Poker on Fremont

January is gonna be pretty slow for me since I couldn't sat into the Aussie Millions or the PCA. Time to go downtown. Its the weekend after new years so there will be alot of people in town to fill up the cheap tournaments.

So Jeremiah, katkin and I make it downtown in time for the 7pm $65 tournament at the Golden Nugget. We start with 2000 in chips and with a $40 rebuy we can get another 3000.

I order heineken #1 and take my seat at table 6 seat 9.

Table draw:
Seat 1: old guy that looks like Kyle Gass from tenacious d
Seat 2: empty
Seat 3: old balding guy with a Hawaiian shirt on. Isn't it a bit cold for that?
Seat 4: another older guy worrying about whether or not he can afford the rebuy.
Seat 5: really old guy playing way too tight for a $65 tournament.
Seat 6: empty
Seat 7: Jeremiah smith
Seat 8: crazy old guy that mumbles to himself. Then again, he maybe talking to me.
Seat 9: jdn
Seat 10: younger guy that left the tournament for 10 mins to go to the ATM to get his rebuy.

I get it all in on the 4th hand of the tournament with 7d5d vs Mumbles' A8 vs Miah's 65 off. Needless to say,I end up playing the board and am left with 500. Miah rebuys and Mumbles takes the pot.

I get it in again the very next hand with A7 vs Mumbles' KK. This guy is on fire! Rebuy!

No long afterward Jeremiah busts with 27 vs Mumbles' A2. He's unstoppable folks.

Katkin is at the other table, there's only two tables, and he's treading water at the "tight" table.

Mumbles finally loses all his chips in a race and he has to rebuy. He's mortal after all.

Where the he'll is that cocktail waitress? I'm parched over here.

Jeremiah texted me from Binions. Apparently they swapped the 6pm and the 8pm tournies. So the 8pm is a $55 instead. Weak sauce.

I actually make the break with 3800. Katkin busted on the last hand before break so we book it over to Binions to check it out.

When we get over there I make eye contact with Amir Vahedi. He's playing the 6pm. Wow when times are tough, times are tough. As katkin buys in I say hi to amir and he tells me he's a little embarrassed that he's playing at Binions.

Don't worry about it buddy. I'm playing at the Nugget. In a $65 tournament. Two weeks ago I was playing the $15k at the bellagio. So poor.

In the restroom I see a guy getting his reeboks polished. That's baller.

Four hands after break we get down to 10 players and the final table. Sweet! And I'm not the shortest at the table. Of course I get the big blind with blinds at 200/400.

Heineken #2 finally shows up.

In the small blind, the button raises to 1500 and I push in for 3400. Big blind folds and the button calls. I show 66 and he shows AhJh. The board runs out 6 8 J J 5. Hahaha. Ship it! I double to 7200.

Two hands later I get it all in on a flop of 2c 8c 2s with AcQc vs Crazy Ivan's 99. A Queen on the turn seals the deal but a club hit the river to rub it in. 15,000.

8 players left and 3 places pay.

We get down to 7 when Mumbles gets all in with bottom pair vs kings and hit his 2 pair on the river. This guy is amazing.

We color up the 100 chips and I got 17,500. Cocktail waitress is no where to be seen.

I just realized that seat 7 is missing the end of his middle finger on his left hand. Missing digits at the poker table is a bad sign and nothing ever good comes of it.

The missing finger guy recongizes Jeremiah, from what I assume was his donk fest in this years main event. I yell over to Miah, who's busted out of binions and now playing cash at the next table, that he just got recongized for being on TV. The dealer says, "Ohhh yeah. I saw him on the WSOP."

I make everyone that can hear me knows that the donkey from the WSOP is playing 1/2.

I take another 7k off Mumbles to get up 24,000.

Still no heineken.

After busting a short stack I get up to 31,000. We're down to 5.

Missing says that he played softball with Jeremiah. That takes the wind outta sails but I still LOL'd.

I bust Crazy Ivan with T2. That's Doyle's hand! On the money bubble! I'm a pretty big chip leader. I got more than half the chips in play.

40k on break.

In the money! Mumbles busts the short stack and I'm chip leader.

The 4th heineken magically appears. My mana is almost full.

