Argosy Trip Report - 11/11th and 12th (Lawrenceburg, Kentucky)

Just returned from a nice trip to the boat this last weekend. My friend had procured 4 tickets to the Cincinnati Bengals and San Diego Chargers game on the 12th. We decided to turn it into a gambling weekend with an overnight at the Argosy casino in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. Over Saturday evening, we all separately arrived at the casino. I must have shown up at a busy time, as the main parking garage was full. They rerouted me a few blocks down the road into their alternate garage. There were numerous warnings to get my stub stamped or I'd have to pay a dollar to leave. After they bussed me back to the casino, I handed the shakey valet in the window my stub. He extended his tattooed arm back with my stamped stub, and also handed me $5. I couldn't tell if he thought he was making change or if they were paying me for parking down the street, so I acted like I knew he was going to pay me and walked away wit! h the money. When I got upstairs, I ran into a couple from the bus. They got the $5 as well. I spent the rest of my walk wondering how I could take advantage of this system where I get paid $5 to let them stamp a stub. Now that I think about it, that is probably why the girl at the parking garage was pushing the button and handing the parking passes to everyone that came in.

My friends were at the roulette table when I found them. The table was full, which was fine with me. Soon, they busted out or accepted fate and pulled what was left of their money of the table. They offered to railbird me while I played, but I was fine leaving the casino up $5. Only one of them would be willing to play at the poker tables on the boat, so we didn't do that while everyone else was there. Before we left, I needed to get change for some smaller bills, if you can follow my logic. I had a roll full of $20s, which were about 20x too big for where we were headed. At the cashier I asked if they could break the $20s, and bit when the kid told me he couldn't do it. He called me back and we did the deed. I toked him a $1 since he got me with the joke and we were off.

We had planned on playing poker back in the room, between all of us. I had brought my PokerSourceOnline chip set and case (which has the Copaq cards substituted in and a PokerDB button with blinds timer also). We didn't get to that though, because from the bar, one guy had too much to drink and bailed.

My poker friend and I left the other three guys and headed back to the casino - two guys weren't interested in going to the game and just came to hang out and gamble. We put our names in for the $3/$6 limit game and they put us on the same table. I got my chips while my friend said he needed to hit the bathroom first. I sat down in the 4s and started in right away, without having to post or wait for the BB. A couple of orbits went by and my friend still wasn't back. I was concerned, but didn't yet venture from the card room looking for him. Another orbit, and then I tried to call him. Two orbits later, I spot him at another table. He said they put him there when he came back. So I play for a while, get up a little. Have one hand where QQ flops the top set on an all club board with maybe 5 in the pot. An early position limper raises on the flop, I reraise and everyone else drops out. She ju! st calls. Either she has the flush, or she's drawing to it, I think. The next card pairs the 5, and she bets. At this point I'm thinking she has the flush, but I don't understand why she still raised when the board paired. She had sat down very recently and probably doesn't have a read on me as a tight player yet. I reraise to see how far she'd go, but she just called. She carried herself smartly with little talk, so I started to half expect the lower full house now. Quad Fives didn't enter my mind. The river was a blank, and she bet again. I raised and she called. She had the King high flush, and I had a nice sized pot.

A younger player comes to the table a little later, and one of the players remarks "He's back for some more" to his girlfriend, so I peg him for being loose and/or weak. At one point I raise on the flop by throwing out 6 chips. He's not in the hand but he complains that I didn't have to say raise, and a dealer got on him earlier for string betting. The third time he brings this up, the dealer explains to him what a string bet is, but it's kept all friendly, he was a friendly drunk. He then tells his story about how he had to take out the bosses daughters and then came here afterwards. The guy to my left says he busted the friendly drunk earlier in the night, which explained the "He's back for some more" comment. Later I see the friendly drunk raise on a Q84 flop with two hearts. He gets reraised and then calls down with the board showing Q84 Q 2 with 74o. I comment quietly to my right th! at I'm not leaving as long as he had chips in front of him. All four players who heard it nodded. Soon after he busts out. We have about three open seats on the table, and people seem to be slowing down. About 5am, I'm up $100, and start racking my chips. The guy to my left says he's going also. I don't like to play shorthanded as I'm not as comfortable yet with the aggression needed, so I decide to check on my friend. When I cash out, the same cashier is there, he hands me $401. I ask him if he remembers what I had earlier and he doesn't. I tell him I'm up $101 and tip him the $1 anyway.

I find him on the top level playing craps and having a good time. I watch him for a bit and he says he's good to stay around. I'd rather stay up all night than sleep for two hours and want to avoid going back to the room. When I go to the boat, I shouldn't go in on the room, because I don't use it, unless we play poker there. I'll probably continue to pay for it though, just to encourage them to come along. I stick around for a bit to watch the dice and head out once he hits his backing bet. Back to the poker room and I get $200 in chips this time. They have two tables, one full and one with 4 to 5 players. I don't want to play with 5, so I color my chips up to $25s for easier carrying. I wait around and watch college football highlights while waiting to see what would happen. There are a few $1-$3 NL tables around also. My last trip, I busted out my meager live roll with Kings against Aces. &nb! sp;It was after about 5 hours, but I had to bum a ride back from a hotel worker after that, and didn't want to have that happen again. I wait for a spot on the full table and get in on the 7s. I sit on the button on the only open chair. I ask the dealer if I can play after the button. The 9s says 'now wait a minute.' I ask the dealer and she confirms. The 9s sulks a bit, someone says what's the difference, and he keeps up with 'it makes a world of difference' I make note of this, and hope I can use it to push his tilt forward, but I don't get any playable hands. I would have liked to raised my first hand with him in the big blind if it had folded to me while saying 'let me make up for not posting blinds' but the pot was too multi-way at that point.

