I had a few hours to kill today so I went down to HG to try some $100 NL.

Sat down after waiting about 10 min. At the table one guy had about $700 or so, one had $300 and the rest were around or under 100.

Few hands in and i'm to 80 or so in chips and get QQ.
Someone makes it 10. I raise to 20. three callers (including both of the big stacks).
flop is something like 442. Big stack bets 25. One player folds. I push. Other player calls, big stack calls.
turn is 5, the other two players bet 20. river is K big stack bets 50 or so and other player folds. My queens win it.

continue to play but not getting many good cards.
Another hand it's me and a short stack heads up. He makes it 20 preflop. I call with JQ. Flop is 10KA. He bets his last 40$ and I call. He had pocket 5's but it does him no good.

Also flop top pair (aces) with a good kicker but get beat by the guy to my left with a straight. Only cost me 10-15$ a bet though, so not too bad.

Last notable hand is A3. Flop is 533. Checks all around. Next card is K Player to my right bets 10. I call. Two or three other callers. Last card is a 7 or other non-threatening card. He bets 10 again. I make it 30. One call one fold, original better fold. trip 3's takes it.

Then comes an interesting hand (that i'm not in). One player has $26 left and puts it all in preflop. 3 callers. Flop is 10JQ. Big stack bets 30 or something. Next player to act makes it $95. Next player to act goes all in for about $200. Big stack goes all in. It's to the $95 raiser to act. But dealer burns and turns the turn. which happens to be another 10. Players get very mad and the floorman gets called over. Their rules for this situation is that a new turn card is dealt, the 10 is shuffled back into the deck and the river is dealt. the original $26 all in player is FURIOUS cussing out the dealer/floorman/casino saying that is complete BS and they should reimburse him. Other players are very mad at the dealer for messing up the hand and ruining any possible jackpot (straight/royal flush was a possibility I think). This goes on for about 5 minutes and people start to come over to see what's happening. But floorman says sorry this is the rules, no reimbursements. The 95$ raiser folds. the original all in player is still fuming mad. Big stack says "it's okay it could come up on the river!" Obviously he doesn't want that card. Finally the dealer finishes the hand and two other non interesting cards are delt. Turns out original all in player had J10 (would have had boat but just had 2 pair). Big stack had K9 for the straight. Other all in player mucked. The dealer was replaced after the hand and the big stack gave the $26 all in pot to the player who should have won it.

I've seen the misdeal thing happen once or twice in the 20/40 room but no one seemed to care as it wasn't a big deal for that hand.

Played a bit more but nothing interesting. Then all of a sudden darkness. few people start to yell "cover your chips". 5 or 10 seconds later the generators kick in and lights come back on. Apparently it happens from time to time here. The tv's and the table computers (used for the players card tracking) are still off though. Someone said the cameras don't lose power when it happens, but I don't see how that matters unless they're night vision as it's completely dark.

Played a few more hands but got nothing. Cashed out at $287 for a $187 win. Peak chip count was $320 or so.

So in conclusion, the $100 game is pretty loose. I was very surprised how many family pots there were. You can see alot of flops for 3$ and if you hit a monster hand get alot of callers.

This trip report consists of a day of me playing basically the lowest buy in no limit that exists. Maybe this will be helpful to anyone who is curious about the $20 (1/1) game at HG but has never had a chance to play it.

Keep in mind, i'm not a pro, that's why this isn't a TR for 5/10 NL. I'm learning, so any advice on my play is definitely welcome. I didn't think I was going to write this so some details have been forgotten or may be slightly inaccurate.

The main purpose of this trip was to a) kill a day, b)get some hours towards the 50 needed for the 50k freeroll, and c) win some cash

Here goes.

Arrive at HG at 8:30 (earliest i've ever gotten there). Place is pretty dead, on the plus side, got a great parking spot. Go to the 20/40 NL room and there's 2 20 games and 1 40 game. 40 has been going all night and has seats open. Two players, estimating one has ~$1000-1500 and another has $1500-2000, all from a $40 buy in. Obviously they've been there all night. They look TIRED. I get on the list for the 20 and a player at the 40 calls me over to play while I wait. What the hell, it's early. Sit down with $40 and see a few flops for 2$ but nothing. The two very large stacks are playing conservatively. 5 min later, new 20 table is opening and I leave with about $30.

So (sorry I forget the details here) after a few hands I find myself in a decent position to push. I like to play very aggressively until I have 40-50$ in chips then I slow down. I don't always push with 20$ or less, but it is much more common. I push and lose. Oh well, another $20 buy in. Play a bit tighter but still aggressive second time around. Play for awhile more and find a good position to push again and lose. Good position being either something like having raised to 3 or 4 pre flop to get the pot up with decent cards and either hit a pair or gotten 4 to a high flush draw. Repeat again, lose again. This is starting to suck. Buy in again (turns out to be final buy in for the day). Few hands of nothing and then then i've got two decent cards (KQ or the like). I raise to 3 preflop and get a few callers. Flop gives me top pair with three diamonds on the board. Asian fellow a few seats to my right pushes for very close to 20 chips. He's been chasing. Since there's a few (1-2?) players to act after me, I put him on a diamond. I call. Other players fold. Turn and river come off with no diamonds and give me a set. He just had Ad. I play tighter, no more calling large all in bets for awhile. Pick up some decent hands and get up to about 3-4 stacks ~60-80$ without risking much. Guy directly to my right is a decent player but he's having horrible luck probably bought in 7 or 8 times by this point.
Finally i've got JJ. Unlucky player to my right pushes pre-flop and i've got to call. Others fold. I don't really try to put the players who have few chips and keep buying in on any hands unless they're very poor players and it's obvious. I'm just not good enough to do it as with so few chips people will play crazy hands. Anyway he flips over QQ, I flip over JJ and he gets excited thinking he'll finally double up. No such luck as the turn gives me a J and he decides it's time to leave.

