In yet another episode of “Chris’s Copyright Violations”, I have put up the video of the Cheap Seats episode of the 1994 WSOP. I can’t promise it will be up here for long, so get it while you can. I watched it and it played just fine for me. It’s Divx 5 AVI, so if you don’t have that go get it at divx.com.
You’re welcome.
If you have ESPN Classic, try to catch the episode of “Cheap Seats” where they roast the 1994 WSOP. Cheap Seats is sort of like Mystery Science Theater 3000 where the hosts watch (part of) some old sporting event and critique it, make fun of it, point out dumb things, etc. It’s pretty funny. In the past they have done the World’s Strongest Man, Superstars, many Wide World of Sports segments and the like. These all come from ABC/ESPN’s historical recordings. The WSOP coverage is pretty funny now when you compare it to today’s poker coverage. An amazing 300 people or so entered the WSOP that year (slightly less I think I heard them say) and it was a record. It’s amazing how much it has grown.
One interesting thing about the 1994 WSOP was that it was the Silver Anniversary of the event. Therefore, in addition to the $1 million prize the winner got his weight in silver! Whoa! It’s even more amazing when you see who wins 
Dick Van Patten (yes, from “Eight is Enough”) is the host, although they don’t play much of him. There are no hole card cameras and it is amazing how much that changes the game. Now granted, on this show they only showed about 5 hands and 4 of them were people getting knocked out, so take it with a grain of salt. Anyway, DVP compares poker to a heavyweight boxing match in terms of excitement. We then get to see a very early Mike Tyson fight in order to compare it. Pretty good stuff.
Anyway, I’ve got it extracted from my Tivo. I’m attempting to get it converted to Divx or something as it’s still pretty big (500MB) and if I do, I’ll put it up for a while for download.
I haven’t played online in about 2 weeks and decided tonight was a good night to get back in the saddle. I decided to bonus whore a bit, made a deposit and waited to get seated at a 1/2 table. I then noticed there was a $500 freeroll starting in 45 minutes so I signed up for that too. Joy! Let’s play limit and NL at the same time.
I start out OK on my limit table up about 5BB. Typical LL table, nothing too exciting.
I then start the freeroll. It’s limited to 750 people and it’s full, paying out to 80th place ($0.75 ). I start out good, tripling up early when my rockets flopped an A and two people went all in. I figured going out on a set of Aces is as good way to go, plus it was early so I hadn’t wasted much time, and I had the nuts, so… The upside is that it paid off, which was good because I didn’t get squat until after the break. Eventually it got to the point where they were taking antes and I was a bit below average. I had Axo, board paired T and it was checked all the way through. I was last to act and bet half the pot to try to steal it. Unfortunately MP went all in and I thought he may be trying to resteal. I should have just let it go, but I called and he had two pair. I went out on the next hand when I had K3s and went all in preflop. I got a K, but the caller had an A and the A came on the river. I went out 164/750. I really shouldn’t have made the call. I had made a big enough bet (I thought) that it wasn’t an automatic call, and we did lose two people, but I should have thought that the re-raise was scary. I did, in fact, use up almost all my time, but still just thought he was restealing.
During this time, I’m still playing my limit game and it’s not going well. The upside is that I played well. With the exception of one hand, I think I played everything pretty much correctly. I mean, how much better can you play trip Q (holding AQo), betting the whole way, and getting beat by somebody who played Q7o and got a full house on the river? The one that I know I misplayed was when I slowplayed a set of aces from UTG. I raised pre-flop, but just checked when the A came on the flop. This, of course, let some yahoo who had a A stay in and make another full house on me with A-low off. Remember kids, FPS doesn’t work at low limits (how many times do I have to tell myself this?).
I thought I may have had more problems playing a limit and NL table at the same time. I think it wasn’t such a big deal because I knew that the NL table was total for “fun”. It didn’t cost me anything other than the opportunity cost of not playing another normal table. I’m still sticking with limit though.
I had a down night, but I was playing 1/2 which, as we know, is no-foldem incarnate. Suckouts are inevitable, especially if you get fancy. I still feel I played well, with just a couple exceptions, so I am fine with the night. Obviously I’d rather win, but I feel I played well and sometimes that’s all you can do. The unfortunate thing is that the couple that I misplayed were huge pots. Just have to capitalize on the ones that you do get.
