Orford Poker

Well, we had quite a fine game on Saturday night and after breakfast on Sunday as well.
Players included Gregg, AJ, Ivan, Cassidy, Dewey, Peter, Chris, Barry, Bill, Slink, Charlie.
The ten cent chip structure along with brass rings worked great and there was plenty of action and still no huge losses.
I did not feel well.  A week of a tough cold and then that misstep on a large common nail that pieced my foot kept me rather uncomfortable.  I think the tetanus shot gave me the huge head ache which did not clear until 2 am.  Still, unlike any other activity, poker is very easy and I just sat still and let folks poke around to make sandwiches.  My beans and rice were very garlicy good, but I think I was the only one to eat them.  Peter made a fine barbecue chicken and the cold cut sandwiches with kimmelwecks from Buffalo brought by Chris went very well.
Slink brought some chocolate brownies.  Good too.
I lost $50 over the two sessions.  Gregg was the most dramatic, getting up to about $100 in winnings and losing it in about two hands.  Slink went home with good profit.  Chris did okay.  Mostly it was just fun.
The heat overcame the air conditioners but it was not stifling, just not as cool as we are accustomed to.
Peter did most of the work: cleaning before and after, making up beds, arranging food and picking up afterward, even some of the shopping.  Thanks. Peter.
Barry cooked the bacon and egg breakfast and it was tasty.  Thanks, Barry.
My real losing hand was to Gregg.  Pocket Aces were cracked by his king high flush.  Had a spade come on the river I'd have beat him.
All in all a great time.   Nice to see Gregg again. Seems he was not a clone after all, but some of the emails have been twisting up in the sending.

“If it wasn't for all the money I keep losing, this poker thing could be a lot of fun.” —VP Pappy

Orford Poker Room

Turning stone loss

It seemed like a good idea.

It was raining.

Elizabeth was gone all day.

So I rigged up the van with the mattress all made up.  I have great sheets now, these old soft flannel sheets. I hooked up the curatins for the side windows that I made last year.  I found a new blanket that works as a great draping door.  And the best innovation was a $1 plastic table cloth from the dollar store in black. The plastic is so thin that I can close the hatchback on it and that effortlessly takes care of the sun through the back window.

The trip out was great.  I decided to see what I could do about gas expenses, so I traveled the NY Thruway (where the max speed is 65) at 55.  
When I started, my MPH was 17.    Very soon on the trip it jumped up to 20. When I got home it was 24.5. I estimate this saves a fifth of the price of gas for this trip.  I estimate it adds 20 minutes to travel.  So how much is my time worth.  Well, if I dropped my speed each trip by that 10 MPH, I'd be earning about $30 an hour for being willing to ride a longer time.

A good part of the trip I listened to a Yankee game on AM radio.  I liked the commentary of John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman  but I guess I may be the only one.  They also may be short lived as their contract runs out this year.  I am not much a fan of any sports and don't watch or listen often, but I enjoyed this game on the AM radio and it shortened the ride.

I liked just being in the van and driving along with no passing, no coming up on anyone.  Other times, dropping to just the speed limit, I'd find I had tailgaters, but this was not the case at 55MPH. Folks just passed me.  Once I had an annoying tailgater, but it was because s/he was going to exit.

I did not go directly to Turning Stone.  I went to The Landing, my campsite for the night.  I saved a dollar on the toll as the GPS took me off at exit 31, and I also got good variety in the traveling.  It took me through Rome, NY. so were I to do this at night, I might plan in a stop for dinner at the Savoy, one of my favorite restaurants.

The woman in charge of the campground remembered me and gave me my favorite spot.  For $25 I got a hookup for my sleep apnea machine, a close bathroom with a great hot shower, and a picnic table for my breakfast of hard boiled egg, sourdough pretzel, and trailmix.  I was ready too to make my own coffee in my new traveling cup, but as it turned out, I did not bother.

I was at the casino by about 4 PM and I played, with one break, until 4AM and then slept just a few hours.

