So I came down to LA this past weekend to see a few friends. At first I didn't think we would be able to fit in any poker because we were pretty busy, but we I decided to push back my return to Sunday night, so we headed over to the Commerce around 11am on Sunday. Boy was it busy. We waited about 45 minutes for a 5/10 table. The game plays a little lower than most 5/10 games I've played in before given that it has a 400 maximum buy-in. This limits the game to 40 BB which is pretty low IMHO. There are plenty of rooms that have NO cap at the 2/5 level which play much higher than this game.

So on the first orbit I'm dealt AA from early position and make it 35 to go. I get 4 callers! No respect, oh well. The flop comes t j k. Not exactly a great flop for me with 5 people in the pot. I raise to 120 and a guy with 600 behind pushes. Another player calls and I have to give up my hand. Guess what the other players had. One guy had 56 and the other guy had AK. I would have won the hand, but I can't call that, can I?

I rebuy to $400 again and don't see anything worth playing for a bit. I then make a standard raise from the button with A5 and get both of the blinds to call. The flop comes 557. Nice. The BB raises and I just call his bet. The turn is a T with only a backdoor flush possible now. The BB bets about 2/3rds of pot and I push. He calls with KK. Shame on him for slowplaying preflop.

I'll try to post some other interesting hands another time, but it was a fun 5 hour session. The food is comped in this game and it's really good. I had a steak for lunch and it was yummy. I left up about $900. At one poiint I was up $1500 or so, so was a bit disappointed, but not really. There were 2-3 good players at the table at any one time, but mostly the players were pretty bad. Either much too loose or there were a bunch of people who would play really tight and pretty much be giving away their hands when they did play. One time I called one of these players with 55 knowing that he had a premium pair. I hit my set on the flop and stacked him. I'll try to post some more hands another time.

lakeoffire says

It's too bad you were dealt AA after just sitting down not knowing how the other guys were playing. An unfortunate situation, but I think I fold there, too.
Lake of Fire

04/14/07

EdmondDantes says

Your experience with the Commerce 5/10 game is pretty much what I've seen--2-3 good players, a couple of nits and the balance "I have two reasonably attractive cards that I have no intention of folding pre-flop and oh, by the way, I'm calling any flop action with bottom pair" players. I actually think it plays more like a 1/2 NL game online; 3-5 to a flop and plenty of variance. But it's a beatable game for a solid TAG.

As for that nauseating flop action with your aces, I think you have to lay it down. Shoving flush draws is common in that game, but there's a lot of hands that like that board better than your aces. More often than not with that action, you're up against a pair and flush draw at a minimum and you're only a slight favorite against that. As you saw, you'll get plenty of chances to get your money in right.

Edmond

04/14/07

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