I had to setup a booth for my company at a conference last week, so haven't had much chance to play or blog about poker lately. I've been jonesing for it. I managed to play online a bit, but I haven't been doing too well. Feels like I lost my mojo. It's easier to blame the cards than myself, but I have felt pretty damn unlucky lately. Feels like I can't hit any cards and no one believes my bluffs. I think I'll stick to sit & goes for a while, I've just been taking a beating at $3/$6. I did manage to get 2nd place in a $50 SNG last night, so that, and the Party Poker reload bonus, has been keeping me even this week.
But I did get a chance to battle it out with a named monster this weekend at the casino. He calls himself the Wizard and plays on the WPT circuit, which he made sure to point out to everybody (in case we didn't notice the WPT shirt he was wearing). He had a huge stack of chips in front of him, so I assumed he was doing pretty well. That was until I found out that he just buys in for that much.
Each stack of chips had a chip from a different casino on top, with some other paraphernalia on top of that. And two sunglasses that he'd switch between. He also had a stack of pictures he had to show, showing him posing with various pros. Heh, although a couple of them were hiding their faces.
Many times, he had to point out to whoever won a pot how lucky they were that he plays so well, or else the trash hand he folded would have won. I found out from some other guys that that's one of his catch phrases. He says it all the goddamn time. And Jesus, it's annoying. I never showed my annoyance of course, I just stayed pretty friendly with him.
I wasn't doing too well in the game. I'd get aggressive with good hands on the flop, but have to surrender them when my opponents hit their draws. I felt like I was doing pretty well at losing the minimum, but that doesn't console me much when I'm down $100.
Luckily, I ended up playing a big hand against the Wizard. An aggressive player came in with a live straddle... that is, he made an automatic bet of $6 before he even got his cards. I looked down to see AJ, so made it three bets to go. I was hoping to get it heads up with the live straddle, since AJ is pretty strong against two random cards. The Wizard raised me, capping the betting. Another guy called that bet and the aggressive guy called it, too. The pot was huge.
The flop came AJJ, giving me a full house. The first guy checked, I bet, the Wizard raised, another guy raised, the first guy folded, I capped, and the Wizard and the other guy called. I checked the turn, hoping for a check-raise, but they both just checked behind me.
I bet the river and the Wizard raised me. The other guy folded and I got in a re-raise. The Wizard called and turned over AQ. I showed him my full house and raked in a huge pot.
The guy couldn't shut up about how lucky I got, "I knew I had you dominated!" Of course, completely disregarding the fact that I only made $12 off of him pre-flop, but $30 from him after the flop. I probably should have bet the turn, but checking probably did induce him to put three bets in on the river so it worked out in the end.
That pot was big enough to bring me back up to even, plus $25, before I had to quit for the day. Not great, but at least I got to book a win.