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Chicago, my kind of town!
by foxypham on 06/14/07
Location: Chicago, ILI last left you guys on the way to Myrtle Beach, SC. So we got there late last Friday night and decided to crash for the night to make it a full day on Saturday. Our campground was within walking distance of the beach so that was really nice. The beaches were full of high school seniors and college kids as I think schools had just let out in South Carolina. It was ridiculous to the amount of southern girls roaming around. This was great, but when I see girls on the street, they all seem they can be anywhere from 16 to 25. It seems like every girl you meet, you have to screen to make sure shes legal. That night we went to this club called Kryptonite, but it was nothing special. We were considering hitting up the Outer Banks in NC, but our campground neighbors recommended us to Chimney Rock, NC so we decided to go their instead. Chimney Rock was nature at its best with plenty of hiking, a 2250 ft waterfall, and scenic lake. We spent half a day their enjoying all the attractions. We were then on our way to Chicago to crash with Matthias' childhood friend Adrianna. The drive was too long from NC though, so we stopped by Lawernceburg, IN for a chance to get a rare poker session in.
The first night we got into Lawrenceburg, Matthias was sick so he decided to crash for the night. I headed over to the Argosy casino and they had one 2-5 NL table going. I decided to play 1-3 NL with a max buy-in of 300 while waiting for the 2-5 game. I was playing really reckless though, because I was antsy to play poker since the stakes were lower than I normally play and I also had not been in action for over a week now. On one hand, I had the 9d4d with 2 other players in a $150 pot on a board of 8hJh10d3d. I thought both players were weak so I decided to go AI for $200 in the dark before the river card came out just in case I missed my draw. A heart fell on the river and one of the players made a marginal call of my dark AI with the nut flush. I never make crazy plays like this and was disappointed with my lack of discipline in the session. I know to be successful at poker, you must play your best at all times and there was no excuse for my play. I finally got into the 2-5 NL game after a 3 hr. wait and ended the night down $500 (almost all the loss came from playing 1-3). The next day Matthias was feeling better so we both decided to get a few hours of poker in before we headed to Shy-town. I had a much better day and ended up taking down $800 in 4 hrs. in the 2-5 NL game. Matthias continued his sick run as he pocketed $640 in 4 hrs. at the 1-3 NL game. During the session, I would check in on Matthias periodically, and I saw he was making it $60 as his raise PF on certain occasions. What is this kid thinking!!?? When I asked him about the unusual PF raises, he just told me that the table was super-passive and people were playing poorly against him because he was making some unorthodox plays. I see his reasoning, but I don't think I would ever be opening up for 20X the BB in any NL cash game. For his first two ever cash game sessions, Matthias is crushing the game at $140/hr. Obviously, there NO way he can keep this up, but I'm still impressed at his play as a complete novice to the game. There are topics like implied odds, controlling pot size, and targeting weaker players that I would think would take some time to fully understand and apply, but Matthias claims to consider this facets of the game common sense.
Matthias crushing the $1/3 NL game
I ended up playing a total 11 hrs. for a profit of $300. I'm content considering how poorly I played at 1-3 NL. Overall, I thought the play at Argosy was extremely weak. People talked about their hands so much during play and gave away so much info about their hand. There were hardly any aggressive players to tangle with and made it a much easier time for me to run over the game. The first night playing 2-5 NL, I sat down with a guy who had over $5500 in front of him. I then saw him dwindle down to $500 within just a couple hrs. How freakin sick is that? This guy had no idea what he was doing and was consistently betting $500 into $100 pots on a regular basis. These tactics caught up to him though. The only thing I didn't like about Argosy was the $5 rake/pot plus a $1 deposit for the bad beat. I would definitely recommend anybody who is in the area to check out the games their as they are GREAT!!!
Heading towards Chicago, we got pulled over again by a local cop in Lawrenceburg. We apparently made an illegal U-turn and the cop was convinced he smelled alcohol on Matthias. Luckily, Matthias had not been drinking at the casino so we had nothing to worry about. The cop searched our car for alcohol and gave Matthias FOUR sobriety tests ending in a breath-a-lyzer came up .0 for BAL. He finally released us and Matthias claims that the smell of alcohol surfaces whenever he is sick. I am now putting the over/under of us getting pulled over at 2.5. Do I have any takers on this prop? We finally got to Chicago a couple days ago and did so much here. We visited the Sears Tower, got Matthias a much needed haircut, got 1 hr. massages at a local institute for just $30, had Chicago style pizza, and went to Navy Pier (shopping, dining, and tours on the lake). My favorite part of Chicago though was Millennium Park. It was in the heart of downtown with a waterfall with a TV screen as the wall. Check it out...
The park also had this huge bean that was 50 ft high and you could see your reflection on it at many crazy ass angles. There was a lawn concert hall and were able to catch a couple pieces from a local orchestra. A highway was right by the concert hall, but they built a steel bridge that was able to block off the noise of the traffic on the highway. Words cannot do this park justice so if you're ever in Chicago just check it out! I really enjoyed Chicago as it had parks everywhere within the city, the people were dressed casual considering the size of the city, and there seems to be so much to do. Chicago definitely has been my favorite stop thus far. We are preparing on a long drive to South Dakota (I've heard so many great things about this state) so I am excited to get there!!
