The Bat Cave

Welcome to Mississippi, Dark Knight.

I sit down and someone has straddled to $6 and there are multiple callers. We are playing 1/3 no limit hold’em. I make it $25 with the QTo from the cutoff, the button calls and so does one of the limpers, the most serious looking guy at the table… with $110 in front of him.

Flop is Q54 with two hearts and I bet $50 when it’s my action. Button folds but the other guy jams his remaining $88. I snap call and the board runs out Q5437 and I lose to his 65o.

MISSISSIPPI! It’s like I never left Lakewood.

7:34 PM: Folds to me and I make it $10 on the button with 99 and the small blind makes it $21. I’m looking at a black woman in her late 30s or early 40s here. I don’t think she’s making a play on me… like 3-betting light because I opened on the button… so while the button open/small blind 3-bet dynamic makes my 99 look like a monster, we have $300 behind and if she 5-bets me I really start to hate my hand. So I call and take a flop in position.

The 865 flop is pretty damn favorable. She leads out for $40 and, again, I consider the merits of raising but it seems silly. I could easily see a random 1/3 player punting in the rest of their stack here with an overpair and that would be pretty horrendous for me. I call.

Turn is a 9. She makes a motion like she’s checking but the dealer doesn’t see it and it doesn’t look like I saw it and suddenly she starts reaching for chips to bet and I’m okay with that so I let her fire another $50. I am roughly 0% concerned about a straight here. My biggest concern is that a 7 will come on the river and make us chop. I min-raise to $100 and she calls.

River is a ten. Doesn’t change much except that I lose to TT now. She checks and I put her all in for her remaining $150-$160 and she doesn’t think very long before calling it off and showing me the JJ.

That reminds me. The goob on my right that beat me on the first hand just had JJ and made a comment about how tough they are to play because an overcard flops 50% of the time. Yep. Mr. Serious Math Guy. Can you tell us the EV of putting 25% of your stack in preflop with 65o, please?

After I stacked that lady, my table disintegrated and I am now in a new game with zero players from my previous table. That’s a shame cause after my boy doubled up I added on an extra $300 (no cap here) to cover him.

This 1/3 game is not my long term plan. I am second up for 5/5 PLO. That game should play bigger than the one at Palace back home and I have less than three hours of live PLO cash game experience outside of Lakewood.

BUT. I’m gonna sit down and see what happens.

Updates since Friday night:

Yesterday we spent the day walking and shuttling around New Orleans.

For lunch, we ate at Cajun Seafood.

We got broiled shrimp and crawfish. It was another disappointment. Somehow crawfish we ate in New Orleans is the worst we’ve ever had. The shrimp and sides were good though, but we gifted over a pound of crawfish to the table next to us.

On a full stomach, we Ubered to the Museum of Death and I forced my wife to walk through it with me.

They had displays for serial killers, terrorist attacks, crime scene photos (the ones of Sharon Tate and Nicole Simpson were straight up brutal), car accidents, assassinations, embalming tables, body parts in small jars, skeletons of various animals, and the like.

Honestly, it was a bit much. I couldn’t even look at the car accident photos and I’m feeling queasy just thinking about it right now.

After that we had more beignets. And you can’t go wrong with beignets. They have been good every time we’ve had them.

Then we walked around the French Quarter and down Bourbon Street. I’m sorry. Bourbon Street is nasty. The climate already has us sweating like crazy, but then you add in huge crowds and horrible odors (sewage, feces, etc.) and it was almost unbearable.

I tried to force it, but after seeing a bunch of dudes crowd around their friend and take videos of him making out with an elderly street performer in pasties, we were done.

The French Quarter definitely has some great architecture, but Bourbon Street was not for us.

Also, the ferry ride over from Algiers Point was pretty cool.

Today our goals were to take the bridge across Lake Pontchartrain, take our swamp tour, and cross over into Mississippi to play poker in Biloxi.

Some pics:

Lake Pontchartrain

Swamp Tour

Biloxi, Mississippi

8:46 PM: Back to the pokers. This table change has been unkind to me. I have won a single pot when I 3-bet a $15 open to $40 with QQ on the button and he folded.

My latest notable pot I opened with KQo and got multiple callers.

On the QT4 rainbow flop I led for $25 and two of the players called me, both in position.

The turn bricked out but did bring a second diamond. I felt like I should still be ahead here most of the time and bet $65 and they both called again. Even though I’m happy I haven’t been raised, I don’t think I’m going to be betting the river after getting called twice on the turn.

The river is a nightmare card: ace of diamonds. The only overcard, the best straight draw, and the backdoor flush all got there. I’m basically just check-quitting here, so I’m happy to see it check around but the second player tables QT, which is an absurd line for her hand. Check river? Yeah sure. Call flop and call turn? Oh my.

