The Bat Cave

I didn’t even know I was going to play live poker today but here I am, at Palace before 1 PM.

12:49 PM: Pretty rare I get to the casino this early these days and because of the early arrival I’m starting a pretty lame 8/16 game.

Starting lineup: The Leak, The Queen, a Palace dealer, an old Kitsap friend, a lawyer that saved me $10,000, and maybe two people I truly want to win money from.

Blah.

I thought today was the first day of the weekly Palace freeroll but it’s actually next week and I wouldn’t have qualified anyway.

Why? Because I saw the homey Kendrick on Saturday and then Shohei Ohtani keep the Mariners at bay on Sunday.

And here are the famous (infamous?) Safeco Field grasshoppers:

We didn’t buy them ourselves but someone in our section did and was passing them around to the whole crowd. A nice way to try something wild without spending money on it and wasting them when we realized they are as unappetizing as they look.

1:14 PM: Pretty great start! One limper, I complete A2cc, and The Leak checks her big blind. Flop is 543 with two spades and a diamond. I bet and my wife flats. Turn is the jack of diamonds and now she jacks me up. I call because I sort of enjoy quasi-slowrolling my wife when I know I have her crushed. For instance, when she pops the turn with J8 of spades or something and I get out of my seat at showdown to take a close look at it before rolling over my wheel and looking at her like 👀.

Well, I call her turn raise and then check-call again on king of diamonds river and there is no slow roll opportunity here as she rolls over the A5 of diamonds for the nut flush. 🤦🏻‍♂️

A few hands later, there’s some limpers, the Kitsap player raises cutoff, I 3-bet with KQ and four of us see the flop. It’s decent, not great: QTT two spades. Two players check-call flop. Turn is jack of hearts, also not the greatest but I continue betting and they both call again. River is the 3 of hearts, completing a backdoor flush draw and the second caller leads out for his final $5. Easy call, but he rolls over the 95hh – you know, the kind of hand you can limp with and then call three bets with pre before peeling the QTT flop.

Solid.

Then I make a very loose play by cold-calling a raise and call with 54ss from the cutoff, then The Leak 3-bets from the button and we all call. Flop is KT2, all spades, and the first cold-caller leads out, I raise, and the other two fold. He calls. Turn 2: he check-calls. River King: he leads, I bang my head against a wall and then call. AK good.

Down less than $80 somehow though.

1:33 PM: Back to Kendrick. I saw him at the Tacoma Dome and the experience was underwhelming, so I decided to splurge this time and got some decent tickets. The experience was infinitely better. Not only were the performers about thirty feet away but the sound at the White River Ampitheater was a million times better than the Tacoma Dome – you could actually hear everything the artists were saying.

Anyways, while this was the TDE Championship Tour, artists like Ab Soul, Lance Skiiwalker, SiR, and Jay Rock had pretty short sets. This was definitely a ScHoolboy Q, SZA, and Kendrick show.

Probably the biggest takeaway from this show, for me, was finally appreciating how good SZA’s last album is. She basically has hits from start to finish.

Which is how every Kendrick album sounds, but you don’t need me tell you that.

My other takeaway is that I might not ever see another show at the Tacoma Dome. This experience was just so much better…

…until we had to leave. Holy shit. What a brutal experience. We got in our car around 11:15 PM and didn’t move more than five feet from our parking spot until 1:10 AM. Almost two hours of just sitting there wondering how it is possible that not one single car in sight is moving.

1:49 PM: And the other reason I haven’t been playing live as much this month? Because I’ve been trying to play as many Rattlesnake Open events as possible on Global Poker. I missed six events over the weekend and if it’s true that you get 10 points for every event you enter, then sitting those tournaments out are the difference between me being in 29th place (380 points) on the Player of the Series leaderboard and in a tie for 10th place (440 points). Plus, on average, I cash more than 1 in 6 times, so chances are I’d be squarely in the top ten if I didn’t miss any events.

Oh well. Guess I have to get there the hard way: by crushing. I’ve found it difficult to multitable on my iPad while playing live, but I somehow had my best Global cash ever while doing exactly that – in a 4-max format, no less!

Tonight’s events start at 5:30 and they are a turbo format with no rebuys, so they won’t distract me for too long, even if I go deep in some.

2:23 PM: Three limps and a small blind complete and I raise the big with QJdd. Flop is T82 with one diamond, I bet and three call. Turn is 3 of diamonds and while I don’t barrel all my draws, this is one that qualifies. My equity seems great: queens, jacks, nines, and diamonds all seem like winners. I’m also not worried about getting raised on this board texture very often and when it does happen, I don’t care too much. I bet, two call, and the small blind check-raises. Shrug. I call and one other player stays also. River is an offsuit 9 for the mega nuts. I raise and my straight beats the small blind’s set of deuces.