After having a successful night at Potawatomi the night before, I went back to the hotel early and tried to get some sleep. That was no problem and in fact, I overslept. It must have been the extraordinary beds at the half star Motel 6 that lulled me into such a deep sleep. When I finally wake up, I jump out of bed, get ready, and step on the gas to get to the track to catch practice. I get there in time to see the last half of it and enjoy the rest of the day’s activities there. All the while I have in the back of my mind having a good time with LordG and maybe others down at Trump that night. After the activities at the track, I jump in the van and head on out. I stop at a gas station to fill up and do a quick change of clothing to get out of the sweaty stuff I had on all day and then point the van in the direction of Chicago.
Things were going well and I was making good time. Then I hit Chicago and got confused. My directions were from Yahoo! and Microsoft Streets and Trips and they differed a bit. I either missed the exit to follow 90 and instead got on 294. This in itself wasn’t a bad thing, but I had to wing it the whole way instead of following the printed directions that I had.
I no sooner turn onto 294 when my cell phone rings (this also caused me to jump on the wrong exit so I was heading East instead of West). I look at the caller ID and see that it’s nobody I know, so I figure it has to be LordG telling me that he’s built up a huge bankroll and wants to take me somewhere nice for dinner before we hit the tables. Alas, it was not to be. I answer and hear a deep booming voice say, “Chris! This is LordG!” Nice start. Then he goes on to tell me that he made it down with Gil (I didn’t have Internet access after Thursday night so I didn’t know when he actually left), but that Gil had just busted out of the NL game and wanted to go home. Oh. Uh…OK. He then said that he’d call me back. Well, actually he didn’t say that, the crappy reception in the casino kept dropping his phone, so I just kept driving waiting for him to call back. I’m wandering around the 294, throwing coins in toll booths and trying to figure out where the hell I was when he phone rings again and he says that he convinced Gil to stick around and play 3/6 for a bit. No problem I say, I’ll be there ASAP. About 10 minutes later, the phone rings again. This can’t be good. It wasn’t. He proceeded to tell me that he busted out of the 3/6 game and now they were for sure going home. D’oh! I’m now about 30 minutes (I thought) away, so I decide to keep going. I called ahead to the poker room to put my name on the 3/6 list. I eventually find my way to the casino (I missed the Cline St turn, but thankfully I saw a Harrah’s sign pointing me in the right direction) and pull into the parking lot. I step out, almost decided to leave my ubiquitous Ferrari cap in the car but changed my mind, and headed on in, thankfully remembering to bring my cell phone. I no sooner get into the building when it rings again. LordG and Gil had got dinner comped and they just finished up and would come up to meet me. Cool! I find my way up to the room, let the floor know I’m there, and wait for LordG. A couple minutes later I see a big guy come up the stairs wearing a Tigers jersey and I figure that’s him. I semi-recognize Gil from his web site so I figure it’s got to be them. It was and we talk for a bit. He seemed a bit too happy to have just busted out but maybe it’s the right attitude, ie. it’s one big session, one session isn’t going to kill you. He was very jovial, kind of a joker (ha!) and seemed like a nice guy. We chatted for a bit and then we heard my name being called for my 3/6. We said our goodbyes and head over to check in.
I’m told to head to table 4, seat 7. I sit down, pull out my Franklin and once again am told that the first buyin has to be made at the cage. Ok, ok, fine. I go get my rack of whites and head back to the table. I sit down, the button is four away so I decide to wait. I start to pull out my chips while I was going to watch the rest of the table for a few hands. It’s at this time that I notice something strange.
The chips are absolutely dirty. Incredibly so. It’s just gross. I tested something and grabbed a stack of ten chips, gave them a quick squeeze together and held up the whole stack by just grabbing the top chip. Ug! I look around at the other people and notice that anytime anybody makes a bet it takes an extra second or so while they peel away the unneeded extra chips that inevitably were stuck to the ones they wanted.
During this time I looked around the room a bit. It was very nice looking and more importantly, there was room to move around. You could walk between the tables with ease. The tables themselves were not overly crowded either. I was in the 7s, so near one end, and those are always semi-crowded, but it wasn’t as bad as Potawatomi. There were a number of big screen TVs showing ESPN and/or Fox Sports. There were 3 or 4 floorpeople keeping things running smoothly across the 10 or so tables. There’s a deli right outside the poker room which is convenient as there is no eating at the table. I did see a waitress providing drink service and there were drink holders in the tables.
