Over the Christmas holiday we flew down to my wife’s Alabama hometown to see family and find respite from the cold that usually strikes Colorado over the holidays. On our trips to Dixie, she allows me (and frankly, it’s more like encourages me) to stop in one of the towns with a casino to play poker. Usually, I can pay for the trip with winnings from live action and tournament play. On this trip I netted $865, more than covering our expenses.
If you head that way, we found Tulsa, Okla., has a nice venue in the Hardrock Casino just east of town in Catoosa. They will even send an airport shuttle that will bring you to and from the casino. Biloxi, Miss., has several; the IP (Imperial Palace) and Beau Rivage are nice. I’ve played at the Hardrock Casino but haven’t stayed at the hotel. There are others along the shoreline there and the beaches are unpolluted from the BP Gulf oil spill of last year. As I’ve written before, the coastal towns from Gulfport, Miss., all the way east to Destin, Fla., are great winter getaways and poker is not far away, depending where you stay.
This trip, we decided to stop in Tunica, Miss., 30 miles south of Memphis, Tenn., and immediately adjacent to “Old Muddy,” the Mississippi River. There are a number of nice hotel/casinos to stay at in Tunica and most have good poker action. We stayed at the Horseshoe Hotel & Casino and so, after dropping our bags in the room and taking a short break, I headed down to play in their afternoon tournament. A reasonable entry fee of $50 + $5 brought 42 players to the tables and they were paying five places.
I did fairly well through the first 5 rounds (20 minutes each) and had more than doubled my stack. Long story short, I flopped a set against a non-coordinated board and lost out to runner-runner flush. I had put enough pressure on the villain, who had flopped top pair and so-so kicker, with my bets but he doggedly stayed with me and just happened to get lucky. The old “blind dog syndrome” took over once again. Oh, well…I gathered Peggy up and we went to a very nice dinner at the Horseshoe’s steak house. It ain’t cheap but man, is it good…with outstanding gracious and genteel Southern service.
The next day I entered their noon tournament, again for a $50 + $5 entry fee, and played a darn good game, if I can pat myself on the back in print. There were five places paid, when we were down to six we all agreed for a save of the entry fee for the bubble. It was an interesting final table in that when the final ten of us sat down, there was one player with a massive stack and up to that point had apparently been running over the tables. I quickly made him for an aggressive player who, at any sign of weakness from the other players, would make an extra-large wager and take the pot. As I was several seats to his left, I felt I was in a perfect position to lay a trap and thereby wreak a little havoc on his confidence and his stack.
Looking at Pocket Kings was the opportunity I was waiting for. He bet 4-times the Big Blind and I merely called; only one other player came along for the ride. The flop was absolutely perfect: A, K, 3 rainbow. My nemesis made a pot-sized wager and after a suitable period of ‘thinking about it’ I called his bet. The other opponent mucked his cards. The turn was another small card with no straight or flush possibilities: He checked to me and again, after “considering my options,” I wagered about three-quarters of the pot. He thought for a short while and then went all-in. I called, he turned over A-3, did not improve, and I scooped a huge pot essentially decimating his stack. A few hands later he was the bubble-boy and we were down to the final five, all in the money. After dancing around with the remaining four players for over half an hour, we still were evenly stacked. At that point one player made the suggestion to chop it five ways and thus the tournament ended.
Live action after dinner at a $1 – $2 no-limit game was profitable as well: The table was tight-passive and I stole as much as I won. After a while, whenever I entered the pot all the other players were deferring to me and my bets, so it was like reaching over and removing chips from their stacks at will. Nice work if you can get it.
Really, the momentum for that day came from a great read on the chip leader and accurately deciphering his style and tactics. After that, all I had to do was exercise patience until a hand came with which I could lay and spring a trap. In this case, it worked out perfectly. The end result was a free trip with room and board. What a great deal.