Play somehow slows, I'm not sure how, but I bust the other short stack with A3 vs his 86.

I get heads up with Mumbles with a 3 to 1 chip lead. Play slows some more as I wait for Mumbles, who's name I find out later is Lynn (hahaha), to get bored and start over shoving with shit hands.

It takes about 12 minutes for him to call reraise me with J5. I call with AK and I'm a winner. Yes I am.

Ship the $740 to me. Just in time for the Binions 10pm.


Binions $75 10pm tournament.

I get over to binions at 10:05 to buy into the 10pm tourney but they changed the tourney schedule today. It starts at 11. Balls. Let's find the cash games.

I manage to lose 300 at 1/2 in about 30 min. Most of it to Jeremiah and his donkey ass.

I buy into the tournament with 7 minutes to spare so I hit the black jack table. And I win. Sweet. Buy in is paid for.

Table 32 seat 1

Seat 1: jdn
Seat 2: quiet guy
Seat 3: a member of the raider nation. He's wearing a Gannon jersey so he's still living the past.
Seat 4: random white guy
Seat 5: mr long cornrow guy. Looks like he hasn't had then done in a couple of weeks. Too much downtown for this guy.
Seat 6: random over betting white guy
Seat 7: George mutherfucken Lucas
Seat 8: old guy that already busted
Seat 9: random African american. Is that the PC term?
Seat 10: random play everything white guy

I come storming out of the gate and lose every hand I play. I've lost 4000 in the first level.

Heineken #6 arrives.

Blinds go up to 100/200 and I got 1900 left. Shove or fold time.

I double through seat 9 with A4 vs KQ and pair my 4. Yeah boy!

Then the weirdest hand I've ever played happened. They gray haired lady, who I find out later is George Lucas' wife, and I accuse them of cheating later on, in seat 7 raises to 800 with blinds at 150/300. 6 peeps call including myself with 8h6h. The flop is 3 8 5. I bet 1200, seat 4 calls, seat 6 moves, I call.

Oops. The action is on the old lady in seat 7. She folds and we call for the floor for a ruling. My call stands and my chips go into the middle. Seat 6 shows a set of 3s. Oops. I need runner runner to win.

The turn is a 6. Okay we can work with that. The river is a 4. Fuck. Wait. Wait. WAIT! There's only two burn cards. The dealer didn't burn the turn.

I've never seen this before! So we call the real floor over. We count the muck up and it's an even number. It should be an odd number. She missed the turn burn.

The 6 should be a burn and the 4 is the turn. We see the river burn which is a jack and the real river is a 7. That gives me a straight. Holy moley! I dunno if that's the right call from the floor but I'll take it.

15k at break.

George Lucas kills me twice on the river after we get it all in on the turn and I'm way ahead. So poor.

Down to 2000 I double twice somehow as my 8th or 9th heineken shows up.

In the 800/1600 level I put the big blind all in from the small blind with Qc8c vs 9d3d. The board runs out spade spade spade spade 3. Fuuuuck.

I actually make the final table as the short stack and 5 pay. I think I can fold to the money.

On the first hand back from break the big blind is on the phone and his hand is mucked. I move in for 6k with Jd3d. Everyone folds. Sweet. I survive another orbit.

I bust in 8th against the guy that I hit the straight on when his 89 out flops my A5.

Onto the 2am tourney.

Binions $55 2am

I move to the 2 table tournament. I'm on table 21 seat 5. I get my stack up to 6000 pretty quickly but I lose it to a moron in seat 8. It's limped to me in the big blind and I have 66. I raise it to 1100 and moron moves in for 3600. I call and he shows 9T. Don't you worry. A 9 on the river gives him his hand. Moron.

A couple orbits later I get it all in with with QQ vs KK vs AQ. Fuuuuuck me in the eye hole. Oh wait! I hit the one outter on the river to triple up. Sweet. That my first one outter in a live tourney.

8k at break.

Final table! Again. I'm a machine!

I'm about average at this final table from a tournament of 19 people. This is my bread and butter.

I stopped taking notes at this point, probably due to heineken #10 or so.

Somehow I bust out of the tournament and Katkin and I hit up the blackjack table.