The table was made up as follows:
Seat 1: Woman in her 50s who had a large stack of chips, she was a regular
Seat 2: Guy in his 50s wearing clothes from the 70s with really bad teeth
Seat 3: Young guy wearing a Celtics cap (with a shamrock on it)
Seat 4: Guy in his 30s
Seat 5: Rotated a couple of times
Seat 6: Hippy guy
Seat 7: Yours truly
Seat 8: Middle aged guy, very friendly
Seat 9: Friendly younger guy, seemed pretty solid
Seat 10: Middle aged guy
I swear that the 6s was
One thing that I found interesting was that when I mentioned I was from the Minneapolis area the four people right around me almost simultaneously asked if I played at Canterbury. They all had heard about it and heard that it was a good place to play. I assured them that it was a great place to go and felt kinda proud the my local club is so well known.
I hadn’t heard for sure if
I was sitting at a 3/6 with full kill table (Potawatomi was a 2/4 with full kill). I had never played at a kill table before, so this had been a new experience and one that would take some getting used to. At the 2/4 kill, I had no problems with the kill pots (stakes were then 4/8). I would raise and such if need be. However, when the kill pots kicked in at 3/6 (making it 6/12), I mentally had more trouble with it. This would come back to haunt me later on. I tried to basically stay out of the way of the kill pots.
I pulled down a big pot early and had a nice buffer of chips when I suddenly feel a tap on my shoulder. I look up and there’s a guy there asking if I was Chris. I said, “Uh…yeah?!?” Not quite sure what to make of this. He proceeded to tell me that he was a reader of this here humble blog and knew I was going to be there so he was on the lookout (I’m glad I remembered my cap). His name was Dave (or Dan? sorry! please let me know, I apologize for not totally remembering! I looked for you before I left but you must have been gone.) and we chatted for a bit. Nice guy and I came to find out that he’s a regular there who plays 10/20. About 30 minutes later he shows up again with the floor and introduces me to Dominic, “the best poker room manager in the world”. Dom and I chatted for a bit and we discussed my blog and such and he proceeded to ask if there was anything he could do for me. I said no but he said I needed to get a players card so I gave him my license so he could hook me up. A few minutes later another floor guy (younger guy with glasses) comes over with my card and respective documents to document my play. He explains all the benefits and then asks if I could use a meal. Well, never one to turn down a free meal (plus it was now about 7:30 and I hadn’t eaten yet) I accept. A couple minutes later he brings over the comp. This put the guy next to me on tilt a little (Al lookalike had left and the 4s moved to that seat) as he said he played there a couple of times a week and couldn’t remember the last time he was comped anything. I just laughed and said it was good to have connections. This kinda pissed him off more, which was good IMHO. He was a nice guy though, but if I can put somebody on a little tilt, then I’ll do it.
I played a couple of more orbits before I went out to the deli and had a huge Italian beef sandwich. Holy cow was it big. Great value, especially if it’s free, but it’s still probably a good deal if you have to pay for it. I get back in time for my blinds and I’m good to go the rest of the night.
After that nothing really exciting happened for while. I won a few, lost a few, but was always up. I won a big pot near the end of the night when I got AKo in MP and raised it up. I got 5 callers. Flop was low rags and I led out betting and everybody came along for the ride. River was a K. EP bet and I raised and we were down to three. River was an A. EP bet, I raised and everybody came along. I flip over my two pair and the other two muck.
I am still amazed at the crap people will call down with at the lower limits. The woman who was in the 1s most of the night (”Mary”) saw probably 90% of the flops. She almost never mucked at the end and she’d flip over absolutely terrible hands. Me and the 9s would look at her cards, then each other and just stare in disbelief. He kept saying to me: “How can you play against that?” He was pretty solid, so I commiserated with him (as opposed to trying to defend that type of play in order to encourage it if a total fish brings up something like that). It was just unreal. The BG look alike saw a lot of pots too, but he’d get out on the flop if he didn’t hit. The upside to all this is that if you can have the patience to wait for good hands you can take down some big pots.
