Weekend update

bradoween == awesome.

I may write more, but the highlight of my weekend was losing in a chip challenge to a 5 year old blood, and watching the same miniBlood say, "I'm gonna put you all in Mr. ALL IN"

I was also really pleased to meet a ton of new people and to really discuss theory of poker with DoubleAs, who is a most cool guy, even when he isn't talking poker. I don't just say that because he doubled me up during the Friday cash game, either. Btw, D - haven't heard back from lawyerboy yet, but I'll let you know when I do.

April, Gracie and I are looking into purchasing a centrally located developmental property where we can force all our favorite bloggers to move, and then we can have the fun of these gatherings ALL THE TIME!

And now, time to grab dinner before my sister drags me off to HER poker game (yes, she's gotten the bug, too), where she says they're all scared of me. Maybe I'll have to take the G-Rob approach to poker...

Poker Ruling

So, the BG and I were talking about his post on oddjack, and while browsing OJ (which I only do when BG tells me to: I'm not exactly their target audience), I notice a link to the following article: More Raising in No-Limit Hold’em - You make the call in a no-limit hold’em betting situation on the river

The situation:

The game was $2-$5 blinds no-limit hold’em, and the situation took place on the river with only two players in the hand, Player A and Player B.

The dealer explained it to me this way:

Player A made a motion with his hand that resembled a check. The dealer didn’t hear anything from Player A, so he moved the action along to Player B, who made a bet of $100. Player A threw his hand faceup on the table. The dealer assumed this was a fold, so he took the hand and put it into the muck. Player A yelled to the dealer, "Wait a minute, I bet all in."

Player A explained it to me this way:

He announced "all in" on the river, Player B moved his stack in, and Player A took that action as a call and put his hand faceup on the table. When the dealer mucked his hand without the other player turning his hand up, Player A knew there was a problem.

Player B explained that he also saw what appeared to be a check on the river by Player A. So, he made a $100 bet because Player A checked.

A few other observations from players at the table were as follows:

The player next to Player A said he heard him say "all in." No one else at the table heard him say anything.

A player in the middle of the table said Player A immediately responded when the dealer mucked his hand.

Another player said that Player A tossed his hand in faceup (he took that as a fold, because he didn’t hear Player A say "all in"), and when the dealer mucked the hand, Player B made a motion to muck his hand, which he assumed Player A took to be weakness. It was only at that point (Player A sensing weakness) that Player A said something.

There was total consensus that Player A held 10-9 suited, as everyone saw it faceup on the table. The board read 9-6-3-J-J. Player B’s hand at this point had not been revealed.

How would you rule?

I'm of two minds of this: the first is that the dealer took the action as a check and the cards are in the muck, too bad so sad player A. However, there was someone at the table who did hear player A's 'all-in'. So, I think I rule in the following manner:

Player B's bet of $100 stands. Action is on Player A, he can call the bet, fold, or raise - all while knowing that Player B is aware of his cards. I'm waffiling a little on the raise part, but since Player B knows the cards, if player A raises, he knows if he's going to get beaten or not, so seems like an okay thing to allow.

REBUY!

I had a horrific weekend at the tables, which is seriously making me wonder if I'm actually a good player, or if I'm just suffering a stretch of bad luck.

Game Selection was at fault Friday - I played the bigger game specifically to play against better players and get some lessons; that's my own fault and I'm ok with the money I lost there, as it's tuition.

Plus, it wouldn't be so bad if Saturday wasn't so awful. I think I lost 6 or 7 hands where I was AT LEAST a 4 to one favorite.

Saturday fun:

QQ loses to T9spades after a $200 preflop re-raise (T9 raised to $35, 4 people called, I said enough of that, T9 actually called the raise), with a flop of A 8 6 rainbow. T9 checks, I push in for my remaining $190, T9 sits and THINKS about this and finally calls. I was worried about the push until he didn't insta-call, when I knew my QQ was good. Turn, 2, river 7. To add insult to injury, he slowrolled me - I turned over my QQ and he looks at the board, letting me think I won, and then says, "Straight."

REBUY!

Q6 (I was on the button with 7 limpers, so it was worth the $10) loses to the same guy (T9) when I flop Q 8 6 two clubs, he bets $30, two callers, I push for $400, he does the Hollywood act and I tell him that he's going to call anyway. I mean, if he's calling with a 4 outer (above), he's going to call with just top pair or whatever he has. He does. Turn, brick, river K. He turns over KQo.

