I spent my weekend in Palm Springs visiting a friend. While I’m always happy to miss the insanity of a holiday weekend in the poker room, my own weekend was slightly hectic with driving time, traffic, strange weather, and loss of sleep. My friend and I visited Aqua Caliente on Saturday night and I played $3-$6 Holdem with a half kill.
It was tough, I never beat the game for more than $20 and eventually ended up losing about $70 before I decided to give it up. I did enjoy the game and the players. One woman kept me particularly entertained. She was elderly, yet spiffy and young minded and came to gamble. She played any 2 cards as well as I’ve ever seen anyone play them. She showed me what a great hand 6-2 Off Suit was and she then stated that it was the first hand she’d won. Amen.
She steam rolled a $100 buy-in into $250 and then back down the cloth but she was fun to listen to and watch. She had a difficult time seeing the cards and kept picking them up to eye level to look at them. One dealer kept giving her heat over it which gets to be ridiculous…if a player can’t see their cards why in the hell would they want to play poker? It’s one thing if a player is taking them off of the table and holding them up to show a sweater, it’s another thing if they need to see the cards.
One hand that still has me baffled – she wasn’t even drinking – I was. She had the Button and held 9 Spades and 5 Diamonds. The Flop was 8-J-Q of Diamonds. Raised pre-flop by the Big Blind.
The player on my right held 9-10 Off Suit, no diamond, and flopped a straight. Big Blind checked the flop, the player on my right bet, the Button called. The Turn was a deuce of Diamonds.
The Big Blind Bet, the player on my right raised, the Button called, the Big Blind raised. The player on my right called. He held no Diamond as he’d shown me his cards and why he called at this point is a mystery also.
The Button thought the hand was over and turned up her cards. She did have a Flush with the 5 of Diamonds. The Dealer reminded her that it was $6 more to see the River and she called. On the River, the Big Blind fired, the player on my left folded as he’d seen the Button player’s cards, and so did the Button.
The player on my right and me both thought the Button would call the bet as she’d called everything else previous to this but lo and behold, she folded. She could never improve her hand after the Turn card and she called 2 raises just to toss her hand on the River. It must be Poker Heaven with a twist.
One player at the table was so typical of all poker rooms, the RESIDENT PRO. He didn’t have any chips in front of him but he had a comment to make about the play, the player’s, and the hand each time. Cute…NOT!
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I dealt my full shift tonight…it was quieting down after the holiday weekend. I started on table 30 which was $8-$16 Holdem, then a break, and up to table 1 which was $1,500-$3,000, with the usual suspects. The room was fairly busy even though players were heading for home after the 3 day weekend.
The Rake and Time has gone up in almost all games. About $1 more from what I’ve seen. It happened over the weekend while I was gone but it’s in effect now. A little adjusting for everyone.
The word at the tables is the Hall of Fame Tournament is a BUST. Don’t know if it’s true as I haven’t been there and won’t be there. My schedule is very prohibitive of checking out the town/tournaments/action in other rooms.