At about 1AM I start to feel tired. I’m still up about 6BB and decide that I can leave with that. I go to find Dom again and ask about a hotel room at the poker room rate. He says that he had 2 at 6pm, but gave one to somebody else, so he was pretty sure that the other would be gone. We went and checked and there was still one left. Great! I got a nice room at the Trump hotel for $40. This was $10 less than I paid for the Motel 6 in Milwaukee!
I go back to my seat and decide to play a couple of more orbits since I now have my accommodations figured out. On my last orbit, I’m in MP and it’s a kill pot. I had been staying out of the way of these, but I looked down and saw KQs. Oh no…I turn into mega-weak Chris and just call. LP raises and 5 of us call. Big pot pre-flop and the flop brings me two more of my suit. Oh no, I can’t get away from this now…There’s a bet and I call. Turn is a rag and EP bets. I’ve gotta call because the pot is huge now and if I hit my flush I’ll most likely win. There are still 5 of us seeing the river. The river doesn’t help and I have a K high which I figure cannot be good so I fold to the EP bet. I dropped all my winnings in that hand. Ug. I should have raised that from the get go and probably raised the flop too to take control of the hand, but I just mentally had problems with the bigger amounts of the kill pot. I guess that means I’m not quite mentally ready for 6/12 yet, or maybe I was more worried about protecting a win. I’m not totally sure yet.
Result:
-$3 or -0.5BB over 7 hours for a rate of -0.07BB/hr
Not bad for 7 hours of play especially considering the oppressive rake. The rake is 10% max of $5 plus a jackpot drop of $1. OUCH! This hits hard at 3/6 where they are essentially taking a BB out of every pot. I also pissed away a sure win at the end. Add in dealer tokes and waitress tips and it was an OK night.
Overall I would recommend Trump (assuming they’re still open, see this story about Trump casinos declaring bankruptcy). I had a great time. My only gripe was the chips. I cannot stress how dirty the chips were. You literally had to pick them apart from each other to make a bet. The room was very nice though. It was roomy and not crowded. It did seem odd to me that on Saturday night they had one dead table with nothing spread until later in the night. I’m just used to Canterbury where on a weekend you cannot find an empty seat in the house. The dealers were pretty good, but uneven. They pool their tips, and you could tell. The service was kind of slow too. For most of the night there was only one waitress for the whole room and it would take forever to get anything. Later on the new waitress was either much better or there was more than one as the service improved dramatically. I had a great time, and the game was soft (I just wasn’t getting too many good cards, but the ones I got paid off). The room was well run and it was very comfortable. If they just clean the chips I’d have trouble finding anything wrong with the room.
I must give some good words to Dominic and the other floor people there. I’m not used to playing at a place where they have any sort of comp system (there is no competition in the area for Canterbury so they don’t need to offer it, although they do have one for their casino games area). I know I didn’t really play enough to qualify, but they took care of me. I’m guessing this had a lot to do with Dave hooking me up and I greatly appreciate it. It was kinda nice to be recognized and have actually meet somebody who reads this. Now that I’ve meet three of you (hdouble, LordG and Dave) I only have 2 more to meet to get all 5 of my readers. Seriously though, thanks Dave!
I woke up at the crack of dawn on Friday. I had packed the car the night before and was ready for my 6+ hour drive to Elkhart Lake, WI to watch the Champ Car race that weekend. Friday consisted of a practice session, which I would miss, and a qualifying session, which I would be in time for. I had not bought tickets in advance this year, so I was going to have to pay full price or $25 for that day’s session.
About 3/4 of the way out there when it hit me: Why pay $25 to watch 1 hour of qualifying? I’m staying in Milwaukee, which has a poker room. If I blow off the race, I can make it to Milwaukee by 1:30PM. I make the snap decision to blow off the race and continue on my way to Milwaukee. I roll into town and decide to try my hotel to see if my room is ready so that I can drop off all my stuff (laptop, digital SLR, etc.) so I don’t have to leave it in a casino parking lot. Thankfully the elegant Motel 6 at the airport has my room all ready to go. I drop my stuff off and relax for an hour after my almost eight hours on the road. While in the “lobby” I picked up a brochure for the casino and notice that it’s less than 10 minutes away. Very nice.
