California Poker Blog - The Finale
First off, a big “Thank you” goes out to
So it’s Friday and my son and I head into LA. Of course, on the day we leave the mountain, the temperature hovers around 35 degrees (F) all day, which would have made for some nice snowboarding (had there been any snow). Figures. I ask Henry the day before for anything cool to do in LA for a day to which he informs me “there is nothing to do” 
Hmm…With that in mind we head down to Venice Beach. Venice Beach is a good place for Midwesterners to go as it’s full of freaks, it opens your eyes a bit. The weather was nice, sunny, but still a bit cool for the natives, so the beach wasn’t too busy. We hung around there for an hour or so and then looked for something to do. We decided to go find Henry’s place and work our way out from there for a couple of hours. Thankfully I didn’t get lost this time at all. We found HW Manor and went exploring from there. We hit Beverly Hills and I found a liquor store and picked up some gifts, including a six pack of Guinness to toast
We ended up going to Hollywood Park (it didn’t matter to me either way), I was told, “It’s not in the best part of town, but I’ve never had any trouble.” Oh, OK We take the PT Cruiser and head down there to find the parking lot just packed. Oh great, long lines again. We valet the car so we don’t have to walk through the parking lot with the huge wads of cash that we’re going to win and head in.
My first impression was that HP is huge. The poker room is easily three times as big as Canterbury (which is my only B&M poker experience). The ceilings are high and the light is very white whereas Canterbury has lower ceilings and the yellowish lighting which, IMHO, is more pleasing. I think service is easier to get at Canterbury, and soft drinks and water are free too, so that’s a nice benefit. Chips, however, are easier to get at HP as the chip runners walk around with racks of chips. At Canterbury, they take your money and go to the cashier for you. Since it’s smaller, it doesn’t take too long, but it’s not as fast as having the chips right there. Everything is very well run though, I was impressed. We get in and look at the board and there is a decent list at 2/4. I said I’d go up to 3/6, but we decided we’d hang out at 2/4 for a bit. Only 10 minutes or so later Henry gets called for a seat. We look over at the table and both the 1s and 2s are available. I’m figuring I’ll get called immediately, but nooooo…it took ten more minutes are so due to a potential table change or something. I then get called and sit down (thankfully) in the 2s.
This 2/4 table was strange. There was Henry and I in the 1 and 2s, then a guy who seemed to more or less know what he was doing (he ended up splitting something like 10 pots that night, it was kinda weird), but eventually busted out. The 4s was rotated through a couple times. 5s was a pretty tight player who ended up OK. 6s was taken by a passive middle aged woman. If she was in a hand on the turn, you knew she had something. She would never raise though. She could have the nuts and never raise. The 6s was a middle aged black woman (I am mentioning the “black” thing as it will become important later on, it’s not a racist thing, stay with me here) who would rebuy at $20 a pop about ten times during the night. 7s was taken by two black guys throughout the night. The 8s and 9s rotated through with the 9s ending up being a pretty agressive player later on.