New player sits down, pretty nice guy (and probably a good player). He lives close by but usually plays at commerce. Soon after I get KK. Best hand of the day so far. He pushes for ~20 or so. One or two people to act after me. I either call or raise 20 more. Next player to act pushes for 70 chips or so. Any others to act fold. I call. I flip KK, other player (who reraied 70 all in) flips K7 offsuit. Eveyone at the table is like WTF? I mean i've seen guys pushing on crap like 75 with 20$ or so but this guy had ~3 stacks. The new player to my right flips over AA. I don't care that much cause i'm dominating the K7 for a very nice sidepot. Then 4 clubs come up. guess who has the K ? Mr. K7 of course. Although the poker gods didn't let him get all of it as the AA player had A. Whatever, just another bad beat but at least we knew how this guy played. In the next hour or so I probably got a good amount of my money back from him. I think he bought in once or twice more then was out of it.

This was about 11 am or so. For the rest of the day I won two monster pots one very nice pot, and some average ones. And I lost probably 6 or so decent sized ones.

First monster pot. I was on the button with 64s. Sometimes for 1$ I say what the heck and hope for a low flop. Flop came A64 rainbow. Heavy betting all around with 4 players in. I think I raised. Regardless, the post was approaching 40-50$ after the flop. River is some card that might give someone a straight, but other than that no help for anything. again heavy betting, all 4 players stayed, I just called. Turn is a card that gives no help for anything. again betting (maybe not so heavy this time), but all 4 of us are in. I think some had pair of aces, some had pocket pair, but two pair held up for a monster pot.

For the nice pot. I had 55. Was in with one guy post flop. He had 50 chips or so. Flop came A 2 4. I think I bet 5-10 and he called, other players folded. turn was 6 or 7 or something irreverent. I think I checked, he bet 10 and I called. I wasn't sure if he had A or not but I had some money in the pot and had some outs. River was the wonderful 3. I bet 10 and he called. Showed the A and I showed the 5's.

At this point I had probably 7 or 8 stacks. I don't remember the losing hands as well as the winning hands. I lost a couple hands to this one guy who was getting incredibly lucky cards. One hand I had top pair (kings?) and couldn't really put him on anything. Cost me about 10$ per bet and he flips over aces. Okay that happens sometimes. Did this a few times with similar cards (top pair jacks with kings, ect). In the span of about 20-30 min he got AA 3 times or so and KK a few times. And most of the time I had good hands to call his 5-10$ bets with given the board and any action from other players.

Last monster pot. This lady sits down a few seats to my right. She is talking about how she lost at the other table. Probably had a drink or two. Didn't get the impression she was a very strong player, so definitely wouldn't mind being in a pot with her given the right cards. I've got A10s. Flop comes 10 x x rainbow, 10 is top pair. There's probably 4 people in the game including one guy who won a good amount of money from me earlier. He doesn't strike me as a very nice person or friendly player. Another note, he somehow got one of the chip runners to exchange a rack of his 1$ chips for a white $100 chip. I have not seen this before here, all chips are usually 1$ with the very very very occasional 5$ chip that the dealers usually change to ones when it gets in a pot. Anyway, the lady pushes with ~20$. I want to get out the other 2 callers as I fell i've got a good shot at taking her stack if they're gone so I raise $20 more. The guy throws his 100$ chip in. (I didn't have a good view of his chips and didn't realize he was out of 1$ chips - I also didn't hear him say "call"). I call time to decide and the other players quickly tell me he just called. I might have given away some info but oh well. Now I see why they only use 1$ chips. turn comes 10. I bet another 20. He calls. At this point, I should have realized that I had a very very strong hand but I was still feeling not so great about his quick call and was still feeling the "I don't want HIM in this pot" from when I just had TPTK. River came an overcard. He checks to me. This is where I made a mistake (and I need to watch this in my play in the future). I flipped over the 10A. I should have raised at least 20 more. Anyway he flipped over KK and the lady flipped over QQ. Neither hit the overcard. I got to take his 100$ chip which was cool and this put me at around $210. The lady bought in again and asked for my 100$ chip. I didn't respond because her question made no sense. You want me to take $100 in live money off the table to give to you because it's pretty??????

And then I lost a few more decent pots to that same lucky guy with the aces. I had QQ. Board didn't have anything threatening. Cost me 10$ a bet again and he flips over AA again.

Left at about 3pm and cashed out $140. Up 70$ or so plus a nice lunch (the thai chicken salad is pretty good - not recommended if you don't like onions though).

If anyone wants to go have some fun at 20/40 or maybe 100, lemme know!.

Edit: and yes, when I left at 3pm those two HUGE stack players at the 40 table were still there. Didn't get a good look as I left but the larger stack seemed to be down a couple hundred.