Poker buddy Ezzy showed up.  He had decided too that it was a rainy day and taken the long drive out, but he left for home at 9PM.  He played very well, was very hard to beat, and took away a good bit of money.  Then he got picked in the random drawing for a $350 future tournament seat, so he was very happy.

All of us got horses to watch in the Belmont, but we did not win whatever the promo was at Turning Stone because our horses did poorly.

I needed to be back home by 3PM on Sunday, so I knew that I was not going to play long on Sunday and when the game turned into young guys who had lost their NL money and were just betting everything on the Limit game, I wanted to stay and play.  This is the game to play at Turning Stone.  
The table not to be playing at is the one with six tight players.  Turning Stone rakes early, so that small pots end up giving the house, the bad beat, and the dealer about 30% of the pot.  


Here is how that happens.
At the flop they take $1
At $10 they take a second $1
At $12 they take the bad beat.


So a $12 pot with a $1 tip means that the winner is only getting 66% of the pot and often has contributed perhaps 40% of the pot, so the profit is very small


At $20 they then take another dollar.
The last dollar to be taken waits for the pot to hit $40, so from $20 to $40 is when the profit is all the for the winner.  


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Mohegan Sun meanwhile takes a $1 at the flop and $1 for the high hand then as well, but the next dollar is not take until the pot is $20.  Then there is a $1 at 30 and a $1 at 40.
So a $12 pot here would be raked $2 and with a tip to the dealer, the profit would be 75% of the pot.


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Foxwoods they take $1 at the flop and another at $10 but the third rake dollar as well a the badbeat dollar are taken at $20 and the last dollar is not taken until $40.


A $12 pot here would give the winner 75% as well.


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For a game of small pots Mohegan Sun has the best system and Turning Stone has the worst.  And while the percentage would increase slightly until $20 any pot from $12 to $19 would be raked more by Turning Stone than the other two casinos.






Under  these conditions at a 2-4 game there are not winners unless the table is full and there is some action.  In 4-8 the pots are larger, so even small pots there may give a higher percentage of the winnings to the winning player.  In games where everyone sees the flop and there are nine players, then Turning Stone is worth playing.  Otherwise, I will quit unless there are at least seven.

On and off the table went down during the time I was there, but never for very long.  I'd be just about to leave and in would come new players.

However, for the first part of my play both the tables I was playing at were full of good players. Not good.  There should be at least one good fish.  I switched to a new table looking for that and got even better players.  On those two tables I lost $163.  
I could have made that up on the third table, but I just missed the pots.  One other fellow came and he did not miss them.  He made a bundle.  I liked the game and I liked the good humor of the young fellows playing.  It was my favorite poker time.

At about ten thirty  I decided to get some food and give the tables time to fill with looser players.  I drove into nearby Oneida and stopped at a spot for a bowl of chili and an old fashioned milkshake made with cotton candy ice cream.  These are treats for dieting me.


No one was there.  One other couple was having pizza.  The idea that a casino is an economic boom for the area is just a pipe dream.  The casino was full.  I watched a movie on a large screen.  Horton the Elephant and other cartoon characters were trying to save the little people on a flower.  It was fun.

But the dark streets of Oneida were just a bit depressing. I went back and found I had been right.  The table was much better. 


The next day I drove early through Sylvan Beach and there too was little activity.  I know it was a rainy cold day and it is still June, but there are some really interesting places there and it seemed deserted.  I did not even see a good breakfast spot.  Good thing I had brought my hardboiled eggs, cheese and travel mix for breakfast with the singing birds at the campground.

I did think I'd play an hour of poker on Sunday at Turning Stone, but they had no 2-4 game and only a couple people on the interest list.  They did have free doughnuts.  So off the diet again.

I am discouraged at this losing.  Everyone says these streaks come, but I think to some extent it is my poor play.  I did misread cards once, holding a 4 that I thought was an 8 and I lost there, even raising on my faux straight to the Queen.  Dumb.  That cost me at least $8.

The people were fine.  They were more fun later.  I especially liked a Black guy who was funny and very aggressive and lucky as well, catching the river, and playing for a long time until his woman made him leave.  She was funny as well.  A big, loud Hispanic girl, just full of banter.