REBUY!

QQ (me) against AQ.

REBUY!

AK against KQ. I raise preflop, get 3 callers, flop comes down K T 9, I bet pot, KQ calls, turn Q.

REBUY!

AA against TT.

REBUY!

Not to mention that I think only once did my pocket pair hit a set and I didn't even get paid off on that. OY.

I know that I got my money in with the best of it, but it's still really hard to convince myself that I'm actually good at this poker thing when I take such a brutal hit to my bankroll. I remind myself that even the best go through losing streaks (a la Jen Harman in The Professor, the Banker and the Suicide King), and this is all part of playing poker. I have to keep repeating that I want these crazy people to call, and that I'm making +EV plays, and in the long run, this will come around in my favor.

But ugh, the pain. I'm actually glad that Bradoween and the wedding are going to be causing me to take a forced break from poker, just so I can distance myself from this right now.

Exhaustion and poker

Traveling always makes me tired, even if it's for vacation and not work (as it is today).

My meeting went reasonably well, and I left the building into a steamy, muggy, and rainy (!) Phoenix evening. Starving, I debated my options: go into Scottsdale and find a La Madeline to eat at, or go have dinner while playing poker at Casino Arizona. Do you even have to wonder which one really won?

I decided to sit and play in the $8/$16 w/a full kill game instead of the $10/$20 or taking a wild and crazy shot at $20/$40, and it seemed to be a good decision as I managed to triple my buyin (+50 BB, the rest of the details are left to the math geeks). The table was just how I like it 3-4 live ones, and the rest of them decent players, but maybe a little looser than normal, as this game is played with $2 chips instead of $5 and $1, meaning there are a lot of little physical chippies in any sizeable pot, giving people the idea that they have better odds than they probably do, as the pot is hard to eyeball. It also means that I have a really hard time playing the $16/$32 kill pots, especially when I'm raising, as I can't seem to get my brain around how many chips I need to put in on a given street. The fact that they take the $1 jackpot out immediately from the SB makes this even harder because that throws me off even more - how many chips do I put in when I have $3 (which is really $4) in front of me if I want to raise from the SB on a kill pot? My answer: tell the dealer I'm raising, and I'm putting stacks of chips out there until he tells me to stop. The real answer: 14 chips.

I think I played really well, taking advantage of a player who would reraise on the turn with top-pair-bad-kicker when I had an overpair, and I also got lucky by cracking AA with my Q9o. This is the only hand I felt marginally bad about, because I knew the player with the AA had a big hand, and was a decent player, and I knew I was behind. But what are you going to do when there are 6 limpers, the SB (with the AA) raises, and you KNOW that not one of those 6 limpers is going to fold? I told the AA guy that I don't think I could look and find two cards to fold, knowing I'm going to get 7*2+1=15 to one odds; any two cards are worth it for that kind of money.

Flop came down T 8 2, meaning I can catch a J for my gutshot straight draw. The AA bets, and with 16-to-one odds, I call, as I only need 11 to one for this call to be correct.

Guess what? 6 other people put $8 into the pot. Yum yum. Pot's at $128 (8 BB) now.

Turn is an off suit Q. AA bets $16. I sigh, and I know even with the Q I'm behind, but I really put him on AA or KK, meaning that now any J, Q or 9 means I win the pot. I have 9 outs with 46 cards in the deck - that's 4.1 to one that I'll make my draw and the pot's offering me 9:1; I call.

Two guys overcall my call - one goes all in for $12 or so.

The river is a beautiful J. To the AA's credit, he checks, I bet, the overcaller folds, and I show my 9 for the straight, the AA shows his cards and I take down a monster pot. The AA guy gets up and takes a walk to prevent tilting and when he comes back, I say, "I knew you had a big hand, and that I was behind, but I kept getting the right odds to call you. So I feel a little bad about all that, but not enough to give you your chips back, ha ha" Again, to his credit, he said he understood and if he was in my shoes he'd have to do the same thing and he'd only feel marginally bad about busting me as well while he was stacking my chips were the situation reversed.

That's one thing I really like about poker - I can sit down at a casino that I've not played at before, and within an hour, I get recognized as a good player and become a temporary member of the "regular" crowd of decent players.

And now I think I'm going to try and nap on the plane, even though I'm seated in the very back row in the window-without-a-window seat. This time, my flight left on time and might actually get into the airport early. Hoo-ray.