An hour later I’m on my way to the Potawatomi Casino. I get there quickly, grab my cell phone and iPod (technically my son’s iPod, I don’t have one yet) and head on it. Immediately I see a number of signs saying that all electronic devices are prohibited. Damn. Well, I just keep the iPod in my pocket for now so I can go sign up on their notoriously long poker list. I wander around the casino trying to find the damn poker room to no avail. I finally see a sign saying that it is upstairs and head on up. I get to the top of the escalator and see a montrously huge bingo room and a small gaming area (the only non-smoking table game area). I still can’t find the poker room and resort to asking for help. The helpful bingo runner points me to the back corner of the bingo room. I head over that way, only stopping once for supplies, and enter the poker room.
The first thing I noticed was that it was small and very crowded. Very crowded. There are about 10 tables crammed into the small room. I quickly found the floor and asked to be put on the list. They spread 2/4, 5/10 and a couple of higher limits. They had one stud game and they were getting a list for Omaha to be run on Saturday. I wuss out and just sign up for 2/4. I was given a pager that worked throughout the casino (how convenient) and said they give about 10 minutes to respond. I’m about 15th on the list and I’m not thrilled. It’s 3pm and I’m already looking at a long list. While in the poker room I notice there are big signs that say that cell phones are prohibited. Being the nice guy I am, I decide that since I have a ton of time to kill, I’d go run my ultra dangerous iPod and cell phone back out to the car. As I’m walking back into the casino the pager goes off. WTF? I excitedly head back up only to find out that it was an “out of range” buzz, and that no, I am not up yet.
I wandered around the casino for a while, dutifuly avoiding the -EV games although it was tempting to play a bit. After a while I headed back up and grabbed a Cardplayer and read it cover to cover.
Finally, after two hours of waiting, I am called for my 2/4 seat. I head to the table and wedge my way into the 10s. I slap down my Franklin and the dealer says the first buyin has to be done at the cage. Ug. I shoehorn myself out and get a rack of whites and sit back down just in time for my big blind. Perfect.
Table is very crowded. I am not sure, but the table seemed smaller by a bit. Add to the fact that I was in the 10s and I was not liking it at all. Table makeup was pretty typical low limit, older regular, a couple maniacs, one other solid player (I’m including myself in solid, not “good”, but solid at least at 2/4) and a couple people having some fun.
I get nothing and fold to a bet on the flop. My SB I get A8s and easily complete. Flop comes A88 and I’m ready to go. I lead out and all five people call. Turn comes a rag, I lead out and am raised by MP guy. I have no read on him since this is my second hand. We lose all but one other person and when it comes around to me I make it 3 to go. He looks at me, stares at the board, back at me, and then calls. We bring along the other guy too. River comes an A and I’m even happier. I lead out, MP raises, caller drops, I pop it again, he raises me and I make it one more. We’re heads up and could keep this up all day, but he finally decides that he may not have the best hand and just calls.
He flips over 84o.
I pull down a huge pot on my second hand of the day. This is good because I got basically zero cards after that for a solid two hours. I would see a few flops, then ditch. It was unreal how bad the cards were. I finally got up and took a little time out to get a bite to eat. While out there the guy to my right came out too (he was a regular in his 30s) and we got talking a bit. He said that this was a super tight 2/4 table and I just kinda went along with him. He also pointed out that I was playing really tight. I laughed and went on about bad cards and he just nodded. He was a nice guy. Too nice IMHO. One time he flopped quads and only called bets the whole way down and checked the river. I couldn’t believe it. I saw this happen a couple of times, ie. have the nuts and don’t even bet. I don’t understand it, but hey, it’s their money. Sometimes it saved me a bet.
The one constant throughout the night was that it was cold. People’s hands were shaking while throwing in bets but it was because of nerves (well, at least not only because of nerves), it was just effing cold. We joked about it and then one guy had the observation that it was probably good since the room was so tightly packed full of guys
After “dinner” (a hamburger and free Diet Coke), I wedge myself back into my seat and start picking up some cards but they all turn out to be second best. I was being more aggressive, but I’m sure Ed Miller would chastise me for not being aggressive enough, ie. I wasn’t raising enough after a bet ahead of me. I would lead out a lot representing hands or pushing second pair, but I didn’t do enough raising. This worked sometimes, often enough that I was able to do it if I was in early position. Having a big stack helped.