Like I said, the table was strange for 2/4. There were very few pre-flop raises and we saw very few showdowns. Henry was going crazy. This low level stuff is not good for him I greatly appreciate him sticking with me for a bit, and he helped me out big time on one hand. I had QQ and flop came down all undercards. I played the hand hard hoping that they would hold up. Like I mentioned, people were folding like crazy if the turn didn’t make their hand, so I figured if I bet them hard I’d take the pot. Well I was called down the whole way which kinda scared me. At the showdown the guy flips his cards over and says out loud, “Two pair”, to which the dealer pauses and says, “Two pair”. I’m beat, but show Henry my cards before I muck them. I have them in my hand when he yells out, “Wait! Those are good!” I pause and flip them over. The other guy misread his hand (or something) and the dealer messed up. I pulled in the decent sized pot. Thankfully Henry was paying attention
Henry was going crazy at 2/4, but HP was spreading $100 NL and $200 NL tables (two of each with lists on both!) and he was eyeing those juicy games. Eventually a seat opened up on the $100 table and was open for a while. I kept telling him to go for it and eventually he did. It’s a good thing too as he doubled up (I’m guessing he’ll have his own full version, check
The most exciting part of the night was when “Ice” showed up. Ice sat in the 1s right beside me. Ice was a character: he’s black, had small round sunglasses, a long leather trenchcoat and was chomping a 1 inch long or so unlit cigar. He sits down and introduces himself right away. He then reaches into his coat for some money and as he pulls it out, a baggie of weed (or something) drops onto the table. He pauses, looks at it, grabs it up and says to the table, “You didn’t see that did you?” He’s laughing and he leans over to me and says, “That’s some good shit!”. I just laugh and we’re off. He epitomized a manic. It was hilarous. He called everything but would raise about every other hand. If he was re-raised he would jump up and yell “Time!”. He’d then stare down the raiser. When it was the 9s who raised, Ice would get up out of his chair and literally walk around the dealer and get a foot away from the 9s and just stare at him. It was so funny! He basically put the whole table on tilt. Within about 45 minutes he turned his $20 buyin into $110 and then he left.
About halfway through his stay at our table he leaned over to me and in a loud voice said, “I don’t hate you because you’re white.” The whole table stopped and looked at him. I just smiled and said, “Thanks!”. He said, “Some of my brothers and sisters hate white people no matter what. You haven’t done anything to me, so I don’t hate you. Affirmative action my ass.” The whole table is laughing and the other two black people at the table are just staring at him. I was just laughing and trying to stay a bit focused, but it was hard. Anyway, I didn’t lose too much to him as I just stayed out of his way.
My night, however, did nothing to build my Vegas bankroll. I proceeded to bleed away 80% of my buyin. I was down 20BB and was just about to rebuy so that I would have enough to cover a full round of betting in case I caught something good. Henry, on the other hand, stops by periodically using a wheelbarrow to move his racks around, to see how it’s going. I held OK for a while, but then hit a bad run of cards. No pocket pairs and bad face card companions. I eventually got on tilt and started playing some bad hands. I then made some questionable (ie. -EV) plays such as thinking my two pair would stand up against a three to the flush/straight on the board. When I was down to my last $20 it was about 2:30. Henry swings by and I ask him when he wants to leave. He leaves it up to me and I figure I’ll stay until I bust or I win back a bit more. I then get a rush of good cards. I turned my $20 into $104 over then next hour. I then looked over at the 6/12 table (it was right next to mine) and saw Henry almost dozing off. My blind was coming up so I went over and we decided to leave.
While it wasn’t my best night of play, at least I was up, albeit just 1BB over 7 hours of play. That is, however, much better than -20BB. Also, considering the ridiculous rake and SB on the button charge, it wasn’t all bad. Henry cleaned up, but I kept my B&M streak alive: 4-0. I had a great time and we made it home in one piece with all our money.
Needless to say, after getting back at 4:30AM, we were beat the next day. We didn’t do a whole lot that day. We went to the La Brea tar pits and watched “Rounders” We then played a couple tourneys with Henry, my son and I. I went out early in the NLHE tourney and also in the 7stud tourney. My son and Henry chopped the prize on the stud tourney so we could eat. My son would lull us in with 1 chip bets and then misread his cards but end up winning anyway. It was hilarious. The downside is that we didn’t get to enjoy the nice scotch I brought, but we did polish off the Guinness.
Our flights back were totally uneventful, and I got home at about 7:45, so I didn’t play in the Planet tourney, but will be there next week. All in all, the vacation didn’t quite go as planned. Due to my son not snowboarding much (not his fault obviously), I played about 30% of the poker I had planned on playing. It was nice to have a week off though. Add to the fact that I got to meet Henry (who I wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley, I don’t think he has to worry about anybody trying to take his money unless they’ve got a gun) and his lovely wife, and got to play live with him, and I spent a lot of time with my son, it was a great time overall.
Next stop: Vegas in 10 days.