because my comfort with the bet sizes is so great that I have basically no fear. I keep in mind how terrifying $4/$8 was to me just a year and half ago ("Wow! All those yellow chips!", I used to think), and remember that there are a number of people at my tight-weak table who likely feel that way.

All this time, though, I still had my name on many other HE lists, and I thus got a call for a new $5/$10 HE game opening on the very same table where the O/8 game had broke. It's that far corner table all the way in the back left of the poker room. I took the seat, as did my fellow O/8 refugees.

I'll write about my $5/$10 HE session, as well as the remaining sessions of the day, in my next entry.