A tale of three flops

A lot has been said and written about pre-flop play in poker: what starting hands are good, what hands like multiway action, and which hands do better playing heads up. It's much easier to play hands by an algorithm pre-flop based on card quality and position. However, that will only get you so far, as most of the time you'll get callers to a pre-flop raise, and see a flop and need to continue playing from there.

Flop texture and properly evaluating it important to being a winning player, as sometimes the flop can be so poor for your hand that you have to even lay down aces. So let's look at three hands, and see what I'm talking about.

Example One:
You're in a two table tournament, the blinds are 25/50. You have AA, and a large stack limps in under the gun. You raise 4x the BB, and someone on a short stack two seats to your left cold calls the raise, and the large stack limper comes in for the ride, making the pot $650

The flop comes down: K Q Q rainbow. The limper bets $600. What do you do?

My initial thought process: This is a very bad flop texture for AA! No one here is going to bet their queen, and it's unlikely the limper has a Q. He's probably on a draw. What DOES worry me is the guy who cold calls my raise behind me - I can put him on a very limited range of hands here, as he was a short stack going in; it's going to be Ace-big, or KQ; anything else would get a pre-flop push. The AA are no good. Fold. (which is what Joe Speaker did)

However, thinking about it later, if you are 90% sure that the initial bettor is on a draw (we are), there's a possibility of creating a sidepot and still making money on the AA against the draw, even if we lose some of it to the short stack, who has $700 total now. Instead of folding, I think we should raise 200 (initial bet) + 700 (money we may lose to the short stack), bumping it up to 1500. When the short stack calls (which he has to no matter what he really has, given the pot size at this point), the draw is going to call the extra 900 to win the 3450 pot.

This creates a sidepot of about $1600 between the drawing hand and us - enough to give us a profit on the hand even if the drawing hand folds to our bet on the turn.

Example Two:
Low limit buy-in NL ring game ($200 max), blinds $1/$2, you're in the cutoff position.

Three people ahead of you limp in, you look down and see QJo, and decide to limp in as well. The button then jacks it up to $12, and the three original limpers call, as do you.

Flop: K Q J rainbow

While you have two pair here, this is absolutely the worst textured flop you could see. Your opponents all have reasonable hands that they could call an extra $10 with, so we need to assume that the AT, KQ, KJ, T9 are all out there being held by someone, and the button could very likely have KK which would have us dominated and drawing dead. With THREE limpers in the hand, it's almost impossible for one of the hands that beats us to NOT be out there. You should be prepared to release this hand pretty quickly - the only decent hands we can beat right now are AK, AQ, AJ, AA, or TT.

Here's the action: First two limpers check, third limper bets 1/3 of the $60 pot. What do you do?

If it were me, I just call in the hopes I can see a Q or J on the turn card, but I'm prepared to release it to any raise. In the real life example, QJ pushes in, the button calls, the first limper pushes in, too, and the initial 1/3 pot bettor calls. Think we're beat? Yep, AT (all-in reraiser) and T9 (initial bettor) were both out there and your hand is dead to a Q or a J, which doesn't come.

Example Three:

This is one of my actual hands from this Friday in the $400 min/$1000 max $5/$10 blinds NL game. I had red TT's in the SB, and there were 6 limpers. I could have raised, but I'm positive I'm not getting everyone out, as there's a couple people who call any raise in the hand, so I just complete.

The flop: Ts 9s 8s.

My thoughts: This is the worst flop possible. I know I shouldn't be afraid of the flush, if there weren't a straight down there, but ugh! There's a flush, a straight, and a straight flush out there. I'm checking this, because while I may have the best hand now, I'm not sure I'm the favorite.

It checks around, and the turn is a Kc. I check again, still not liking my hand, the limper to my left checks, and the worst player there bets $50. I call, hoping for the board to pair, and the guy to my left calls.

The river is a As. I know my hand isn't good now. I check, the guy to my left checks, the $50 bettor bets $100 or so, I fold. Solid guy to my left calls.

The initial bettor had: Ks 6h (i told you he was bad)
Guy to my left: Js 9h (straight flush draw)

Knowing these cards, maybe I should have bet that flop, as I was 55% to win (now that I've put it into cardplayer), but I know the guy with the Ks 6h is going to call ANY bet with the straight and the K-high flush draw. Most likely, the Js guy is calling as well with his SF draw.