The 10s is raising constantly. I notice after I limp into a few multiway pots and he raises after me. One situation comes up where there are 5 or so limpers, I call with ATo, he raises, one of the limpers reraises, 2 others call, I call, he caps, and it ends up capped. "Good luck getting anyone out of the pot now," I say to which he responds "That's good!" The flop comes AK8o. It's limped around, I bet, he raises, one early position calls, I call. I think I'm beat, but the pot is big enough to hope on hitting the J for the straight. It doesn't come, and he flips over Aces to drag the pot. "I'm getting all the cards now" Later in the night, he's not raising as much and I realize that he was getting hit with cards, that's why he seemed aggressive.

There is a quiet, non-assertive guy in the 1s. Numerous times, he'd be the third person involved in the pot and someone wouldn't realize he was involved. He gave off a weak image. There was one instance that made me question his poker skills. He and the 10s from before were involved in a hand heads up. I don't remember all the details, but the 1s called him down. The 10s showed an overpair to the board, pocket Kings. The 1s looked at his cards and put them down face down. The 10s and I started talking about something, the dealer starts pushing the pot his way, and then the 1s says wait a second, I have pocket Js and there is a J on the board. The dealer calls over the floor who says that if he threw he cards down and not forward, they weren't mucked. I kept it to myself because the 1s wasn't putting up a fuss. The dealer didn't do a good job of describing the situation, because even though he th! rew the cards down and didn't fling them, the were out past the yellow circle. There were no other cards for them to touch on that side of the table. However the 1s had been getting good cards, like I mentioned earlier, and had a big stack so he said he didn't care and it was done.

Later on, I get in a pot with the 1s. I have pocket 5s and I raise in late position to see if I can take it, since the 'weak' 1s is in the BB. Now that I'm revisiting it, he may be more of a calling station. That is one part of my game I need to work on, tagging other players. It's the reason I don't play shorthanded so much. I should drop down a few levels on line and play 6 max so I can get accustomed to this. Back to the story, the 1s calls my raise and we are heads up. The flop comes with all overs to my pp, something like Q88 with two clubs. I continuation bet and he calls me. The turn is the 5 of clubs, putting three clubs on the board and giving me a boat. I check to see if he wants to bluff at the flush or has hit it. He bets, I raise, he calls. The next card is the four of clubs. I bet, he raises, I reraise quickly and so does he back at me. The dealer says that's a cap, but! then realizes we are heads up and can keep raising which I considered. At this point I should have put more thought into it. I see that if he was playing a trash hand from the BB, he could have hit a straight flush, but that is unlikely. He could have quads, but that didn't enter into my thought process. I was scared that he had QQs and had a higher boat. I thought, that's enough for me, the pot is as big as I want it to get in this situation and I called. He had AJc for the A high flush. Looking back, I should have ruled out the QQs for him because he didn't raise preflop. Not raising the Qs on the flop could be slow playing a flopped full house, but the information from preflop should have told me enough about that. I gave too much credit to him hitting that straight flush, if that was the case, I shouldn't have expected to see it anyway, like quads.

After that hand, he had less than $20 left, so it wasn't like we wou! ld have been there all day raising it up to all-in. I didn't lea ve $200 on the table with him, but at the time, I didn't know that. Those are points I need to work on. I had played down about $40 at that point and that hand brought me back up around even. After that, it was around 6:30am to 7am, and the table started to lose players. We got down around 5 handed and the two guys to my right started getting aggressive. I waited a bit, and then started picking my spots to reraise them. There were enough times where they'd fold to keep me afloat. The two players to my left started complaining about the play and that they didn't get anything to play. I didn't point out that the other guys didn't either, but that didn't stop them. After an hour of that, I was down to just over $100 (even for the trip), and kept looking for an excuse to leave. I had $106 in the cutoff at one point, so I put a live $6 out to get back at the aggressive guy. Two players called, and he reraised. I looked at my cards and saw Q8o. I called. The flop came KQx. He bet, and I reraised. He tossed his cards around in his hand and mucked. I showed him the Q. ! ;He whispered in his neighbors ear. I could tell he didn't like me playing back at him, he wanted to continue to run over the table with trash.

About then is when the table started to fill up again. The rested morning players started to join us all-nighters. An older gentleman came in on the other side of the table, and in late position, I was dealt Aces. The flop came with an Ace. on each street, he'd bet, I'd raise, and he'd call. I think this hand ended up full house over flush also, but that seemed to be the theme for the night.

Anyway, I ended up about $80 on the trip. I think next time when it gets shorthanded, I'll either switch to NL or sit out. We'll see.

My friend had left at 5:30am. I called him and he came back to pick me up. Went to shower, then straight to Hooters for the pregame. A boat takes us from the restaurant in Kentucky to the stadium. It worked out pretty well. Except for the game with the Charger come back and the 4 LT TDs.

For the future of this blog, we'll see if it finds a direction. I'm playing mainly on line right now, with a B&M trip every few months. I started this wanting to keep it just poker, but there isn't enough new territory to find there to keep going. I don't want to make this a personal blog that talks about poker occasionally. We'll see what I have time and interest to do with this.