update from the plane

The meeting in phoenix went well - it's going to mean quite a bit of work in the next month but not a big deal.

I'm currently watching the first episode of high stakes poker that I acquired the other day, and I gotta say, I'm less and less of a fan of Daniel Negranu. He reminds me of the kinds of players I want to reach over the table and strangle. I am only 2-3 minutes in, so maybe it looks up after this.

So, you'd think that being in Phoenix meant I got to see my dad, who live there, or the wonderful Heads but such was not to be. The real-estate gods decided to choose the last two days to find the heads a nice place to live, and thus I didn't get to catch up with them. Hopefully we'll meet up in Vegas, meanwhile I will be sad.

Not that sad, however, as I decided to head down to Casino Arizona. I know to hear Felicia tell it, the casino is poorly run and the rake is high, and that's all pretty true. I mean, they drop $1 for the bad beat jackpot from the small blind before the cards are even dealt - and yet people still chop, even though there's a drop! I'm guilty of it myself, but it's more for the not pissing people off aspect than anything else.

But I also have to say, the $8/$16 game is chock full of troglodytish play, and I'm going to attribute that to the fact that the game is called with $2 chips, and it plays like $3/$6 or $4/$8. You have 5-6 people seeing the flop, people staying in with a naked ace hoping to hit it on the turn, running to the river with just a gutter and thinking it's good play, people raising with A4o, and this doesn't even change when there's a kill (making it $16/$32). I took down a huge kill pot with pocket queens - granted someone flopped a set of tens, but the board got pretty scary. It was a pretty easy $300 pickup though.

I sent Kurt a page saying "I am in the most retarded 8/16 game ever", and what came back was: "8/16? WTF, have they not heard of 10/20?" I recall that they used to have 10/20, but it looks like now they just go from 8/16 to 20/40, which is a little bigger than what I brought with me to play. They had approximately 5 tables of that going so it must be a pretty good game and not filled with a bunch of rocks, but still.

Truth be told, though, I don't think they know the definition of the word "rock" at Casino Arizona.

I managed to pull out $250 from the game last night, and the table was even more nutty than the night before. However, it was less bad players thinking they're playing good, but more good players getting their gamble on. I'm not sure which I like more, really, but I managed to adjust and after losing a HUGE kill pot and going down $200, I caught some hands and managed to roar back to up $250 before I ended up leaving, but only because it was 1:30 in the morning and I had a 9.40 flight to catch and a 7 am call to take as well.

You may be thinking, "But Heather, you don't play limit anymore - why the change of heart?"

First off, I played some limit the other night at Resorts and actually had a really good time playing- it's a different game and a different mentality and it's true - it's much less stressful on my brain because it's not a pressure-cooker type of mental stress, it's more of a low simmering stress where you make decision after decision and are never risking all your chips - it's all about how to save and gain one bet.

And the other thing is the only variable-bet game at Casino Arizona is not no limit. It's some moronically stupid 5-150 spread limit game, which drives me absolutely insane because if you get a sizeable flop, you can never bet anyone out of a hand, and you'll always tend to give odds. Plus I keep saying "I'm all in" and the dealer says "well, no, you bet $150". Stupid. Frustrating. Moronic, and I've learned my lesson from past trips to just stay the hell away from that game.

(Man does Ted Forrest know that the 70s were over decades ago?)

They did constantly have a 75-150 mixed game going that was tempting; if there was a lower limit game, I would be very tempted to play, but my guess is that 8BB is not enough to enter that 150 mixed game, eh?

I'm disappointed that they're not showing many of Jen Harman's hands - just mostly Negranu Negranu Negranu. Zzz.

But I think that overall it's a good thing that I don't live in Phoenix - the casino is just way too close to where I would work, and the games are way to insane (in a good sense) to stay away from for very long.