So, I lost the least amount of money possible. If the river comes down a non-straight non-flush card, I bet that hand, but I think I made the best play possible there.



... ok time to go to Phoenix. Any thoughts/comments appreciated.

The Journey of a Poker Princess - The Beginning

I was born the eldest of two daughters to an upper-middle class family. Both my parents had an advanced degree in physics (my dad with his masters from MIT, his PhD in high energy from Columbia; my mom had a masters from NYU), and while I was raised in a very loving household I was also instilled with the idea that intelligence (and the corollary, good grades at school) reigns supreme. A's were expected in school, B's were tolerated and if, God forbid, you got a C, this resulted in the "I'm disappointed in you, I know you can do better" speech.

The expectations were always there for us to use our intelligence. While other kids were learning Go Fish or Old Maid, our introduction to "trump" and "trick" games was nothing less than pinochle; pinochle makes euchre and hearts look like Uno.

My father, in particular, treated me like his first-born son as well as his darling daughter, and neither he or my mother ever marginalized my actions, thoughts, or opinions. I was treated like a mini-adult, and can't count the number of times my dad made a point of telling me that I could do anything I wanted to do, and grow to be anything I wanted to be; there was never the faintest whisper of "oh girls don't do that, dear". I was encouraged to explore anything that tickled my fancy, especially "boy things" like science and math, which were near and dear to my father's heart, and by extension my own, as I was a daddy's girl through and through.

My mother was also a role model to me, though I wouldn't really understand how much she influenced me until later, when unbeknownst to me, I followed my mother's career path of working in a male dominated IT field in a management-type role. She was strong, and opinionated, and managed to hold her own in any situation, and I'd like to think I picked up a lot of these qualities.

My sister and I were either born competitive, or it stemmed from this environment, but there's no doubt that we fought and competed for everything. Eventually, this straightened out as we split our talents down the middle: my sister was the star history/english/writer/dance squad girl, I was the star math/science/yearbook chick, and this made things a little easier on everyone. But just by a little, as we were still ultra-competitive in many other respects; it wasn't really until I moved off to college and there was some physical distance between us, that my sister and I were able to have actual conversations that didn't devolve into winner-take-all bickering matches.

In short, I was raised to be intelligent, aggressive, trust my opinions, explore new opportunities, and to be extremely competitive. I think my penchant for being bossy was just natural talent. Armed with these weapons, I went off to college, my head full of dreams that I was going to be a Chemical Engineer.

Book Review - Matt Matros

I just finished reading The Making Of A Poker Player- How An Ivy League Math Geek Learned To Play Championship Poker, and I'm quite impressed. It's a page turner, and is an excellent book for those unfamiliar with most things poker, as he takes you from day 1 of his poker career to his 3rd place cash in the WPT championship.

, and - I highly recommend you check this book out! He takes great pains to explain the lingo-ese and immerse you into the World of Poker.

It's also interesting for some more advanced players, as he gets later into the books: he goes over his tournament strategies, and how to play short handed, and how he plays higher stakes online poker.

I'm also reading Ace on the River- An Advanced Poker Guide, but I'm really having a hard time getting into it - it's a bit to 'glitzy' for me: I'm not used to so many pictures.


Also, please see here if you have any questions you want me to answer on my own poker journey.

PLUS, if you really love me, you will buy me this t-shirt. (Thanks April for the link)

How Maigrey got to be a poker princess

I've had several people ask me recently how I got to be the poker player I am today, and I have the urge to write a post based on that. But before I do, I'm taking input - what questions would you like to see me answer in this post (or series of posts)?

Some suggestions I've gotten:

• how you taught yourself to be aggressive


• what books you read


• how you moved up in limits and when you knew you were ready to


• some of the failures you faced on the way...and how you learned from them


• how about how you built your bankroll? like what you started with, etc.

Anything else you'd like to hear about? Now's your chance, as I'm going to nap and try and not be sick anymore.

Weekend hit #3

Where we left off: I'd just gone up quite a bit, thanks to a lovely gentleman in the 1 seat, and worked my way to $3500 up in chips.

I proceeded to then grab about $500 more in profit at the NLHE portion, and then the next dealer sat down; this changed the game to PLO for the next half hour. I proceeded to donk off $700 in hands that got killed on the turn - good enough to pay a flop bet, not good enough to continue on the turn. Great. I almost thought about leaving here, because it was 2AM, and I could take a tidy profit and go home; the boys then talking about when the game was breaking up; they said to finish this round of NLHE, and they'd do one more round of PLO, and then go home.

Then we turned to NLHE, I got caught in a few hands, and it was 2 AM in the morning. I had $3100 in profit sitting in front of me, when I told them I was not interested in the PLO portion, and then I said if I lose this $100, I'm going home.

S, the LAG in the 2&3 seat (we were spread out since there were only 6 of us) raised as he usually does on any suited connector, two big cards, or little pairs. I look down and see ATo, and call the $75, which prompts IronMike to say, "Uh oh, this might be it..." The 1 seat throws his chips in, too, so there's three of us.

Flop: 2 6 T, rainbow.

S deliberately puts 3 stacks of $75 out there and says $225. My instincts here are screaming that he has a hand, but he raises all the time, and what could he hit there? top pair? I think for a bit and toss a $500 chip out there and say "Raise." I guess I didn't say it loud enough as the dealer started making change and I said, "No, I raised it to $500." S looked confused by this but called anyway.

Turn: J, of the 4th suit. S checks to me and WHY DON'T I CHECK BEHIND HERE? I bet another $500 and S calls so fast I know I'm beat.

Flop: Q, S checks, I check, S says "Set." Jeez, S has been complaining ALL NIGHT about having gone 24 pairs in a row without flopping a set, and he finally hits one on me. Great. I angrily muck, and say, "Ok boys, I'm done for the night," and rack up and get in the line at the cage. LawyerM tries to sympathetically brush my arm as I stalk by, but I am too mad and I brush him off and refuse to look at the guys at the table. I can hear them discussing what possible hand I could have, and I don't really care. I get the floor to verify my cashout (minus three purples in my pocket) and walk out via the deck to use the ladies room and tray and calm down. It works somewhat.

I wasn't pissed about losing the money - I never really am. I'm mad because I knew he had a monster hand and I could have even possibly gotten away after the flop, or after the raise. I didn't need to throw the $500 on the turn in at all, and it angers me when I misplay something, especially when I know better.

In any case, I'm still too angry to get in a several ton vehicle, so I come back up to the room and visit with Mike's mom, and Pat who are playing the $6/$12 tables in the hopes that the $55k badbeat jackpot hits. I say hi to a couple others, and then go pull the chair from underneath LawyerM's feet, who smiles and says hi, and I can ignore his voicemail. I laughed and told him he knows better, I can't receive phone calls at the boat. He says, "I know, but I'd thought you'd left and I didn't want you driving angry." I'm a pretty lucky girl to have a poker friend like him; they're few and far between.

I sat down next to him and I mention that I heard them discussing my play and the hand. He tells me it wasn't him, and that they ran the gamut - no one could figure out what I had; I told Mark, and I told him I was mad because I knew S had a big hand - no one else seemed to know this and were surprised when he turned over the set; they mostly thought he was on a draw. Sam tells me later that S thought I had a set of tens, and that just shows how bad of a player S is, because he was going to pay me off anyway and couldn't fold it. Sam knew I didn't have it because he knows I would have bet the bejeezus out of the turn if I had one, which is true. But, it shows just what kind of table image I have - the boys thought I had an overpair to the board, or a smaller set, or something like that, instead of just TPTK.

So now my $2000 win (in PLAY MONEY) feels like a loss, instead of the giant win I was booking. However, I feel like I can hold my own with those guys at those stakes, even with the PLO, as long as I don't get too crazy and the crazy players aren't at the table.

I ended up playing for four more hours at the still-open $400/$1000 table, mostly because Sam was playing and I wasn't ready to go home quite yet. I eked out a $300 win there, mostly after I got fed up with Frank raising to $60 every time he had a pocket pair or Ace-big with limpers. I called him down after I saw $80 meant 33 on the button, so when he raised $60, I got pissy and called with my Q7c; the thing was checked down to the river with 4 players in (I should have bet the flop when Frank checked to me, but oh well), and I showed my Q7 for the win, which annoyed the crap out of him, but also told him I wasn't going to let him push me around anymore or give his raises as much respect as I used to. Teaches him to raise out of position with a not so great hand.

Although I did get runner runner QUADS BITCHES! Weird thing was, there were two hearts on the flop, I thought to myself, "Oh geez, just put the 6 of hearts down" to match my two black sixes. BOOM. The guy bets, I sigh and call, and BOOM 6d on the river, chaching!

To add insult to injury, I was so exhausted, when I was filling up my car (gas is much cheaper in Indiana), I went in to grab a soda, and came back out, got in my car, turned on the iPod, and drove away.





... while I was still pumping gas. OOPS. Luckily, those break away hose things really DO work and there wasn't much damage other than an inflated gas bill and a gas spill. Lovely.

celebrity poker

Also, I found out Friday that while I was playing the birthday tournament the Saturday before, Vince FREAKING Vaughn stopped into the casino to play the $400/$1000 game, which they started up just for him, and NO ONE CALLED ME.

Jerks.

Weekend quick hit #2

Where we left off: I'd run up a good deal of chips in the baby game, and then proceeded to get hurt by 3 big pocket pairs in a row in the $400/$1000s game. Then the crazy monkey game (CMG) opened up...

The game went short handed, and like usual, they busted me for the last $400 I had. So, I did what any gambler does - I said screw this shorthanded stuff and moved up to the CMG, since the crazy monkeys weren't there, and the only LAG at the table wasn't that great of a player. He's a decent O8 player, and the seat open was next to him, so I sat down there and smiled my smile and worked my magic to get PLO lessons.

I managed to mostly hold my own in PLO (ie, I didn't lose much money and actually won two or three pots), but I really made most of my money in the NLHE portion, go figure. Of course, most of it was thanks to someone who shouldn't have been in that game, but who am I to say no to free money. I think I took $3000 off of the guy in these two hands:

I'm UTG+2, I limp for $25 (1BB) with A6spades, which I'm prepared to fold to a big raise (see above for my strategy on aces, suited connectors and pairs) but I get in for cheap with 4 other people.

Flop: Ad 6h 9s. I know my hand is vulnerable, and I bet out $75 into the pot, and everyone folds except the 1 seat. Everyone else has put me on a big ace, I'm sure and the 1 seat does too.

Turn: 3s - I now have 2 pair and the nut flush draw, yummy. I bet $200, and the one seat raises me the min raise to $400. I take a quick look at the board and figure him for AK or AQ - that 3 doesn't hurt me and if he had A9, he's popping me on the flop, not the turn - that's the kind of player he is. But, I want to find out where I am, so I raise $400 to $800 straight. The 1 seat just calls, so I know I'm ahead.

The river: Jh. I absolutely HATE this card, as one of the cards I can put him on is AJ, but I really think AJ folds to the pressure earlier, there's $1900 in the pot, and if the guy goes all-in on the river, I'm calling ANYWAY, so why not take the pressure off me, and put it on him? I lead out for $1000, and he calls. I say before flipping my hand over, "Two pair." He says, "Me too." I flip over my A6, and he flips over:

... A3o. WTF was he calling the flop bet with that for? He then proceeds to moan, "Oh WHY did the 3 have to come on the turn???" Yes, these are the types of players we have at the $10/$25 NL limits.

Then, the VERY NEXT HAND, I get Th9h UTG, and yes, I'm limping in here for 1 BB, and 4 other people come along, including the 1 seat.

The flop: T T 6. Normally I check this hand, but I want to play it a little differently, in case someone's sitting there with the 6. I lead out for $75 into the $125 pot. Everyone folds except the 1 seat, who calls.

The turn is a gin card, the 9 which fills me up. I check to the 1 seat, who bets $150. I decide to sweeten the pot a little, and raise the minimum to $300 total. Little did I know that the 9 was the gin card for the 1 seat, who then came over the top and said, "All in." I say, "Ok, I call, I have the nuts." As I rake in the pot, the 1 seat says, "Oh man, can you BELIEVE IT?? That's twice in a ROW! I'll be back." And he stood up to get more money.

Sam, sitting to my right, leans over and says, "Was that even suited? Holy crap, he deserved that for calling the flop bet." No kidding. I took my $2500 in green chips and went up to the cage to color them up to sexy purple chips, as I was now up $3500 (in PLAY MONEY if you're the IRS), and couldn't cash all that out at once, so some was going to come home with me, theoretically.

I had to give Sam the Slim memorial humor dollar when the 1 seat came back with $4000 in black, and sat down at the table. Sam leans over to me and says, "You know, your friend should have just bought in with purple chips, since you like purple so much." Heh. Too bad I didn't get any more of his money that he so happily wanted to give me. Too bad I didn't get up and leave then, as well...