My second best cards knocked me down to about +5BB. I wasn’t getting frustrated though because the people at the table were just giving money away. Maniac guy worked his way up to $200 or so, then went bust in the course of about 90 minutes. He rebought (yes!) for another rack and was back in the game. I knew if I just kept playing smart I’d be back up to where I was before.
My only other memorable hand was when I had Axs and limped in from LP. I got the flush draw on the flop and stayed in until the river to bets hoping to catch the flush. I was heads up with the younger guy and the river gave me the flush. He flopped a set and I looked at him while I was stacking my chips and apologized for sucking out on him. I, of course, wasn’t sorry in the least, there were a number of callers along with us until the river and I had the odds to at least see the river. Of course, I raised him when I made the flush (no checking or free cards when I have the nuts) and he called it and you could just see the blood drain from his face. I’m guessing he figured I was at least not drawing out as I had been tight all night and wouldn’t call unless I had something. There were plenty of other suckouts by worse players, but you expect that. I don’t think he was expecting that from me.
By now I had a nice little pyramid of 9 stacks of chips in front of me (I keep them in stacks of 20 so I can quickly figure out where I’m at). I was by far the “chip leader” at the table, yet even with my tight play nobody respected my raises. Of course, I didn’t expect them to at 2/4, so I used them to build pots. I look back and still realize I didn’t do it enough.
I left relatively early (9PM), but I was already tired and I was planning on having a long day the next day. I had to get up early in order to get to the track in time to see practice and qualifying. After that I was going to be driving down to Gary, IN to meet up with
Overall I had a good time. It was totally unplanned but I’m glad I got there when I did. The wait times are outrageous. The room seems to be run OK. Service was not too bad, not great but not too bad. The upside was that there is the fountain pop machine right outside (for the bingo players), so if it got too slow, you could just go get your own (and it’s right next to the bathrooms, which is important too) and not have to tip the waitresses (I always tip them at least a buck, I know it’s a thankless job and I’m not going to cheap out on them). No alcohol though. I don’t usually drink much while playing live, I just want the rest of the people to be able to drink. There’s also no food at the table, which is OK too, I’m just used to being able to have something while at the table. Of course, there’s no room for extra food tables since the room is so crowded. They really need to address that as it’s unacceptably crowded. You cannot even move between tables without knocking into people. The tables were very crowded and the tables didn’t have footrests which kinda sucked. Another thing that was missing was that there were no TVs. I know you’re there to play poker, but there is a lot of “down” time between hands and such. I kinda like to be able to look up and catch some scores and such from ESPN.
The game I played in was very soft and passive. A raise wouldn’t knock anybody out, but there were very few of them. I’ve read that their 5/10 game is also very soft and in some ways I wish I would have played that. The rake is 10% with $4 max, which of course totally sucks when you’re at 2/4, but at least there wasn’t a jackpot drop. I like the pager idea, even though it really is to allow you to go drop your money in other parts of the casino, but there really isn’t anywhere to sit (about 5 chairs) in the poker room.
Overall I felt good about the way I played. I played g00t! That is easy to say when you have an up session, but I’m trying not to be too session oriented (which is hard when you keep your B&M sessions separate from your online sessions). Like I said, I felt I played well, albeit a bit too weak. Weak tight Chris was visiting Potatwatomi, even though everybody thought Tight Aggressive Chris was going to show up. Part of this was due to the unexpected decision to go. I played this more as “fun” than for “real”. I was playing at lower stakes than I normally do, so that influenced it too. Yes, it’s only 2/4 compared to 3/6, but 3/6 is 50% more than 2/4, so it’s a lot different percentage wise. I still wish I could turn up the aggression more, but I’m still winning for now. I envision as I move up this will become much more important and it’s something I want to work on while it’s still relatively cheap.
I’m not sure I’d really recommend playing here unless you have no other choice. Basically, the wait is too long. You could drive down to Gary during the time it takes to wait and play in a much nicer room. People on 2+2 report that on weekends it can easily stretch into a 4 hour wait. That is a round trip from Milwaukee to Gary. Outside of the wait, the room was pretty good but way too crowded. The soft games can help make up for this though. From what people say, the bigger games are just as bad, it’s basically a bankroll issue.
The final tally for the night:
+20BB ($80) over 4 hours for 5BB/hr
I’ll take that rate anytime