I liked the adventure.  
But I did not like the ride home.  
I was too tired.  I napped at a rest stop.  
That got me thinking that perhaps I should skip the camp ground and drink enough coffee to play into early Saturday morning if the game holds up, and then just drive to a truck pull off on the Thruway and sleep for free until dawn.  
For one night that might be the best idea.  Two nights I need to camp and have the shower and I need my apnea machine.

I might also look for a similar camping opportunity near Mohegan Sun/ Foxwoods and drive out there for a couple nights.  I like the games there and do better.  They rake the same as Turning Stone, but they don't take it very fast, so it is 5% to 10% plus bad beat and tip.

Turning Stone Poker

Buddy Chuck and son John were going up to Turning Stone for the Weird Al Yankowich concert, and I decided to visit with him at his place, and then ride along doing more visiting, and play poker while they listened to Weird Al.
John is a huge fan.
I was a bit worried about all this lack of sleeping lately because it meant a 45 drive home from chuck's alone at 1a.m. but I did not need to worry. I was awake for the entire drive, even when I thought I was running out of gas, and in a panic skipped my plan to run the tank to near empty, so I can use my Price Chopper 40 cent a gallon discount.
I paid full price for gas in Troy.
Today buying a few more things at Price Chopper means when this gas is nearly dry I can get 20 gallons at 50 cents off per gallon.
Except for driving to Red Rock Canyon, it has been about a month since I have driven a car. It felt good to be in the van, although something is not right with it.

So the first treat of the day was a slice of Mary's rhubarb pie.  Some of the rhubard is home grown.  The crust is something out of distant Iowa past.  There is no use thinking about being on a diet when Mary's baked goods are around.  Later, at one A.M. I invited myself for a chocolate chip cookie for the road.
Chuck insisted I take two.
 It was a day of eating things I never eat.

An entire thermos of hazlenut coffee consumed on the way meant that I could talk faster than my mouth could move, and Chuck is the only person I know who is willing to listen to so many Vegas stories.  He told his stories of being Dean and renovating his bathroom, and traveling in a world where the characters he meets are just delightful.  He had great family news as well and with all I had gathered from Chicago and Denver, we got caught up on that as well.
The fishing is also part of Chuck's interests.  
It was easy to keep the talk going in both directions.

The poker was just great.  It is fine to come back from those tough games in Vegas to a truly soft game at Turning Stone.  Folks were just giving me their money in the first part of the night, and I built my $60 buy in up to $135 at one point.  Unfortunately, I did not leave at the peak and lost back about half before I quit at $69 profit.  I'd have made money in the latter part of the game as well if I had been able to get cards.  i had good opportunities and did some early pot building and got free cards.  Nothing worked for winning.
I got river lucky early in the night.
My K-8 blind flopped trips and then clearly a woman turned a heart flush.  I river an 8 for the full house and check raised, trapping the other trip kings for $4 and getting the full $8 from the flush player.  Her flush was just a 10 high too.  She still called the check raise.
Sometimes my luck was the other way.  I remember trip 7's that I just could not bet because there were so many hands that could beat me, and yet I won anyway.  The dealer was even amazed.

There were no really good players at the table.  Two guys to my right were regular no limit players.  One older guy just talked all the time about his cards, even during the hand, making it easy to know what he had.  Another young guy talked no limit talk, but he was intimidated by my preflop raising and he played such crap I just could not see him at a not limit table.
All were friendly. We talked about the old movie "Paint Your Wagon" and I remembered the theme song.  Lee Marvin was great in that movie.  I'll have to see it again soon.

It was a friendly crowd.  No great stories.  But it felt good to be in a game where I never was behind.

And Chuck and I chattered all the way home, so i got to hear about Weird Al and his concert takes as well as plenty of other funny things.
Oh....okay.......Chuck chatted; I chattered.  The coffee still was working.

