Prove It All Night

Had a rather unreal 26 hour stretch of poker on Friday and Saturday, which I felt needed a couple days to breathe before I put it down. Honestly, I may have forgotten half of it already since the 26 hours were virtually one, with only a minor two hour nap thrown in between the first fifteen and the next nine.

Backtracking to the beginning, I got an email that immediately piqued my interest from the subject line alone. "AC?" it read.

Um, yes please.

Turns out a couple of the regulars from my weekly cash and monthly tournaments were driving down to the Borgata in Atlantic City and had room available in their car. I confirmed my interest, grabbed some essentials and we were off. Friday afternoon traffic being brutal to the Jersey shore, it took a good four hours to get down there but we sauntered into the Borgata's poker room and were all immediately seated at separate 1/2 NL tables.

For anyone who hasn't been to the Borgata, the room is absolutely immense. 85 tables but it seems like even more when it's crowded, just a mammoth space teeming with players of all styles, all abilities and all attitudes, with basically any game you could want available to spread.

Back to my game, the first pot I enter gets limped to the button, who pops a raise. From the SB I see KQ off and come along, as does one of the limpers and the BB. Flop comes Q, 4 3, just about as good as I can hope for in this spot. I lead for half the pot, the BB raises me, the limper goes away and the button re-raises. Ugh. I get out of dodge, however reluctantly, and the other two mix it up, with the button eventually taking it down with his Q,3 two pair.

And a pattern is set.

For the next six to eight hours any pot I entered with a decent holding (middle pairs, A,10 or above, good suited connectors) might allow me to see a flop but was immediately bet or raised right out of it after whiffing. Nothing was working for me, raising, calling, limping, re-raising, it all was going awry and I began to spew some chips in frustration. One particularly awful hand was flopping second pair on a flop of all spades, putting my opponent on AK with the nut draw and craftily (so I thought) let him bluff at it for three streets when no other spades fell. Of course, my read was half correct, he did have the A of spades but he also had another in his hand and was value betting the donkey the entire way. Hee-haw.

Two add-ons later and I had been resigned to the ugly fact that when my last fifty bucks got swallowed by whomever played the next hand with me, I was going to hit it and call it a night. Defeatist attitude was in full swing, bad posture, the head-shaking, bitter folding, I had all the plays in the loser's handbook working hardcore.

And then, strangely, things changed.

How, I don't know. Maybe I had indeed just had a stretch of tough beats, bad cards and players not conducive to my style but in a flash it turned. Welcome to poker 101.

I look at pocket queens and re-raise a raiser all in for my last $45. He calls with...JJ. Queens hold. Two hands later my A10 off flops trip aces and I get it all in again against...A6. From there, the drunks from the clubs rolled in, as well as a few players deciding to go on a bender right there at the table. Flush with new confidence from actually winning hands, I took a few more chances and when I hit a few more flops, I was on a legitimate heater. Then, I came tantalizingly close to making a truly memorable run. Probably 6 of 12 hands, I looked down at wired pairs. None hit sets, which would have allowed me to make the big score but several of them were enough to take down pots. So, so close and I could feel the table around me start to be wary of me, now it was their attitudes that were shifting when I played hands.

My last hurrah, now thirteen hours deep into it, was when I raised with AcQc and a kid sitting on about $75 re-raised all in from the BB. My first instinct was to call and I was a split second from doing so when I remembered how much he had been overplaying AK all night, way over-raising that particular holding. So I thought about it and decided to wait for a bit better of a spot. And funnily enough, the very next hand saw me with 10,10. I raised again, everyone cleared out, the kid from the previous hand again shoved on me and I snap called him. His face fell and he showed KJ off and I managed to avoid any trouble from the cards and felted him.

So at this point, I had come back to break even, a pretty amazing accomplishment after hours of terrible play, and felt the redemption of avoiding such a big loss flowing through me. However, I also realized that I had been playing for almost fifteen hours and in approximately three and a half hours from that time I had a heads-up tournament back home. So I clocked out, cashed out and hit up the bus station in a hurry. I got the last seat on the next bus, took it and immediately fell out. The ride home, just over two hours, went by in a matter of seconds for me and I was up again and navigating the trains to my heads-up tournament.

To Be Continued...(but enjoy the link until tomorrow)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEkyaoPdar8