Southern California – PART ONE

Well, the week in Southern California is over and it's the end of a wild rollercoaster. It started bad, god worse, got down-right horrible, but then came on with a huge rush. I'll talk about the bad, first.

I got in Sunday morning to LA and after getting settled decided to spend some time at the Hollywood Park Casino. I sat at the $100 buy-in NLHE. It was a game full of old guys at this time of day. All are pretty conservative players. There wasn't a single person really out of line. But they were weak in many ways, you couldn't make fancy plays against them. Their weaknesses were that they played too many hands, and slightly overvalued their hands when they had top pair. But this was a situation that you could't bluff on them too much, so you had to wait to have a hand. It was going to be one of those quiet sessions without a lot of swings.

Actually no swings, because in four hours I only won two small pots. I got lots of unplayable cards. When I got something playable it was something like A9o on the button when a rock UTG raised. If I did see a flop, the board would miss me and I sadly mucked while the others betted away.

I was quietly waiting for something to happen. It didn't and I started to get tired, partly from the hours of traveling and partly because of the time difference. So, I left $200 down.

It was my first time at Hollywood Park. It laid a good spread of games, even on a Sunday evening. When I come back next I'll have to try it on a Friday night.

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Next I was in the Palm Springs area and I hit the Agua Caliente Casino in Rancho Mirage. This is a smallish cardroom that has some good limits to their games, offering up to a $20/40 LHE. It offers NLHE and Omaha H/L, but there is never enough interest for NLHE and the Omaha game, normally a 6-12, when it is spread, just sucks with a collection of septegenarians.

I sat at the 3-6 LHE and played for six hours. And I sucked. Maybe it was the travel and I was too tired, maybe it was the recent loss at the Hollywood Park, but I played bad. I caught cards just good enough to lose money on, pushed on thin holdings, and watched another $200 flow away. At four hours I had just decided to go when several of the players left, either to go home or go to another games, so there was a complete change in the texture of the table. These new players were loose and passive. In fact, one really old guy, must have been in his eighties, sat down and started calling every flop and calling 80% of the hands through to the river. Woohoo! He calls down all the way on a scary board with a KJ for king high.

I re-bought, and waited for my chance to get paid off.

I get JJ and I raise preflop. Several call. A low flop hits, rags and rainbows and I bet again. Everybody but the old man mucks. He calls. The turn is a blank and I bet again with a call. The river is another blank, bet call. He rolls over KK and scoops the pot.

I mumble to myself and get ready for the next chance.

And every pot I'm in with the old man he hits a hand and I pay him off. Four more times he either slow plays two paired rags on the flop or hits a miracle two or three-outer on the river to claim the pot. Down an additional $300, I finally decide this is not my day and head to my motel.

So far, my trip to Southern California has me down $700. Wow. My live bankroll has taken a big hit. Next post, I'll talk about how the second half of my trip went.