2:32 PM: The Queen and The Leak have moved to the main game and the Palace dealer has cashed out so this game is much more my speed now. Fleabag takes a seat. And I’m going to add two new nicknames: Crentist (because he’s a dentist – “The Office” reference) and the Kitsap player will be Wolverine because that’s what he’s always been.

2:38 PM: Strange hand where it’s obvious some people think I’m always leveling. Some limps, Wolverine raises, I 3-bet KK, and five of us see Q82 with two spades. I get check-called and multiple spots and the turn is as safe as it gets when it pairs the deuce. Wolverine decides this is a good time to check-raise me and I think for quite a bit about whether or not I want to raise. He could feasibly have AA or 2x but both are very unlikely and he’s really only repping QQ and 88. I have a pretty clear advantage against his range, so the real question is whether or not I want the other player in. I should probably jack it up but I just call and so does the third player. River is a red 7 and I call and Wolverine shows all the signs of being caught in a bluff so I table and he flashes me AK high before mucking.

3:36 PM: Or maybe this is why he thinks I’m always leveling. Wolverine opens button, I 3-bet small blind with K8ss and then c-bet A52 flop and he folds. I flash him my cards, not because I think I bluffed him but because I want him to know how light I know he is.

Global tourneys start in ~2 hours. Mariners start in 30 minutes. Red Sox-Yankees start in 30 minutes.

Let’s.Go.

3:48 PM: Groan. I had The Flea on massive tilt, all prepped for epic hemorrhaging but then I raise under the gun with AA, he’s one of the cold callers, and he raises and caps Q73 two spade flop. I’m ready to lead out on blank turns but it’s the 4 of spades, so I check-call down, and he gets the pleasure of showing me the T2 of spades and instant tilt relief. Ugh.

Sometimes a feel good pot will calm people down but there’s a chance he will continue to unnecessarily get involved in pots I open. It’s the Flea way.

Wolverine out. Taz and Bingo Man in..

4:46 PM: Moment of realization at the table: dude I don’t know sitting next to me is rocking a Mariners jersey and then fires up the Red Sox-Yankees game on MLB At Bat right before I do and we kind of look at each other like 🤔. I’ve been posting in 2+2 forums semi-regularly for years now and I immediately start thinking of some of the baseball lovers on that site and sure enough this dude is a regular in the MLB thread. Since he likes the name bighurt that will be his name here as well.

4:56 PM: Fleabag gets another ugly one from me. This time I open the KTdd and he flops two pair with 84 on 874dd. I get two bets in multiple ways on the flop and then bink the 7d on the turn and then let Flea show down his 8 when the river comes a third 7 to give him a full house.

The Gnat is in the game… sitting next to The Flea… so the douchebag levels are about to go through the roof.

I’m tempted to bring up the Muckleshoot tournament that Gnat said he final tabled (but maybe didn’t even play), but that might actually require me to interact with these jack offs.

5:02 PM: Gnat and Flea are talking about seeing The Gnat play poker on T.V. someday. I could make this shit up, but fortunately I don’t have to. The content writes itself.

Holy shit. The Flea just turned another flush against me and then when I check-call river he turns to The Gnat and says “good lay down,” while tipping the dealer before turning his hand over. Goodness, I hate him so much.

5:12 PM: Dang. The Gnat moved to the main game. He is replaced by Action Bronson though. 👍🏻

5:19 PM: Action Bronson immediately makes me feel the pain of his presence. The button straddles are on and I find myself defending the 75o and then putting in four bets on the 543hh flop. Board runs out 8h and 9h and Action shows the T2hh (not from the blind or the straddle).

Losing to flushes every hand. Losing with my flushes. Pretty cool.

5:37 PM: Good start to the Global Low: I 3-bet AK during the first level and the opener jams for a full starting stack. I call and lose to his K8o in a 160 big blind pot.

I didn’t even know it was a rebuy so early second bullet for me.

Oh it’s not a rebuy. There is one rebuy and one add on, which totally explains why he was willing to get 80 bigs in pre with K8o.

5:54 PM: Getting throttled in the live game now too. Action Bronson has drastically increased the volatility and so far it’s been nothing but pain for me. River a straight in a huge pot when he turned a boat. Then flop top top in another monster pot and lose to a 2-outer on the turn.

Sigh. Then I 3-bet AA in the Global-Low and get 30 bigs each in against KQ and lose to two pair. Down to 1.5 bigs now. I have 398 chips and I’m not doing the add on.

And my wife clearly wants me to come home so that’s what I’m going to do

GOOD SESSION.

6:10 PM: Won a big pot right before I left and finished at -$110 and lost two bullets in the Low. I didn’t really want to play today anyways so I’m at peace with leaving early.