Poker News

Ashley Adams

You remember the old gangster movies- where the lead mug would threaten to throw the hero into the river with cement shoes? As a kid, in love with these old flicks, I used to imagine what that would be like - sinking fast in a body of water with “concrete galoshes”. It’s the feeling I still get sometimes at the poker table when the game is weighed down with rocks - the living and breathing kind. I had such an experience in Las Vegas on Memorial Day weekend.

I had traveled to Las Vegas from Boston, determined to find some decent stud action - having heard that hold em had pretty much taken over. I’ve been playing no limit hold em lately - and profitably - but I at least wanted one shot at my favorite game.

I was in the Mirage meeting someone for lunch. Sure enugh, there was a $15/30 Stud game going and a second table was starting up. I was lucky - or so I thought. The new game started with five-way action. My eagerness to play was gradually chilled however by the rocky nature of the game. I’d wait for solid hands, bet them and have everyone fold. I’d raise as a semi-bluff with a high card up and a high card in the hole and I’d get reraised by a sharp player to my left. I’d fold. I’d try raising again when I had a decent hand and everyone would fold. This went on for about forty-five minutes, by which time I was called to the main game, down $250 or so. Good thing. I didn’t want to take much more of the rocky action at that table.

The main game seemed fine at first. Players were much more likely to call. There was one bad calling station in the game. The rest had adapted to her presence by tending to call her raises more frequently, and to call the initial raise of other players if she was in the hand - which was most of the time. I figured I could make some money.

Unfortunately, my plans were not realized. My attempts to thin the field by raising when I had a Premium Pair on Third Street were usually foiled by three or four people who would call, knowing that the calling station would also be in. They then played very aggressively and tightly thereafter, attempting to knock her out with a variety of more advanced strategies - reraising, check-raising and the like. It was possible that a couple of them were in on this by design. Or it could have just been an unconscious type of collusion. Either way, what I had hoped would be a calm profit pond was in fact a tempestuous sea of betting action.

But here I was, great stud player and author, in the game I had come to Vegas to find. Could I possibly let the rough going dissuade me from my mission? Was I really going to wimp out?

In a word, “YES”! Tough as it was on my ego, much as my gut demanded that I stay at least until I had proven that I could beat these guys at their own game, I abandoned the game - knowing that table selection was the most important ingredient to winning play. I left the aggressive regulars and rocks, maintaining the bulk of my bankroll for another game and another time. My $550 final profit from the trip was a testament to the triumph of my common sense over my emotion at the time.

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