Memories from the tables

Man, Tunica was so awesome.

It's hard to compare it to other gambling towns I've been to because it had been so long since I last travelled to one of them. But I can say this for certain: Tunica has got to be one of the fishiest places to play low-limit poker.

I finished the three-day weekend with a $257 profit, which isn't bad considering that I felt like the cards were running cold for me most of the time.

My last night there, I found myself at a real juicy 4/8 table at the Horseshoe (which has a beautiful new poker room -- the best in town). I couldn't seem to catch any cards at all, and I only won five hands in my first six hours of that session.

Normally, I would have stopped after a couple of hours and accepted the loss. The fish would still be there when I get back, and it's less likely that I'd go on tilt. Also, it seems that the cards are more likely to start running hot after taking a break, even though that's statistically invalid.

But this was my last night in Tunica, and I wanted to prove to myself that I could beat these fish even without any good cards. I just needed to be patient.

So I waited. And waited. The good cards wouldn't come, and I was being slowly blinded away. When I finally started to get good hands, I was rivered repeatedly. That can be expensive. But finally, I played A8 of spades out of early position (which is OK in a game that loose and passive). I caught an 8 on the flop and another on the turn, and this gray hair paid me off. He said he couldn't imagine what kind of hand I would play that would have an 8, and I wasn't sad to show him. He was surprised given my tight table image. I was playing as loose as I could, but that was still tighter than anyone else.

Shortly afterward, a tricky but bad player tried to bluff me out of a pot in which I had top pair of tens from a starting hand of KT. He had successfully bluffed me a couple of times throughout the night, and this time I called him down. He showed second pair of nines. The last hand to put me back in the black was big slick that turned into a boat.

Score! After 8.5 hours, it was time to go to sleep at 9:15 a.m. I recorded a $22 profit at that table, which was more like a moral victory than a monetary one. Meanwhile, my friend Hal accumulated $700 in profits at his 4/8 table, which was fun to see. He had about a zillion white chips in front of him.

Now, on to some quick thoughts from the trip...

_ Live games are great for building confidence in limit because it proves that my game is strong, at least against bad players.

_ I want to make a few hundred more dollars at $100 buy-in no limit online, and then I want to return to limit poker. I plan on buying a digital timer with an alarm that goes off after 2 hours of play. That way, I could stop before I lose my concentration.

_ I need to learn how to bluff more effectively in limit games. I rarely did so on this trip because most of the players were calling stations. But it could be wildly profitable if it's successful even a small percentage of the time.

_ I wonder if there's a way to pinpoint someone's bluffing tendencies from Poker Tracker?

_ I'm fascinated by the concept of pot equity, and I plan on studying it in depth.

_ The comps in Tunica are awesome. Most of the casinos give you full credit for a huge meal after only two hours of play.