Earlier she check-raised me when she flopped a flush (and I had one card nut flush draw) and she checked turn and river when the board bricked out… so I guess this is just her MO.

9:00 PM: Another disaster hand: I flat a $13 raise in position with JT suited and see a Q95 with two diamonds flop heads up.

My opponent leads for $20. I decide to call.

Turn is a 7 and he bets $50 now. That’s a large enough increase that I decide raising doesn’t seem like a great play. I call again.

River is an ace and he checks to me. It’s strange. I was expecting him to check here and I was planning to fire when he did so. But then I start thinking about what hands I’m trying to bluff him off and how much I would have to bet? I suppose he would play KK like this. KQ. Maybe some QJs and QTs. I might be able to get him off those hands with a bet of around $100+, but then I start thinking he would check some Ax hands and wimp out with a check back.

He tables 66.

Good God, I suck at no limit hold’em.

Seriously. Hands like that are exactly why I always choose to play anything but no limit hold’em. I’m just not very good.

9:29 PM: Uhm. Just got in the PLO game. I’m out of my depth. Everyone has straddled for $10 on the button so far. There is no max bet. I sat down with like $500. The next smallest stack at the table is over $1k. There are multiple players with over $10k. Lol. Uhm. I don’t think I will be here long.

Update: This is the biggest game I’ve ever played in. I just paid time after winning the first hand I was dealt in (small pot) so I’m going to take my half hour shot and get the hell out of here.

9:39 PM: Back to NL for a second. Girl that was next to me is telling someone that she travels around playing poker with her boyfriend. That’s not particularly interesting but then the dude that had the 65o earlier comes over and starts talking to her. Of course it’s that guy. He’s a serious player!

Guy at my table was being super active and raises a limper to $15 and I raise him to $40 on the button again, this time with AJ of clubs. I’m sure he’s aware of his image and this is the second straight time I’ve made it $40 when he raised on my button so when he 4-bets me to $125, I size up his remaining stack and see that he has a little over $200 left and stuff it on him. I just expect him to be full of it quite often here so we are just going to run a board out if he actually has something. He tanks for a while but eventually folds.

10:01 PM: The hit and run is on. I call $10 with KQJ7 double suited. Someone makes it $60 and two others call before it’s back to me, so I’m in there also.

Flop comes AT4 rainbow with one of each of my suits and the PFR makes it $150 and both players call in front of me. I call?

“You’re supposed to shove,” says the action player on my right… and he’s probably right. What am I gonna do? Fold on blank turns?

Turn is a king but also a second club, the one suit I didn’t have on the flop. Action dude leads out pot which is like $860, I’m obviously all in (for $320 of it), the PFR is all in (for like $500+) and the fourth player calls the $860!

I don’t have very high hopes about this. I need to dodge board pairs and clubs, plus I’m probably not the only one with QJ.

2 of hearts. Yes. Only one other player has QJ but splitting this pot is still enough to double me up.

Of course the dealers switched right after this hand, so I paid for another half hour.

One of these guys seems like good action but everyone else seems competent – tough even – so I’m jetting on the next dealer switch.

Edit: One other hand I’m adding: someone straddles for $10 to post when I’m on the button so I don’t have to straddle. I call with AQJ5 and a suited ace.

It goes 6-ways to AQ2 rainbow and everyone checks to me. I bet $50 and only the biggest action at the table calls. I already know. He’s going to put pressure on me if the nuts changes. I think whether he has it or not.

Turn is an 8 that adds a club draw. He check-calls $150.

River is a red 7 and when he checks to me, I decide to check back because while I’m almost certain I have the best hand it is unlikely that he can call a bet. He says I’m good and I table my hand and win the pot. He says he might have put me to the test if I bet the river and it made me wonder: if I was bankrolled for this game and had more experience would I be able to see the profit potential in betting here? Like… by betting, I’m not trying to get value, I’m trying to induce bluff raises and I’m always picking them off. Maybe this river check costs me $500+?

10:37 PM: Boom. Got ’em for +$771 and I’m out! I’m gonna check in with The Leak and see how she’s doing. New Orleans is a 90 minute drive and we have a six hour drive to Houston tomorrow so this could be it for tonight.

11:12 PM: Confirming blog is done for the night. I was more interested in stepping foot in Mississippi and checking out Biloxi than playing a marathon session so this ended up being more trip report than poker blog.

Anyways, it was the best day of our trip yet and I made some money.

We are headed to Houston, Texas tomorrow and then Astros-Mariners game on Tuesday and another full day there on Wednesday.

Thursday will are headed to Dallas and might cross into Oklahoma to check out the Winstar Casino and that would probably be my next blog post if that happens.

See you then!