Last Tampa try for this year

I drove up to the Tampa Hard Rock today and played for about seven hours.  Lost in the end forty two dollars.
My first session was the hard one.  I won just two hands in over three hours of play.  The table was perfect.  We even had a guy who would raise on the river with A=K and no pair.  But it did not do me any  good.
My second session was much better.  I had great cards and most of the time they held up.  Then I caught some help on blind hands like K-6 offsuit and I even called one girl with my pocket fives, a girl who bluffed often, and luckily I was right that time.  She had nothing.
I raised once with pocket sixes next to the button, just to push the button off and be last to act.  I thought I'd just see if I could hit a set by the turn.  The table was just so passive.  I flopped the set, and of course I was in total disguise then as everyone put me on a big pair, so they paid me even after the turn and river gave me a full house.
But at about nine most of the weaker players had been replaced with stone faced regulars.  So not only did the pots start to shrink, but the company was so dull and boring I could barely stand it.
That one delightful young bluffing girl was playing for the fun of it.  She had one of those fresh, girl next door faces and an attitude that just beamed good humor.  The rest were so damn serious.  And this was two-four.

So I headed home.

The drive back was more direct and absolutely dreamy.  Sunday night and few were on the roads out of Tampa, but by the time I left 75 no one was on the road.  I could see those reflectors in the middle of the road, winding like long Christmas tree lights into where I was driving next.  There were no lights to weaken their effect, no car lights, no signs, no houses, nothing except the winding double run of reflectors and the dark woods on either side.  How do they get these reflectors to pick up my headlights so well that it appears the road is lit with little lights all along the way?
I don't like driving much in the dark, but I loved this.  I just set the cruise to the speed limit, turned on one of my favorite CD's and eased on down the road.

Of course, the advantage of Vegas is I don't have to drive at all to get to bed.  Also, a forty two dollar loss at poker over seven hours would actually be break-even once the value of the rum and free food was computed.
I tried to use comps I thought I had at Tampa, but all I got was twenty cents off my supper.  And forget a free buffet.  The Sunday Brunch buffet costs thirty dollars and runs ten am until ten pm.  How can you serve food at ten pm and call it brunch?
So I just grabbed some chicken and veggies, but even that was a hassle.  The line was held up when the computer broke and they could only take cash.  The guy behind me had four slices of pizza at about five dollars each and he had no cash.  He had lost a thousand dollars that day and was grabbing some food to lick his wounds.  It was very sad compared to what I might have done in Vegas.
Still, I had a fine time, and that will be it now until next year.
I do love it here in Florida.  Yesterday we were out in the Dade Memorial Park listening to the BlackCreek bluegrass band play some great stuff, just sittin' under a shady tree in summer-like weather and watching the little caterpillars drop down from tree branchesto sway on threads in between the drapped Spanish moss and often onto our laps, their cute little antennae weaving this way and that way as if they were dancing to the sound of the banjo.
And today I was playing poker.

video poker at Mohegan Sun

The Hall of Lost Tribes has 8/5 bonus poker.
from VPfree

25¢		1 Play		blue glass Game Makers in the Hall of lost tribes near the bar	10 Slant-tops
25¢	5-30 Coins	1 Play		blue glass Game Makers in the Sky -in non smoking casino	8 Slant-tops
25¢	5-30 Coins	1 Play		blue glass Game Makers - Casino of the Earth - Nr the Ldoge Bar	12 Slant-tops

Tampa Hard Rock 2

Well, I took my second ride up to play poker.  Again I played no limit and found it easy enough.  I just did not get cards.  I was ahead for a while, but ended down $96.
AK won a good pot when I called a bet on the turn made by a guy with a smaller Ace.  I had a good straight draw and figured the Ace or King would win.  We both checked the river.  Funny thing was the guy's be on the turn forced out a pocket pair of jacks.  That guy was unhappy.
I lost a hand with 3=6 when two 3's flopped.  The other fellow had an Ace kicker.
I won a hand with A-Q when an Ace flopped.  A guy added fifteen to the river because he had a little Ace.

I did not have a pocket pair over 5's all day.  One flush made by a 3-5 of spades.  no straights.  NO full houses.  It was a day of terrible cards.

I had a fine visit with Jacky on the way up and back and then she fed us a nice turkey supper complete with a pecan pie.  Very nice.