I buy in for a couple of hundo and before I know it I've ran through all my winnings. Katkin meekly tries to stop me but I say fuck it and order another heineken. Down to my last hundo when this guy just sits down at the table with us and just watches us play. This isn't going to end well.

I run my hundo back up to a sweet dime before we stand up. The non-playing starring guy follows us to the elevator at the back of Binions, which is the scariest elevator evar!

Oops we forgot to validate the parking ticket. Back to the cage to validate it a second time. We lose the tail.

Quick thinking on my part saves me from having to punch a fool's lights out. Realistically it probably saved me from getting stabbed and bleeding to death in Binions parking lot.

On the way, at the toll booth, some drunkard bumps his minivan into the back of Katkin's brand new BMW. I get out of the car to tell the fucker to back up and we start yelling at each other. He won't backup. It gets more heated.

I may get stabbed yet!

I can tell Katkin is kinda getting nervous and the lady in toll booth is starting to freak out. I flip the guy off and tell him to move his shitty minivan. Katkin finally says, "Let's just go."

The toll booth lady doesn't charge us and we head home as the sun starts to rise.

Good times.

JDN

PS Of course we had to stop at the Porchlight Bar and Grill for some vegi quesadillas and Heineken. And I killed the video blackjack even though it cheats.

Weekend Activities in North Hollywood (Updated with video link)

Hi everyone, normally this blog is about poker tournaments, bust outs, bad beats, sick Asian gamblers, JDN not being able to muck bottom pair etc. Well not tonight, LA Mike is really emotional right now. I just found out that I missed the secret show that The Cure played in Hollywood on Saturday night. Wtf, I run so damn bad. 3 f'n hours of The Cure in a tiny, standing room only venue. My Christmas was just ruined...GG life.

But I have a special Christmas/Hanukkah present for anyone who has had the pleasure of being seated at a poker table with 'Hollywood' Dan errr Dave. Chances are the blackjack pro turned poker wannabe has berated you at the table whether it be online or live. Well, 'Hollywood' won a tourney online and wanted to celebrate in style. It's fairly well known, I hate partaking in cocktails but what was I to do? He wanted to celebrate his win! So myself, Melissa and Dom who I was hanging out with, hit the streets during Winter Storm '08 even though it was already like 1:15am. By the way, I've never seen the news blow a little bit of rain so much out of proportion.

Being that we live in LA and the bars close at the stupid hour of 2am, (you can't buy alcohol from the store past 2am either) we were only able to get 2 drinks in so we had to take the celebration to a residence.

Combining that you can't buy alcohol past 2am and that the private residence is occupied by Melissa, well lets just say she really likes alcohol. In fact, the night before she downed an entire bottle of Grey Goose so we knew the alcohol supply was pretty low. On hand, we had some beer, a big bottle of champagne and some peppermint schnapps. That was all. Brutal beat! We so weren't prepared for this impromptu HD celebration.

Time to improvise. Melissa and I spot a homeless man who had just purchased a bottle of vodka outside a store. Thankfully, he hadn't dug into it yet (as I'm super OCD and a germ-o-phobe). We pull up next to him and offer him cash for the bottle. Seems like a good deal for everyone especially since he told us he just got out of jail the previous day. I ask how much he paid for it, he says like $20. I offer him $40...which actually ended up being $38 or $39 but whatever. We score the bottle and I proceed to pour him some vodka into his juice bottle. We bolt toward Melissa's place, score one for the good guys!

The four of us proceed to polish off some of the alcohol and random prop betting ensues. Believe it or not, 'Hollywood' brought up being tased and low and behold, Melissa happens to own a taser. I mean, why wouldn't she right? After about an hour of deliberation, Melissa charged up the taser and it was going to be aimed at 'Hollywood'. This video was apparently taken at the scene. It is not intended for a youth audience but more so for peeps who have been berated by 'HD' at the tables over the years!

One other thing I wanted to add in this blog was something I saw on the very popular craigslist. It was an entry titled "Professional Witness". I personally found it absolutely hilarious. Check it out at http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/lgs/958055676.html

Happy Holidays to all...Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Quanza etc... and a very safe New Year!

Video update: For some reason the video won't upload but I've provided the next best thing. Here's a link to the video. Remember, this is a rather disgusting sight and shouldn't be viewed by kids or anyone with a faint heart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9InCBih1opw